by Diana Palmer
Marc hesitated. His black eyes wandered over Gaby with soft possession, and his jaw tightened. “No, I can’t. But to put her at risk like that...”
“They’ve already come after me once,” Gaby reminded him. “And it’s a miracle that I escaped. Next time I won’t, Marc.”
His face paled. “I—”
“What’s that cop’s name?” Uncle Michael asked. “The one who talked to you at the hospital?”
“Bonaro. Sergeant Bonaro.”
Michael got up and dialed the police precinct number, apparently from memory, and Gaby wondered how many times he’d been there. She had to smother a grin. She remembered the sergeant asking if Marc was related to Uncle Michael and wondered if the veteran policeman would pass out when he knew who was calling him.
Michael was connected and quickly handed the phone to Marc. “Ask him to come over,” he said under his breath. He sat back down while Marc spoke to the man, winking at Gaby. “I didn’t want to give him indigestion,” he whispered. “Bonaro and I go way back.”
“Not the best of friends?” she said teasingly.
“I could put it better.”
Marc said something else and hung up while they were talking. “He’s on his way over.” He pursed his lips and stared at his uncle. “You aren’t carrying a gun?”
Michael glared at him, sighed, and with resignation lifted a wicked-looking pistol out of his belt and handed it to his nephew.
“You can have it back after he leaves,” Marc said, hiding it in a drawer. “You aren’t supposed to be carrying firearms.”
The older man glared at him. “So I’m breaking the law! Big deal!”
Marc glared back.
Gaby got up quickly. “Marc, want some coffee?” she asked to break the tension.
His big shoulders shifted. “Yes. I guess so.”
“I’ll get it!” She rushed into the kitchen, relieved to be out of the line of fire. Volatile really wasn’t the word for them.
Tense minutes later Sergeant Bonaro arrived, looking tired and out of sorts. He nodded at Gaby, shook hands with Marc and stopped dead when he saw the man on the couch.
“Well, don’t go for your gun,” Uncle Michael muttered, scowling at the policeman. He opened his jacket. “I’m not armed.”
“Sure,” Bonaro said. “And the Pope isn’t Catholic.”
“I never discuss religion,” Uncle Michael said imperturbably. “It’s a dangerous subject.”
“We want to talk to you about something,” Marc said. He gestured Bonaro toward the sofa, and after he accepted the coffee Gaby had brought him, he sat back sipping the rich black liquid and listened while Marc outlined what the three of them had argued.
When he finished, Bonaro eyed Gaby quietly. “You realize what could happen?” he asked.
“Look what already did,” she replied.
He shrugged. “I agree. It’s probably a good idea. But even with the best will in the world I can’t guarantee that it would work out the way you planned. Something could go terribly wrong, and you could wind up in big trouble.”
“The alternative,” Gaby reminded him, “is that I can wait for him to choose his own time and place.”
Bonaro grimaced. He leaned forward, folding his hands. “Yeah.”
“Isn’t it a fairly good guess that he knows where I am right now?” Gaby asked. “That I’m here, that Marc is with me. And isn’t he probably watching the apartment?”
“I would say, yes,” Bonaro agreed.
Gaby drew in a deep breath, watching Marc’s hard, uncompromising face as she spoke. “Then suppose Marc goes to work in the morning as usual and leaves me here alone.”
“No!” Marc said curtly. “No, I don’t like it.” He got up, sticking his hands in his pockets. “There has to be some other way. We could leave the city.”
“He’ll go along,” Uncle Michael said. “He’ll enjoy himself, trailing along behind you until he picks his shot. Boy, you’ve got a lot to learn about contract men. Part of the glamour is the hunt.”
“You should know,” Bonaro muttered.
“I never hired out my services,” Uncle Michael corrected. “I may know the business, but I don’t indulge.”
“Yeah, I guess you were more inclined toward other less violent means of getting what you wanted.”
“Living people pay better,” Uncle Michael said, and grinned irrepressibly.
