The Sicilian's Red-Hot Revenge

The scent of his skin surrounded her. Warm and musky and still overlaid by the ozone from the sea. She took it in with every breath, felt it enfold her like the strength of his arms. No man had touched her, no man had held her in too long. No man except Mark, but Mark’s hold had never affected her like this. Even in the beginning. Mark’s arms had never felt so strong, his skin hadn’t had that wild, intoxicating scent that went straight to her head like a swallow of the most potent of spirits, making her thoughts spin.

‘Emily…’

That voice, that accent made her name into a totally different sound. They took away the clipped, essentially English, pronunciation she was so used to hearing every day and transformed it into a warm, lyrical sound, one that stirred her senses so that she nestled even closer, burying her face against Vito’s chest, in the curve between his neck and his shoulder.

The warmth of his skin was against her cheek, the still damp strands of his hair brushing her ear as he moved his head, making her draw in a long, ragged breath. And with that breath she took in once more the essence of him, the scent of his skin, the taste…

In the warm, concealing darkness her closed eyes fluttered open, fixed on the point where just inches away from her, the heavy, regular throb of his pulse beat just under the skin. The firm stretch of olive skin was so smooth, so tempting…If she just moved her head…

It was only when her lips touched the warmth of his flesh that she realised what she’d done. And by then it was too late, way too late. Just the feel of it underneath her mouth, the taste of it on her tongue, was like a drug, making her blood heat, her senses yearn. Something hot and hungry and uncontrollable was uncoiling in the pit of her stomach, sending shivers of reaction along the pathway of every nerve. She couldn’t stop herself from pressing her lips to that pulse again, breathing in the scent of his skin, tasting it with her tongue.

‘Emilia,’ Vito said again but this time on a very different note. One that matched the thunder in her head, the sensations in her body.

‘Vito…’ she breathed against his neck and slowly lifted her head, turning back towards him, tilting her mouth…

And found it taken in a sizzling, blazing kiss that sent reaction scorching through every inch of her.

CHAPTER TWO

THE world tilted, swung round her. Her vision blurred, her thoughts fled. Somewhere high in the sky above her, the cry of a lone gull was the only sound she was aware of, but it seemed to belong to another world, not the hot and hungry one that had suddenly reached out to enclose her, sweeping away all other sense of reality. And very soon even that faded, drowned out by the pounding of her own blood in her head.

She had let her arms drop from around Vito’s neck but now she flung them back up again. Not for support but to draw his head down, press those seeking, demanding lips even closer to her own.

His arms no longer held her, or, rather, they still held her but in a very, very different way. The strength of his support had gone from under her legs, letting her slide down the hard, muscled length of him, until the tips of her toes brushed the sand, dangling just above the actual expanse of the shore. And this time one arm was clamped tight around her waist, crushing her to him, while with the other he laced hard fingers through the partly dried tangle of her hair, twisting slightly to hold her head just where he needed it, her mouth under his so that he could take what he wanted.

She was burning, softening, melting against him. She scarcely knew where her body ended and his began. And as he loosened his hold slightly so that she slid downward, over the long length of his powerful body until her feet were finally back on the sand, although not yet actually supporting her, that feeling intensified to almost agonising proportions. Her breasts were crushed against his chest, her hips cradled his pelvis, feeling the heat and pressure of his arousal hard against her. Her mouth was opening under his, allowing the intimate invasion of his tongue, tangling with her own, tasting the personal essence of him that had been on his skin and now was on her lips, on her tongue.

She had forgotten what this felt like. This instant, explosive, dramatic response to a man. The way that her heartbeat kicked hard, the way her breath came raw and uneven. She’d forgotten how it felt to know the honeyed burn of need, the heat pooling between her legs, making her writhe against his hard strength in hungry longing.

‘Emilia…’

His version of her name was a raw breath against her mouth, his voice deepening and roughening until, she barely recognised it.

Recognised it!

The words echoed inside her head in a rush of shock and bewilderment. She had heard—what?—less than one hundred words from this man’s mouth and yet she felt as if she knew his voice, would recognise it anywhere. It was as if that deep, husky sound, with the melodic accent she now knew to be Italian—Sicilian—was burned onto her mind like music etched onto a CD, so that she would always know it, always recognise it, no matter what happened.

