So she wasn’t married after all.
The thought of some other man touching her, teaching her about the pleasures a man and a woman could share, bothered the hell out of him, even though he knew how irrational that was. He was the one who’d left.
He’d wanted her worse than any other woman he’d met before or since. But she was the daughter of his parents’ best friends and he’d felt guilty as hell when he’d finally let her push him into making love to her. And he’d known he couldn’t offer her anything lasting. Leaving had been the right thing to do.
The thought gave him little satisfaction. What it did give him was a damned uncomfortable hard-on that forced him to shift uncomfortably in the chair. He could recall with vivid clarity the way her soft body had writhed beneath his hands, the way she’d clutched at him and held his head to her breast, the way her eyes had widened in surprise as sensations ripped through her and she dissolved in his arms.
Each time they’d been together, he’d struggled to remember that it couldn’t be permanent. He’d known he was leaving, and he’d known he shouldn’t encourage her any more than he already had. And really, it wasn’t as if they’d had a long or exclusive relationship. No words of commitment ever had been exchanged.
But as she straightened and closed the back door, then walked around the little car and climbed into her own seat, the only thought that kept running through his head was that he and Sophie had unfinished business between them. When he’d first come home, he’d harbored the stupid belief that Sophie would be waiting for him, just as she’d waited before, that nothing had changed between them.
Well, maybe she hadn’t put her life on hold, and certainly he shouldn’t have expected that she would. But she was single now, and so was he.
And he knew, without putting a finger on her, that together they still could generate enough heat to put the Great Chicago Fire to shame.
The following day was Sunday. His parents went to early mass at St. Vincent’s, and for the first time since the accident, Marco decided to go to church. He hadn’t been a regular worshiper in years, and if he ever went to confession again, he’d have enough penance to keep him talking for a month.
It felt strange to enter the church where he’d grown up, served as an altar boy and made his First Communion, strange to take a seat in the pew where his family had sat since before he was born. Now his four sisters were married or engaged, and sprinkled among the adults was a raft of his nieces and nephews. His older sister, Camilla, came with her family and as he watched, several of the Domenico clan slipped into the pew ahead of him where they’d always sat.
His interest picked up, but Sophie wasn’t with them. Instead, the Domenico pew steadily expanded to two full rows, filled with a new generation ranging from a preteen boy that had to be Stefano’s son down to a fussing infant in pink carried in by a man he assumed was Violetta’s husband.
Sophie’s sister Arabella smiled and blew him a kiss as she took the last empty seat on the far end. He noticed she turned and looked toward the rear of the church several tunes, and when she smiled and beckoned, he glanced back to see Sophie coming down the aisle. It was an opportunity too good to miss. Before Belle could shove everyone in her pew together to squeeze her sister in, he stood and caught Sophie’s hand as she stopped at the pews.
“You can sit here,” he murmured. “I won’t bite.”
He’d forgotten how small she was. She barely came up to his chin, even in the heels she’d worn to Mass. She tilted her head up to look him in the eye, and he felt her subtly trying to withdraw her hand, but he only tightened his clasp. Her eyes were wide—the deep, rich chocolaty velvet that he remembered so clearly—and she hesitated for a moment.
But just as he’d expected, Sophie was too well-bred to make a scene in church, and after that first long, searching glance, her face relaxed into a small, cool smile. “Thank you,” she said, and this time he let her have her hand back after he drew her into the pew.
When she sat, he followed suit, brushing just close enough that his arm grazed hers. It didn’t escape him that she was quick to draw back, though they were both wearing jackets and it was as innocuous as a touch two strangers might exchange.
She didn’t look at him again, simply linked her fingers in her lap, and he heard the rustle of silk sliding over silk as she crossed her legs. His gaze dropped and he studied the shape of her slim thighs in the pretty royal-blue skirt that matched her jacket. She probably hadn’t lost very much weight, but what she had lost had enhanced the natural beauty that she’d always possessed and trimmed her womanly curves to hourglass proportions.
Then the service began, and guilt tore his gaze away from her. He might have gotten away from the church too much to suit his folks, but he had the superstitious feeling that a lightning bolt might just seek him out for thinking lecherous thoughts in a house of worship.
Sophie managed to ignore him during the exchanging of peace between members of the congregation by darting up to the pews ahead of them to greet members of her family. It was, to his mind, a telling sign that she wasn’t as indifferent to him as she’d appeared on her mother’s back porch the other day.
As he spoke the familiar responses, something inside him relaxed. His mother’s soft voice on his right side and Sophie’s on his left, the shuffle and hush that accompanied the rituals of worship...it felt right in a strange way, a way he’d never realized he missed, but needed now that he’d found it again.
When he finally limped back to the pew, he couldn’t kneel. Instead, he had to sit like the little old ladies who were too feeble to get on and off their knees any more, shifted to the edge of the seat with his back bent forward and his right leg stiffly stuck out before him. His prayers consisted mainly of a single desperate plea: Lord, please get this over with.
