IT WAS a ludicrous threat considering how much bigger he was than her, not to mention more dangerous, but he didn’t laugh.
He did smile though. “You have made yourself clear.”
She pulled out the mattress. There was no pump, so they took turns blowing into it to inflate it. Salvatore smiled the first time he took it from her, putting his lips where hers had been with deliberate movements, and she could almost feel his lips against hers. It was worse when she took it back from him because the intimacy of using the air spigot after Salvatore made her insides clench. She hid her reaction, but she felt as if he knew anyway.
Once they had it blown up, he pulled the blanket out and spread it over the mattress before they sat down on it.
It didn’t give and there was no telltale hiss of escaping air. “I think it’s going to hold.” She wasn’t sure if she was glad or disappointed by that fact. “I wish we had a pack of cards, or something.”
“Are you bored with my company already, dolcezza?”
“No, of course not. It’s just that…” She let her voice trail off.
He wasn’t that dense. He knew what the problem was. 90
“I can think of something that would pass the time.”
She stiffened and glared at him. “No way.”
“What could be wrong with a game of Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?”
He’d been having her on, but she still couldn’t see him playing such a simple game and said so.
“You forget the years I spent schooling in a very spartan environment.”
And she acknowledged there were depths to this alpha male she knew nothing about.
So they played, but she was tired, having slept little the night before.
After her third yawn, he said, “I think you should sleep, cara.”
She didn’t want to lie down, but it would have to happen some time. “Are you going to sleep?”
“It is that, pace, or sit on the hard floor. None of those appeal. I will sleep. I did not rest much last night.”
“I’m sorry.” Her nightmare had wakened him.
“Do not be. I have not slept well for the past year.”
He took Sicilian guilt to Olympic levels, which did nothing for her own peace of mind. Sighing with a sense of inevitability, she went into the small bathroom and got ready for bed.
She came out and once again he was waiting. This time he was standing in just his trousers, his shirt dangling from one finger. “Put this on to sleep in. It will be more comfortable than your dress.”
No doubt he was right, but still she balked. “I’ll be fine.”
“Do not be stubborn.”
“My dress isn’t that bad.” It was longer and tighter than any of her nightgowns, but she could deal with it.
“You hate sleeping with anything wrapped around your legs.”
The reminder of their former intimacy did nothing to improve her mood. “I’ll survive this time.”
He put the shirt around her shoulders. “There is no need.” He stepped around her and entered the bathroom. “Elisa…”
“Yes?”
“I can think of nothing I would enjoy more than helping you change, cara.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re too bossy?”
His answer was the quiet sliding shut of the bi-fold door. She didn’t know if he would follow through on his threat to help her change, but on the likely chance he would, she made quick work of slipping out of her dress and bra and putting his shirt on. She buttoned the buttons all the way up, but the collar was big enough that it still showed the dips and hollows of her collarbone.
Afterward, she went to the mattress to lie down. He had laid his coat down on one side and she knew it was there for a buffer between her skin and the velour-covered plastic of the mattress. She considered sleeping on the opposite side out of defiance, but decided against it. He’d put her beside the wall so she wouldn’t fall off the mattress either and somehow his concern touched instead of irritated her.
She snuggled down onto his coat, pretending to herself that the scent of him was not having an impact on her emotions or physical comfort. Waiting for him to come out of the bathroom, she pulled the light blanket over herself, more to cover her bare legs than because she was cold.
He came out a few minutes later. “Do you want me to leave the light on?”
It was a small enclosure. They both knew it well enough to find the bathroom if they needed it and they would sleep better in the dark. “No.”
He pressed a button and the dull glow of the emergency light went out.
She waited for him to join her on the bed, tense with an emotion between dread and anticipation. When he did, he put his arm around her waist and the other under her head like a pillow, cuddling up to her back as if they were still lovers.
She stiffened with rejection and tried to push out of his arms. “Salvatore!”
