by Joan Kilby
“Stay until he comes out and get photos of the two of them together,” he instructed the PI and hung up.
His thumb hovered over the speed dial button for Tina’s number. He got no pleasure out of being right about Fabio or over his sister’s heartbreak. But better she know than not know. Paola had had an affair for over a year and no one had told him. He wouldn’t wish the rage and humiliation he’d felt on his worst enemy, let alone his sister. The sooner Tina was rid of that man, the sooner she could forget him.
But…did he really want to be the bearer of bad news? Already, he was warring with his sister over business. Did he want to add personal issues to their problems? He adored his little sisters and had a special soft spot for Tina because she was closest to him in age and in character.
He didn’t want to see her hurt but neither did he enjoy being the paternal figure all the time. That should have been his father’s role. Or Leo’s in his father’s absence. Giorgio was supposed to be the fun brother. Not the killjoy.
Layla was waiting for him but she, too, was angry with him for interfering and might not be in the mood for romance. Hell, he might not be in the mood after an argument with his sister. And if he was going to provide proof of Fabio’s infidelity it would be better to have photographs, or she would just defend the bastard as she always did.
Slowly, he put his phone down, fighting the feeling he was doing the wrong thing by letting this go even for a night.
Leaving the office, he retraced his steps to Layla’s room. There was no light beneath her door. When he knocked softly there was no answer. Maybe she’d fallen asleep. He tried the handle. Locked. He wasn’t prepared for being barred from her room. He jiggled the handle, fighting a crushing disappointment at not spending the night with her. For long seconds he stared at the door, willing it to open.
When it didn’t, he shook his head and made himself turn away. He would have a night, alone. This was better, in fact. He could get up early and do some work before he took Layla sightseeing. He retraced his steps down the corridor, his feet as heavy as his spirits. At his stateroom he paused, then continued on to the gangway to the outside deck. Fresh air might clear his thoughts.
Chapter Nine
Layla reclined on the daybed on the forward deck, gazing up at the midnight sky strewn with stars. The air was balmy and a soft breeze caressed her bare shoulders and fluttered the hem of her short skirt. She couldn’t ask for a more romantic evening, yet Giorgio was locked in his office making phone calls to private investigators. She could see why his sisters were fed up. He went overboard. She wouldn’t like it if her brother—if he were still alive—had her boyfriend followed.
Or would she? It must be nice to have family that cared so much and who looked after one another. Meddling, interfering, yes, but Giorgio would be there for Tina if it turned out Fabio was cheating on her.
Still, she wished he’d stayed with her. After their hot tryst in the corporate box office and a great time at the football game, she’d been looking forward to another romp in the sack. Tonight he’d let his hair down for the first time since she’d met him. He’d been so cute when his team scored a goal, jumping to his feet for a victory dance, his hips doing that sexy shimmy.
He’d had fun, dammit. Why couldn’t he hold onto that instead of climbing back into his stuffed shirt? It was almost like he’d been afraid of enjoying himself. Or like he punished himself for having a good time by doing penance with more work. Penance. He’d said the word himself. What was that all about?
A sound behind her made her turn. Giorgio padded barefoot across the deck. His white shirt with the sleeves rolled back glowed in the dark, and his soft chinos molded his lean hips as he moved with sexy grace.
“There you are,” he said. “I thought you’d gone to sleep.”
“Couldn’t.” She shifted over to make room and patted the cushion. “The night is too beautiful to waste on sleep.”
He lay down beside her, crooking one arm behind his head, his leg pressed against hers from hip to calf. His warmth seeped into her, and she inhaled his spicy aftershave. Alone, she’d been lulled into a state of relaxation but now her body came tinglingly alive. He rolled toward her and slipped his hand inside the top of her blouse to caress her breast.
She put a hand on his chest and searched his dimly lit face and his dark eyes, glittering in the lights from the harbor. “What happened with Tina?”
He undid her top button. “I didn’t call her.”
Layla breathed out. “I think you’re wise.”
“I’m not so sure, but I’ll leave it for now.” He shifted down a little and put his arm around her, pulling her closer. Then he kissed her, and she was swallowed up in the heat and sensual promise of his mouth moving against hers.
She slid her hand up beneath his shirt to find warm skin and a steady heartbeat that quickened gratifyingly at her touch. A ferry motored past. The yacht rocked gently in its wake, pushing their hips together. Giorgio’s erection nudged her through the fabric of his pants and her skirt. He deepened the intensity of the kiss, stroking harder with his tongue, exploring and teasing ’til heat pooled low in her belly, and her breasts ached with the need for his touch.
He eased back so they could both catch their breath. He touched her face, tracing the angles of her cheekbone. “How much longer do you have in Italy?”
“I leave in four days.”
“So soon.” He lifted her hand to lick the sensitive skin between her fingers, sending tingles down her arms. “We’d better not waste any time.”
He drew her pinkie entirely into his mouth and sucked. She moaned at the erotic sensation. Raising her up, he drew her blouse off over her head and unhooked her bra, releasing her breasts. Then he took a nipple into his mouth, his hand hot on her hip, holding her in place. As if she could go anywhere while he was doing this to her. An electro-magnetic current was running through both of them, connecting them, keeping them locked together.
