Dante's Stolen Wife (5 page)

“And I promised you a moonlit drink that we never quite got around to.” He skated his mouth along the path his hand had taken, kissing his way from the curve of her shoulder to the base of her throat. There he paused.

“Well, that’s not quite true. We did have a drink on the plane. And there was a moon peering in on us. Did you notice it?”

“The moonlight was perfect and I had my drink,” she managed to reply. As though unable to help herself, her head dipped to one side to offer him better access. “But how did we end up here? We were just supposed to share a romantic interlude before the anniversary party.”

“Which is what we’re doing right now. Unless you want to stop interluding?” He nuzzled her ear, catching the lobe between his teeth. Slowly he tugged. “Yes? No?”

The breath hissed from her lungs in reaction. “No, don’t stop. Just explain to me how we went from there to here.”

“Ah. You want logic.” He smiled against her heated skin at her attempt to bring order to disorder. Since when was romance and passion logical? “Let me guess…. You want a map of points and coordinates so you can trace your path from point A to point Z.”

His teasing eased something within her. He sensed the slight loosening as humor defeated tension. “Something like that.”

He slanted his mouth over hers until nothing existed for either of them but the play of their lips and tongue. “I can do that for you.” He lifted her hand and brushed a kiss in its center. “For your information, this is point A, the place we first touched.”

She gasped for air. “Oh, right. I remember now. That’s where this all started.”

He didn’t give her time to recover her breath. He swung her into his arms and carried her to the bed. “And right here is point Z.” He followed her down onto the mattress. “There are a few other miscellaneous points in between.” He dismissed them with a wave of his hand. “But you get the general idea.”

“Lazz—”

He nearly swore out loud at her use of his brother’s name, knowing full well he had no one to blame for that but himself. Aware of her watchful gaze, he managed a teasing smile. “Would you like to go back to point A, or is Z good enough for you.”

She pretended to consider. “Z, please. With a few Gs, Rs and Ws thrown in for good measure.”

“Excellent suggestion,
cara
. I’m particularly good at W.”

“I know I had a long list of other worries, but right now I can’t think of a single one.” Her hand feathered across the planes of his face. “All I want is for you to prove how well you do W.”

“My pleasure.”

She lay beneath him, a veritable palette of subtle colors. The flush of palest rose against a sweeping canvas of ivory curves. Lips a shade just shy of coral. The tips of her breasts a shade deeper than her lips. Against all that flowed the black of darkest night, the rippling waves of her hair striking a sharp contrast to the expanse of pastel. And finally there was the brilliant teal blue of her eyes, staring at him as though the sun rose and set at his command.

Would she still feel that way about him tomorrow? If not, that only gave him tonight, a night he intended to make as perfect as possible. He gathered her hands in his and guided them to his chest, and where she explored his body, so he explored hers, mirroring each and every move.

A smile of delight appeared the instant she caught on to his game. She deliberately ran her fingers along the sculpted muscles of his chest, circling the flat discs of his nipples. Her eyes widened when he did the same to her, eliciting a choked gasp.

“Is this how you want to play?” she demanded when she’d recovered sufficiently to speak.

“We’ll see who caves first.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “So the loser is the one who cries uncle first?”

“Trust me. There are no losers in this game.” He flashed her a swift grin. “Unless you count losing out on bragging rights.”

But he could tell he’d intrigued her and he could see the determination build in her, the desire to have him be the first to put an end to this novel form of foreplay. “We’ll see who’s bragging come morning,” she muttered.

He didn’t want to think about tomorrow. Only tonight mattered. He lowered his head to her breast and captured her nipple between his teeth, tugging gently. Her soft cry was all he could have asked for and more. When she didn’t immediately reciprocate, he asked, “Giving up, already?”

Then it was his turn to shudder, his turn to struggle to master his self-control. She played the game better than he’d anticipated, proving more creative than logical, which only confirmed his suspicions about her. Even so, he didn’t think what was happening between them had to do with creativity, alone. He’d never been touched with such attentiveness or such open curiosity before. And he suddenly realized that she was having fun, almost as though such playfulness were a rare treat for her. Almost as though her life had been all work, with far too little play.

