The grief in her eyes stabbed clean through him.
“A lot of things?” His hand still holding hers, he drew her closer, her breasts a deep breath away from skimming him.
She pressed a hand to his chest, sketching a fingernail down the buttons on his simple white shirt. “While I was talking to Lucy about my contract, her wedding plans came up and it made me weepy, okay?” Her hand closed on a fistful of cotton in the center of his chest. “We’re playing this love game and sometimes it hurts because of the way I feel about you.”
The intensity of her words caught him off guard. “Livia, you may have forgotten a tiny detail here. You were the one who dumped me.”
She thumped her fisted hand against him. “Because you didn’t love me enough.”
“That’s bullshit,” he said bluntly, but honestly.
This woman had torn him up inside, driven him to the edge of sanity, and still he wanted her. More every second as she stood there in her do-me dress, trying to coerce words from him he’d already done his damnedest to express.
She rolled her eyes and stomped her foot, every bit the diva who had blasted through his grief two years ago. “You are not very much of a romantic.”
Desire flamed through him as fiery as her fighting words. “You want romance? Lady, I’ll give you romance.”
He slid one arm around her shoulders and the other under her legs. He scooped her up before she could finish a yelp. His world was going to shit on this op, but with Livia in his arms, at least this day would end a whole lot better than it had started.
Her arms locked around his neck, her little purse swishing against his back. “What are you doing?”
Charging up the stairs, he angled sideways. “Carrying you to my cabin. Got a problem with that?”
Her fingers slid up into his hair. “Only that you’re not walking fast enough.”
He ignored the gasp of a prim buttoned-up couple as they reached his floor, a giggle from two women stepping from their suite. A waiter carrying a room service tray stepped out of their way with a discreet smile and finally— thank God— finally, Rex entered his room. He booted the door closed behind him.
Wriggling in his arms for the first time, Livia shimmied out of his grasp. Her dark eyes locked on him for two more gusty breaths before she pulled his face to hers. Her lips parted, and he drank in the familiarity of her. He knew her, with such a core-deep recognition it rocked the deck under his feet.
She kissed with a passion and innocence that had always surprised him, touching him somewhere deep inside that only one other woman had ever reached.
Then Livia turned into liquid fire against him. Her hands were all over him, tearing at his clothes. And he didn’t need any further encouragement. After holding back for so damned long when it came to Livia, the force of his desire for her slammed through him.
“The bed,” he growled. “Now.”
She raked her fingernails lightly down his back, cupping his ass. “The door. Right now.”
Yeah, no wonder he was crazy about this woman. The Italian-English barrier didn’t come into play when they spoke the same language. Here. Now. Against the door.
A possessive growl rumbling from deep inside him, he slid his hands up her body, over the curves of her high soft breasts. Farther still, he reached behind her neck and released the halter clasp free. The top of her dress rolled down and bared creamy flesh he’d only dreamed about.
The reality beat fantasies, hands down.
And speaking of hands down, hers freed his buttons and opened his pants before he even realized he was still staring at her. She smiled at him with a timeless feminine power as she stroked down the length of him. He throbbed in her fist, ached all the way to his teeth to be inside her.
Then he realized…“Condom. We need one and I’m not packing.”
“Then what good luck of the drawing that I am.” She dangled the little black bag in front of his face.
Staring at the bag and her audacious smile, he was so stunned he didn’t even bother correcting her “luck of the draw” phrasing. Because holy hell, he hadn’t seduced her. She’d seduced him. Which was a hundred percent all right with him right now.
Stroking along her hip and around, he reached behind her to tug the zipper down until her sequined dress slithered to the floor. Her signature scent drifted up like incense as he unveiled her. She wore a crimson red thong and simple strappy flats, a reminder that she couldn’t wear heels since her accident.
His chest clenched tight. She’d come so close to dying on his watch two years ago. He skimmed along the puckered skin where her leg had been set, stitched.
“Livia…” he groaned.
“Shhh…” she whispered against his collarbone, kicking aside the last of his clothes, rolling the condom down his hard-on. “Forget about the past. This is all about celebrating how very alive you make me feel.”
Her words stirred him and made him wish he was more of a poetic guy, the kind who could give her all that romance his beautiful diva craved. But for some reason, she wanted him anyway.
He clasped her hands and stretched them over her head against the door, positioning himself between her legs, against her. She grazed her foot up his leg and he lifted her until she hooked her heels around his waist, the perfect angle for him to drive home inside her.
His head fell to rest against the door, his teeth clenched in restraint as the moist heat of her squeezed him like a silken glove. So damn perfect he almost came undone right now but he wanted more than that from her. He wanted more than a quickie against a door.
Holding her to him, staying inside her, he walked toward the bed. Every step, each roll of his hips against her, drew a moan of pleasure from her mouth. She bit her lip, her eyes closing and her head lolling as she rocked against him. He lowered her to his double bed, covering her with his body, plunging fully inside her. Her jet-black hair splashed back against the stark white pillow as she thrashed in obvious pleasure, mumbling gaspy phrases in Italian that he could swear would stay burned in his memory so he could translate them later.