She undid his buttons, pushing aside his shirt to run her palms down over his hard pecs and rippling abs. He was so hot, so hard, and so very fuckable. He made her wet. He made her ache for him.
But she was also very aware that they were getting naked out on deck in the middle of Naples Bay with other boats not twenty yards away. And two dozen plus crew members on board. “Where is everyone? Leo and Sonia. The crew.”
“In bars, in bed, who knows?” He spoke against her breast while his hands moved on her legs, pushing her skirt up. “No one will see us. No one is looking.” He flung off his shirt, took a square of foil out of his pants pocket before stripping off the pants and his underwear.
Layla drank in the sight of his naked muscles sculpted by shadows and moonlight. He was beautiful in a purely masculine way, like Michelangelo’s David—only better proportioned. She’d only known Giorgio for a short time but she would miss him once she returned to the States. Rising onto her knees, she started to undo her skirt zipper. Her fingers paused as the truth hit her. She may have thought she was having a light-hearted fling but she was seriously falling for him.
“Are you having trouble with that zipper?” He pushed her hands aside. “Allow me. But first, stand up.”
She slid off the daybed with her back to him and waited, with her heart beating fast, for him to undress her. And touch her. Stroke her and kiss her. And slide inside her…
He pulled her hair aside to kiss the spot between her neck and shoulder, his other hand caressing her naked back, dipping in at her waist and slipping around the front to angle lower, over her mound as he pulled her back against his rock hard erection. Clearly he liked this position. So did she.
He began to grind into her, one hand still massaging her between the legs, the other molding to her breasts. Layla’s head dropped back and she moved her butt against him, trapped in exquisite pleasure between his hand and his cock. She moaned as he rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, writhing helplessly, not wanting him to stop but at the same t
ime, wanting to touch him too.
She tried to turn in his arms but he didn’t let her. Instead, he gently but firmly pushed her face down on the low bed and straddled her, his knees either side of her waist and his hand capturing her wrists and holding them above her head. With his other hand, he dragged up her skirt around her waist and tugged her panties down around her knees. His hot, heavy cock nudged at her entrance. She tried to spread her legs for him but was constrained by her undies. The pulse between her legs throbbed, and when she squirmed she could feel the moisture spread.
“Let me get them off,” she panted, struggling to free a hand.
“No,” he growled. He kneaded her buttocks, using his fingers to spread her cheeks, stroking forward to her clit to torment her, all while keeping her legs together between his own. The frustration was killing her, fueling her lust and making her wild to have him inside her.
“Please, Giorgio. I need you inside me…now.” She moaned as his head eased through her outer lips, and his hand came beneath her pelvis to cup her and give him something hard to push against. His legs trapped her, and her swollen core was caught between his dick and his hand, and the friction was turning her on like she’d never felt before.
He pushed further inside her, and she almost sobbed with relief at being stretched and filled. His thighs pressed against her butt cheeks. It felt so good. Then he pulled out, and she stifled a cry. She bucked and thrashed but he only held her tighter. In again, deeper this time but still not deep enough. And out. Squeezing her eyes shut, Layla held her own breast, rolling her nipple. She pushed her pelvis against his hand, hoping the pressure would make her climax and give her relief. Her body was suffused with need and a building urgency, held off by small waves of pleasure that teased and hinted at an orgasm but were only the prelude.
No man she’d ever been with had this kind of control, either over himself or her. He thrust steadily, building her to a frenzy of wanting. She could feel his breath hot and shallow on her neck as he plunged faster and deeper. She pushed her butt back, feeling the slap of him against her with each thrust. Her legs were still closed and his rod moved through her slick folds like a piston. In and out, hard and fast, pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing—
She cried out, swept away on a crescendo of pleasure. Her bones melted, and her veins ran with liquid fire. He kept pumping and another tremor rolled through her, and another. And another. His body was an iron band around and in her. Then he went utterly rigid and shuddered out his own climax with a guttural sound that was as primal as the act they’d just performed. He collapsed, spent, on top of her but holding his weight in his elbows and knees. She was limp, a rag doll, every drop of sensation wrung out of her. Satisfied to the depths of her being. No man had ever made her feel this good, not even close.
She didn’t think she’d ever be able to move again. But somehow she did, wriggling beneath him and turning over to pull him down on top of her, a warm and welcome weight. “If I never have sex again, I will die happy.”
Through half-shut eyelids, Giorgio registered Layla’s blissful expression and smiled. He’d never felt this satiated and fulfilled. Every single muscle in his body felt like warm toffee, relaxed and oozing well being. His brain was barely functioning, lost in a haze of pleasure. Her words came to him as if from a distance, but she’d described exactly how he felt. He turned his head to kiss her on the cheek, chastely and sweetly, with gratitude. He didn’t know what it was about her, but she got to him like no other woman ever had.
He rolled off and pulled her in close to his side, settling her head on his chest and his arm protectively around her waist. He shut his eyes and drifted.
He must have fallen asleep because when he opened his eyes again Layla was pulling a wrap over them both. “Do you want to go below?”
