“Do it. I will say you handled me. Approached me.”
“What?”
He pointed to his crotch. Improbably, his cock tented his trousers.
She gaped at him.
The devil. He smiled.
“You are insatiable.” She stomped her foot on one of his.
And when he yelped, she lifted a leg high to climb over him.
He caught her thigh and his fingers gripped her while his other hand rose beneath her skirt to plunge into her cunt. “And you are so wet, my little cat, that you want me even when you are mad at me.” His fingers taunted her, teased her, stroked her and her eyes drifted closed with the beauty of his skill.
“Oh god, Sergio. Leave me alone.”
“Never. I want to make you feel good,” he crooned. “You do feel good, don’t you? Hmm?” His fingers whisked over her clit and tugged on a curl of her pussy hair. “I think you feel very good, bella.”
On a cry, she surged away from him. But where could she run?
There were no options. Only the next car, the dining car.
She went for it. She was stepping into the luggage area, ready to stride beyond the precariously wobbling bags piled high into the connecting doors when Sergio caught her arm and turned her to him.
As if she weighed two pounds, he maneuvered her back to the wall and pressed himself flush against her. “I have been mad to find you, darling.”
She knew from experience it would be a waste of her energy to push at him. He was so much stronger, especially when enraged or denied.
She wilted against the wall in surrender.
His grip eased.
Over his shoulder, she saw her one chance to foil him. She stared at the approaching conductor and with ice in her voice, she complained, “Signore, per favore, this man is annoying me.”
The man did not understand her words but her tone he got. In ripe and harsh Italian, he told Sergio to leave her alone. And by his gestures, he insisted that Sergio move back to his seat. There was some exchange of angry words but Sergio complied.
“You will not go without listening to me, Regina.”
No? Watch me. She whirled, entered the dining car and found it filled with only one seat vacant at a table for four. She asked in English if she might join them, and when the waiter came, she ordered a plate of cheese and bread that she had no appetite for. Instead, she contemplated how to escape him.
Her one chance was to be faster than he to disembark. She’d jump from the steps the first chance she got. From what she remembered about the Rome Train Station, the quays were wide and the numbers of passengers were always huge. She could lose herself in the crowd and if she was quick about it all, she could move on to her next train to Fiumencino and a plane home to New York—and Sergio would never catch her.
The train chugged to a halt. She clutched her purse, became first in line to exit the door and when the train stopped, she jumped from the second step, sprinting for the inside of the station. Don’t look back, Reggie. The man is an opportunist, trying to learn my techniques and then trying to make a television show using them. Without me! What arrogance. What gall to take me for a fool. To fuck me silly and…
For me to let him.
Instantly crowds closed around her and she charged ahead, elbowing her way forward. Her first refuge was a ladies’ room. Putting on foundation and lipstick and a bit of mascara, she combed her hair and felt fairly human again.
She emerged, glanced furtively around her and discovered a little dress shop two doors down. Finding a large straw sunbonnet and a shapeless oversized dress was easier. Within minutes she was newly attired and out again into the main station. But she needed one more item and she ducked into another shop to buy a pair of huge sunglasses. Safe in her camouflage, she strode toward her next quay to take the commuter train the few miles to the main airport—and a flight home to the States.
Telling herself to not look around, not look anywhere but forward, she headed for the ramp to her train. But there was a commotion ahead of her and the entrance to the quay was closed. Stretching up to see if she might squeeze past the throng of those yelling at someone, she decided to go for it. If she missed her train, then she would have less time to find an empty seat on any of today’s flights home. She was tired and ragged enough as it was. So she pushed against the throng.
Weaving in and out, she managed to reach the front of the group—and there was a tall, dark, dashing man telling a group of paparazzi a tale that had all of them smiling and applauding and snapping dozens of pictures of him.
Sergio?
Good god. It is!
She stumbled backward. What was he doing? Whatever it was, it involved her, she was certain. And she was not, not, not participating.
And at that moment, his onyx eyes found hers.
“There she is!” Sergio climbed up on a chair. And pointed at her too.
She stepped to one side.. Tripped on someone’s foot. Someone righted her.
“Don’t let her go!” Sergio yelled at those around her. “I need to talk to her!” He spoke in English followed by Italian, and she was certain he was enjoying himself thoroughly knowing she could understand him. The dog.
She spun away. “Let me through,” she commanded.
“No!” Sergio yelled.
Two carabineri, one on either side of her, grabbed her arms. “Signorina.” The police chirped in crisp Italian something that she could bet meant “Come with us”.
