by Lucy Gordon;Sarah Morgan;Robyn Donald;Lucy Monroe;Lee Wilkinson;Kate Walker
The door to her boss’s apartment slammed open. Salvatore leapt toward it. In that same moment, two men wearing grotesque carnival-style masks came bursting through the front door.
The deadly-looking gun in the hands of the man coming in through the back entrance was more terrifying than the hideous images on the masks of the other men.
In a blur of movement, Salvatore landed a kick against the one with the gun, sending him back through the doorway.
The other men rushed him and he shouted at her, “Get in the vault, and shut it.”
She ran for the vault, but she wasn’t shutting that big steel door with Salvatore on the outside.
He managed to send both men to the floor, stunning them. She could see through the crack of the door to Signor di Adamo’s apartment though and the gunman was already getting up. Another black shape moved and she realized the gunman was not alone.
“Salvatore!”
He heard her scream and spun around.
She waved frantically at him. “There are more! Come on.”
“I can handle it. Close the door, cara. Now.”
“No. Not without you.”
Salvatore swore.
His eyes flicked to the men on the floor. One of them started moving.
Frantic with fear for his safety, she screamed, “Salvatore, come on!” Then, instinctively knowing he would not put her at risk, she repeated her earlier warning. “I’m not shutting this door with you on the outside!” She took a step outside the vault to prove to him she meant what she said.
He said a word she’d never heard him use, even in the throes of passion. Then he kicked the door to the apartment with one powerful thrust of his leg, sending the men behind it staggering into each other. Almost simultaneously, he spun on his heel and ran toward her.
Shoving her completely into the vault, but remaining on the outside, he went to shut the door. She cried out in rejection of that move and grabbed his arm, her grip so tight he’d have to hurt her to break the hold.
Gunshots sounded and the wall beside the vault exploded in a shower of plaster and splintered wood.
Cursing again, he pushed inside the vault and, yanking the heavy door shut, he immediately spun the locking mechanism into place. The sound of heavy bolts shifting was accompanied by more gunfire, but none of the bullets penetrated the one-foot-thick door to the vault.
Soon, even the sound of the gunshots faded as the door sealed completely. She pressed the button for the emergency light and was relieved when the low-level glow penetrated the absolute darkness of the vault.
Salvatore yanked out his cell phone and swore. “No signal.”
“It’s a thick vault, but someone will have heard the gunshots and called the police.” More than one person no doubt. Gunshots were not the usual evening sounds in the small town.
“Sì.” He turned to her, his eyes accusing. “Damn it, Elisa, why did you disobey me?”
Typical arrogant, macho male. “Even you aren’t impervious to a bullet, Salvatore. They could have killed you.” Just the thought had her teeth chattering in shock. “Why didn’t you come to the vault immediately?” Tears clogged her throat and burned her eyes. “You could have been shot.” His expression was unreadable. “And this would have bothered you?”
How could he ask such a stupid question? “Ye-es.” Her voice broke and the word ended up a terror-filled wail.
He shook his head and pulled her into his arms with tender savagery. “I am fine. This is what I am trained to do, no?”
“You m-mean y-you risk your life like th-this all the time?” she stuttered out past the tears. It was an aspect of his business that had never sunk in before, disturbing her when it should not matter at all.
She knew what he was, but to her he had always been the suave tycoon, not the dangerous security expert that could send three men flying in seconds.
“I own the company, amore.”
“But you’re trained for this.” Her voice ached with accusation and fear of what that meant.
He smiled cynically. “It is a rare thing for me to act as a bodyguard.”
She gripped the lapels of his suit jacket. “How rare?”
“This is the first time.”
“So, as a favor to your father’s best friend, you put your life at risk.” How stupid. “You could have let another man guard me…a regular bodyguard.” Someone used to risking his life for the client, someone who was not the man she had once loved.
He tucked her against his body, her head fitting perfectly into the hollow below his chin. “I would have allowed no other man to protect you.”
And she even understood why. “Because you feel guilty.”
“And should I not feel this?”
The confirmation acted like freezing water poured over the small spark of hope that had begun to ignite inside her that he felt something real for her after all.
She didn’t want his guilt. She had tried to convince herself she didn’t want anything from him in the way of emotion, but the stress of being shot at, having him shot at, realizing that they both could have been killed, all of it came together to decimate her defenses.
His hands moved on her back, soothing her, pressing her into his body.
And what she felt then scandalized her. “You’re turned on!”
“It has been a long time for me. Having you near…” He shrugged. “Besides, it has been long known that danger is an aphrodisiac. Ignore it, and I will manfully try to do so as well.”
She tilted her head back and looked into eyes that burned black in the dim light. “That would be a first.” She meant to say it lightly, in an attempt to relieve some of the pressure building between them, but her words came out husky and inviting.
His nostrils flared and his jaw clenched. “This is very true. I do not resist you well, cara.”