And his prayers were answered. The service was concluded swiftly. Sophie was out of the pew like a shot when the postlude began to play. She immediately immersed herself in the crowd made by her large family, moving as far from him as she could get.
He wasn’t a particularly patient man, but he knew she couldn’t avoid him forever, so he allowed her to move ahead of him down the aisle and out of the church. He suffered through the welcomes of other members of the congregation, watching her to be sure she didn’t sneak away, and when he saw her break off and head across the parking lot toward her little car, he went after her.
He was slow. He had refused to bring the cane along this morning because he was well rested, he reasoned, and getting stronger every day, and the doctor had told him to start doing without it from time to time. It was frustrating as hell not to be able to stride across the macadam and catch her at her car door. Instead, he forced himself to move carefully, and by the time he reached her car, she was buckled in and had started the engine.
She saw him coming. But until he walked around to her driver’s door and tapped on the glass, she simply sat there with the windows rolled up. He put a hand on the door latch and then she punched a button, rolling down her window and smiling at him, though it didn’t reach her eyes and he suspected it was only for the benefit of others around them.
“Hello again,” she said. “Thank you for the seat this morning.”
“We have a lot of catching up to do,” he said, ignoring her casual words. “How about dinner tomorrow night?”
But she shook her head. “No, thank you.”
It was a bald, simple response, delivered in a calm, almost flat tone of voice, and he lifted an eyebrow. “Okay, we can make it Tuesday if tomorrow night doesn’t suit.”
Sophie made an impatient sound, lifting her hand to rest on the open windowsill. “Marco, tomorrow night would suit just fine—if I wanted to go out with you. I don’t.”
“Is it because of the baby?”
Her eyebrows rose, and he thought he detected a hint of shock. “Excuse me?”
“We could take it along if you like.” He’d never minded kids, enjoyed them, in fact, and thou
gh he didn’t want to think about his Sophie in the arms of another man, he was intensely curious about her child.
She was frowning slightly, not looking at him. Her thumbs were rubbing back and forth along the edges of her steering wheel, and when he glanced at the small motion, he realized she was gripping the wheel hard enough to make the tips of her fingers white. “I didn’t realize you had a child,” she said.
Now it was his turn to frown. “I don’t.”
She looked at him then, and her gaze was cool and clear again. “Whose baby, exactly, are we discussing, then?”
Marco drummed his fingers against the side of his thigh. “Yours. I don’t mind—”
“I don’t have any children,” she said. Silence lay like a wet towel for a long pause, and he thought she seemed upset. “I don’t know where you got that idea.”
“Your mother,” he said shortly, not particularly liking the feeling of relief that coursed through him. He wanted her, badly, but it wasn’t as if he couldn’t live without her. “She came out the door the other day and asked you about feeding the baby. If it wasn’t yours, then whose was it?”
“Oh, that baby.” Her eyes momentarily softened and he caught a glimpse of something sad in her eyes before she stifled it. “That was a foster child who was waiting for a temporary placement. I’d picked her up the night before and couldn’t place her until later Saturday, so she was stuck with me for a night.”
“Doesn’t sound so bad to me.” At her questioning frown, he added, “Being stuck with you for a night.” He leaned down until their faces were only a foot apart, trying to ignore the relief that had flowed through him when he’d realized she wasn’t a mother. “Have dinner with me, Sophie.”
Her eyes were wide and her full, lush lips slightly parted. She ran her tongue around the edges of them, and her breasts rose and fell with the rhythm of her quickened breathing. The air between them seemed to hum with a powerful current of attraction, and he let his gaze drop to her mouth, lifting a finger to lightly press against her bottom lip.
She quivered for a moment, and he felt a small gasp escape her. Then, just as he was about to lean forward and seal his position with a kiss, she took his hand by the wrist and drew it firmly away from her mouth, all but flinging it out the window. “Thank you for the invitation but I’m not interested.”
Though a lick of something—anger, mixed with a scary dose of panic—shot through him, he forced himself to smile lazily. “You used to be interested,” he said softly. He reached in again and picked up her hand and brushed his thumb back and forth across her palm, trying to read her eyes.
But now she wasn’t giving anything away. Her eyes remained cool, hiding any hint of what she was thinking. “That was a long time ago,” she said. “I’ve grown up since then.”
“Ah, c’mon, Sophie. Just dinner.” He ran his eyes down the length of her body, chuckling when she pulled her hand away. “A little conversation, a little reminiscing...”
“No.” She dropped her guard and shot him a look of such bitterness that he mentally staggered back from the heat, singed by the anger in her eyes. “I’m not interested in being your entertainment when you come to town anymore.”
“It wasn’t like that.” He didn’t care for the way she made his actions sound so ... callous. He’d done it for her, dammit! “You were a lot more to me than just—”
“It’s not important now,” she told him, and the chilly finality in her tone infuriated him even more. “I have a life of my own now, and it doesn’t include you. That was your choice, remember?” And before he could come up with a response, she slipped the car into gear and started forward, forcing him to remove his hand or lose his balance and be dragged along with the vehicle as she drove away from the church without a backward glance.
