by Lucy Monroe
“Is it that, or is that you wish to return and keep your liaison with David?” Unbelievably, Luciano sounded jealous.
“I’ve already told you, I have no intention of sharing David’s room tonight.” She spoke slowly and through gritted teeth. “But if I did, it wouldn’t be any of your business,” she added for good measure.
“You can say this after the way you allowed me to touch you not an hour ago?” Outrage vibrated off of him.
Wasn’t that just like an arrogant guy used to getting his own way? He’d done the kissing and now held her accountable for it. “I didn’t let you touch me. You just did it.”
“You did not protest.” He was six feet, four inches of offended masculine pride. “You were with me all the way.”
Heat scorched into her cheeks at the reminder. “A gentleman would not rub my face in it.”
“A lady would not go from one man’s arms to the bed of another.”
She jumped up from her chair, so furious, she could barely speak. “Are you saying I’m some sort of tramp because I let you kiss me?”
He rose to tower over her. “I am saying I will not tolerate you returning to this David’s company now that you belong to me.”
“I don’t belong to you!”
“You do and you will stay here with me.”
CHAPTER FIVE
SHE couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
She knew about the possessive streak in the Italian temperament, but to say she belonged to him just because they’d kissed was ludicrous. Not only was it ridiculous, it was inconsistent as anything. He certainly hadn’t been singing that tune New Year’s Eve.
“Then why didn’t I belong to you six months ago? Why did you leave and not come back? I’ll tell you why,” she went on before he had a chance to answer, “because those kisses meant no more to you than eating a chocolate bar. You found them pleasant, but not enough to buy the candy store.”
“You expected marriage after one kiss?” His derision hit her on the raw.
“You’re deliberately misunderstanding me. I didn’t say anything of the kind. You’re the one who has been rabbiting on about me belonging to you because of an inconsequential kiss.”
“Hardly inconsequential. I could have had you and you would not have murmured so much as a protest.”
Oh. She wanted to scream. “No doubt your skills in the area of seduction are stellar, but what does that signify? With my limited experience in the area, any man with a halfway decent knowledge of a woman’s reactions could have affected me just as strongly.”
She didn’t believe it for a minute, but Luciano’s conceit was staggering. His assertion she would not have protested him taking her to bed might be true, but it was also demeaning.
“You think this?” he demanded, his eyes terrifying in their feral intensity. “Perhaps you intend to experiment with this friend of yours, this David?”
A tactical retreat was called for. “No. I don’t want to experiment with anybody, including you.”
He didn’t look even remotely appeased by her denial.
Good judgment required she not dwell on this particular argument. “I am merely trying to point out that kissing me didn’t give you any rights over me. If all the women you kissed belonged to you, you’d have a bigger harem than any Arabian prince in history.”
Instead of looking insulted by her indictment of his character, he appeared pleased by her assessment of his masculinity. The fury in his expression faded. “You are different than the other women I have known.”
“Known being a discreet euphemism, I assume?” She thought of all the beautiful women he had been photographed with for scandal rags and society pages. It left a hollow place where her heart should have been beating and it made her doubly determined to deny him any claim to her loyalty. “Only you haven’t known me and I don’t belong to you.”
“This crudeness is not becoming.”
She couldn’t deny it. Crude was not her style and she’d probably blush with embarrassment later, but right now she was fighting the effect he had on her with every weapon at her disposal. “Neither is a dogin-the-manger possessiveness.”
“What is this canine in a stable?”
She stared at him. Canine in a stable? Suddenly the humor of the situation overcame her. She started to laugh. Here she was arguing with Cool himself that he didn’t have any hold on her when she wanted more than anything for him to claim her as his own. She was nuts, but then so was he. And his perfect English had a few flaws.
“You find me amusing?” He didn’t look happy about the possibility.
She grabbed at her self-control and reined in her laughter, humor that had taken on a slightly hysterical twinge. “It’s not you. It’s this situation. Don’t you think it’s funny that you’re standing here asserting rights over me you can’t possibly want?”
“If I assert them, I want them,” was his arrogant rejoinder.
All the humor fled, hysterical or otherwise, and she swallowed the words that would beg him to repeat what he’d just said. He simply could not mean it the way she wanted him to.
“This isn’t about me. This is about David and your reaction to him. You acted like two dogs fighting over a bone back at the Parthenon. Now, you are trying to bury the bone, not because you really want it, but because you don’t want him to have it. Well, I’m not going to stay buried just to please your sense of male superiority.”
She’d spent most of her life in the background and she was tired of it. Why the realization should come now, she didn’t know and she didn’t care. Luciano didn’t really want her. He wanted to one-up David. She wasn’t entirely sure about David’s motives, but that wasn’t the issue. The issue was her life and what she was going to do with it.
The simple answer was live it.
On her terms.
Starting now.
