The Vengeful Groom

Pain flashed through her, the pain of misery and violent need. The shock of her response thickened her tongue, and it was a great effort to say what she had to. “I’m sure,” she rasped, even those two words wavering.

“I don’t think you’re sure at all. Your big blue eyes are a real giveaway,” he said with a contemptuous drawl. His voice became husky. “They’re glazed and they’re alarmed and they’re begging.”

“No!” she denied, making them as narrow as she could.

He smiled mockingly. “And your beautiful mouth is asking to be kissed so prettily,” he said, touching her hot swollen lower lip. His finger traced a delicate trail to the corner, and it was all she could do to keep her mouth closed and not groan in hunger. “Then there’s your breathing,” he murmured.

“My…what?” she said jerkily, and blinked. She’d squeaked, actually squeaked! Her obvious horror at her own self-betrayal made him smile triumphantly.

“Very shallow, rapid, rather rasping,” he observed with a solicitous smile. “Health problem or me?”

Bodies were treacherous, she thought irritably. They had long memories. She suffered a cruel split-second reminder of their exciting union—wild, passionate, utterly satisfying and perfectly wonderful to her innocent mind and body. Pushing away the memory of his golden body above hers in all its naked glory, she squirmed beneath his knowing stare and tried to concentrate.

“Anger!” she explained in a furious croak.

His eyebrow lifted cynically. “Uh-huh.”

“It is,” she muttered, incensed that he was able to invest such depth of meaning in one little “uh-huh.”

“I’d advise you not to get angry too often, then,” he said. “The results do the most alarming things to your lovely breasts and only a saint would keep his hands off them. In case you hadn’t noticed,” he added unnecessarily, “I’m not a saint.”

She folded her arms with difficulty. There seemed to be a lot of her in the way suddenly. “Keep your eyes and your mind off my body!” she mumbled. “And get in your dream machine and drive off into the blue yonder!” she added in despair.

“I would if I could, believe me,” he said, spreading his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “But I have too many memories of your eager responses. Like when I was dating Beth and had dropped her off with her aunt. You and I were stuck in my car while the blizzard raged around us….”

Tina bristled. “I was cold. You said you’d warm me up. You were the one coming on to me,” she said tightly.

A faint smile tilted the corners of his expressive mouth, and Tina found herself staring at it, hopelessly remembering his first gentle respectful kiss. “I think you were with me every step of the way,” he said quietly.

“I was scared,” she countered, ruthlessly obliterating the dreamlike quality of the kiss and her naively delighted demands for more. He’d obliged, of course. Till she was dizzy and intoxicated with love. “I needed comfort. I was afraid we’d be stranded,” she explained.

“No, you weren’t. You hoped we might be,” he reminded her brutally.

She lifted a stubborn chin. “Only because I wanted to miss study period.”

Giovanni laughed, his even teeth dazzling white in his dark handsome face. Tina felt her heart lurch infuriatingly as it used to in the days when she’d been shamelessly and helplessly in love with her best friend’s lover. Being kissed by him in the car had been her secret dream come true. Other than Brent Powell, who’d been Giovanni’s rival in every walk of life, Gio was the most desirable guy in school.

Brent was everything a mother would want for her daughter. Giovanni had an edge of danger, a rawness that made him exciting. Mothers didn’t want him for their daughters; they wanted him for themselves.

“You’re deluding yourself,” he said in amusement. “You were nuts about me.”

“I was nuts, all right,” she muttered. “You were a fake charmer. You fooled us all.”

“But not anymore?” His eyes grew soft with warm melting desire and his fingers lightly brushed her bare arm. “God!” he breathed huskily. “You look sinfully wanton and inviting sprawled out like that!”

Fear killed the initial flame of pleasure that lit her up inside. She edged backward, feeling the hard line of the stairs against her spine. Giovanni didn’t move, but she could see his muscles were tensed, ready, his eyes working over her body as though she were in a shop window or a cheap peep show.

Against her rib cage, her heart beat frantically, and try as she might, she couldn’t stop the fear from welling up inside. “Don’t touch me!” she whispered.

He caught her in his strong grip, and she froze as he boldly slid one hand under her T-shirt to cup her breast. “But I have to,” he said softly. “There are things my body and soul cry out for. Things I need, or I can’t be content. Don’t you see?” And his mouth descended ruthlessly on hers.

