Impulse (34 page)

“I found out one of the reporters for Rafaella’s paper had stepped on a woman’s foot so she couldn’t get away from him, all because he wanted to know how she felt when she found out her son had died in a military plane crash.

“How I hate that bastard for what he did to you. What he’s still doing to you. And you don’t even know that I know. No one does. You’re so certain that you’ve kept it from me. Remember when you flew to Palm Springs last August and I couldn’t go with you? I found the journals then—by accident, I swear it to you. I read them, every last word in them.
God, I hate him.
”

Margaret moaned. Her lashes fluttered, her fingers closed over his, a light pressure, nothing more. She opened her mouth and said very clearly, “No…Dominick, no. Rafaella, please, you must understand.”

“Margaret? Oh, God, Margaret!” He was shaking her now, babbling, lightly patting her cheeks, jerking at her hands.

She’d said
his
name. Charles felt a surge of pain, pain so deep, so sharp, he nearly cried out with it. Dominick. Dominick Giovanni. That criminal was Rafaella’s father. Thank God she didn’t know. And Margaret had said his name in the same breath with Rafaella’s. Charles stared down at his wife’s pale face. But Margaret’s eyes were closing—No, no!

Margaret was quiet, her hands limp, her head turned slightly away from him on the pillow. Charles
jabbed the call button again and again. Then he sprinted to the door and yelled, “Come here! Hurry! She woke up!”

Giovanni’s Island
April 2001

Marcus lifted her, his fingers digging into her buttocks, and he smiled painfully at the feel of her panties, thin but still a barrier, and he ripped them off her, jerking them down her legs.

He was naked, and now she was too. He told her to wrap her legs around his hips and he lifted her to help her and she never stopped kissing him, his mouth, his nose, his ear. “Marcus,” she said over and over. “Marcus, Marcus,” and he loved the sound of his name when she said it.

And when her legs were tight around him, he spread her with his fingers and brought her down over him and slid upward into her, moaning with the pleasure of it, and felt her body tighten around him, jerking and easing, then closing tighter and tighter, and it drove him crazy.

“I’ve missed you too damned much,” he said against her ear, then turned his face and took her tongue into his mouth.

“It’s—just—sex.”

He managed to laugh even as he worked her with his hands, lifting her, then bringing her down fully over him. He went deeper still, and when he felt his orgasm nearly upon him, he grabbed her hips in his hands, pressing her tightly against him, holding her still.

“Don’t—move. Don’t. I don’t want to leave you.”

“No,” she said into his mouth. “No, I won’t move.” But she did, unconsciously clenching her muscles, squeezing him, and he cried out, his hips thrusting
upward, and he knew he was a goner—and he hadn’t brought her to a climax. He tried to stop, but it was too late.

When he’d quieted the deep hollowing breaths that made his chest heave, when his hands just cupped her buttocks, no longer working her, Rafaella laid her head against his shoulder, her face pressed against his neck, and felt her legs relax, felt the building tension ease just a bit.

Slowly Marcus let her slide down his body, but he hated coming out of her, and for a moment he held her there, his cock just inside her, until, with a sigh, he let her leave him. They were standing only ankle-deep in the warm Caribbean. It was as far as they’d gotten before he’d grabbed her and lifted her and brought her legs around his hips—

“Rafaella?”

“Hmmm?” Her arms tightened about his waist. His chest hair was tickling her nose, so she kissed his chest, wetting his hair with her tongue.

Even the feel of her tongue on his chest turned him on. He held her away just a bit. “Look, I’m sorry about being a male pig. But I’m over it now. And I’ve got plans for you that include having you on your back with your legs wide apart and me between them and you arching your back and pressing up against my mouth. Do you remember that first night when I had to put my hand over your mouth, you were crying out so loud?”

She ran her hand down his stomach and her fingers closed around him. He was still aroused and he was wet with her and with himself, and her fingers moved and she felt him swell and grow hotter against her palm. “Perhaps I’ve more plans for you too, Marcus.”

