The Playboy's Fugitive Bride (25 page)

He stiffened at her questions.  “Think what you want about me, Nia.  However—”

“You have your revenge.”  She cut him off, not caring about anything else he had to say.

“Oh,
cara,
revenge is not my desire at all.”  His voice was oddly resigned and his eyes held a surprisingly gentle softness as he studied her.

“Then what?  Humiliation?”  She wasn’t falling for any more of his charming wiles.

His jaw clenched and his eyes slightly narrowed.  “Not that either.”

“What is your desire, Massimo?  What do you want from me?”

He took a side step, and Nia saw the briefcase and her luggage stacked against the wall behind him.  Sheer black fright swept through her.  She hoped the cops hadn’t gone through her suitcases, and if they had, she prayed to God they hadn’t found the passport in Shaina Norwood’s name stuffed in the bottom and handed it over to Massimo.  If he knew her real identity, there was no place on earth she could hide from him.

She swallowed as he walked around the table and came to stand in front of her.  She fought against his bracing masculine scent and the unsteadiness his proximity caused to her system.  “You can keep your blood money,” she said crossing her arms in an attempt to stop the quivering in her stomach.  “Just give me my luggage and let me go.  I want to get as far away from you as I possibly can.”

His brow pulled into an affronted frown.  “What do you think I want from you, Nia?”

She scoffed at the brazen gleam in his blue eyes.  “You can’t possibly expect me to honor my end of the bargain and sleep with you now.  Not after this.”  Her hands flared in the air.

“I don’t care about that.”  He drew his lips in thoughtfully.  “Well, I do care about it, but merely bedding you for a few days, or most, a few weeks isn’t enough, anymore.”

“Then what do you want Massimo?  What do you want?” she growled.

“
Una moglie
.”

She tilted her head and shot him a suspicious glare.  “What the hell is that?”

“A wife.  I want a wife.”  He widened his stance and crossed his arms.  “I expressed my desire to you and the world last night.  I haven’t changed my mind.”

“But today at lunch you said you would retract that statement you made to the public.”

He shook his head in exasperation.  “No, Nia.  I did no such thing.  You deliberately misinterpreted my words because it suited you.”

Tossing her hair across her shoulder in a gesture of defiance, Nia jutted her chin at him.  “Well, stop making the same mistake at misinterpreting my words, Massimo.  I already told you I wasn’t marrying you.  I haven’t changed my mind, either.  Furthermore, you must think I have no shred of self-esteem that I would even consider marrying a man who had me arrested and thrown in jail, just to prove a point.”

“I’m sorry about that, but it was unavoidable.”

“You’re sorry?  It was unavoidable?”  She smirked with cold sarcasm.  “You had me arrested for auto theft and burglary.  You accused me of stealing two million dollars and priceless jewelry that has been in your family for generations.  I was fingerprinted!”  She shook her hands in the air.  “They took my picture and gave me a number, Massimo!”

“Don’t forget destruction of government property.  You vomited in a police cruiser.  Twice.  I had to write them a check to clean it.”

She glared at the smile playing at the corners of his mouth, the same mouth that had kissed her and taunted her mercilessly a short while ago.  Her fingers itched to slap the smug look from his face, but she knew from experience that attempting to slap him would only excite him more.  She had no wish to deal with that kind of attention.  She balled her fists at her sides.  “Thanks to you, I now have a police record.  I have a rap sheet.  You have ruined my reputation, my life.”

“It will all miraculously disappear if you marry me tonight.”

“I’d rather rot in jail.”  The sweetly intoxicating musk of his body finally completely overwhelmed her and she turned and took a few steps to the other side of the small room.  She despised herself for allowing him to make her vulnerable and weak.  She was not used to anyone asserting authority over her.  She was not the helpless damsel-in-distress kind of woman waiting for a white knight to ride up on his steed and rescue her.

She’d been taking care of herself since she was seventeen, and she’d been doing just fine with her life until Eddie found her, forcing her to come looking for Massimo.  And now that her plan to pay Eddie back had gone south, she’d have to do the next best thing.

Run and hide again.

