An Offer He Can't Refuse Page 19

  “More than you know, Contessa.” His head lowered.

  He was going to kiss her. Téa swayed back, one last instinct not yet under his spell.

  “Trust me,” he whispered. “Trust me.”

  Twenty-two

  “I’m In the Mood for Love”

  Julie London

  Julie is Her Name (1955)

  Trust me, he’d said.

  The two words struck Téa like a one-two punch. It was her most well-defended yet most tender vulnerability, that longing to trust a man. And here was Johnny Magee, the embodiment of all her teenage fantasies, whispering it to her like a hot promise.

  She shivered, and he drew her closer. As he shifted their bodies to the rhythm of the music, his thigh brushed the pad of her sex. Heat spread across her pelvis and between her legs. She had to clutch at his shoulder to keep from stumbling again.

  He rolled his chin across the top of her head and put his mouth by her other ear. “One dance,” he said again, an apparent expert in stereophonic seduction. “Trust me.”

  Despite the goose bumps breaking out all over her body, Téa managed to hold onto her sanity and then look up and catch his gaze. “Johnny. Trust a beautiful man on a warm night when he’s plied you with alcohol and has his hands all over your body? They make afterschool specials and Lifetime Movies of the Week about moments like this. They’d call it something like ‘Her Secret Seduction.’”

  He froze, and she tripped over his suddenly still feet. “I don’t know how you do this,” he said, his voice half-exasperated, half-amused. “Every time I think I have a handle on things between us, you derail me.”

  “I do?”

  “You do. Knock me right off my feet and onto my egotistical ass.” He sighed and pushed her a little away. “You are the most infuriating woman.”

  “Now, see, I like the sound of that.” It sounded as if she had the upper hand. Well, if not the upper hand, at least some hand on this situation.

  Sighing again, he pulled her close once more and resumed dancing, his cheek resting on top of her head. “Afterschool special,” he grumbled. “I must be losing my touch.”

  Relaxing into his embrace, Téa smiled against his shirt. She rubbed her face along the linen and then found herself flesh-to-flesh with his bare chest. Another wave of hot prickles rushed over her skin and she felt his heartbeat kick into a higher gear. His hand tightened on her waist.

  “Téa—”

  She didn’t want to lose contact with his naked skin. “Hmm?”

  His movements slowed and his thigh found its way between hers. He lingered there, his hard muscle a presence against her sex, his erection tucked against her belly.

  And Téa didn’t want to lose that contact either.

  “Answer a question for me,” he said, moving his head so they were cheek-to-cheek. The ends of his hair tickled her ear. “Is it still seduction if she sees right through it?”

  Seduction, she thought, closing her eyes as another hot shiver trembled through her. He wanted her, Johnny Magee wanted her, and it was still hard to grasp the idea in her mind. It was a fantasy as old as the one about trust—a fantasy shared with a hundred pints of Ben & Jerry’s and a thousand batches of undercooked brownies. The beautiful blond boy across the room, the dance floor, the playing field, shedding the cheerleader hanging onto his arm to take up with Téa Caruso.

  She’d shed fifty pounds and still never believed the fantasy could come true.

  “Téa. Contessa.” He kissed the corner of her eye, then the corner of her mouth. “What’s going on in that busy head of yours?”

  That she could have this fantasy. That she could choose it, unlike the interlude the afternoon before that had happened upon them both. If she knew that’s what it was, a fantasy—and not a threat to her heart or her secrets—if she kept it clear in her mind that the only thing she was trusting here was how her body responded to his, then maybe she could know what it was like to bed the captain of the varsity team after all.

  If there was a wicked, groupie-sex kind of feel to the idea, she was going to ignore it. This was Johnny, who she now knew wasn’t a stranger and wasn’t some anonymous sports star or celebrity. This was Johnny, whose desperate kisses and hot hands had turned her wild the day before.

  It wouldn’t change who she was or what she’d done, but she could feel that again. Though this time while keeping her decorum about her.