But at this moment, the power, the rightness of being with her, of watching her face as she flew apart in his arms, swept him right over the edge of release with her.
He had been fighting his feelings for Livia Cicero for two years, certain he couldn’t let go of the past enough to step into the future.
Cradling Livia in his arms, he realized how very wrong he had been.
* * *
Jolynn lay sprawled on top of Chuck. His chest heaved with deep breaths under her breasts.
Her side ached, but she didn’t care. She wouldn’t wish away the pain. When her ribs healed, Chuck would be long gone from her life.
Their skin melded, warm and moist from the exertion in summer heat. She blew light swirls of air between their bodies, bringing a smile to his face while he kept his eyes closed. “Sorry there’s no air conditioner here. The generator’s not powerful enough to sustain it.”
“It doesn’t matter.” The cottage was special to her because of what they’d shared. “The safe house was warmer and much less private.”
Jolynn flinched as the words fell from her mouth. She’d done it again, shoved the real world into the middle of the room like a flashing neon Venus de Milo. Since the incident with the flare, he’d distanced himself from her.
She wanted the sharing back, sharing more than their bodies. One minute he was everything she wanted in a man, the next he drifted away from her, leaving her heart colder than before.
“Hello? Chuck?” She bracketed his face with her hands until he opened his eyes and looked back at her. “Where are you?”
“Sorry.” He cupped her face. “I’m reorganizing some things in my head. Sifting through the past few days. Trying to make the picture fit so I can be sure you’re safe.”
But if they left, he would be in more danger protecting her. “Why would anyone want me dead?”
Chuck quirked a brow. “Why did they
kill your uncle?”
She couldn’t suppress the shudder at his words. She tried to roll off him. He cupped her neck, pressing her head into his shoulder.
Chuck stayed silent, his fingers digging a rhythmic massage into her tensed shoulders. Everyone assumed she had it all, the pampered daughter of a rich man, no matter how hard she’d tried to carve out an image for herself as a dedicated number cruncher. An uneasy thought settled over her as she realized she hadn’t let anyone close enough to listen until Chuck.
“They hurt him, Chuck— my uncle Simon, who tossed me in the air and pulled my pigtails. He let me pester him when he worked on cars.” Her eyes stung at the memory, the grief she hadn’t ever dared let past the horror. “They put a twenty-two behind his ear and murdered him.”
The metallic taste of fear and disillusionment burned her mouth. She trembled, waiting for the nausea to abate. “Sometimes I feel like my life ended that day as well. Does that make sense?”
“Yes, it does.” His chest rose and fell rapidly under her cheek.
“Now, they want to do to me what they did to my uncle. I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t have mysterious unpaid debts or seedy connections, so they just want to get to my father through me.” She tilted her head, forcing him to look at her. “Am I right?”
He stared at her without answering, his eyes glistening icy blue. “Probably.”
Jolynn sagged against him, resting her forehead on his. Chuck didn’t deserve to die for knowing her.
“Just because they want to hurt you doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.” He gripped her shoulders. “I won’t let them.”
Why didn’t he understand she feared his death even more than her own?
Chuck lifted her off him and sat up, the determined agent returning. “Damn it, listen to me. You don’t seem to realize how good I am at my job. You’ll be sunning by the pool in Dallas before the week’s out. No one will hurt you again.”
But if she were in Dallas, that would mean saying good-bye to Chuck. The thought chilled her quiet for so long she realized he’d fallen asleep, his breathing evening out to a low snore.
Careful not to wake him, she eased off him and padded across the wood floor to the kitchen, needing distance to gather her tangled thoughts and ease the building headache. She grabbed her purse off the counter and fished through it, searching for the aspirin he’d given her after she’d bruised her ribs.
Reality invaded her like an insidious disease. The clock had run out. Her time with Chuck was over. The longer he stayed with her, the greater the danger because of her family, her blood connection that couldn’t be ignored or erased. She’d been greedy here at the cottage.
The cruise ship, Dallas, everything about her past life felt so distant. Could it have been only a few days ago that she’d discussed Lucy and Adolpho’s wedding plans? And the fund-raiser, too, scheduled the day after the ship docked in Genoa again. How could time have become so distorted?
Would Chuck just walk away when they returned?
Her heart squeezed at the possibility. But more than that, she knew she came with a lot of baggage. Would her family history be a problem for him? For his job that she didn’t know all that much about to start with?
She sifted through her purse, pausing to flip the thumb drive over and over in her hand. Viewing her life from Chuck’s perspective, she saw herself for what she was. The daughter of a mobster. Corruption under glitz. She massaged the minidrive in her hand like worry beads, flipping it over and over.
A minidrive from accounting. Her ears roared with the sounds of her heart pounding.
Had Lucy noticed the thumb drive was missing, and how much information did it hold? Once they figured out she’d taken it, no way in hell would they let her fade into the background. An all-out search was probably already under way for her and Chuck.
Undoubtedly, the next flare wouldn’t be set off by a goat. Chuck was in more danger than even she’d realized.