This time she was leaving the country, and she wasn’t moving next door to Dulcina where both Eddie and Massimo could easily find her again.  She was melting away into ultimate obscurity somewhere in Siberia.  Aaron would just have to put his plans on hold for a while longer, or change them completely.  He could still become an engineer, just not in America.

At least he’d be alive and in good health.

Nia shuddered and blinked back the tears that sprang to her eyes.

“You’re sure there’s nothing I can do to get you to change your mind,
cara
?” Massimo asked behind her.

“Nothing.  I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on the planet and my life depended on it.”

“Perhaps if I kissed you, reminded you of the pleasure you experienced in the limo at my hands, you might eat those words, pussycat.”  He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms about her.  “Think of the magic we can create in bed tonight as husband and wife.  Don’t you still want to become a woman, Nia?  Truth be told, I’m dying to make you one.  You drive me crazy with lust.  You’re under my skin, in my blood, and in my head all the time.”

He pulled her hard against him, trekked backwards toward the desk and perched himself on its edge.  Nia closed her eyes and stifled the moan that rose to her throat as the heat from his erection burned a hole in her back.  She tried to pry his arms from around her.  She might as well have been restrained inside a straightjacket.

“You were begging me to take you a couple hours ago, pussycat,” he said, bending forward and hauling her up against him, seating her on his groin and tucking her lower body securely between his strong thighs and legs.  He swept her hair from the back of her neck and pulled down the turtleneck collar of her dress.  “Do you have any idea what seeing you in this ugly schoolteacher’s dress does to me?”

The heavy bulge of his erection now pressing into the firm cheeks of her buttocks told Nia just what it did to him, but she wasn’t going down without a fight.  “Let me go, Massimo.  Take your filthy, sleazy hands off of me.”  She wrestled harder, but her struggles just seemed to excite him more.

“I’m tempted to bend you over this table, hike this dress up to your waist, pull your panties down to your ankles, and take you from behind—hard and deep.  You need to be tamed, Nia, brought under control, and I’m the man to do it.  I’m applying for that job as your husband.”  Before Nia could process his threat, he blew his hot breath on the exposed skin at the back of her neck then lowered his mouth and bit into her flesh.

An uninhibited shiver of wanting ran through Nia.  The picture of Jabari biting into the neck of the female leopard as they mated in the tall grass appeared in her mind.  The more she tried to ignore the image and the yearning it induced inside her, the bolder it became.  She was that female leopard in heat and Massimo was Jabari pinning her to the ground.  She felt his strength, pressing her down, subduing her, his heat entering her, claiming her…

“No!”  She clawed at him, trying to get him off her.  She couldn’t even budge him a smidgen.

With his teeth sunk into her skin, he pressed the palm of one hand into her belly and used his other hand to fondle the inside of her thighs through the wooly material of her dress.  He began to rock against her, titillating her as his hand between her thighs became bolder, more urgent as it crawled higher and closer to the core of her heat.

The erotic act proved too much for Nia.  Her knees buckled.  She grabbed his steely arms to keep from collapsing on the floor as coils of explosive currents shot through her body.

“Do you still want me to take my filthy, sleazy hands off you, Nia?”  He brushed his lips over the tender spot his sharp teeth had made on her neck, the prickling of his new beard intensifying the sensation.

“I hate you.”  She spat out the words and pulled her neck from his touch.  Her flesh stung from his bite and she knew she’d carry his physical mark for days, but his emotional brand she would tote around for years—the rest of her life, perhaps.

He turned her around and cupped her chin in his palm, forcing her to meet his gaze.  “We both know that’s not true.”  His gaze traveled over her face.  “You are so beautiful when you’re mad.  I especially love your pouting little mouth.  So soft and ripe and juicy.”

He stroked the pad of his thumb slowly back and forth across her lips as his eyes held hers prisoner.  The gesture was extremely sensual, and her fire quickly returned.  She could not resist this man, no matter how angry he made her, and he knew it.

“I can’t wait to put your sexy little mouth to good use later tonight,” he whispered in a husky voice.  “The picture of your juicy lips clasped around my pulsing shaft was another reason I took you up on your brazen offer, little pussycat.  I wanted you the moment I saw you, and I can’t wait to bury myself to the hilt inside you later tonight.”