Marcus knew about sand and where the gritty stuff ended up, so he forced himself to take the time to spread out his shirt for her to lie on. But he begrudged every second his mouth wasn’t on her.

“Lie down,” he said, then tripped her up himself, catching her as she fell, and laid her out as he wished to see her. Rafaella was languid and cooperative and excited. “Bend your knees,” he told her, then came down between her legs and bent her knees himself, then spread her thighs wide, then wider still. And she lifted her hips, unknowingly wanting, and he brought his mouth immediately down on her, his tongue searching through the soft folds of flesh to find her, and she imagined that she could hold back for a while, but it was impossible, and her body tensed, her legs muscles tightened and flexed, and she cried out and this time he let her, and listened to her while he probed her body with his tongue, scraped her flesh lightly with his teeth. When she came, he lifted her hips with his hands, and her fingers were winding in his hair, pressing his face closer against her.

When she’d quieted just a bit, Marcus slid into her, deeply, as he covered her.

“Rafaella?”

“It’s nice,” she said with great inadequacy.

He pushed deeper, and she smiled and lifted her hips.

“Why don’t you come with me this time? You up to it?”

She started to shake her head, to say that she was exhausted and there was nothing left in her, but it wasn’t true. She was more than able to come with him. She’d always considered herself quite healthy in her responses, but two orgasms she’d never before considered as all that healthy or normal, yet it was happening again, and when his fingers worked her, his belly pressing against his hand and her, she felt the ache deepen and widen through her lower body and grow stronger, and she cried very softly against his shoulder, her body tensing incredibly with pleasure, and he kissed her, his tongue in her mouth when he reached his own climax.

“That’s it. I’m a goner.” He lay on top of her, his full weight, and she didn’t mind it at all. “I’ve also got sand in my parts.”

She laughed at that and felt him easing out of her.

He came up on his elbows and looked down at her, studying her face. It was a dear face now, and it made him intensely uncomfortable because he didn’t want this, not now. Because if he let himself care, he’d have to worry; but that was stupid, because he already did worry about her, had worried, in fact, for so very long now. So, he decided, knowing he was a fool, it was just too late for him now, and to hell with it.

What to do?

He knew, even as the words hovered on his tongue, that she wouldn’t leave Dominick’s compound. She saw herself as here to stay, and nothing he could say would budge her. Stubborn and bullheaded and committed—but committed to what? It drove him mad. It wasn’t just the damned biography, it was something more. He also knew that he didn’t particularly want her with him to hunt out
Bathsheba
, but given that those were the only two choices, he had to take the latter.

He kept his mouth closed. He knew now what he had to do, and even though it wasn’t remotely honorable, it was the only sure way.

“It’s just sex,” she said, her first words, and he wanted to throttle her.

“Really, Ms. Holland?”

“Yes, that’s all it is, and because you’re pretty good, you make me care about things that are detrimental to my own well-being.”

Her words so paralleled his own thoughts that he was momentarily surprised into silence, even though he knew she didn’t feel about him the way he felt about her, however that was.

“What things?”

“You. I now find I worry about you. I nearly went
crazy when I found out that awful man had tried to kill you in Marseilles.”

“You did go crazy. You kung-fu’ed me flat on my back.”

“You did the same thing to me.” In the next breath she added, “And it was just sex. You’re a wonderful diversion, but nothing more. You can’t be.”

“I agree completely. You’re keeping things from me—”

“You’re doing the same thing! No, don’t go. Come back. I like you where you were.”

“Sorry, but my arms are tired.” He lay on his side beside her, his palm on her stomach. “You ain’t exactly an affliction yourself, at least at the moment.”

And at that moment she wanted to tell him so badly:
Look, Marcus, you’re a criminal. More than that, you work for Dominick, and I want nothing more than to destroy him. I can’t let you anywhere near me.
Instead she asked, “You’re not a murderer, are you?”