“You’re laughing,” he accused at one point.

She struggled to control herself, failing miserably.

“Do you mind? I swear it’s not at you. I’ve just never tried this game before.”

“And you’re enjoying it.”

“I really am.”

The bed became their playground. At some point, his trousers and boxers vanished. He used the opportunity to switch off all but one of the lights, a lamp that bathed the room in soft shadows. He returned to the bed and rolled with her to the darkest section of the bed, where the light couldn’t betray that he lacked the scar his brother carried. And then the game turned serious.

He started the chase again, intent on pushing her over the edge. As though picking up on the change, her laughter faded, replaced by an escalating passion. Where before his hands tripped across her skin, now they sought out the areas he’d discovered to be the most sensitive. The back of her knees. The inside of her thigh just below the panty line. The silken slope of her belly. The dimpled hollow above her backside. And along her side where taut skin became soft breast. He gave each and every section of her body his full attention. Gave to her, pleasure after pleasure.

“You win.” The breath sobbed from her lungs.

“Please, make love to me. I can’t wait any longer. Make love to me now.”

“I only win if you win.”

She fisted her hands in his hair and drew him down to her, in a long open-mouthed kiss. He’d removed her panties at some point during their game and she opened herself for his possession, encouraging him without words to give completion to the escalating passion that had been building between them.

He threaded his fingers with hers, locking them together palm to palm. This is where The Inferno had first burned, and he could feel it there still, uniting them just as he planned to unite their bodies. He whispered her name as he slid inward. Taking, giving, melding.

Gently, he possessed her. Then not so gently. She reared up to meet him, incandescent in her passion. The urgency grew, bit hard. She called to him, urging him on. Pleading. Demanding. Laughing and crying. He’d never experienced with another woman anything close to what he did in that moment with Caitlyn. Not like this. Never like this.

He could feel the building. Feel the ending approach. He wanted to snatch it back. To live in this moment forever, until the pleasure ripped them both apart. And then it did. She fisted around him, her climax careening through her, surging in wild, crashing waves. Unable to help himself, he crashed with her.

Together they tumbled into an aftermath of weak, tangled limbs and quiet bits of lovespeak that made no sense but somehow maintained the emotional connection. Marco wound his arms around his bride, his wife, this soul mate The Inferno had given him, and rolled them into a warm ball that wedded soft with hard in a timeless blending of opposites.

He couldn’t remember how long they slept. He woke once more during the night and they made love again, this time long and languid. The game they’d played gave them a greater awareness of each other’s wants and needs and added a depth and power to their lovemaking.

The second time he woke, he felt the advent of morning. Slipping from the bed, he crossed first to the coffeemaker and turned it on and then to the bathroom where he opened the faucet full force. He picked up a jar of bath salts and removed the lid, sniffed, then upended a goodly portion into the water. Foam erupted. Satisfied, he padded to the sitting area to pour the coffee and transport the two steaming mugs to the tiled platform around the tub. Then he went in search of his wife, finding her, much to his pleasure, right where he’d left her.

Not a morning person, he realized the instant he lifted her from her warm cocoon. “I’m shocked you even know that word, let alone would use it to describe your husband,” he said with a husky laugh.

“I know a lot more swear words and I’m going to use them if you don’t take me straight back to bed.”

“I have something better in mind.” He maneuvered down the three short steps into the sunken tub and eased her into the water. Her shriek of surprise turned to a groan of pleasure. He chuckled. “Ah, there’s the woman I married. You had me worried for a moment there.”

“This feels amazing.” She leaned against the sloping edge opposite him and rubbed her foot along the length of his leg. “What do you say we start every morning this way.”

“I’ll see what I can arrange.” He handed her one of the mugs. “I wonder if we can order breakfast in here. They’ve been so accommodating about everything else.”

“There’s a phone on the wall by the tub,” she said, burying her nose in the mug. “See if you can reach it.”

“I’m game, if you are.” He levered himself upward, his fingers just glancing off the receiver. He half rose and tried again. Behind him, he heard her coffee mug clatter into the bathtub.

“Oh. God.”