She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. Her body was responding to him just as it used to. Her breasts ached for his touch. Of their own volition, her legs separated slightly.
He groaned. “You do not make it easy.”
“What?” She couldn’t think what they were talking about. A fire of need was whooshing through her body, leaving sensitized nerve endings and painful longings in its wake.
He muttered something and lowered his head, his lips covering hers with blatant passion and possession.
Chapter Five
SHE had no thought of refusing him.
Not in that moment when the past did not matter. Too much had happened in the present. Later it would all matter again, but not now.
Her mouth parted and he took immediate advantage, deepening the kiss, sliding his tongue against hers. Tasting her, letting her taste him.
Her body arched toward him.
It had been so long.
Hands curling around his neck, she reveled in the intimacy of his kiss…his touch.
He cupped her bottom, kneading her flesh and letting his fingers slide dangerously close to the apex of her thighs.
She moaned.
“Sì, amorino. That is right.” His lips moved against hers in affirmation, exciting her even more as his breath teased her lips. The kiss grew voracious, desires long denied exploding between them with the power of a pyrotechnic display.
She sucked his bottom lip into her mouth and bit lightly.
Suddenly she was being lifted and they were moving. He stopped when she was against the cold metal wall of the vault. The fact that she could feel the chill on the backs of her thighs only registered in her periphery. He’d pulled her skirt up and left her bottom half exposed to his wandering hands, but she didn’t care.
All she wanted was to feel his skin against hers. She scrabbled for the buttons on his shirt, undoing them with more haste than finesse. Her dress came off and they were flesh to flesh with her breasts nestled into the fine curls of hair on his chest.
“I want you, dolcezza.”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t—his lips were pressed against hers
with passionate intensity—but she wanted him too.
Then he was kissing her neck. “Sweet, so sweet…”
And for no reason she could fathom, those words, words he had spoken so many times when they had made love before, woke other memories. Pain she had thought anesthetized for this brief span of time sliced through her, annihilating her ardor and leaving her trembling with dark emotions, not desire.
Her head fell back against the wall, her hands immobile against him. “I’m so sweet you thought I tried to land you with another man’s child.”
“Do not think of this now.” He sounded desperate.
No doubt he was. Salvatore was more than a little oversexed and there was no denying he wanted her. Not with the bulge of his erection pressing so hard against her stomach.
“I can’t stop thinking of it,” she whispered, her own despair trimming her voice to almost nothing.
His groan was primal man deprived of his mate. “Not now, Elisa. Let us speak of this later.”
“We don’t have a later.”
He went completely still. The silence screamed between them. He stepped back, letting her stand on her own, and dropped his hands away from her. “You are wrong about this. We have a past. We have a present.” He emphasized each point with one hand slicing down toward the other. “And the future will see us together as well.”
“I won’t have another affair with you.” Even he had to have more sensitivity than that.
“I want you for my wife.”
One year ago those words would have thrilled her to bits. Now they were more like backhanded blows than the declaration she had once longed for.
“So only marriage will assuage your Sicilian guilt.” She shook her head hard enough to make her dizzy. “Forget it.”
He would have to find his personal absolution someplace else. It would not happen in marriage to her.
“You wanted to marry me once.”
“I didn’t—”
His hand covered her mouth, the touch gentle despite the tension vibrating off of him. “Do not lie. You wanted this, or you would not have told me about the baby, no?”
“A man deserves to know when he is going to become a father.”
“And what did you expect?” His hand slid down to cup her neck. “You expected me to do the honorable thing, to offer marriage. Why not? We were already lovers. Our families are close. What could be more natural?”
Having him repeat all the beliefs that had once gone through her head added another subtle element to the mixture of sorrow inside of her.
“That was then. This is now.”
He sighed and stooped down to retrieve her shift dress from the floor. “Here, put this on.” His eyes went over her like two hands. “If you do not, we will both probably regret the consequences.”
She took the pile of rust-brown fabric with a trembling hand and then slipped it over her head. Once she had it on, she did not feel appreciably less vulnerable.
The ease with which he had taken it off haunted her.
How could she want this man who had hurt her so much?
What was she, some kind of masochist?
He shrugged off his jacket and left his shirt unbuttoned. He hadn’t been wearing a tie.
While fresh air piped into the vault in case of just such an emergency, the air-conditioning was minimal. It was not stifling, but it was not comfortably cool either and there was some justification for him leaving the shirt undone. That did not make it any easier for her to deal with all that sexy male muscle on display.
Ignoring him and his half-naked appearance, she staggered to the back of the vault. Her legs were still shaky from her close brush with death and lovemaking.
She stepped into a commode the size of an airplane bathroom that had been walled off in one corner of the vault, complete with a bi-fold door for privacy. Pushing the door closed, she leaned against it. After several deep breaths she leaned over the tiny sink and splashed cold water onto her face.