“No. If I had killed that woman—Tulp—it would have been self-defense. Just as it was with Jack Bertrand.”

She sighed and leaned up, kissed his chest. He liked her to kiss him, but he didn’t want to tell her that, so he just leaned down and kissed her nose.

“You won’t tell me anything? I can whine until cows swim the Atlantic, and you still won’t tell me?”

“Please spare me,” he said. “And no, I can’t, won’t, tell you anything. Not yet. Be patient.”

“It’s just sex.”

“Yeah, sure. And Saddam always invites the Kurds for Thanksgiving dinner.”

“Really, Marcus, let’s leave it at sex. It can’t be anything more, surely you understand that.”

“Yeah,” he said again. “I understand.”

And he did, too well. “Let’s get back.” He helped her up.

Link turned back to the beach to check that they were all right. They were standing, dressing, speaking in low voices. He sighed and turned away to hide himself in the dense foliage of the jungle until they passed him. Things were getting more complicated by the minute. He didn’t like it, and he couldn’t begin to predict what would happen now.

Rafaella jerked up in bed at the knock on her bedroom door.

“Yes?”

It was Marcus who opened her door, and he said abruptly, “Pick up your phone. It’s the Pine Hill Hospital on Long Island. They routed the call from the resort over here.”

She went cold. She picked up the phone, vaguely realizing that it too felt cold, and said, “Yes? This is Rafaella Holland.”

“This is Dr. Bentley. I’m sorry to have to call you, but Mr. Rutledge asked me to. He didn’t want to leave your mother for even a moment. She’s worse, Miss Holland. We think you should come here as quickly as possible.”

“But what happened? What’s changed? I just spoke to my stepfather yesterday.”

And Dr. Bentley reeled off words and phrases that made little sense except the “she’s deeper in coma—sinking—”

“I’ll be there right away,” Rafaella said, and hung up. She stared blindly toward Marcus, who still stood in the doorway. “It’s my mother—”

He hated the numbed pain in her voice, and said, “I’m leaving in just a little while for Miami. You want to come with me?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, and was dressed, packed, and downstairs in ten minutes.

To the gathered family in the living room she said simply, “My mother’s condition has gotten worse. I’m
leaving right away with Marcus.” And to Dominick, “I’ll be back when I can, sir. You can count on me.”

He stood up and walked over to her. He looked down at her for a long time, gently touched his fingertips to her cheek, and said, “I understand. You’ll be back when you can. If you need anything, anything at all, you will call me. All right? Good. Now, off with you. Marcus will see to everything. Good luck, my dear.”

Coco hugged her, and even Paula wished her luck. DeLorio was nowhere to be seen.

Rafaella and Marcus reached Miami at eleven o’clock in the morning. Marcus said, “I’ve booked you on a flight to New York that leaves in an hour. Come have a cup of coffee with me.”

She nodded, still numb with fear. He ordered her coffee in the small airport snack shop and set it in front of her.

“Drink up.”

She did, then set her cup down and smiled painfully at him. Odd, but he was still standing there beside her, just standing, saying nothing. “Thank you, Marcus. You’ve been more than kind. I really appreciate your being here for me. Funny that it should end this way, isn’t it?”

“This isn’t an end, Ms. Holland. Now, come with me. I’ll take you to your gate.”

He led her through security, and when she weaved slightly, it felt natural for his arm to go around her waist. And when she fell asleep in the waiting-room chair just outside Gate 93, it was natural that her head fall on his shoulder.

And when she finally woke up, it was natural that Marcus’s face was the first one she saw. Only it wasn’t natural. He shouldn’t be there. Something was wrong, very wrong. She couldn’t seem to think straight.

She smiled at him. It felt natural to do so. “Are you going to New York with me? Are we in the air?”

“No and yes. How do you feel?”

She yawned, stretched, and rubbed her eyes. There was lots of room. They were in the first-class cabin.