A new flood of moisture settled in a pulsing pool at the core of Nia’s sex.  She felt heavy and full and thirsty, all in the same ragged breath.  Involuntarily, her tongue came out to wet her dry lips only to make contact with the salty pad of Massimo’s thumb.

“
Dolce
!”  He circled her body and brought his mouth down on hers.

Nia’s lips parted and gave his invading tongue license to enter and plunder at will.  He stroked the roof of her mouth and probed the insides of her lips and cheeks with the tip over and over again until finally retreating into his mouth, daring her to follow and reciprocate.

Dazed by desire, Nia’s tongue followed his into the wet warm cave of his mouth.  He curled his lips around her tongue and sucked on it urgently, creating a throbbing between her legs that matched the tempo of his jaws as he tried to devour her.  Nia grabbed the front of his sweater with both hands as he literally sucked the life from her body, turning her into a listless, useless ragdoll.

“Si.”
His voice broke with passion.

With their mouths still connected, he bent down, swept his fingers beneath the hem of her dress and pulled it up to her waist.  He then effortlessly picked her up off the floor and placed her feminine heat on the heavy bulge of his erection straining against his slacks.  “Wrap your arms and legs around me,” he commanded softly as he pushed to his feet.

Rendered powerless by his wicked tactics, Nia wrapped her arms and legs about him.

He groaned, placed his hands on her buttocks, and thrust his rock-hard shaft against her softness, grazing her through the lace of her panties.

Nia’s skin was on fire and the flesh beneath it was melting fast, turning into molten lava.  She was suffocating, drowning in an ocean of pleasure as wave after wave crashed upon her tender shore.  When her heart began to throb as if it would burst from her chest, Nia knew she was about to have her second orgasm for the night, right here, right now in a small interrogation room at Granite Falls Police Station with—God knows who—peeking at them through the door.

Her limbs tightened about Massimo and her body drew as tight as a brand new banjo string.  And just as she was about to fly off into oblivion, Massimo lifted her off of him and held her suspended in the air.  She crashed back down to earth with an unsatisfied growl.

He released her mouth and gazed deep into her eyes, his dark and stormy with passion and purpose.  “You have two options, Nia.  One way or the other, you’re going to be a prisoner.  You can do your time in the women’s correctional prison in Concord, or you can serve it out in my bed as my wife, having this.”  He pulled her back down on his erection and began thrusting against her again.  “As often as you desire.  It’s your choice, but you have to make it now.”

“You despicable…   Ahhh…” she screamed as he thrust upward, sending a new wave of shocks rippling through her.

“Choose, Nia.  It’s now or never.”

Nia’s hands tightened around his thick neck and her fists curled around his silky black hair.  She thought about pulling it from the roots and choking him until the life drained from his body, but she didn’t want murder or even attempted murder added to her already much too long rap sheet.  And she had to think of Aaron.  She was no use to him in jail.

If it was just herself she had to worry about, she’d tell Massimo what he could do with his money and his hand in marriage, but it was not just her life that was in jeopardy.  Her little brother’s life depended on her getting out of this jam.  She’d promised their father that she’d take care of him.  She just hadn’t planned on it coming at the expense of her freedom, the capture of her body and her heart by the insufferable Massimo Andretti.

“Nia, I
will
keep you locked up until you agree to marry me.  I can do that.”

Family first
.

“Okay, okay,” she managed between her ragged breaths.  “I’ll marry you, Massimo.  I’ll marry you.”

“Oh, pussycat, those are the sweetest words I’ve ever heard.”

She thought he would put her down now that he’d gotten what he wanted, but she felt one of his hands slide across her buttocks and make its way to the inside of her thighs, up over the lacy band of her thigh-high stockings.  Nia moaned out loud as his fingers eased the crotch of her panties aside and toyed with her soaked flesh.

“How did you know I love landing strips, pussycat?” he whispered, dropping his weight on the desk, and pressing the heel of his palm against her freshly waxed mound.

“Massimo.”  Nia began to tremble as his fingers parted her flesh.  She felt her breath literally being cut off as he eased a finger carefully inside her heat and began to stroke her, slowly and cautiously as she imagined a man would stroke a virgin.