There was no mirror, but she could feel her hair falling down around her face. She pulled out the combs holding it in a now lopsided bun and fingercombed it. She left it down, knowing there was no chance she could get it back into a tidy up-do without a mirror or comb.
Taking a deep breath, she pulled the bi-fold open.
He was standing just on the other side.
Waiting.
She sidestepped him. “It’s free if you need it.”
“When I was eighteen years old, I had a girlfriend.”
“That’s not exactly breaking news, Salvatore. Women flock to you like bees to honey.”
He didn’t respond to her sarcastic jibe. “Her name was Sofia Pennini. She was beautiful. She was sexy and she was experienced. She was also four years older than I was.”
His opening up like this so shocked her that she found herself stopping in front of him and listening with more attention than she’d been willing to give him in a year.
Muscles in his jaw corded with tension. “She seduced me the second time we went out.”
Elisa’s snort of disbelief came as no surprise to Salvatore. In their relationship, he had done all the seducing.
He shrugged in acknowledgement of her skepticism. “I had spent my teenage years surrounded by males. The training I received was accompanied by an austere life that did not include exposure to a woman’s sophisticated wiles.”
“You’ve certainly made up for it since then.”
“I can do without the commentary. I am trying to tell you something.” And he did not like sharing this memory with her. It made him a fool, but she deserved to know the truth. “When I met Sofia I thought I knew the score, but the truth was I was a babe in arms compared to her. She knocked me sideways with lust. I could not get enough of her.”
Elisa huffed out a breath and glared at him. “I’m supposed to want to hear this?”
This evidence of jealousy gave him a small seed of hope. “It is important, for what I experienced with her had a great deal to do with how I reacted to you last year.”
Sexy lips firmed in a grim line, she nodded. “Go on.”
“We had been sleeping together for about six weeks when she told me she was pregnant with my baby.”
“I bet you believed her.”
He refused to be baited by the sarcasm. “I did.”
Elisa’s mouth dropped open and then it snapped shut and her eyes shot messages of murder and mayhem at him. “I guess her father never told you she was a tramp.”
“Your father did not call you such a name.” He deeply regretted telling Elisa what her father had said at all. It had hurt her and that only added more weight to the guilt he carried regarding her.
“Whatever. You were telling me about this pannini person.”
“Not pannini, Pennini.” He felt his lips curve at her sarcastic wit. “She is not a loaf of bread, cara.”
“She’s not your ex-wife either. You’ve never been married.”
Remembered humiliation made him frown. “No. She is not my ex-wife. I planned to marry her though.”
“Lucky her.”
He shrugged, feeling uncomfortable all of a sudden. “She thought so. My family is rich. I am my father’s only heir. Already I was being groomed to take over the business.”
“What are you saying, that she tricked you?” Again Elisa sounded disbelieving. “I suppose that baby wasn’t yours either.”
“Exactly.”
Suspicion narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Sì. Very sure. My father, he was furious when I told him I intended to marry this girl. He threatened to cut me off, but I did not care.”
“He didn’t want you to marry the mother of your baby? That doesn’t sound very Sicilian.”
“He did not believe the baby was mine.”
“So it’s hereditary.”
He wanted to touch her so badly, to once again kiss her and wipe that look of distrust and antipathy off her face, but he knew she would not accep
t it. “My father was right.”
Elisa’s arms crossed under her very lovely breasts. “Sure he was.”
“He investigated her and discovered she had been sleeping with another man, who happened to be ten years her senior and married, only a week before she and I became lovers.”
“That doesn’t mean the baby wasn’t yours.”
Too tense to remain motionless, he paced to the other side of the vault. “No, it does not, but the blood tests done during her pregnancy did.”
“Blood tests?” Her voice sounded close and he turned.
She was standing right behind him, having followed him the few feet across the vault.
“She had to have an amniocentesis. I do not even know why, but my father got hold of the results. The baby’s blood type was neither hers nor mine.”
“And he told you.”
“On the night before I planned to elope with her and marry against my father’s advice.”
“What did she do when you confronted her?”
Elisa knew him well. “She cried. She was desperate. The father refused to leave his wife for her. Sofia’s family were angry and threatening to disown her.”
“She must have been terrified.” The sound of compassion in Elisa’s voice reminded him how gentle her heart was.
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I gave her money to begin life over somewhere else.” He had been unable to just walk away.
“What happened to her?” She rolled her eyes when he didn’t answer. “Come on. I know you didn’t just dump her like that.”
“I dumped you.” It was a shameful truth he would have to live with for the rest of his life.
Even the dim light could not disguise the fact that her face drained of color, but she didn’t back down. “We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about her and your eighteen-year-old self.”
“She married a year after the baby was born.”
“A happy ending for her.”
“But not for me.” Because the experience had left him distrustful and that distrust had cost both him and Elisa dearly.
“Did you love her?”
“I wanted her.”
“As you wanted me.”