  She looked up at him, enthralled by his golden looks for the hundredth time. “What’s going on in my head,” she said, excitement starting to hum beneath her skin—I am really going to do this!—“is that I’ve always wanted to dance in the dark.”

  Then, leaning toward the nearby lantern, she turned it off.

  The good thing about varsity-level lovers is that they caught on immediately. Johnny laughed softly, then danced her around the room to extinguish the flames of the two torches at the tiki room’s entrance. Then with the room almost pitch-dark, he drew both of her arms around his neck and wrapped his around her waist. Pulling her close, he left nothing between their bodies but clothes. He swayed with her in the kind of slow dance that had gotten her sister Eve sent home early from every parish teen mixer.

  Téa flashed on her own misery during those Friday nights. The corners she’d found, the anxious yearning she’d felt each time a boy came her way, the humiliation when he’d looked right through her.

  “Contessa.”

  Johnny’s nickname for her. Johnny’s voice. Johnny. Pushing away the memories, she pressed even closer to him, her nose against his bare chest so she could breathe in the scent of his hot skin. Reality was not allowed to intrude. This was her fantasy night.

  And this time, in its darkness, she would be the graceful and elegant lover of her dreams.

  “Contessa.” Johnny slid his mouth from her ear to her lips.

  She tilted her face to meet his kiss.

  His tongue slid into her mouth, hot and sure. Her fingers clenched the strands of hair at his neck and she hung on as he drugged her with his taste and the slow penetration and retreat of his tongue. His fingers flexed on her hips, and at his urging, she tilted her pelvis into his body.

  He slanted his mouth over hers, making a tighter fit, and she opened her lips wider to take the more-urgent thrust of his tongue. One of his hands slid up, under the loose cotton of her sweater. His fingertips touched the small of her back, and she jerked against his wide chest, startled by her sensitivity.

  His palm flattened along her spine, pinning her closer than ever. When he tore his mouth from hers, their bodies heaved against each other as they fought for air. She loosened her fingers from his hair and ran her hands along his neck to his shoulders, needing to touch his skin too. He inched back and she drew her fingers down his chest until she found the first fastened button.

  He sucked in air as she pushed it through the hole, freeing more of his skin for her touch. His breaths sounded loud in her ears as she finished unbuttoning the soft linen, then pushed the edges out of her way. He gave a graceful shrug, and in the darkness she saw the white fabric float to the ground behind him.

  She covered his pectorals with her palms, cupping the heavy muscles, and pressed her mouth to the center of his chest, intending to give him the most gentle of kisses. But his wind-and-lime scent went to her head and without thought, she widened her mouth to flatten her tongue against his flesh and taste.

  His harsh groan reverberated through her palms.

  The sound, the sensation, jolted her back to awareness. Her hair felt damp. Her skin was on fire.

  Her elegant fantasy was already unraveling.

  Johnny speared his hand in her hair and pressed her face back against his chest. “More,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Do it again.”

  The dark tone turned up the heat inside her body and evaporated her good intentions. She rubbed her mouth over the light fur on his chest until her lips found one of his nipples. Her tongue licked there too.

  Johnny groaned aga
in, and his hands moved quickly to cover her breasts. He squeezed them once, then released the catch on her bra and took them into the palms of his hands. Her eyes closing at the wild pleasure of his touch, Téa sucked on his nipple as he flicked his thumbs over hers.

  Then Johnny took his hands off her and jerked back. “No,” he muttered. “Not this time.”

  “What?” Téa blinked in the darkness, disoriented and dizzy without his body against hers. “What?”

  “Not this time,” he said again.

  She sucked in a shaky breath, the heat on her face turning from desire to embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she said. Her dignity disappeared when Johnny touched her. “I’ll…I’ll go.”

  “Not on your life,” he said. “Jesus, Contessa, don’t you see that you get me so hard and so high so fast, that I—never mind.” He grabbed her wrists in one hand. “It only means that the one to go up in flames this time will be you and the one who gets to do all the touching is me.”