Jolynn thought about that young boy dumped by his mother in an orphanage. He’d braved the world with nothing more than a saint’s medallion from a nun for protection. Maybe someone should protect him for a change.
With potential evidence in her hand, she could do the honorable thing and prove to herself she wasn’t one damn bit like her father. She needed to figure out a way to confront her father— while making sure Chuck was out of the picture.
SIXTEEN
The telephone rang by Livia’s bed, jarring her from the best sleep of her life after the best sex of her life.
She slapped at the end table, desperate to silence the damn thing before it disturbed Rex— and their time together. She swept the phone from the table. Yet the ringing continued and continued, mio Dio.
Again the blaring noise kept on until she realized it was not a normal ring, but a buzz from Rex’s bedside table. His personal cell? Or a BlackBerry? Her naked leg between his, she toed his calf until he stirred. The intimacy of the moment wrapped around her, being together, their bodies spooned into a perfect fit.
Rex mumbled in his sleep as he rolled toward the side of the bed. Then his muscles tensed, rippling down his back as he jolted awake.
“Shit.” He sat up sharply, snatching his BlackBerry up and glancing at the faceplate quickly. “Colonel Scanlon here. Speak to me, Berg.”
As he sat on the edge of the mattress naked, elbows on his knees, his face went devoid of expression. He mostly listened, interspersing the occasional “affirmative” and “roger.”
Livia burrowed deeper into the sheets, her body languorous from loving. Good thing she had not known how powerful it could be with Rex or she never would have made it through the past two years with her sanity intact.
But now she did know. In full detail. Twice in the last three hours. Moonlight streaked through the portal across Rex’s nakedness. Everything from the defined muscles roping his lean body to the hint of silver at his temples declared him a one hundred percent honed, seasoned male. There was something infinitely attractive about a man who knew his way around a woman’s body well with confidence, but none of the arrogance that too often came with youth. He was everything she’d dreamed of, everything she’d hoped for.
And everything she’d feared because now, more than ever, she knew she could not let him go. Her heart and body would belong only to him for the rest of her life. Melodramatic? Perhaps. But she’d long ago given up denying her flamboyant Italian nature. Tonight, she wanted to embrace every bit of the volatile, all-encompassing love she felt for Rex.
After what they’d shared, she wouldn’t be so foolish as to walk away again. She would give him his space now to complete his mission, but afterward? Her body tingled with excitement and a hint of apprehension. Stakes were high with her heart on the line.
“Roger that, Berg. I’ll be down in fifteen minutes.” Rex ended the call.
He turned to her apologetically. “As much as I would like to stay with you ’til morning, I have to go.”
“I understand.” She tucked the sheet under her arms. “Work phones… or would that be work calls?” She deliberately tangled the American idiom to tease a smile from him. Unsuccessfully.
He gathered his clothes tossed haphazardly around the cabin. “Local authorities have just made an arrest based on suspicious cell phone chatter my guys picked up.”
Livia crawled to the edge of the bed. “Can you tell me who?”
“It won’t be a secret given the guy’s pretty high profile around here. Head of security for the Fortuna, Adolpho Grassi. He was just taken into custody. He’s being loaded onto a police vessel now to be transported back to Italy.” He pulled on his trousers and reached for his button-down shirt.
“That’s it? The investigation is over?” Maybe her future with Rex loomed sooner than she’d expected.
“If he talks. It appears he has been allowing passengers of questionable backgrounds on the ship, allowing new passengers to board by swapping identities with someone who left the ship. All
very shady stuff, especially in light of the pattern you noticed of those three people returning again and again, cruise after cruise.”
“Adolpho? Lucy Taylor must be devastated.” She tugged the comforter closer to ease the chill seeping into her bones. She’d known this was dangerous. But to learn the person in charge of protecting the passengers had been endangering them all? It was too much to take in.
Dropping to the edge of the bed, his shoes in hand, he scowled. “I’m worried about you. What if I asked you to step away, leave, say you’re sick? I’ll have a helicopter here to transport you before you can say ‘ante up.’”
She could see from his intensity that he could and would make it happen. Nothing was impossible for him. But he needed to direct that drive elsewhere, and he needed to let go of the fear that every woman in his life could die as his Heather had. “Thank you, but no. My leaving might arouse suspicion and endanger the rest of your case. Just because you have Grassi does not mean you are ending your undercover plan. Am I right?”
His jaw flexed with clenched teeth before he finally nodded tightly. “Just because I agree doesn’t mean I’m happy.”
“Then after your work, come back here and I will make you happy.” She stretched provocatively while gliding a hand down his chest, then stopped shy of his belt, patting his taut abs lightly.
“Do you think you could put a sweater on?”
She sidled against him, savoring the bristle of his cotton shirt against her breasts. “That sounds too stuffy. How about when you’re through with business, you come over here and make love to me again, and then again for the next fifty years.”
His head snapped back. She bit her lip. This wasn’t the right time at all, but blast her impulsiveness, the words had just fallen out.
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