It was as if it was part of her now, bound by links that could never be broken.

‘Vito…’

She tried his own name, feeling it strange and exotic on her tongue. Just the sound of it sent a shiver down her spine, making her tremble in his hold.

How could this be happening to her? Just a few minutes ago she had arrived on this beach, not even knowing that this man existed, and yet now here she was, in his arms and…

The slam of a car door up on the promenade broke into the wild delirium that had invaded her brain, making her stiffen, pull her mouth away from Vito’s. And in the same moment his handsome dark head came up, those deep black eyes suddenly blinking hard, losing the wild, unfocused look and staring down into her own wide blue ones with an expression that she knew must mirror her own.

What the hell am I doing?

He didn’t have to say it, there was no need to speak the words out loud, they were written so clearly on his face, etched onto those stunning features.

And as soon as she saw that look, the same thought raced into her mind, slashing through the wild delirium that had clouded it, blurring her thinking and pushing her into actions that were so untypical of her usual behaviour.

What the hell had she been doing?

She didn’t know this man. Knew nothing about him except his first name and the fact that he had just pulled her from what she had feared was going to be a watery grave—but she didn’t know him! And yet she had been kissing him as if he was the love of her life. She’d been clamped so tight against him that they might have been one person, so close that there was no way she could have denied the sexual hunger he felt—or refuse to acknowledge the fact that it pounded through her own body too.

Anyone who might have seen them would have thought that they were already lovers, so intimate had been his hold on her, her response to him.

And this was a man that she knew precisely two facts about.

His name was Vito.

And he was a Sicilian.

It was mad. It was ridiculous. It was dangerous.

And it was as that last word exploded inside her head that she knew what had happened. She’d heard about it, read about it. She’d been in danger and this Vito had come to her rescue. The fear and the panic, the knowledge of danger and then the sheer, blinding exhilaration of having been saved. That had all created a wild, impossibly intense atmosphere. A hothouse atmosphere in which a very basic attraction had grown, been blown up out of all proportion and so created a volatile situation as a result.

Just the thought of it caught her body in a shiver of response that made her tremble where she stood. Immediately those black eyes narrowed, sharpening perceptibly.

‘You are cold! Forgive me—I should have thought.’

Already he was looking round, moving, heading in the direction of what she now saw was his jacket, discarded on the sand a short distance away, obviously in the haste of his mad dash to rescue her.

That thought should ease her mental discomfort, but instead it had the exact opposite effect, making her shudder even harder as reaction set in and the memory of just what had happened—what might have happened and how close she had come to it—attacked her nerves and made her quake inside, bitter tears of memory stinging at her eyes, her knees threatening to buckle beneath her.

This man—this darkly devastating, sexy, handsome man—had rushed into the turbulent water without hesitation when he had thought she was going to drown, throwing his jacket one way and the shoes she could now see further up the beach another. He’d come to her rescue when he had seen her going under for the third time, and no one had done anything like that, anything kind for her in a long, long time.

‘Here…’

Vito was back at her side, swinging the jacket up and around her shoulders, pulling it closed at the front.

‘This should help.’

‘Th-thank you,’ Emily managed, her tongue trembling as much as her limbs.

The jacket was comforting, so that she wanted to pull it closer, huddle into it to hide away from the world. But at the same time it started up a set of memories and emotions that in her present shocked state she was having terrible trouble controlling, so much so that the temptation to fling the garment from her and run was almost stronger than her need for comfort.

Almost.

Instead, she found that her fingers had clamped tight over the elegant lapels, crushing the expensive fabric ruinously as she clutched it to her like some sort of shield. Shock was setting in with a vengeance and she didn’t know how to cope with anything.

‘Are you OK?’

Idiota! Vito reproved himself furiously. Of course she was not OK! She had just almost drowned and now she was cold and probably in shock. What sun there had been earlier in the day was already fading rapidly, clouds gathering in the sky. Already some of those clouds were turning heavy grey and, if he was not mistaken, the storm that had been threatening all afternoon was now building up rapidly to breaking point.

And with the darkening of the skies had come a definite drop in temperature, a chill to the wind that had blown up. Instinctively he rubbed his own arms where the gooseflesh had already appeared. The damp jeans and T-shirt were cooling rapidly—and he wasn’t half as badly soaked as Emily.