“I’m going back to my hotel. You can have your chauffeur drive me or I can catch a cab, but I’m ready to leave.”
Her determination must have gotten through to him because his jaw tightened, but he nodded. “I will return you to your hotel.”
“There is no need for you to accompany me.”
“There is every need,” he growled.
Since she was getting her way about leaving, she decided not to argue about this. If he wanted to waste his time riding in the limo with her to see her to her hotel, then let him. She was also through trying to protect everyone but herself from being put upon.
The ride back to her hotel happened in silence. Luciano was too angry to talk without giving away the state of his emotions and no way was he going to allow her to know the extent of her effect on him. Shy she might be. Innocent sexually, even. But still she was a woman and emotions were the weapons of choice for the female of the species.
He could not believe the turn the evening had taken. He had thought after their kiss, she would recognize his claim on her. Her assertion that she did not belong to him had both shocked and enraged him. His quiet little kitten had claws and an independence he would not have suspected.
He needed to rethink his campaign. The time limit her grandfather had set was fast approaching. He had to get her agreement soon in order to have sufficient weeks to plan a Sicilian wedding. Anything less would hurt Mamma.
Hope reached out to open the door the minute the car stopped. Luciano allowed her to exit the car without protest, but he followed her.
She turned, her pansy eyes widening when she realized he was right behind her rather than seated safely in the car. She would not get rid of him so easily.
She put her hand out. “Thank you for an interesting evening. The food was wonderful and you could charge admission on the view from your terrace.”
She said nothing about the company and he felt the urge to smile at her spirit in spite of his anger.
He took her hand, but instead of shaking it, used it to pull her into his body, so he could walk her inside. “I will take you to your room.”
Her small body was stiff in his hold. “I won’t argue because it won’t do me any good to tell you I would rather walk alone.”
His lips twisted wryly. “You have said it.”
“And it didn’t do me any good.”
“I would be a poor escort if I did not see you to your door.”
“Cro-Magnon man has nothing on you for primitive.”
“Good manners are the mark of civilization, not the lack of it.”
Her response to that was a disdainful sound that could only be described as a snort.
He led her into the elevator, not displeased by the lack of other guests in the small space. He had indicated to his security team that they should wait outside, so no one was with them to witness her obvious irritation. She was staying on the fourth floor and the ride up in the elevator was charged with silence.
As the doors slid open, he asked, “Which room?”
“Four-twenty-two.” She pointed the way with a flick of her hand.
As they walked to her door, he noticed another one further along the hall opening. Blond hair above glowering masculine features identified the spying neighbor as David, the man from Texas. Hope might not accept Luciano’s possession, but he was determined that David would recognize the fact of it.
He pulled her to a stop just inside the door and turned her to face him.
“Good night,” she said in an obvious attempt at dismissal.
“Buona notte,” he replied as his head lowered toward hers.
He watched as her eyes widened and her mouth opened to protest, but his lips prevented the words from expelling. Taking advantage of her open mouth, he slid his tongue inside to taste the sweetness he had quickly learned to crave.
She blinked, her violet eyes darkening even as she tried to push away from him. He moved his hands down her back, pressing one against her ribs and using the other to cup her behind. Her eyes went unfocused and then slid shut as she surrendered to his touch. He kissed her with the intent of claiming her body even if her mind denied the truth of his possession.
He kissed her until he heard a distinct American curse and a slamming door. He kissed her until her body was totally pliant against him and her mouth moved in innocent arousal against his own.
He was tempted to push her back two feet, shut the door and make love to her until she agreed to marry him. He sensed, though, that she would be ashamed afterward, that it would hurt her to be won by such means.
He did not want to hurt her. She was not part of her grandfather’s scheme. He was sure of it now.
He would treat her with the respect the future mother of his children deserved.
It was harder than anything he had done since burying his father, but he gently disengaged their bodies and set her away from him.
Her eyes opened. “What…”
He smiled and touched her lips with his forefinger. “You belong to me. Your body knows it and soon your mind will accept it as well.”
“What about my heart?” she whispered, her expression dazed.
“It is only right for a woman to love her husband.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Husband?”
Now would be a good time for a strategic withdrawal. “Si. Husband. Think about it, tesoro.”
He waited to hear the bolt slide home before he left.
As he walked by the door that had opened earlier, he thought a few words with the young Romeo would not go amiss.
Think about it.
Hope shoved her suitcase closed and zipped it shut with undue force.
The fiend.
That was all she’d been doing since last night.
He’d kissed her until her hard-won composure had melted in the heat of their mutual desire. Then he’d pushed her away and left, but not before making the disturbing announcement he intended to marry her. Well, he hadn’t actually said that. He’d said a wife should love her husband, but they’d been talking about him and her, so didn’t it follow he meant he was thinking of her as his wife?