Gaby shuddered, and Bonaro glared at the old man.
“I still don’t like the idea of making you a target,” Marc told Gaby, uneasiness in his deep voice.
“I don’t, either,” she said, agreeing, “but I can’t live on the run. I want him caught. That means I have to do my part to help catch him.”
“Well,” Bonaro said with a sigh, “I’ve got a marksman in my department. I’ll put him around the building, along with a couple of plainclothes detectives. Tomorrow morning?”
“Yes, sir,” Gaby said.
He got up. “Okay. I’ll be in touch. And don’t say anything over the phone, huh? You can’t be too careful,” he added. He touched the brim of his hat and stared at Uncle Michael. “And if you want to break arms, don’t do it on my shift, okay?”
Uncle Michael grinned. “Wouldn’t dream of it, old pal.”
“Old pal? That will be the day!” Bonaro turned to leave. He stopped, turned back. “You keep out of this,” he cautioned Michael with a long finger. “You’re not as young as you used to be.”
Michael spread his arms. “I’m unarmed,” he protested.
“Only until I leave or I miss my guess,” Bonaro said doggedly. “I mean it. If you fire one shot, you’re up on charges. Got that?”
Michael sighed angrily. “Yeah, I got it.”
Bonaro pursed his lips. “Black-and-white stripes wouldn’t suit you,” he said. “No class.”
Michael shrugged. “Well...”
“Why don’t you take up a nice quiet occupation, like raising pigeons or something?” Bonaro suggested. “Retirement is nice.”
“Retirement is for dead people,” the old man replied. “And I’m not doing anything illegal!” he added hotly.
Bonaro’s shoulders lifted and fell heavily. “If you say so. But Big Brother will be watching.”
“Yeah, well he’d better wear telescopic glasses,” Michael returned.
Bonaro actually grinned. He nodded at Marc and Gaby and went out the door.
“He’s talking about me retiring?” Michael burst out when he’d gone. “He’s at least as old as I am!”
“Yeah, he probably lied about his age, just like you do,” Marc said, chiding.
Michael got up. “If all you can think to do is insult your poor old uncle, I’m leaving.” He put out his cigar. “Give me back my gun.”
“Only if you promise to give me the bullets,” Marc said doggedly.
“What good is the gun without ammunition?”
“You could pretend it’s a boomerang,” Marc said imperturbably. He retrieved the gun from the drawer where he’d placed it, unloaded the clip and handed it to the older man. “There you go. And thanks for your help,” he added with a grin.
Michael made a face at him. He looked at Gaby as he put the gun back in his belt. “Watch yourself. I’ve gotten used to you. I don’t like losing people I get used to.”
“You do the same,” she replied with a smile. “I don’t have any uncles except you.”
He grinned. He clapped Marc on the shoulder as he left. “Stay out of trouble with the law,” he advised from the doorway.
“Such wisdom!” Marc said tauntingly. “Take your own advice.”
Michael said something in Italian, threw up a hand and closed the door behind him.
“You and your uncle are a lot alike,�
� Gaby told Marc.
He made a rough sound. “I’m no hood,” he said curtly. “Although,” he confessed, rejoining her on the sofa, “maybe I came close a time or two. Joe and I, we had a rough life.”
She touched his face, tracing the hard lines. “Yes, I know. Uncle Michael told me.”
“Did he?” He caught her hand and pressed the palm to his chiseled lips. “He would have looked out for us, but my mother wouldn’t let him. She was a real loser. She’d love us one day and act as if we didn’t exist the next. In between there were men, all kinds of men. I got so sick of it. Finally I got sick enough to take Joe and run for it.”
“That must have been hard, trying to support both of you. You were young, yourself.”
“Not that young, honey,” he said with a chuckle. “I got by. I was never afraid of hard work. That helped.”