Tina couldn’t even struggle. Weeping inside in frustrated anger, she gritted her teeth to steel herself against the slow, torturing rhythm of the finger and thumb that delicately rubbed the already throbbing peak of her breast, whisking it shockingly to harder and tighter tension and thus arousing every inch of her love-starved body with a perfectly timed, accurately judged pressure. Enough to drive her wild. Enough to make her lean in to him for more. Enough of a kiss to divert her attention, enough to remind her….

“Mmm…” she moaned.

He became still, his hands wandering to her waist while she strained against him hungrily for more. A terrible anger filled her. He was going to cheat her body of its needs. Slowly his mouth lifted from hers and his dark unfathomable eyes fixed her with a tenacious stare. “Is that a capitulation?” he murmured huskily.

“I’ll…” She fought for breath, for some composure and for time.

“Give in, Tina!” he commanded softly. “You know how it is between us. There’s never been anyone as good, has there?”

It was the slightly hesitant query that alerted her. Lifting her lashes briefly to identify the cause, she saw with a firing spurt of satisfaction that he wasn’t quite as indifferent as he pretended. His breathing was ragged, his chest rose and fell with jerky irregularity, and he looked more than a little glazed. He did desire her. He wanted confirmation that he was the greatest lover on God’s earth—and that meant she had a potential weapon.

Giovanni Kowalski cared only for bodily pleasures, and his desire was nothing more than an animal urge. He was man. She was woman. Prison had changed him and made his nature even more carnal than before.

Yet it meant that she had something she could bargain with. Since he wanted her, maybe she could stop him from going upstairs, from seeing the evidence that pointed to Adriana’s presence. She scowled. Except she’d have to only pretend she’d fallen for his seduction. Whatever she did, she was wedged between a rock and a hard place.

Her instinct was to protect the vulnerable Adriana and shield her from all knowledge of Giovanni’s visit. And to keep Giovanni at arm’s length. And to abandon all sense and slither into his waiting arms! Was she confused?

“You’re rushing me,” she said huskily, stalling for time, contemplating a suggestion of a drive in the Lamborghini. Did that make her a temptress? Would she deserve scorn for leading him on? And if he agreed, what she’d do then she couldn’t imagine. Struggle in the back seat, probably. “I need a bit of time….”

“Forget the convention of waiting,” he added roughly. “We’ve been down that road before. You want me and I want you. Here’s the proof.”

Lazily he lifted her limp, despairingly unresisting hands above her head. She knew she must protest, but her brain wouldn’t accept the slow message. Seconds passed and it was too late. He’d lowered his body to hers, the whole warm glorious length of him balanced with just the right amount of force bearing down on her. She groaned and lost her protest in the pleasure of his searching kiss.

“I think this is the moment to go upstairs and explore,” he murmured seductively in her ear.

“No!” she croaked. That was the last thing she wanted! “Not upstairs…here! No, I mean…” She turned a confused and pinkened face to his. “Gio, we can’t! Not here.”

“Make up your mind,” he drawled lazily. “Afraid someone will come back and surprise us frolicking on the doormat?”

She felt the heat of his loins rising, the hardness of his body unnervingly virile and excitingly urgent. “Yes!” she cried in an outrush of breath.

“So your grandfather’s coming back.”

“No. Yes! No! Not for two weeks!” she gasped, as Giovanni sighed and curved his big hands around her breasts. “I mean…please…” Her body arched beneath him.

“I will, once we establish where,” he murmured, his fingers taking an intense delight in her silken warmth.

“The…the beach,” she said breathlessly, trying to twist away. “I’ll get…the picnic. We’ll…go for a s-swim and…”

Tina felt her eyes closing and her body relaxing, giving in to hedonistic pleasure. Giovanni was kissing her naked breasts with total concentration, his lashes thick on his golden cheekbones, and he was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen and what he was doing was producing the most beautiful sensation in the world. And she was out of her mind.

“Gio,” she gasped. “Don’t…” Her body seemed to be flowing all over the floor and her brain couldn’t sort out the right messages. All she kept getting was desperate signals from the most intimate parts of her body that they wanted Giovanni’s touch, for him to kiss and caress her till dark, and then some more.

CHAPTER THREE

“SO, TINA,” he said thickly, one finger lightly massaging her embarrassingly hard nipple, “what’s it to be? You choose. A roll in the hay, a furtive tumble in the dunes…or will you tell me where my mother is?”