At first he thought she’d scalded herself and whipped around to help. And then he knew.

Time was up.

“
W
ho the hell are you?
” Caitlyn demanded.

“Your husband.”

“Don’t treat me like a fool. You’re not Lazz.” She forced down the surge of hysteria battering to escape. But she couldn’t keep herself from folding in on herself in an attempt to hide her nudity beneath the scant covering of rapidly dissipating bubbles. Though why she bothered after what the two of them had done last night, she couldn’t say. “Lazz has a scar on his hip. I saw it when we went swimming. You don’t have a scar.”

“No, I don’t. And no, I’m not Lazz.” He slowly rose, water sheeting off him as he stepped from the tub and snagged a towel. “That doesn’t change the fact that I’m your husband.”

It took every ounce of self-control to keep from totally losing it. She felt hideously exposed, and more than a little frightened. She’d married this man—
a complete stranger
—and didn’t even know his name. She’d made love to him all through the night. Frolicked like a child in a bubble-filled bathtub. But she didn’t have a clue who he was, other than a dead ringer for Lazz.

She fought to apply reason to insanity, to use what little logic and common sense remained at her disposal, while all around her bricks and mortar crumbled. “Since you look exactly like Lazz, I’m assuming you’re related. His brother?” Her brain gave a kick-start. “
His twin brother?
”

“Yes.”

“Lazz never mentioned a twin,” she stated tightly. “Is this your idea of a joke? Is he in on whatever amusing little scam you’re trying to pull, or is this all your own idea?”

“This isn’t a joke or a scam. And if you’ll look closely, you’ll see I’m not the least amused. Here.” He ripped another towel off the glass-and-wrought-iron rack and held it out to her. “I suspect you’ll be more comfortable having this conversation if you aren’t naked.”

She struggled to hold tears at bay. “I can’t believe I’m having his conversation at all. I want to know who the hell you are and what sort of hideous game you’re playing.”

Clutching the towel to her breasts, she stood and wrapped the thick length of cotton around herself. Lazz—no, not Lazz—cupped her elbow to steady her as she climbed out of the water. She almost thanked him before catching it back at the last instant.

“
cara
—”

She yanked free of his hold. “Don’t. Don’t you dare call me that. Now, who are you?”

“Marco Dante.”

“Marco.” She recognized the name. Hadn’t she heard Britt rhapsodize endlessly over the past six weeks about the “charming” one of the Dante brothers? Why, in the name of everything holy, had her friend neglected to mention that Marco and Lazz were twins? “How did this happen? Why did it happen? Does Lazz know what you’ve pulled?”

He removed a terry cloth robe from the back of the door without answering and handed it over. She didn’t want to appreciate his thoughtfulness. She didn’t want him doing or saying anything that would make her feel kindly disposed toward him. She shrugged on the robe and belted it tightly around her waist before allowing the towel to drop to the floor at her feet.

Lazz—Marco—didn’t bother with a robe but exited into the bedroom with the towel slung carelessly around his waist. She desperately wanted him to cover up, to hide that impressive chest that she’d peppered with kisses. To conceal those amazing arms that had held her with such tender strength. To turn from mind-blowing lover back into a normal, average man, despite the fact that there wasn’t and never would be anything normal or average about him.

To her relief, once they’d reached the sitting room, Marco gave her some much-needed breathing space. “First, this is no game,” he began. “And it happened because Lazz gave me no other choice. At least none, given the limited amount of time I had to work with.”

She held up a hand to silence him, wishing she’d chugged that coffee instead of losing it in the bathwater. Spying the coffeemaker and—hallelujah—a half pot of coffee remaining, she crossed the room and poured herself a cup. Then a second. Satisfied that her brain was firing on at least half its cylinders, she faced the man she’d married only hours earlier.

“I need you to explain things, but I need them explained in a way I can understand. So, I’m going to ask the questions and you’re going to answer them, simply and concisely. Got it?”

“Logic, Caitlyn?”

She resented the knowing look in his eyes, a look accompanied by a familiar flash of humor. She lifted her chin to a combative angle. “It’s what I do best. Or did, until recently,” she corrected.

