Meow…
“Enduring a sand storm with no one about must have been disturbing, I agree. I am here now, though, and so is Andrea.” She smiled at the truth of that as she slipped into a flesh-colored bra and matching panties, then reached for the shift to pull it on over her head.
Meow…
“Well, I don’t know how long this state of affairs will last,” she told the cat with airy unconcern. “No, nor what will happen later. But I do suggest you find other accommodation for tonight, just in case I have company in my bed again.”
“An excellent suggestion.”
Dana gasped at that low-voiced, drawling comment, but then laughed. Thrusting her head and arms into place in the shift, she sent Andrea a look of mock severity. “I didn’t know you were there. You startled me.”
He leaned on the doorframe, his heated green gaze following her movements as she shimmied into the shift that was so loosely woven it came close to being transparent. “I would show you how likely you are to have me in your bed instead of Guaio, except breakfast is ready.”
“Really? Already?”
“Rolls, fruit and coffee only, but we must keep up our strength.”
She flushed, she couldn’t help it. It wasn’t from embarrassment, however, but at the promise in his eyes that told her why they must be strong. Also at her wayward imagination that pictured him removing her linen dress and underwear with sure movements of his strong, beautiful hands. Yes, and her own slow removal of the white linen shirt and pants he wore. His skin would be firm, warm and incredibly enticing in its muscular firmness beneath the soft fabric. She would—
Yes, she would. Later.
Anticipation was a potent aphrodisiac.
“Breakfast it is,” she said with a warm glance from under her lashes. “Lead me to it.”
The Sirocco continued through the morning, howling around the eaves of the villa and sifting fine dust in around doors and windows in spite of the shutters that protected them. The sun sometimes appeared as the winds died away, but vanished again on their return. In between, the world was a featureless gray-brown vista of blowing sand. It whispered and sang, smelling of dirt and camel dung and the bones of ancient Bedouins.
Or maybe the latter two were only her odd fancy brought on by the close confinement; Dana could not be absolutely certain.
Andrea called Luisa and the others, telling them to stay put in their homes for the duration as there would be much to do when the storm blew itself out. Dana heard him on the phone in his office again a short time later, his voice quietly commanding and not particularly cordial. Yet when he appeared again he was as relaxed as ever.
“Did anyone else on the island see the men last night?” she asked, searching his face for some clue as to what was on his mind.
“A fisherman out checking on his boat saw them. He didn’t report it until this morning as they were leaving at the time, and he was weather-wise enough to know sirocco wind was gaining strength, so going out after them would be hazardous.”
“But they will keep watch on the cove now.”
“Especially at night.” He hesitated. “I also spoke to Rico.”
“And?” she asked as he failed to elaborate.
Andrea shoved his hands into his pockets, scowling at the stone floor with its scattering of dust. “He claims to know nothing about any break-in.”
“You don’t believe him?”
“It doesn’t make sense. There is no one else. Unless—”
She watched him, loving the concentration in his face, loving the way he faced problems, by applying action and logic with a leavening of intuition.
Loving him, she realized with the sudden race of blood in her veins.
How had that happened when they had spent such a short time together? Was it brought on by their semi-isolation? Or might it stem from the heightened emotions caused by the danger they had been through?
One thing she knew well; it was not some ridiculous version of Stockholm syndrome. People tossed that phrase around so casually these days, but most had no idea what it meant. She’d studied the phenomenon at the police academy, and this was entirely different. She felt no need whatever to court Andrea’s good will or align her identity with his to keep him from harming her, had never been completely in his power. She had not been confined, nor had she been prevented from notifying friends and family of her safety. She had been brought to the island against her will, true, but it had been for her protection.
No, what she felt was something more, something so vital it was as if she had been waiting all her life for Andrea to happen to her. If she believed in destiny, she would say that she had found hers. And even if it was only for this small space of days, she meant to meet it head-on.
The villa grew overwarm and airless without the sea breeze blowing through to temper the August heat. Though there was an air conditioning system available, the prospect of sand being pulled into its machinery made using it out of the question. Andrea shed his shirt soon enough. Dana was fairly cool in her loose dress, though she pulled her hair up into a ponytail. They both alternated between staring out the one or two small windows that had no shutters, sipping cold drinks that varied from water and juice to limoncello, and fanning themselves with whatever was handy.
Toward noon, Andrea disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. Guaio leaped down and trotted after him, deserting Dana where she sat trying to read. At first, she was glad to have the cat’s furry heat removed from where he had been lying along her thigh. When neither man nor beast returned, however, she laid her book aside and went in search of them.
The scent of garlic and onions simmering in olive oil greeted her in the kitchen. She stood an instant in the doorway, surveying what was surely a modernized version of an old island cooking space. To the beamed ceiling, stone floors and high windows with thick-paned glass had been added stainless steel appliances and a triple stainless sink. The sturdy wood cabinets were white trimmed in gray and topped by gray granite, while some of their doors had new-looking glass fronts. A trio of long rubber mats cushioned the hard stone in front of the range, sink and stainless prep table that centered the room.