He tightened his hold. “Be reasonable, cara, the mattress is small. It is the only comfortable position for sleeping.”
“But—”
“I promised I would not accost you. Can you not trust me this much?”
Why the question should stir her emotions, she did not know. She started to say something again.
“Shh…” Soft lips kissed her temple. “Sleep. That is all.” Then, nothing.
He made no attempt to take advantage of their position and eventually she relaxed, feeling more secure than she had in months. Incredibly, she slept.
When she woke, the darkness was absolute.
Slowly, memory of where she was penetrated her mind, but something was missing.
The warmth of Salvatore’s body surrounding hers. The blanket was tucked around her, as if pressed carefully there by someone else. But no Salvatore.
She listened, but could hear no sound from the lavatory. Besides, in the absolute darkness, light would filter through the cracks of the bi-fold door if he was in there. She could hear his breathing, but not where it was coming from.
She sat up, groggy from sleep, the blanket falling to her waist. “Salvatore?”
“Sì, cara?”
Her voice had been husky from slumber, but his was crisp, as if he’d been awake a while.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”
His laugh was harsh. “You have reason to doubt it, but I have some honor.”
“Did I say I doubted it?”
“It is not necessary. I know what you think of me.”
She rubbed at her eyes, but of course that made no improvement on the impenetrable darkness. “Your honor isn’t letting you sleep?” Nothing was making sense to her still sleep-fuddled mind.
“I want you.”
“I know.” He’d made that patently clear and even half asleep, she could hear the sensual edge to his tone.
“I cannot lie next to your delectable body for one minute longer and not take you.”
The admission cost him. She could hear it in his voice. He hated being subject to such strong physical need. His next words confirmed it.
“I swore after Sofia that no woman would hold me in sexual thrall like that again.”
“You don’t like being out of control.” He might not believe it, but she found no satisfaction in enthralling him sexually. Straight sexual hunger was nothing compared to love and respect.
“I grew up learning self-discipline and control in the face of circumstances that would be impossible for many people.”
“And the idea of a mere woman breaking through that terrifies you, doesn’t it?”
“I am not afraid.” She couldn’t see him, but she could sure hear his affront.
“Bad choice of words.”
“I am not over there seducing you. I do have some self-control where you are concerned.”
But not a lot and he’d had to get out of the bed to exercise it. She didn’t rub that in, however. She had realized some time yesterday that she got no pleasure out of hurting him.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry enough to let me make love to you?”
She laughed at the absurdity of the question. “No way would you ever be able to accept sex based on pity.”
“You would be surprised.”
His desire beat at her like a pulsing base in an orchestra of sensual composition.
Her own body’s needs warred with the thoughts going through her mind. This man had abandoned her and their baby. She could not trust him with her body again.
But he had also come back.
That fact had not struck her until a few months ago. He had been there when she was losing the baby because he had come to her apartment to see her. She didn’t know why and for a long time had not cared, but now she wondered.
“Why did you come back?”
“You said you were pregnant with my child.”
“You didn’t believe it was yours.”
“I realized it did not matter.”
“What do you mean?”
“You believed the baby was mine. I would have married you. The baby would have been mine.”
“You were prepared to marry me even though you thought I might be pregnant with another man’s child?”
“This is the truth.”
Unbelievable! “You weren’t willing to do that for Sofia.”
“I was younger. Hot-headed. And she lied to me.”
“You thought I lied to you.” He’d said so.
“You told me what you wanted to be true. It is not the same. You believed it.”
While what he was saying touched her, the fact he still doubted her hurt. “It was your baby.”
He didn’t reply for a long time, and when the words did come they weren’t the ones she wanted to hear. “I let you down.”
“Yes.”
“I am sorry.”
“It doesn’t help.”
“I know.”
But was that entirely true?
After learning about Sofia Pennini, Elisa appreciated better why Salvatore had not trusted her. An experience like that would make any man wary when his lover told him she was pregnant with his child. Her father’s assertion Elisa was just like her mother had justifiably fueled Salvatore’s distrust.