She struggled to come up with a logical first question, but for some reason it hovered just beyond her reach. All she could think of was that she’d been tricked into a bogus marriage by this man so that he could…Could what? Get her into bed? That didn’t make a bit of sense. He didn’t have to go through this sham of a wedding in order to accomplish that. Hit out at Lazz? Possibly. But…why?

She rubbed at the tension headache forming behind her temples, wishing with all her heart that she wore a business suit, had her reading glasses to hide behind and a pad of paper and pen to help organize her thoughts. “Okay, first question. Is there a rational beginning to all this? Someplace we can start from?”

“You’d like a point A?”

The poignancy of the question ripped into her, making it almost impossible to keep her voice steady enough to answer. “Yes. Point A would be an excellent place to start.”

“That’s easy enough.” His hazel eyes grew watchful and intent, while the color darkened to autumnal flashes of gold and brown. “You and I met the morning you started at Dantes,” he surprised her by saying. “In the lobby near the receptionist’s desk.”

She blinked in surprise. “That was you?”

“Yes.” He kept his voice even, though she sensed it cost him. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but apparently you thought I was Lazz.”

“The receptionist,” Caitlyn explained. “He told me you were Lazz. And since the head of personnel had already pointed out your brother to me during my interview. I assumed…”

“A natural mistake.”

She inclined her head. “There’s no reason why I’d think there might be two of you, especially since no one’s mentioned anything about a twin in the interim. Maybe they thought I already knew.”

“If I’d realized that, I’d have corrected the misunderstanding right then and there and it would have saved us—” he swept a negligent hand through the air“—all this.”

He couldn’t be more wrong. She’d heard stories about Marco, stories that ensured she’d have given short shrift to any advances coming from the sort of man cut from her grandfather’s cloth. “Just to be clear? I would never get involved with a man like you.”

“But we are involved,
cara
. More than involved,” he replied gently. He didn’t give her time to argue his statement. “I think I know the next part of the story. Lazz didn’t bother straightening out the mix-up in the lobby. And I was sent off on a sudden emergency. A very convenient sudden emergency.”

She caught the ripple of tension whenever he mentioned his brother’s name. Something had happened there, and somehow she’d been put in the middle of it. Before this ended she’d find a way to change that. “You believe Lazz is responsible for your change in job assignment? Why?” She read the answer in his gaze and shook her head in disbelief. “Because of me? You must be joking.”

Marco leaned against the archway between the bedroom and sitting area and folded his arms across his chest. “He wanted you,” he said with a shrug. “He didn’t realize you were already taken.”

“Taken!” Her temper flashed like wildfire. “Let me clarify something for you, Mr. Dante. Despite current evidence to the contrary, I’m not some brainless object to be picked up or discarded or, even worse, fought over by a pair of schoolboys. I make my own choices. I always have and I always will.”

“I’m relieved to hear that, since it means you won’t give in to whatever demands Lazz makes when he hears about our marriage. I won’t have him coming between us again.”

She sucked in a breath and felt her face go white with shock. “Dear God. Are you saying that the events of the past twenty-four hours are your way of retaliating against your brother?” Her voice rose despite her best attempts to control it. “Are you kidding me? Just because he succeeded in dating someone you’d chosen for yourself? You did this to me so you could hit out at Lazz?”

He straightened, a wash of color sweeping along his elegant cheekbones. “You chose Lazz because you didn’t realize we were the ones who connected that morning in the lobby. Who bonded.”

“We shook hands, Marco! That was it.”

“And experienced
The Inferno.
”

She stared at him, nonplussed. “I know I’m going to regret asking this, but what’s
The Inferno?
” He took his time, explaining in detail, and she actually found herself listening. So it had a name, came her first thought, before she downed the last of her coffee, praying it would help her make sense of what had to be total nonsense. “And you actually believe in this superstition or fantasy or whatever?”

He took instant exception. “It’s not superstition or fantasy. All the Dantes believe in it. Well, except for Lazz.” He considered for an instant. “And possibly Nicolò. The jury’s still out on my cousins, only because they haven’t had it happen to them, yet. But that’s not the point, damn it. It’s real. It happened to us. And before long you’ll believe, as well.”

