To Catch a Groom

His hard-muscled body stilled before he cocked his dark, handsome head. Even wet, his vibrant hair had a tendency to curl. “Is that what you’re looking for?”

Again she had the oddest sensation that she’d said something unexpected, something that puzzled him. “Isn’t everyone searching for treasure that will bring them ultimate happiness?”

“Ultimate happiness?” he murmured the words as if to himself, but his gaze was playing over her features, dwelling on each feminine attribute for heart-stopping seconds. “What is that I wonder?”

The philosopher emerging from the adventurer. He was a better actor than she’d first supposed.

“Thanks to Alexandre Dumas, we do know one thing…”

“That’s right,” he whispered. His lips were so close she could feel the warmth of his breath on hers. In reaction her toes curled against his hair-roughened legs as their limbs tangled beneath the water. “Though the Count of Monte Cristo had his revenge against his enemies, he didn’t find happiness after all.”

“Except that Dumas’s book was a tale of fiction,” she countered.

Again his eyes glimmered like black fires burning on a distant hill. “If you wish, I will take you to the island of Monte Cristo. It’s not far from Vernazza. Perhaps there you will find what you’re looking for.”

You mean you, of course.

She struggled not to laugh at the pure conceit of the man. “Perhaps.”

“Does that mean—”

“It means…perhaps,” she interrupted with a flirtatious smile. “Now I’m tired and must say good night.”

His hands remained fastened on her hips. “But it’s not late, and you’re too young to be tired.”

“True, but we just flew in today, and were detained by the police while we were going through customs. Three hours to be exact. It was very exhausting.”

“I’m sorry such a terrible thing happened to you in my country. Why would the police do this?”

“The head of security said there was a suspicious person on board our jet. He and his men took statements from the passengers who sat near this person.”

“Were you able to help?”

“I don’t know. We tried to remember the people seated around us, but no one looked suspicious to me. When we were finally let go, all we wanted was to reach our hotel and go to sleep.”

“Of course,” he whispered with compassion. His eyes wandered over her in intense appraisal before he said, “Momento—”

With one hand still possessively molding the curve of her hip, he signaled a waiter, rapping out something in rapid Italian. The other man nodded and disappeared.

Reading the question in her eyes, her captor explained, “I asked him to bring you a robe to wear back to your room. Such a delectable sight should not be for everyone’s eyes.”

Only yours, and you’ve been drinking your fill with un-abashed enjoyment, she thought. He played it just right. The lothario with a streak of chivalry to keep him from being a complete cad.

“Thank you, Signore…Mysterioso,” she improvised in her best Italian which, sadly, left a lot to be desired.

A bark of laughter escaped his throat, the first unorchestrated response to come out of him. In that millisecond of time she was allowed a glimpse of what lay beneath the polished veneer and felt an emotional tug totally foreign to her.

Not wishing to delve any deeper into her suddenly confused emotions, she arched backward to escape his grasp and struck out for the shallow end. That way she could use the steps and retain some semblance of dignity.

However he managed to get there first. In a surprisingly protective gesture, he placed the extended white toweling robe around her shoulders. She was quite amazed at the speed with which the waiter had obeyed the stranger’s command without question.

She raised violet eyes to meet the smoldering depths of his. “Thank you. I was feeling a little vulnerable.”

“Like Venus rising from the sea?” he suggested.

The second the words came out of his mouth, Greer could picture the famous painting of the Roman goddess of beauty awakening from a seashell without any clothes on.

Greer blushed at the shocking analogy and turned her head away. But he made the situation even more explosive and intimate by lifting the pendant and lowering his head to kiss the tiny pulse fluttering madly beneath it.

“One day soon when we have no audience except the sun on our skin and the sand beneath our bodies, I hope to see you exactly as Botticelli created her,” he murmured against her scented throat.

Between the sensuality of his remark and the brush of his lips branding her heated flesh, she drew in an audible breath before wheeling away from his grasp.

Trembling, she plucked her watch and purse from the table where she’d left them. Before she could decide whether to wear or carry her high heels, he’d looped his index finger through the gold straps.

“I’ll escort you to your room. Not even the Splendido can guarantee the safety of a woman on her own who looks like you. In your exhausted state you would be no match for someone who would like to spirit you away to some secret lagoon for the night…”

The image he’d created sent another shiver through her body, part ecstasy, part fright.

Before this trip, the playboys Greer had pictured in her mind were likable. Manageable. Easy come, easy go.

Maybe a little miffed to recognize they’d been conned, but gallant enough to salute the girls as worthy adversaries who’d pulled off a well-executed charade. No hard feelings as they made their charming retreat from the playing field.

Up until this moment she’d been enjoying a game that had its nascence back in Kingston two months earlier. But just now when he’d kissed her and whispered his daring remark, she’d sensed a power shift.

Now he was the one dangling her as surely as he dangled her shoes from his fingers.

Instinct told her this was a dangerous man, the kind you didn’t lure back to a youth hostel to tell him “sorry, wrong duchess.” He would be the one to decide when he was tired of playing, then he would move in for the kill. Until then he would keep her trapped in his sights, and there’d be no place for her to hide.

A thrill of alarm caused her to walk faster.

When they reached the elevator where other guests were coming and going, she was in a state of panic and used the brief interim to extricate the hotel room key from her purse.

However by the time they’d exited onto the third floor, reason had reasserted itself. She told herself it was lack of sleep that had made her so uneasy. She would be leaving the hotel tomorrow and since she had no intention of ever seeing him again, she was even able to smile up at him with renewed confidence.

After the long transatlantic flight followed by a grueling three hours detainment at the hands of the police, she hadn’t been herself at all. Otherwise she wouldn’t have given a perfect stranger the green light to pursue her.

For a woman to plunge into the pool with her clothes on in order to sink her hooks into him, what else was a man like him supposed to think?

Tonight had been an experiment. A dry run. Whoops. A wet one, she mused nervously to herself, realizing her emotions bordered on hysteria.

She’d blown it, but she’d learned from it. Tomorrow would be a new day filled with more playboys and fresh possibilities.

The hotel room door was in sight. With one fluid movement she unlocked it, but before she could slip inside, he left a kiss on the side of her neck that set her whole body on fire. “Until tomorrow.”

His promise sounded more like an avowal.

“Goodbye,” she announced through the crack in the door before shutting it hard and locking it.