With loving eyes she studied his broad, dark face. She understood him better now than she ever had. He had so many good qualities, so much compassion. He didn’t seem the kind of man who’d take a bribe to give up a girl he loved. That was the only remaining doubt she had. It was the one thing that kept her from telling him exactly how she felt about him. He’d betrayed her for money. But now it made sense. She could understand how badly he’d needed it. He’d had full responsibility for Joe, and they’d had a horrible life. Perhaps he’d been so desperate...
“What big eyes,” he said, noticing her stare.
“You fascinate me,” she said softly. “I never get tired of looking at you.”
His breath caught. “Yeah, you’re not bad to look at, either, with clothes or without.”
“I could use something to wear,” she said with a smile.
“You look fine the way you are. And we’re not going to be socializing for the next couple of days,” he added darkly. He searched her troubled eyes. “Gaby, are you sure you want to go through with this?”
“I have to,” she said simply. “Marc, I can’t live in terror, never knowing when it’s going to happen. I’d rather have all the fear at once than spread it around. I think that if it were you, you’d feel the same way.”
“It might as well be me,” he said, his voice deep and soft, his eyes possessive. “Do you think I could stay alive without you?”
She smiled shakily. “You managed very well for nine years.”
“I knew you were okay,” he said. He touched her lips gently. “I knew you were alive, in the same city with me. I knew when you became a model, who you worked for, what you were doing.”
“You didn’t want me working for you,” she recalled.
“Because Joe set it up,” he told her honestly. “I knew he was crazy about you. I kept trying to warn you off because I was so afraid that you might revenge yourself on me through him. Or worse, that you might come to care for him. Either way, I couldn’t stand having you around with the past between us.” He laughed bitterly. “I tried to keep my hands off you, Gaby, I swear I did. But that morning in the Hamptons I came in to see about you, there you lay in that little wisp of a nightgown, and I went crazy.”
“But you stopped in time, then,” she whispered, tingling as she became aware of the tension between them, the sweet tension of remembered intimacy.
“That was then,” he said. “There were too many complications at the time. Now,” he added, drawing her to him, “there’s only you and me.” He looked into her eyes so deeply and for so long that she felt heat smothering her. “I love you so much.”
“Oh, Marc,” she whispered in a shaken tone.
“Tell me you love me, too, Gaby,” he whispered back. “Tell me you want that future we planned so many years ago and never got.”
“I do want it,” she said miserably. Her eyes dropped to his mouth. “But, Marc, there are so many problems....”
“They’ll be over soon,” he said. “We’ll have nothing but time.”
But would they? Her worried eyes sought his. “You want me now,” she said. “But what about later? What about when the newness wears off?”
“And the past,” he added, reading the look on her face with precision. “Yes, and the past. You still think I betrayed you for money.”
She bit her lower lip. “I... I’m not sure anymore,” she began.
He actually smiled. Slowly. Like the sun coming out. “Come here.”
She let him draw her close, and she curled against his big body as he sought her mouth warmly with his. The kiss went on and on, but it wasn’t wildly passionate or even sexual. It was healing. Soft and tender and exquisitely fulfilling in and of itself. It was more a promise than a sensual caress.
Her breath caught in her throat when he lifted his head, and she touched his thick, shaggy hair with wonder. “You’ve never kissed me like that,” she whispered.
“I used to,” he reminded her with a smile. “All the time. You’d just turned eighteen and had blossomed. And I thought about marrying you and having babies and growing old together. Yes, Gaby, I kissed you like that. And you kissed me the same way. It was always more than just sex, although that’s sweeter with you than I ever dreamed it could be. It’s the most exquisite pleasure I’ve ever had with a woman.”
She dropped her eyes to his collar. “Were there a lot of women?”
“Some. I couldn’t be completely celibate, Gaby,” he said, his voice earnest. “I’m a man. And, too, I thought there never could be anything between us again. You hated me.”
“I suppose I did. I really did at first. Losing you was the most horrible thing that ever happened to me.”
“Yes, I know that now. I’m sorry. When this is over, I’ll tell you the truth.”