She glared at him. She didn’t want to accept a single word he said, even though it helped explain how she’d ended up here, married to a complete stranger. For some bizarre reason—other than The Inferno—she’d decided to chase after Zorro and gotten herself in this mess, all in the name of a little excitement. This was why steady and predictable won the race every time. Still…

She shook her head, more for her own benefit than his. “I don’t believe you. Not that it matters, because after today I’m never going to see you again.”

He simply smiled. “And why would you want to do that? We’re married. Did last night mean so little to you?”

To her embarrassment, the tears she’d managed to hold at bay earlier escaped. “It meant everything to me. Or it would have if you hadn’t lied to me. You committed fraud. You knew full well that if you’d introduced yourself as Marco, I’d have had nothing to do with you. So you pretended to be Lazz in order to trick me into marriage. To trick me into bed. I guarantee a good lawyer will put a fast end to our marriage.”

To her dismay, he approached, rousing emotions she had no business experiencing. “Yesterday your friends warned you that Lazz planned to propose at Primo and Nonna’s anniversary party. Tell me, Caitlyn. What answer would you have given him if he had?”

“I don’t see what that has to do—”

“You would have refused him, wouldn’t you? At the very least you would have asked for time. You told me as much last night.”

“Okay, fine,” she conceded. “That’s what I would have done. So?”

“Why did you change your mind? Why did you agree to marry me?”

“Temporary insanity combined with too much champagne.”

“Ah,
cara
,” he murmured with a laugh. “You can’t lie to me. Last night had nothing to do with too much wine and you know it. You left the party with me, married me, made love to me, because you recognized on a visceral level that I’m the man with whom you belong. And you planned to refuse Lazz for the same reason. Just as you sensed the connection between us, you felt the lack with him.”

“Why didn’t you simply explain about the mix-up?” It was a cry from the heart. “Why resort to subterfuge?”

“I ran out of time,” he said simply. “Lazz planned to propose and even if you’d refused him, you would have refused any advances on my part, as well. Don’t you understand? He doesn’t love you, sweetheart.”

“And you do?”

“I’m not going to answer that because you won’t believe anything I say at this point. Only time will convince you whether or not we’re meant to be together. Lazz has decided that you two have enough in common to make marriage a logical choice, but that’s not reasonable grounds for marriage.”

“It’s more reasonable than the way you went about it,” she retorted. “Until last night, we’d been in each other’s company for a whole five minutes. And now you’ve locked us into this bogus marriage.”

“It’s not bogus,” he corrected calmly. “My legal name is on the marriage license. The priest used it during the ceremony.”

She stared in dismay. “He did?”

He hesitated. “I might have distracted you about then. It’s possible you weren’t paying strict attention.”

“Oh, Marco.” Satisfaction flared to life in his eyes, brought on, she suspected, by her use of his real name.

“This isn’t going to work. You realize that, don’t you?”

“You’re right.”

She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again when his comment sank in. “I am?”

“It’s not going to work if you’re unwilling to take a chance.”

He wrapped his arms around her. She shuddered at the familiar feel of his arms, at the scent of the oils from their bath that still clung to his bare chest. More than anything she wanted to close her eyes and return to those magical hours they’d shared the previous night. To tumble into bed with this man and sleep, secure in the certainty that all was right with her world.

Only it wasn’t. Not any longer.

“I can’t stay married to you. I don’t know you.”

“Yes, you do.” He settled a hand over her heart. “In here you know me better than anyone. Or do you think that’s not enough? That what we shared last night won’t last?”

“It can’t. We’re
strangers,
Marco.”

“We’re
lovers
, Caitlyn. And in time we’ll be friends and companions as well as lovers. In time we’ll learn each other’s secrets. We’ll fight on occasion and adjust to accommodate each other. We’ll talk and laugh. And all the while this bond we share, this Inferno, will bind us together until we think and feel as one. All you have to do is give our marriage a chance.”

“You’re asking me to build a life with you based on fairy tales and wishful thinking. There’s no foundation here,” she said desperately. “Sex isn’t enough.”