So, yes, she understood why he believed what he did, but it made little difference to her emotion-deprived heart. The simple truth remained. If he had loved her, he would have wanted the baby to be his, not been afraid it was so. He would have believed her. He never would have left.
For a brief time, in her naiveté, she had believed he loved her. He’d wined and dined her. Flattered her. And he’d bedded her. In the end it had been that easy. Over her vacation in Sicily, she had fallen helplessly in love with Salvatore. She’d had no hope of resisting his blatant seduction when he looked her up in Milan.
Stupidly, she had mistaken his passion for love. She had ended up pregnant with his child and had only then come to appreciate her mistake. He had not believed her that the baby was his and she’d miscarried. Now they had this thing between them that was both too big to dismiss and yet nothing at all.
“How long have you been sitting there?”
“I do not know.”
“I can move to the floor if you like. I’ve got your coat to lie on anyway.”
“No.”
“It’s bound to be more comfortable for me than it is for you.”
“No.”
“You’re so stubborn and you’re too macho for your own good.”
“You think I am macho?” There was humor in his voice, which was a real improvement over the almost desperate tone he’d had earlier, or the dead tone he’d used when he apologized.
“Please, Salvatore. You’re so macho, you could bottle and sell it. Not only are you a good head taller than most Sicilian men, but you also have more muscles than any tycoon has a right to.” And the way he’d been flashing them earlier was still affecting her breathing when she thought about it. “You’re trained to fight like a commando and you practically define the word virile. It’s enough to make a woman swoon.”
The only warning she had that he had moved was the faint sound of fabric brushing against fabric and then he was there. Next to her on the mattress, his face so close to hers that his breath brushed her skin.
“I define the word virile?”
Perhaps that had been a dumb thing to admit, but it was no use lying now. “Yes.”
“But you will not let me share your bed.”
“I didn’t kick you out of the bed. You left because you were afraid of seducing me.”
“You admit I could seduce you?”
“I’m not admitting anything. It’s your own worries that had you sitting on the hard floor in the middle of the night.”
“Fear. Worry. You make me sound like an old woman.”
Nervous laughter huffed out of her. “I don’t think so.”
His lips brushed her cheek. “Maybe you want to be seduced,” he whispered, the words a caress against her skin.
Warmth pooled in her inner places while she cursed the darkness that seemed to magnify the electricity of his touch. “N-no.”
“Once again and with meaning.” His lips played with hers and she couldn’t seem to work up enough self-preservation to tell him to stop. “You want me, cara. Admit it.”
Her only defense lay in the truth. “Of course I want you. What red-blooded woman wouldn’t? What do you think I’ve been saying? But my body doesn’t always want what is best for my mind or my heart.”
His warm, masculine hand curled around her waist. “This time it does. Trust me, Elisa. I will not hurt you again.”
How could he help it? He didn’t love her and that in itself hurt. It shouldn’t. She didn’t love him anymore. How could she after all he had done? She should be able to take her pleasure the way he did, with no emotional entanglement. Only she knew she couldn’t, probably not with any man, but most definitely not with him. What she didn’t know was why.
Breathing in the scent of her body’s only acknowledged mate, realization blinded her like a lightning bolt in the darkness of the vault. She still loved him. Despite the way he had rejected her, she would always love him.
No. Her breathing turned shallow from fear. She’d thought her emotions were dead. Safely buried under a wall of pain so she couldn’t hurt any more. She didn’t want to love him.
His mouth pressed against the corner of her lips, his tongue flicking out to taste her and then retreating. “Please, dolcezza, let me pleasure you.”
The shock of her inner revelation combined with the physical sensations overwhelming her in the absolute darkness of the vault. And her mind stopped functioning, short-circuited by the words and tone that promised so much.
Her head turned and her lips sought his blindly, needing more than that brief touch.