“Will it be over?” she asked gently.
“Yes.” He bent and kissed her softly. “How about some television? Or a movie?” he asked.
She hesitated. Her eyes searched his, and he grinned knowingly.
“Yes, I want that too,” he whispered. “But let’s save it for tonight. The anticipation will make it so much better.”
She flushed, but she didn’t argue. He turned on the VCR and they watched some movies. Eventually she fixed supper, and then it was dark. And she sat beside him on the sofa and worried and worried about the next morning, when it would all come to a head, when she would live or die, depending on the skill of her protection and the random whim of a hit man.
It was late before he turned to her, and she read what was in his eyes with devastating pleasure.
“Now,” he whispered, touching her neck, “do you want to watch the news or would you rather make love?”
“Oh, the latter, definitely,” she whispered back, smiling softly at him. “In bed, didn’t you say, where we had more room to...move around?”
“That’s right,” he said huskily. “And you’ll need it this time, because I feel pretty amorous. I feel more like a man than I ever did in my life.”
She lifted her arms around his neck and felt him rise with her cradled against his chest. He carried her into the bedroom, closed the door and dumped her on the bed.
“Now—” he laughed, throwing himself down on top of her “—let’s see what kind of fires we can make, huh? Let’s see if we can make it even hotter than it was last time.”
Her body moved softly under his, and she laughed at the groan it dragged from his lips. “Burn me up,” she whispered, lifting her mouth to his. “And I’ll put out your fire, Mr. Stephano.”
“Better have a tanker truck,” he murmured against her mouth. “You’re going to need it!”
He wasn’t gentle this time. As if he knew, now that she was safely over the hurdle of initiation, that he could show her passion without frightening her. He stripped her with deft, sure hands and kissed her soft body slowly and warmly with every inch he exposed. By the time she was lying nude in the king-size bed with its creamy coverlet,
she was trembling all over with the hungers he’d aroused.
He stood up, removing his own clothing, smiling down at her with a purely masculine appreciation in his black eyes as she watched him. “It’s going to be a little rough this time,” he said, half under his breath. “And you’re going to love it.”
“I want you,” she said in a voice she hardly recognized.
“Yes, I know, I can see it and feel it. And this time you’ll cry when it’s over because I’m not going to give you what you want until you’re screaming for it.”
He slid down against her, his hands catching her hips, dragging her to him so that he was kneeling between her silky legs. He pulled her up and pressed his mouth down hard against her stomach, feeling the instant reaction of her body, the gasp that passed her lips. Her hands clenched beside the pillow as his mouth opened. His tongue traced her hips, her belly. His teeth drew across it, to her hips, down her thighs. Then he shifted her and his mouth, and heard her cry out.
It was so unexpected that she began to sob with mingled fear and excitement. She tried to get away, but he held her there, and in seconds she was shuddering with a pleasure beyond bearing. It went on and on, and the sounds she was making startled her.
He moved again. She felt his mouth on the soft inner skin of her legs, and he turned her, the rough hair on his body abrasive as he slid against her while his mouth discovered her back, his hands smoothing over her like rough silk, her breathing as rough and shaken as his own.
“Don’t make me do it all,” he whispered roughly. “Come here.”
He rolled over on his back, shifting her, showing her what he wanted. She was so shaken with pleasure that she obeyed him without a single question or hesitation, feeling his body shudder as she touched him and watched the helpless reaction of his body to her soft stroking, to the hesitant touch of her mouth.
He laughed through the staggering pleasure, his body arching, his eyes closed. “Oh, do that again,” he said, groaning. “Do it again. Yes, like that, like that! Gaby, love, bella mia, you make me feel like such a man!”
Her long hair drew against his skin, tickling it, as her head moved. She slid alongside him, moving her body softly against his, until she could reach his mouth. She opened her own, easing her tongue into that warm darkness, her breasts taut on his chest where they rested, her body trembling with a horrible, consuming need for fulfillment.