Andrea looked up, smiling a welcome from where he diced tomatoes at the prep table. Behind him, a large stainless steel pot sat on the restaurant style range. Steam rose from it, and the sauté pan next to it sizzled with its gently frying vegetables. Guaio lay under the table, as if patiently waiting.
“Something smells delicious,” she said as she strolled to the table.
“Spaghetti.” He shrugged. “Nothing particularly impressive.”
“It impresses me.” That was the truth, but not the whole of it. She was also impressed by the precision and economy of motion he brought to the task. Not to mention the concentration on his face and the way the muscles in his arms glided under the skin as they did his bidding.
Any man engaged in cooking for a woman was seriously sexy, but he was a stellar example.
She reached to filch a cube of tomato from the cutting board in front of him and pop it into her mouth. Humming her appreciation as she chewed, she put out her hand for another.
“Stop that,” he said, tapping her fingers with the flat of the wicked-looking chef’s knife in his hand.
“You have plenty.” In fact, he had three more Roma tomatoes lined up that he hadn’t begun to dice.
There was heat in the look he slanted at her. “That’s not what I meant. It’s that sound you make when you are—pleased.”
“Oh.”
She hadn’t been trying to turn him on. She thought of protesting, but it seemed more interesting to see what it might take to actually accomplish that. After all, the only thing he had to do was stand there without a shirt, exposing his washboard abs as if they were nothing special. It didn’t seem quite fair.
Turning so her back was to the prep table, she allowed her gaze to travel over his shoulders and down his chest to the narrow line of hair that bisected his six-pack
before disappearing under the drawstring waist of his linen pants. Almost unconsciously, she licked her bottom lip.
He stared at her mouth as he chopped, his gaze lingering. Until he suddenly exclaimed in Italian with the sound of a curse and dropped the knife.
“Did you cut yourself?”
Remorse added urgency to her voice. She pushed away from the table and followed him as he swung quickly to the sink and turned on the water, letting it run over his fingers.
“Just a nick.”
“Let me see.”
He was right. It was only a small slice on the tip of his index finger. She circled his waist with her arms, laying her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been teasing you while you had a dangerous weapon in your hand.”
“Is that what you were doing?” he asked, craning his neck to give her a look from under his lashes.
“Sort of.” She smiled against his warm skin.
“That’s what I thought.”
The muscles of his back under her cheek moved as he reached to turn off the water and then pick up a towel to dry his hands.
“I could kiss it and make it better,” she murmured. “I have it on good authority that works.”
“Dio, cara, no!” he said in rough rejection.
Her hold loosened and she raised her head while hurt tightened her voice. “Unless you’d rather I didn’t.”
He leaned away from her to switch off the blue flames that heated the water for the spaghetti, also those under his sauté pan.
“It isn’t that,” he said in low certainty as he turned back to enclose her in his arms. “It’s only I can think of better uses for your kisses.”
He mated his mouth to hers with the hunger of a man near starvation. Their tongues tangled, meshed, and played catch-as-catch-can. And all the while, he was sliding the fabric-covered elastic from her hair, molding her breasts and their aching nipples to fit his palms.
She untied the drawstring of his linen pants before dipping into them for what she sought. He groaned as she found him, but was already skimming her dress off over her head and dropping it on the floor. Her panties and bra quickly followed before he cupped her cool and rounded hips, pulling her into the cradle of his own as he leaned against the cabinet behind him.
Their breathing was fast and uneven, an obbligato of sighs and whispers, gasps and humming moans. He found the hollow behind her ear, explored it, drew her earlobe into his mouth, gold hoop earring and all, and laved it with his tongue until she writhed against his strutted heat.
She kissed his chest, bent her head to take his tightly budded nipple into her mouth while he threaded his fingers into her hair and told her things she understood only on a primal level and because she felt them in her heart.
Tugging at his pants, she shoved them down to his ankles, and would have followed them to kneel before him if he had not held her upright. Pushing away from the cabinet, he bent to retrieve a condom from his pants. He stepped from them then kicked the long, spongy rubber floor mat more into the walkway. He took her down to it with him, turning to his back so she stretched full length upon his hard form.
What other invitation did she need? She straddled him, her knees on the soft mat and calves aligned with his as she licked and suckled and took him deep, enjoying the sounds he made, the breath hissing between his teeth, his strained sighs and soft groans. He threaded his fingers through her hair but did not compel or direct in anyway, seemed content to allow whatever she pleased, as she pleased.
Until he had enough.
He lifted her higher with hard hands before driving into her slick depths. She gasped at the sudden filling, rose a little and settled upon him more firmly. Bracing her hands on his shoulders, holding tight, she closed her eyes, savoring the sensation that was like being locked to him.
She lifted her lashes then and swung her hair behind her back. Gazing down into the dark green depths of his eyes, she memorized the moment, tucking it away so it would be safe forever. And then she began to move.
“Per Dio,” he whispered as he smoothed his hands along her firm thighs that gripped him, grasped her hips to steady her, “I have dreamed of this since the moment I first saw the girl-on-a-dolphin on your back.”
