Her Italian Millionaire (23 page)

He went back outside and hung his helmet from his handlebars. Then he put his arm around her. She winced.

“It's my sunburn,” she said. He kissed the hot skin under the hollow of her throat.

“I've got something that will fix that,” he said. He carried her shoes in one hand as they walked unsteadily, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder up the stairs to her room, weaving slightly as though they'd had too much to drink.

She fished the key from her tote bag, opened the door, and flipped the light switch. Then she screamed.

As Marco shoved her back against the wall, she gasped. He swore.

The bed was dismantled. The mattress was split open and there were bare coils and tufts of cotton batting everywhere. The valise Nonna had given Ana Maria was sliced in half. Her clothes were in a heap on the floor.

Marco strode across the room, flung the closet door open. No one. Nothing. Then he went to the bathroom. There was no one there. Ana Maria's cosmetics were scattered, lipstick smeared, lotion bottle emptied. Her tube of toothpaste hadn't been touched. He picked it up. Why hadn't it been squeezed dry? Because it was Italian. Brand new. Whatever they were looking for had to come from the U.S.

He went back to find her sitting in a chair staring straight ahead of her. Kneeling on the floor, he put his arms around her. She was not a small woman, almost as tall as he was, but she fit into his arms for the second time tonight as if she was meant to be there. Nothing could be further from the truth. She was meant to be across the ocean in the arms of someone else. Anyone else, but not Giovanni, and definitely not him.

“Who could have done this?” she whispered, her soft cheek against his. “Why?”

“Someone thinks you have something they want,” he said. “What is it?”

“I don't know.”

“Okay,” he said. “Get your clothes. We're getting out of here.”

“Where will we go?”  

“To my room.”

She drew her eyebrows together in a puzzled frown. “Next door,” he said.

“I thought the hotel was full.”

“It is. I pulled some strings. Now, come on. Let's go.”

There was nothing Anne Marie would rather do than get out of the room. It made her feel sick to think of some demented stranger pawing through Marco's sister's beautiful things. Marco filled his arms with most of the clothes and she picked up what was left, then went to the bathroom for her toothbrush and toothpaste.

She felt like she'd been hit by a cyclone, knocked down and blown away into a different place. A dangerous place. Like a barefoot robot, she followed Marco to his room which was a cool, clean and untouched mirror image of hers. The only sign that it was his was his small valise on the luggage stand. The bedside lamps made small circles of light on the walls. The air was clean and fresh, the faint scent of his soap and shaving lotion only noticeable if she thought about it. If she thought about him. Which she did.

Once inside with the door locked, she shuddered then heaved a sigh of relief. Marco put his jacket around her shoulders, poured some dark red liquid from a bottle on the bedside table into a glass, and gave it to her.

“Drink this and I'll be right back.”

It tasted like dark purple grapes, but it was twice as strong as wine and it burned her throat as it went down. But by the time Marco got back, she had her bare legs tucked under her and she'd stopped shaking.

“Where did you go? What did you do?” she asked.

“I told the management what had happened and I made a few calls.”

“I don't understand. Why would anyone...”

“That's what we have to find out. Are you sure you don't have anything anyone would want?”

“Positive. You've seen everything I have, and that's not even mine. It's Isabella's. I'm glad her clothes are all right.” The thought of her first ruined suitcase triggered something in her mind. “You don't think this had anything to do with the accident in San Gervase, do you?” The accident that might not have been an accident.

“The only thing I know is that it has something to do with you,” he said.

“Me? It was your car they smashed.”

“No one smashed my car before you came.”

“I suppose no one followed you either, no one slapped you in a restaurant or...” She shook her head. “I don't believe it. Do you really expect me to believe your life was uneventful and dull before I came? Are you saying that you sit in an office all day and shuffle papers for the Bureau of Tourism? That all this excitement happened because of me?”

“Don't you believe me?”

His gaze was steady; he looked so sincere. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to trust him. Even more, and up till the moment she walked into that room next door, she'd wanted most of all to make love to him. He made her feel beautiful, sexy and exotic. The sight of her room had ruined what might have been the most romantic night of her life.

 He wasn't the man she'd been dreaming about for twenty years, but in a way it that would have been better. When it was over, it would be over. No regrets. This man probably didn't know the meaning of the word.

 He was experienced, no doubt about that. His touch was incendiary, just the sound of his voice in her ear on a crowded dance floor turned her knees to rubber and caused an ache in the center of her body. An ache that got worse, more intense, as the evening went on. There was only one cure, one way to stop it. So she'd thought.

But she was wrong. There were two possibilities. She could give in to her wildest dreams and make love all night or have someone ransack her room and send her libido crashing. Fate had decided it would be the latter.

Marco went back to the bathroom and she heard the water running. She sat in the chair by the small table in his room and stared off into space. Starting with that wild ride to the dock on his lap, he'd made it blatantly obvious he was just as turned on as she was. Now how did he feel? Was he just as revolted, sick and angry and even worse - baffled as she was? Marco came out of the bathroom and stood in the middle of the room. His shirt was unbuttoned. She tore her gaze away from his chest.

