LITMIR.BIZ

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moved past her to the bed and picked up her jacket.

      “I saw you,” she said, watching him rifle the pockets.

      Finding nothing, he tossed the jacket back on the bed, then glanced at her. “Saw me where?”

      “Hiding in the shadows outside the house at Santa Palazzo the night before you flew back here with Joey and Rhea. I knew it was you because I smelled the smoke from your cigarette.” And the Scotch, Elena wanted to say, but she didn’t. “And when I went for a walk along the beach, you followed me.”

      “Did you intend to swim?” he asked. “You brought a towel, but you never used it.”

      “Did you follow me hoping to see what you could see?” she asked boldly.

      He smiled and it softened his hard mouth. “Maybe I followed you to protect you from the dark. Or from the ocean monsters who come out after midnight to watch the sea witch swim naked in the moonlight.”

      He had admitted to knowing her morning routine. What had made her think he hadn’t followed her after dark, as well—more than once?

      That realization sent Elena’s stomach into another slow nervous flip—he’d seen her shed her clothes and swim naked in the moonlight.

      “All right,” Elena said softly. “Once more. Right here. I’ll take off my clothes so you can get a closer look. Then afterward…for looking your fill, you’ll give me my father’s name.”

      She waited for his answer. Waited, and felt her cheeks come alive with embarrassment over the insane proposition she’d just offered him. She’d never done anything so utterly reckless in her life.

      “You think all I want is to look? To see what I can see?”

      Those words on his lips, as slow and liquid as her name, tripled the color in Elena’s cheeks before moving down her throat.

      He reached out and brushed the back of his hand along her hot cheek. “It’s generous of you to be willing to sacrifice so much for a name, but I’m going to have to pass on your offer.”

      When he started past her, Elena panicked and stepped into his path, again nearly knocked over by the sweet smell of liquor. “Okay, more. You can—” her face burned hotly “—touch me.”

      His expression never wavered as his gaze slowly traveled over her, seemingly assessing what he would get to touch. His eyes spent time appreciating the exposed swell of her breasts, then drifted to the gold ring in her navel.

      Elena bit her lip, afraid he was going to again pass on her offer. Desperation was the only logical reason for the next thing that came out of her mouth. “Okay, everything, then. All of it. You can have—”

      With lightning swiftness, he lifted her off her feet and tossed her onto the bed. Elena cried out, but that didn’t stop him. The second her back hit the bed, he was straddling her and pinning her hips to the mattress with his stone-hard thighs. “I can have what, Elena? Are you going to spread you legs for me, too?”

      The words sounded crude. More embarrassment flooded Elena’s cheeks as she studied his clenched jaw and his angry black eyes. “I want my father’s name,” she whispered in an attempt to explain herself. A place to start, she thought silently.

      His gaze settled on her breasts where they were straining the buttons of her sweater. While she struggled to breathe, he said, “I can get what you’re offering any day of the week. Free of charge now that I own this place. And I’m sure the girls here are more experienced.”

      His insult fed Elena’s bravado. “They should be,” she reasoned. “I’m not a whore. I’m—”

      His eyes lit on her face. “You’re what?”

      She clamped her mouth shut, closed her eyes to conceal the emotions storming her body, as well as her mind. She had never had a man on top of her before.

      “Come on, Elena,” he coaxed. “What are you? A virgin, maybe? A twenty-four-year-old virgin? No, I don’t think so. Virgins don’t swim naked and they don’t sell their bodies for information.”

      She blinked open her eyes to argue the point and found him staring at her with a mocking grin on his face that made her feel cheap and dirty. Overcome with anger, she raised her hand and slapped his face. Hard.

      For a moment there was nothing but silence while her handprint turned a vivid shade of red on his cheek, and in that space and time she became acutely aware of the heat growing between them. The sudden tightness drawing her nipples into hard peaks and the weakness in her limbs making her want to fidget.

      “Get off me, Lucky. Presente!”

      “You’re a virgin?”

      “Get off me.”

      “Answer me, dammit.”

      She heaved her body up to fight his weight. “Get off me!”

      “Or what, Elena? What will you do, my hot-tempered little virgin?”

      “Don’t call me that,” she snapped. “Get off me or I’ll scream.”

      Instead of doing as she asked, he reached out, clamped his hands around her wrists and wrenched her arms over her head. Leaning forward, he said, “They’re used to hearing screaming coming from these back rooms—that’s why the music is so loud. Go ahead, Elena, wear yourself out.”

      She didn’t scream, but she renewed her fight, twisting and wriggling while she began to curse him using every filthy word she knew in both English and Italian.

      He shifted his body, and she suddenly felt more of him. Too much of him. She saw his jaw tighten. His nostrils flare. She stopped thrashing.

      “I thought you were going to scream,” he taunted. “What are you waiting for?”

      Above her head, he collected both of her wrists into one hand, then ran the fingers on his free hand down her throat and over the swell of her left breast. She sucked in her breath, shook her head. “No! Lucky, please…”

      “I’m going to ask you some questions, Elena. And you’re going to answer them. Say, yes, Lucky, I’m going to answer your questions. All of them.”

      His voice was soft, his breath eighty-proof. Could a person get drunk on fumes? Elena wondered. For she had to be drunk; why else would she have made him that stupid offer? Why else was she suddenly feeling like a cat needing to be stroked?

      “Elena—”

      “Yes, Lucky,” she managed. “I’m going to answer all of your questions.”

      “Frank has no idea you’re here, right?”

      She swallowed hard, shook her head. “I don’t think so. He shouldn’t discover I’m gone until around seven tomorrow morning.”

      He slipped her top button out of its bound buttonhole. “And then?”

      “And then he’ll find the note.”

      His hands were warm on her flesh, torturously gentle. His fingers moved to the second button. “The note says what?”

      Intoxicated, yes—his breath was making her dizzy.

      “What’s in the note, Elena?”

      She licked her lips, stared at his mouth. “I told him that I went to visit friends in Miami. College friends.”

      She felt his sweet breath touch her breasts and knew another button was lost. She tried not to think about it, about what he could see. About the fact that the bra she wore was pale blue and as sheer as fishnet.

      “Mother suggested a vacation,” she said. “I told Frank to tell her that I would call in a few days.”

      Another button.

      Elena heard herself moan when his lips brushed her mouth. Oh, God… “Piacere,”

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