“No,” she said, snuggling up to him. “I like to see the stars. I think it’s cool that the same constellations are in Italy’s skies as are above Seattle.”
“What is your home like? Your family and your friends?” Suddenly he wanted to know all about her. Who she was, where she came from, and where she was going in life.
“Let’s see. I live in an apartment by myself. I’m renting and saving to buy my own place. I don’t have any family, and the friends I had in college have kind of drifted away. I’ve been trying to go out on my own, but it’s hard. I sell my stuff on consignment at a few boutiques around the city including one in Pike Place Market.”
“I went to Pike Place once while in Seattle on a business trip.” He recalled a colorful collection of waterfront shops and a farmer’s market along with restaurants and artisan workshops. “This is where they throw big fish around, no?”
“Si,” she said with a grin. “I can’t believe you’ve been to Seattle. We might have passed each other in the street. When were you there?”
“Two years ago. April, I think.”
“That’s about the time I first placed my lingerie in the boutique in Pike Place. I wonder if we saw each other…”
Her heart-shaped face had a slightly upturned nose with a smattering of freckles. And those big tilted blue eyes could look innocent one second, and sexy the next. He couldn’t imagine walking past her without turning his head for another look, without trying to speak to her, without her image lingering in his imagination. “I would have remembered if I’d seen you before. Do you have a boyfriend?”
“I wouldn’t be sleeping with you if I did,” she huffed. “What kind of woman do you think I am?”
“The kind who would find me so irresistible she would forget every other man she’d ever known.” He smiled to show he was teasing and drew a finger down her breastbone over still damp skin before cupping her breast tenderly. “Why don’t you have a partner? You’re smart, sexy, fun. I’m surprised.”
“I’ve had my share of boyfriends over the years.”
“Anyone serious?”
“There was one guy, Richard. We went together for nearly three years. I broke it off finally because he…” She gave him an odd look, as though she could have said a lot more but for some reason didn’t want to. In a tight voice, she said, “We had irreconcilable differences.”
Then she softened and slipped her arm around his waist and twined her leg with his. “You’re so warm.” Her hand slid over his hip and down his thigh ’til she touched the remnants of the old scar that snaked from his quad around to the back of his knee. “Whatever that accident was it must have been bad.”
Darkness closed in, pressing on his chest. He pulled his leg away. “It’s nothing. The break healed quickly.” Unlike his soul. “Did you always want to be a fashion designer?”
“This doesn’t feel like nothing to me.” She ran her fingers along the ridged flesh. “The bone must have broken the skin. Were you in a car accident?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said shortly. Being in Naples, so close to where his brother died, had brought emotions close to the surface he thought he’d successfully buried. The yacht was his pleasure but also his pain. “Tell me about yourself. How did you get into design?”
She frowned, clearly not happy he was evading. Then she shrugged. “Okay, well, I was in a job where I had to make my own costumes. I loved that part of what I did.”
“Only that part? What was your job?” Giorgio twisted a lock of her hair around his finger and tickled her chin.
“Now that’s something I don’t want to talk about.”
“And so, we find ourselves at a conversational standoff. I guess everyone is entitled to a few secrets.” He let the curl of hair slip away. Layla was only passing through his life. Four days was such a short time.
She tipped his jaw up to gaze into his eyes. “I’ll tell you if you tell me.”
He searched her face. It shouldn’t matter what she thought of him. And yet, somehow it did. “You first.”
She untwined her leg from his and pulled her wrap over the lower half of her body. With an arm draped over her breasts, she laid her he
ad on the cushion. “I worked as a burlesque dancer.”
Burlesque. That accounted for the sexy way she moved. With her luscious curves she would be a natural. But he didn’t like the thought of her dancing in skimpy clothing for other men. And despite burlesque being considered an art form, her tone suggested she’d found something about it distasteful.
“It was only temporary,” Layla said defensively, apparently misinterpreting his silence as disgust. “My foster mom did her best, working two jobs to raise my little brother and me. But there was no money for college, and I was desperate to study clothing design. Burlesque paid a hell of a lot better than waitressing.”
“I’m not blaming you, cara. I’m sure you were an amazing dancer. I’m just sorry if you were forced by circumstances into doing something you didn’t want to.”
She moved her fingernails in light circles over his back. “I loved the sensuality of the dancing and wearing sexy outfits. But I hated it when my boss made it clear I owed him sexual favors in return for giving me a job. That’s when I quit.”
He was filled with a cold possessive fury. “If I had been there, I would have shown him—with my fists, if necessary—how off limits you were.” He kissed her gently at the corners of her eyes and down her cheek to her mouth. “You said foster mom. Didn’t you have parents?”
“I never knew my dad. My mom had mental health issues. She couldn’t cope with Tom and me.” Layla hesitated. “She died a few years back of an overdose.”
“I’m sorry,” Giorgio said. “And your brother?”
“He was shot down by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Two years, five months, and three weeks ago.” She dashed at her eyes with the heel of her hand.
“Again, I’m so sorry.” He stroked her hair, not knowing what to say. She’d lost her whole family. It was unutterably sad. “Do you still see your foster mother?”