  With that, he hauled her close again and found her mouth with his. Téa sank under a fresh wave of desire as he rubbed his tongue against hers. Still gripping her wrists in one of his hands, he used his free fingers to slide beneath her sweater again and pluck her nipples.

  Though she swallowed her moans, she couldn’t help but twist against him, trying to get relief for the building ache in her breasts. He pulled on one nipple, playing with it with his fingers until she thought she might go mad.

  She crowded her hips with his. He lifted his head and laughed softly, the sound both satisfied and sexy. “Now if you’ll promise to keep your hands to yourself, I’ll take off your top and have my way with your beautiful breasts.”

  Téa bit her lip instead of pleading as she wanted to. Thank God he went ahead with his plan anyway. In the space of a breath she was standing in front of him, topless. Heat washed over her skin and she thanked God for the camouflaging darkness too.

  Still, she saw Johnny’s head bend toward her and when his wet mouth latched onto her, she couldn’t hold back her moan. Her hands went to his hair again, but he caught her wrists and held them to her sides as he sucked on first one nipple and then the other. His tongue licked over her tight flesh and then he drew back to blow out a cool breath. Her fingers tightened on his restraining hands and he laughed again.

  “You like that?”

  Of course she liked that. But she wasn’t going to risk opening her mouth and shouting it to the rooftops. He had to be accustomed to elegant, accomplished lovers and she was barely hanging on to her silence.

  Johnny pulled her against him again, the wet tips of her breasts meeting the hard, hot skin of his chest. At the contact, air hissed from between his teeth, covering up the little moan she only half-swallowed. Then he kissed her again, his body swaying in another slow dance as he grabbed her full, lightweight cotton skirt in both fists.

  Téa bowed back as his kiss burned through her. He followed the movement, keeping their chest-to-breast contact as his hands gathered up the material of her skirt, slowly baring her legs. His mouth broke away from hers to slide to an ear. As he bit her lobe, he tucked the rolled ends of her skirt in her back waistband.

  “Mine,” he said, cupping her buttocks in his palms. “Oh, God, all mine.”

  Téa buried her face against his skin. What must she look like, bare on top and her skirt ruched up to leave her—Johnny’s hands moved again—

  —bare on the bottom too.

  His whisper was hot in her ear as he pushed her panties all the way off. “Step out, Contessa, step out and dance with me.”

  She kicked off her sandals and walked out of her underwear, leaving them on the floor with Johnny’s shirt. As she began to follow his lead in the dance, her skirt worked itself out of the waistband and fell free.

  As he had earlier, Johnny looped her arms around his neck, pressing her fingers together. “Hold there,” he said. “Don’t let go.” Then he pulled up her skirt and cupped her bottom again.

  Her skin goosebumped from the heat of his hands. She closed her eyes and rubbed her face against his chest. Then his fingers wandered to the crease between her cheeks and thighs and he slid them toward her wet heat.

  She froze, riveted by the graze of his fingertips.

  “Keep dancing,” he said. “Let’s keep dancing.”

  His hoarse voice was impossible to disobey. As she shifted one foot, he found the access he’d been seeking. Two fingers thrust up inside of her.

  Téa cried out, pleasure breaking over her body. “Johnny,” she breathed, closing her eyes. “Johnny.”

  “Keep dancing.” His voice was tight and he rubbed his cheek against hers. “Move with me.”

  He took the lead, still swaying, still forcing her to shift and to move while impaled on the stiff length of his fingers. With every change in her posture, she could feel him touching a different place, exploring a different angle inside her body.

  The beat of the music was the beat of her blood. Her head dropped back as he covered her breast with his free hand and set his mouth over the throbbing pulse on her neck, his tongue flickering in time with his thrusting fingers.

  He controlled everything about her.

  The thought pierced the smoky delight, her mind sharpening enough to feel the dull prick of fear. Her eyes popped open and suddenly frantic to get away, she wriggled and squirmed and…

  …came.

  The orgasm shook her body. She could only hang onto Johnny as it overtook her, could only suck her bottom lip into her mouth to hold back whatever wanton sounds were trying to break free.