Only what if he hadn’t? What if she was reading all sorts of things into a comment he’d meant in jest. He’d admitted on New Year’s Eve that his jokes didn’t always come off right.
But she could have sworn he wasn’t joking. What if he had meant it? Luciano di Valerio her husband. The mind boggled. Could she survive marriage to such a devastating man? She’d decided to stop living in the shadows, but she hadn’t considered a move so close to the burning power of the sun.
What was that saying about being careful what you wished for? She’d been dreaming of Luciano for the past five years, but she had never considered those dreams could become a reality. They had been safe, a way for her to allay her loneliness. Luciano in the flesh was not safe, as he’d proven each time he had kissed her.
She lost her soul when they kissed. Or found it. Either way, they terrified her—these feelings he could evoke.
And for all his tolerance toward his sister’s desire to go to university in America, he was still a traditional Sicilian male in many ways. Look how he had reacted to David holding her hand. While she was a modern, if slightly introverted, American woman. How could a marriage between them work?
She was too independent to accept the longestablished role of the Sicilian wife. He was too bossy not to interfere in her life in ways that would no doubt infuriate her.
It was crazy.
She pulled her suitcase off the bed and left it outside the room for the porter to pick up and add to the tour’s luggage on the bus.
Contemplating marriage with Luciano was an exercise in futility. He was probably already regretting the kisses they’d shared and the implications he had made.
She walked into the hotel dining room and seeing David at a table by the window, she went toward him. They’d been sharing breakfast since the second day of the tour, sometimes a` deux and other times joined by their fellow tour members. This morning, he was sitting alone at a table for four.
She slid into the seat opposite him. “Good morning.”
He looked up from the paper he’d been reading, The Dallas Morning News. He had it special delivered because he said he couldn’t stand too many days without news from back home.
His usually mobile face remained impassive. “Is it?”
He was still angry about her choosing to go with Luciano instead of him the night before. “Did you end up going back to the Psiri?” she asked with a tentative smile.
“What’s it to you if I did?”
She started at the belligerence in his voice. “I think I’ll order my breakfast.” She signaled for the waiter.
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” What was the matter with him this morning?
“Your boyfriend might take offense to you eating breakfast with me.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“That’s not the way it looked last night.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry if you were disappointed I didn’t have dinner with you last night, but you shouldn’t have taken for granted that you could schedule my time.”
“I realize that now.”
Good. At least that had worked out from last night’s fiasco. She smiled. “No harm done.”
“Not for you. It must be nice having two men fighting for your attention, but personally I think your ploy was juvenile.”
“What ploy?” she demanded, getting irritated by his continued innuendo that she did not understand.
“You should have told me you belonged to someone else. You let me think you were unattached.”
“I am unattached.” Did all men think in terms of belonging? Perhaps only the strong, arrogant ones. “Furthermore, this is the twenty-first century for heaven’s sake. I belong to myself, thank you very much.”
David snorted at that. “Not according to your Italian boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she gritted out between clenched teeth.
“Right. That’s why you went wi
th him last night instead of having dinner with me.”
She wasn’t going to admit she’d been virtually kidnapped after making her grand declaration about eating alone. It made her seem feeble and she wasn’t, but she had been outflanked.
“Are you saying that my having dinner with a man automatically makes him my boyfriend?” He was more medieval than Luciano.
“It was a hell of lot more than dinner from where I stood.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I was in my room when you returned to the hotel last night.”
“So?”
“I saw him kiss you. Afterward he paid me a visit and told me in very clear terms just whose woman you are.” Anger and wounded pride vibrated in David’s voice.
“He had no right to do that.” More importantly though was why had he? She could not wrap her mind around the concept of Luciano being so possessive of her.
David’s blue eyes narrowed. “He had his hand on your butt and his tongue down your throat. If he’s not your boyfriend, what does that make you?”
The offensive description of Luciano’s passionate good-night kiss shocked her. Up until the night before, David had been an affable and rather mild companion.
“What exactly are you implying?”
David tossed the paper on the table and stood up. “You let him paw you in a public hallway and you’ve never even given me the green light to kiss you good-night. You figure it out.”
She watched David walk away feeling both grief and anger. It hurt that David was willing to dismiss their friendship so easily, but his implication that she lacked morals really rankled. She was an anachronistic virgin in a world of sexual gluttony, for goodness’ sake. She did not sleep around.
Had Luciano been right in his assessment of David’s motives? David had not reacted as a simple friend to the events of last night. Had he been angling to share her bed?
It wouldn’t be the first such relationship to develop in their tour group, but she would have considered herself the least likely candidate for one. She didn’t have any experience with men wanting her.
David certainly seemed offended this morning that she’d allowed Luciano to kiss her last night, but she still could not quite believe it was about David wanting her. More likely it was that dog fighting over a bone thing again.