He took a cigarette from his pocket.

“Smoking isn't good for you,” she said.

He put it back in his pocket. “Neither is playing dangerous games.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, wide-eyed. Did he know she'd sneaked off to see Giovanni? Even if he had, what was dangerous about meeting an old friend and giving him his yearbook?

He answered her question with one of his own. “How do you feel?”

 What could she say? Nervous? Disappointed? Disgusted? Worried? All those and yet it was worse. She shivered. Her skin burned hot was she was cold inside.

“I've got something for your sunburn,” he said, holding a tube of ointment in his hand. “Lie down on the bed.”

The king-sized bed was turned down for the night and the sheets smelled like sunshine and fresh air. She lay on her stomach, closed her eyes and waited. Inside her head a voice was saying, watch out. Be careful.

He lifted the hem of her shirt, and gently spread a cool lavender lotion over the prickly skin on her back and gently massaged her shoulders with his large hands. She let out a long sigh of bliss.

“I'm not wearing a bra,” she said, her voice muffled against the pillow.

“I noticed,” he said.

 He'd noticed? Had everyone noticed? Was she dressed like a slut? Acting like one? At the moment, she didn't care. All she cared about was Marco's hands, those strong fingers, and what havoc they were playing with her nerve endings. Alternately soothing and exciting, and she wanted him to go on forever.

“You like that?” he said, his voice rough as the rocky shore of the Amalfi Coast.

“Oh, yes,” she murmured. But her shirt was bunched around her shoulders. She yanked it off over her head.

His hands returned to move in lazy circles from her shoulders to the back of her neck. It was smooth, it was stimulating, and it was thrilling. She didn't want him to stop. Not now. Not ever. The image of the ransacked room receded. The only thing that mattered was the way he continued to stroke her skin.

“Feel better?” he asked.

“Yes.” Better, and more alive than ever before.

Marco shifted to the center of the bed, straddling her with his knees pressed into the mattress. He let his hands skim over her soft skin, from her neck across her shoulders, long strokes down her spine to the curve of her hips. He slipped his hands under her skirt and caressed the swell of her round bottom. He stilled his hands and waited for her to protest. If she did, he wouldn't blame her. She'd had one hell of a night. If it weren't for the damned bastards that had ransacked her room...

“If you want me to stop, say so,” he said.

She didn't say so. Instead she made little sounds of pleasure, sounds of desire that made his whole body feel like he might spontaneously combust. With his hands cupping her butt, he flashed on the day he'd seen her in the bathroom of the hotel, bending over, giving him a tantalizing glimpse of her sweet ass. If he'd known then what he knew now, what would he have done? Turned in his resignation? Told Silvestro he couldn't handle the case? That he'd gotten emotionally involved? Marco, emotional? He was physically involved, and that was all.

“No,” she breathed. Her voice was no more than a sigh, but he could hear the yearning in it. “Don't stop.”

He moved his hands to the backs of her knees. She moaned. He kneaded the taut muscles of her calves. She murmured something unintelligible.

He traced kisses where his hands had been, moving up her spine, across her shoulders, behind her ears, feeling her skin heat beneath his lips. His body was on the brink of exploding.

A few more strokes, a few more kisses, and he'd gently roll her over, he'd look into her eyes and watch her while he kissed her breasts, her belly and then... It was what they both wanted. He knew it. She'd told him with her eyes, her body and her voice. She wanted him. He wanted her. It was inevitable. He'd known it the first moment he'd set eyes on her in the hotel courtyard. It was just a matter of time. Now was the time.

The purring sounds she made caused him to ache with desire. He knew she was upset about her room, but that was then. This was now. She was ready, and God knew, he was more than ready.

But was she ready in spite of what had happened tonight or because of it? Was she still in a state of shock at seeing her things tossed all over the room? If so, he couldn't seduce her. He was no saint, but he didn't take advantage of women in shock.

He moved his hands back to her shoulders, touching her lightly with the tips of his fingers. He rested his cheek against her shoulder. He could feel her breathing slow down as his sped up. He heard her sigh and felt her muscles relax. He kissed her flushed cheek. Her mouth curved in a half smile. Her eyelashes fanned in a smudge against her cheekbone. She was asleep. He felt all the air leave his lungs. It was over before it had begun. He was filled with a sense of regret so sharp it pierced his chest.

The first thing Anne Marie remembered when she woke that morning was the touch of his hands on her skin - the callused fingers tracing the outline of her muscles, leaving imprints she could still feel. She buried her face in the pillow and tried to remember what had happened. She was still wearing her skirt, but her shirt was gone and she was covered with a sheet. Her mouth was dry and tasted like grapes. She turned over, and blinked at the sunlight that filtered through the half-closed blinds.