  As the tremors tapered off, he gathered her closer with one arm. Then, with his fingers still inside her, he set his mouth over hers. She was too dazzled to do anything but accept the heavy thrust of his tongue. Then his fingers moved again, his thumb shifting on the outside to touch the still-throbbing knot of nerves between her folds.

  He circled it, rolling it in her own wetness again and again. Then his other fingers thrust once more, deep inside.

  And again she danced to his tune. This time she was pretty sure she screamed.

  But it was impossible to know for sure, because her mind wasn’t working any longer. She was just a body, an elastic collection of torso and limbs that made Johnny laugh softly as he drew her toward the love seat.

  Somehow she found herself naked on his lap, and he was naked too.

  “That zombie mai tai made me tipsy,” she told him. She was slurring her words.

  “You’re drunk on sex.”

  “Oh.” She watched him arrange her legs on either side of his lap. “Oh,” she said again as he drew her down onto his erection. “Are we going to lap dance now?”

  He groaned. “I’m sorry, baby, but this might be more of a race than a dance. You make me so damn hot.” His hips thrust high.

  She moaned.

  His fingers found her clitoris again as he began to move. “Come on, Contessa. Winner takes all.”

  They were both walking like drunks, Téa thought later, as they made their way along the path back to Johnny’s house. He snuffed the tiki torches as they passed, and she was glad for the darkness that concealed her face if not her rubbery knees.

  What might it reveal?

  Bliss? Wonder? A silly grin because she’d lived out her fantasy…and loved every minute of it too?

  Johnny extinguished the last torch, then twined his fingers with hers as they headed across the golf course in the direction of the house.

  “You’re quiet, Contessa.”

  In the tiki room, she hadn’t managed to keep perfectly quiet and perfectly civilized, though she hoped the darkness had covered up most of that, too. “Just enjoying the night,” she said, tilting her face to the sky. The stars seemed ready to rain down on them, they looked that bright and close.

  “You’re all right?”

  “Of course.” It was perfect. My perfect fantasy with my fantasy lover. And she could leave it behind now, like a pair of outgrown sneakers.

>   Right?

  Johnny halted, and pulled her into his arms to place another kiss upon her lips. Gentle and sweet.

  Téa leaned into him. Maybe reality didn’t have to intrude quite yet. For a little while longer she could forget she was a mob boss’s daughter.

  The grass beneath their feet seemed to agree. Shh-shh shh-shh it said as they continued on toward the house.

  They took the steps to the pool deck. The house was dimly lit, but the empty pool was glowing. A plumeria blossom floated across its surface. Téa thought of Rachele as she’d seen her last, an amusing yet charming goth wahine, diving beneath the water.

  Ah, she thought, smiling. Now that’s young love. It didn’t seem so bittersweet, not after her fantasy night in the tiki room.

  “Johnny—”

  He stopped beside the pool, looking down at her. The up-light cast shadows on the planes of his face and her heart jumped, dazzled once more by his masculine beauty. Maybe it didn’t have to be a one-night fantasy, a beguiling voice whispered inside her. And then she heard Johnny in her head, too.

  It’s not enough, Contessa. I want inside you again. And again and again and again.

  It sounded so real. She studied his face. Swallowed. “Johnny, are you thinking—”

  Behind him, a massive shadow detached from the side of the house. A man.

  Téa’s heart seized. She screamed.

  Johnny spun. “What?” His voice sounded harsh as he pushed her behind him. “Who are you? What do you want?”

  The book, Téa thought, going cold. It was someone after the book. From a rival family or even from her grandfather. She clutched her briefcase to her chest and hoped there wasn’t a radioactive glow emanating from it.

  “Mi scusi. I’m sorry for disturbing you.”

  “Beppe?” Relief made Téa’s voice squeak. Dear, harmless Beppe. She hastily combed her fingers through her hair then ran a palm down her skirt, hoping her clothes didn’t show what she’d just been doing.

  Rachele’s father walked into the light cast by the pool. “Yes, yes. Sto cercando mia figlia. I’m looking for my daughter.”