“No.” She tugged at them.
They did not comply. Instead they practically lifted her in the air as they frog-marched her toward Sergio, who still stood on his chair, smiling and nodding and clapping.
And when the two policemen stood her before him, his expression changed to one of compassion as he called her, “My darling. It was the only way I could find you. Stop you. Listen to me.”
Those around him yelled and screamed phrases that amazingly made her furious or curious. Sergio not only tolerated it, he loved it. This is the man who avoided crowds and paparazzi like a plague?
She frowned at him. Two paparazzi nudged each other to take pictures of her. “What the hell are you up to, Sergio?”
“I have come to tell you, mia dolce, that what you overhead—”
“About the television show. My television show.” She crossed her arms. The carabineri did not let her go. “You came to New York to—”
“To meet you! Talk with you! Negotiate with you.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. “To seduce me!”
“My queen, your anger makes you speak this lie.”
His soft words made her tremble.
“Regina, bella, I loved your cooking and I wanted to fund a new cable TV show here in Europe and in America. I knew you were Sandy’s aunt, she raved about you so. And I had heard from her that you were, in person, lovelier than the picture on your book cover. I wanted to meet you. To taste your cooking. To see how you walk, how you talk. To imagine how you would be on the screen. I did not plan to see how you would look in my b—”
“No?” She bristled. “You planned to use sex to persuade me—to seduce me—so that the show would advertise your foods.”
The crowd knew the English word seduce—and ahhed and oooed.
“No less than you planned to have me, bella.”
That was true and Reggie bit her lip.
“Sandy’s wedding was the perfect opportunity.” His voice dropped to a velvet caress. “How could I know that you would be so delicious?”
The crowd knew that last English word too. Another crow of delight swept through them.
She yanked at her captors. “And so easy too, eh?”
“Easy to love,” he affirmed.
She stared at him. No, do not be foolish, Reggie. “You cannot just say that.”
“I can, Regina. I love you.”
“Ahhhhhhhhhhh,” the crowd sighed in vocal bliss. Others kissed their fingertips.
Sergio, who stood on his chair above her, look
ed down at her like some medieval lord who had found a wandering subject he adored.
“You love me?” She was half mad with longing for him, half mad at his insistence to stand on the damn chair so very far away.
“I do. I did not plan before I met you to take you to bed.”
The crowd cooed over that, so clearly some knew English.
Sergio said, “Look at me, sweet. I should have told you, but each hour I grew more afraid you would think I had planned it all. I never did. But I saw you, and like you, my instinct said to me this woman is the one you need. The one you must have. And so it was. I could not believe my good fortune.”
He climbed down from his perch and wrapped her stiff body in his arms. “You love me too. I know you do.”
She could not move. She was so shocked, so slow to understand his words. She shook her head. “And this is the reason too that you asked me if my husband had ever asked something of me I could not give?”
“Si. I feared that what I asked of you, I could never untangle from how we had met and the speed of how we loved each other. Say you love me,” he hugged her close. “I need to hear that.”
She kissed him quickly. “I adore you.”
Sergio grinned ear to ear. “I adore you, bella.”
The crowd went wild with glee. Their cheers permeated her cold despair as the papparazzi’s cameras clicked and she clutched Sergio to her, welcoming his warm hard body against hers once more.
“I want you to marry me,” he whispered against her mouth. “Today. Soon so that we are never parted for all the rest of our days.”
She blinked away her tears, her fears. Was she dreaming that this man could be hers? Forever? “Where will we live?”
“Wherever you want.”
“Just…like that?”
“Si, my love.”
“But your businesses. Your castello. Your staff.”
“Wherever I am, is where my businesses are.” He pressed her to his hot, lithe body. “But wherever you are, is where my love is.”
She threw her arms around his neck and planted a big kiss on his smiling mouth. “In that case, Signore Avanti, I have one more question.”
He hugged her close. “Si, mia dolce, what?”
“What would you like for dinner?”
“You, my sweet. Only you.”
About the Author
An award-winning author of more than two dozen romances and mysteries, Cerise DeLand creates heroes readers crave. Cerise has met many men in her worldwide travels and created the best of the best from all the wonderful places she’s lived and visited. Today, she lives—and writes—in wild west Texas, where a never-ending stream of cowboys, vaqueros, para-military types and diplomats stroll into town and fuel her imagination for red hot affairs.
Cerise welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and e-mail address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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