~ ~ ~
Dana did not answer him, but Andrea hardly expected it. She was nearing extremis, he thought, that moment when surging pleasure wiped away all thought. He could feel its pulsating approach, just as he could feel the hot, beating core of her. Clinging to control by the smallest of margins, he waited, not out of male pride but from the need to know the moment when she was truly his if only for that brief interval. It helped that he could distract himself by flashing glances at her reflection in the glass of the cabinet doors where he could see not only her wild ride but the tattoo that enthralled him. To see and feel at the same time was a special privilege.
The moment came with a single warning contraction. She rode it to the end, her gaze holding his with an expression of ecstasy so intense and unyielding it seemed near pain. And when she began to fail, he rolled with her until her back was to the resilient surface of the mat.
He finished it then, lifting her knees for the greatest penetration, supporting himself on his elbows while he carried them both higher than they had reached before, until his brain was on fire, his breath turned to steam in his lungs, and he felt the contractions begin again, taking him in, holding him with her deep intimate caress that he craved beyond life itself.
In that moment, he saw tears shimmering in her eyes as she lay under him, so incredibly beautiful, so incredibly taken in love, and he knew his own face had that same look of agonized joy as hers just minutes before.
Sometime later, he lowered her legs until she lay full length, enjoying the smoothness of her body against his heated skin for an instant. He eased to his side then but took her with him, facing him, reluctant to lose the connection of their bodies. She held him to her with her spread fingers on his hip, as if she was also loath to be apart. And feeling that possessive clasp, his heart swelled with the rightness of it.
He kissed the top of her head, inhaled the delicate scent of her hair. Feeling tension in the strands that lay under her, he tugged gently until they were free and then pushed them back, combing them free of tangles with his fingers. Words crowded his mind, hovered on his tongue, but they were all in Italian. She wouldn’t understand, and he needed to be certain that she did. His English seemed to have fled, and he breathed deep to send oxygen to his brain so translation might return.
“Cara mia,” he said finally, “do you know the words Ti amo?”
She shifted a little, tilting her head back to look at him. “Should I?”
“I have not said them before, if that is what you mean,” he answered with a fleeting smile. “However, I say them now, and—”
He halted as a noise like a slamming door came from the front of the villa. It was followed at once by a trilling call.
“Andrea! Where are you?”
Bella.
The curse he muttered was ancient, idiomatic and biting. It was also no more than a whisper as any sound would instantly bring his sister toward the kitchen.
Disengaging in haste, he sat up, gathered Dana’s clothing and thrust the bundle into her hands. “My sister. Into the laundry while I stall her,” he said as he surged to his feet, pulling her with him.
She grasped the point before the words were out of his mouth. While shaking out his pants and hopping on one foot to put them on, he had the pleasure of seeing her swift exit in the direction he indicated, with the bright light that came now through the kitchen window shining on the red mane of her hair and glazing the skin of her back, bottom and legs with the sheen of fine pearls.
He swore again, though this time with reverence and regret.
“Andrea?”
This call was nearer. Bella was coming toward the kitchen, probably attracted by the smell of cooking.
He scooped up his boxers left lying o
n the rubber mat in his haste. Seeing no place to hide them, he tossed them into the trash can that sat in a pull-out bin below the prep table surface. Raking one hand through his hair for at least some kind of order, he turned the fire back on under his sauté pan with the other. Then he reached for the lever of the kitchen faucet, hoping Bella would take the splash of running water as a reason why he hadn’t heard her.
“What are you doing, Andrea? The sirocco is done. Why is the place still shut up like a tomb?”
He glanced over his shoulder in feigned surprise while scrubbing his hands under the water. “Ciao, Bella, where did you come from?”
His sister swept into the kitchen and immediately deposited her Hermés handbag and an Aventi knitting bag on the end of a cabinet. She looked as if she had stepped from the cover of a fashion magazine, her dark hair precisely coiffed, her nails perfectly manicured with an unlikely chocolate-colored polish, her dress the latest fashion worn with outré shoes and beaded jewelry constructed from knitted gold wire.
Andrea recognized, with no great surprise, that he had developed a distinct preference for natural, unadorned beauty.
“Naples, of course,” she answered, clicking toward him on her ridiculous four-inch heels and leaning to greet him with a kiss on either cheek. “I set out the instant I got off the phone with my miserable pig of a husband. What is this you were telling him about last night? I never heard such a story!”
He shut off the water, reached for a hand towel to dry his hands. “Every word of it was the truth.”
“I can’t believe it, truly I cannot. Rico is a great fool who thinks he can tell me what I must do every waking moment, but he is not a criminal.”
“No?” He watched her with care as he waited for an answer.
“I swear it.” Turning from him, she reached for a spatula and stirred the onions and garlic that had begun to sizzle again in the sauté pan. “What’s this you are making? Oh, I see. Lovely. But you know the water for your pasta will heat sooner if you actually turn on the fire under it?”
“You will join us, of course. I’ll chop more tomato.” His voice was laconic as he watched her switch on the burner and then taste the water for saltiness. His sister was one of those women who felt the kitchen was their domain, one where men should never venture without their instruction.
The Amalfitano's Bold Abduction (The Italian Billionaires Collection) Page 14