His youngest sister Teresa was calling his name, and slowly, taking deep, calming breaths, he turned toward her, reaching for a smile though what he really wanted to do was punch something. Hard.
Okay, fine. Sophie didn’t want to go out with him. He could work around that, and he would. He’d figure out another way to get her to accept his presence in her life. She didn’t remember much about him if she thought he was going to give up and go away so easily.
Three
The knock on the door of her apartment startled Sophie.
She was sitting on the floor of her extra bedroom with a year’s worth of photographs spread around her. She always had taken lots of photographs, too many, really, because then she felt compelled to organize them in albums. So she’d spent the evening sorting them into piles of family, friends and work photos, and she was just about to begin the unenviable task of sliding them into sleeves in the appropriate albums when a hard rap at her door had her jerking her head up and pressing a hand to her heart.
Hastily, she rose to her feet and tiptoed through the piles of pictures. It was eight o’clock at night. Who could it be?
She’d had Sunday lunch with her family after church and spent a pleasant hour with the members of her big clan that were present, but around two she’d made her excuses and slipped out, feeling the need for some breathing room.
Maybe she’d forgotten something, she thought, as she put her hand on the knob and pulled the door the small distance it would open with the chain on. Or more likely, Mama had dispatched someone to drop off more food. Like she hadn’t already sent enough—
“Hello, Sophie.”
Marco was standing on her doormat. He was smiling, a crooked grin that reminded her of a little boy who’d been caught red-handed in an act of orneriness. But this was no little boy. He wore a light blue jean shirt tucked into a darker pair of jeans. The shirt emphasized the width of his shoulders, and at its open neck, dark, silky hairs curled out of the vee where the buttons weren’t fastened.
The bottom dropped out of her stomach and landed with a jarring thud deep in her abdomen. Speech deserted her, and she simply stood there staring, trying desperately to keep her eyes on his face and not examine the rest of him the way she had longed to since she’d heard he was home.
“Are you going to invite me in?” His voice was low and amused, and she felt herself flush. He probably knew exactly the effect he had on her. He certainly had at one time.
That thought stiffened her spine, and she cleared her throat. She unbolted the door and pulled it open, but she didn’t move aside to invite him in. “Marco. What are you doing here?”
He smiled again, easily, dimples creasing his cheeks, and a tiny fanwork of lines crinkled the corners of his dark eyes. “Visiting you.”
“I don’t want a visitor,” she said, too shaken to be diplomatic. “Go away.”
But before she could close the door in his face, he’d wedged his broad shoulders against it and pushed inside.
Her pulse sped up and she told herself the only reason she was breathing faster was because she was annoyed. But that didn’t explain the heat building in her belly and radiating down to warm the apex of her thighs.
If only he didn’t look so good, she thought, he’d be easier to resist. The fabric of his shirt looked soft and often washed; it clung to his heavily muscled chest and arms as intimately as she once had. At his lean waist, the jeans were buttoned beneath a dark leather belt. They fit him through the hips, snug and molded to the contours of his body in a manner that reminded her he was all man, and she swallowed as she hastily averted her eyes.
Dismally she glanced down at the oversize T-shirt she wore with the thigh-hugging exercise shorts she’d jogged in two hours ago. It was simple feminine vanity that made her wish she’d showered and put on something decent.
“You haven’t even given me a welcome-home kiss,” he said, his voice reproving as he arched an eyebrow, “and you’re telling me to go away? Sophia Elenora, your mother would be disappointed in you.”
“She’ll have to live with it,” Sophie informed him. “I have no intention of kissing you for any reason.”
Marco shook his head, and his cur
ly dark hair danced at the back of his neck. He’d let it get longer than she’d ever seen it, and she nearly reached out to stroke her fingers through the curls before catching herself. “Could I at least sit down for five minutes before you throw me out?” He grimaced, and suddenly she noticed the cane he’d used the first time she’d seen him.
“You weren’t using that this morning.” She indicated the cane, but she backed up and pointed to the pretty floral couch. He wasn’t staying, she promised herself, giving him a mental boot out the door. Her system couldn’t take his presence.
“I don’t need it all the time anymore,” he said, stiffly lowering himself to the cushions, extending his right leg before him. “Every few days I go without it for a little longer. Eventually I shouldn’t need it at all.”
She closed the door and crossed the room to stand behind the love seat facing him. “I guess now that you’re in, you’ll want a drink. Iced tea, beer, wine?”
“A beer would be great.” His eyes were triumphant now that he’d talked his way into her home, but he was smart enough not to push his luck.
Without another word, she went to the kitchen, taking a beer from the refrigerator and getting an iced mug out of the freezer. With four brothers, she almost always had some beer in the house, though she didn’t drink the stuff herself. Taking down a can of mixed nuts, she poured some into a little china dish, slipped the beer into the mug with just a hint of head frothing at the top, then carried the nuts and the mug back into the living room, plunking them down before Marco and reaching for a coaster on which to set the cold mug.
“So,” she said, resuming her standing position behind the love seat. “Why are you here?”
Lovers' Reunion (Silhouette Treasury 90s) Page 4