Impulse (22 page)

“Why are you warning me, and with such explicit language? You don’t even like me. You surely don’t trust me.”

He gave her a slow smile then, his eyes lighting. “Ms. Holland, any woman I take on my front lawn, I don’t like to have despoiled by some other man, particularly one with such tastes as DeLorio has. No, no more throwing me on my back. I’m serious, and if you try your karate on me now, I’ll tie you up and take you back to the resort.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“You sound just like a little kid in the sixth grade, ready to fight it out. Come on, let’s get going. Do you still want to go through with it?”

“Certainly. Thanks for the warning. And, Marcus?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m just here to do that biography. Nothing more, I swear it to you.”

“It’s Dominick you’ll have to convince, Ms. Holland.”

“I want to drive the rest of the way,” Rafaella said, and swung her leg over the motor-scooter seat. The skirt of the dress wasn’t full, but it had enough material to keep it from crawling up her legs.

“A pity,” Marcus said, eyeing the skirt, then shrugged and climbed on behind her. He immediately hugged himself against her back, his arms around her waist.

“Not so tight,” she said, and tried to shake free of him. “It’s bloody warm.” When he only tightened his arms, she twisted about to face him. “All right, lover boy, let me tell you something. You say you don’t trust me. Well, I don’t particularly trust you. And it’s not a question of my virtue. It’s just that you’re—well, you don’t seem the type of man to me who would be content to run a resort for another man, no matter how swank, no matter how high the salary.”

“Hmmm. What else do you see in your tea leaves?”

“You’re probably something of a renegade. You like to be in charge—Lord, do I ever know that personally. You value your independence and you don’t like to accept orders from other people.”

Interesting, Marcus thought. He moved his hands up until they were touching the undersides of her breasts. That should distract her. It sure was getting to him. But she didn’t move, just looked at him.

“No, you’re not what you seem, but you’re not going to tell me, are you? Are you a crook, Mr. Devlin?
A plain garden-variety-type criminal? Is Devlin even your real name? You never answered me on that one, incidentally.”

“Are you going to tell me what’s in that strange looking book I saw you with that first night? The one that made you cry?”

He felt the shock go through her body, but she didn’t flinch. She was very good.

He pushed a bit more. “I saw it again on the side of your tub this morning. What is it?”

“None of your business,” she said, and gunned the motor scooter.

He could hear her muttering curses under her breath, and he smiled at the back of her helmet.

But he was worried. He’d been very worried since he’d spoken to Dominick.

She was one smart cookie, and perceptive. She was also too impulsive, and that could get her hurt.

It was a clear, sweet-scented evening, and for an unwanted moment Rafaella found herself alone with Paula. Where was Coco? Marcus? Anyone?

Paula wasted no time with preliminary skirmishes.

“So tell me, Miss Holland, which one are you after? Marcus? Dominick? Or my husband?”

Rafaella merely smiled at Paula, who looked innocent and young and vulnerable in a pale peach silk sundress, her long light blond hair hanging straight to her shoulders. She didn’t look like she wanted to get in every guy’s Jockey shorts.

“I want you to leave. It isn’t healthy here, not for someone like you.”

The two women were standing on the veranda that faced the swimming pool. The scent of hibiscus and bougainvillea filled the evening air. It was warm but not uncomfortably so. The sun had just gone down and it was that particularly spectacular time of evening in the Caribbean that lasted mere minutes.

“On the contrary, it’s beautiful here. Just smell the air. So sweet. Don’t you agree?”

“DeLorio’s my husband.”

“Congratulations,” Rafaella said. “Look, Paula, I swear to steer very clear of your husband. Satisfied?”

“And Marcus?”

“Why ever should you care about Marcus? You’re not a bigamist, are you?”

“You’re not funny, Miss Holland.”

“Very likely not, but you know, Paula, it’s rather odd to be having this conversation in 2001.”

“What do you mean?” Paula’s voice was heavy with suspicion.

“Women competing over men, arguing over them. Women not seeing each other as allies, but as natural enemies.”

“You mean all that sisterhood crap our mothers preached back in the Dark Ages?”

“That’s what I mean. Listen up, Paula. I’m not after any man. You got that?”

“Yeah? For someone who is not out to snare a guy you sure do seem to put a whole lot of care into presenting a pretty package—I mean, that designer outfit isn’t exactly sack cloth.”

“No, it isn’t.” Paula had a point there. It wasn’t that Rafaella hadn’t ever exploited her looks, because she had. She’d played that angle plenty of times for the sake of getting a story. She remembered coming onto that jerk neo-Nazi—Lazarus, he’d styled himself—to get him to talk.

“Would you just believe, Paula, that there’s more to life than men?” So much for keeping her mouth shut. So much for coming across like a hypocrite, which she probably was. Really she just didn’t want to admit to herself that Marcus, in a revoltingly short time, had managed somehow to throw her so totally off-balance again and again.

“You just try going after Marcus and I’ll—”

“You’ll what, Paula?”

“Make you sorry.”

Such a little girl. At least that was how she was coming across. A spoiled little rich girl who needed the attention of any and all males constantly fastened exclusively on her. Rafaella eyed her closely. Al Holbein had told her time and time again not to be satisfied with surface appearances. “There’s always something deeper, Rafe, even if the person comes across like a glowing idiot.”

Marcus had dismissed Paula as exactly what she appeared to be. But he was a man, and evidently Paula had come onto him. When he’d been helpless—What had she done?

“What are you grinning about?”

“I was just remembering what Marcus told me about you, when he was helpless and you—” She paused, not knowing how to proceed. She didn’t have to. Paula went pale, then turned as red as the mahogany sideboard inside the dining room. Then she looked furious.

“He told you about that?”

Rafaella just shrugged, her smile never slipping. What had she done anyway?

To her further surprise, Paula looked humiliated.

“That bastard. He loved it, he just pretended he didn’t at first. He was hard and he enjoyed pushing into my mouth, and he was groaning and pushing, the damned bastard.”

And Paula was gone in a whirl of peach silk skirt and long bare legs.

“What was that all about?”

Rafaella jumped guiltily at the sound of his voice. “Oh, hello, Marcus. I don’t suppose you were eavesdropping? No, even you couldn’t have carried it off in magnificent silence, given the subject matter.”

“Which was? Here’s a rum punch for you.”

She sipped it. It was too sweet and far too potent. She gave him a sweeter smile.

“Paula, er, taking advantage of you when you were down, and how you loved it.”

“Well, well,” he mused aloud, but Rafaella wasn’t fooled for a moment. His fingers had tightened around his glass and there was an interesting tic in his jaw. He was embarrassed. He was mad. He had wanted none of it. Rafaella was watching him and thinking how odd it was that she seemed to know him so well after only a few days. And she knew him, or was coming to know him more quickly than she ever had another human being.

“You were really that helpless? When was this?”

“I was shot here a while back. I was laid up in bed and too weak to fend her off. Coco tried to protect me, but she couldn’t be there all the time.”

“And DeLorio?”

“He was in Miami. I wasn’t safe until he got back.” Then Marcus stared at her. He’d just spilled his damned guts and she hadn’t really questioned him in a pushy way, hadn’t pressured him, just looked at him so warmly, as if telling her would solve all his problems. Only it wouldn’t. Telling her anything could get both of them killed. “Look, Ms. Holland. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you on this island. I doubt that I even want you in the Caribbean. You’re dangerous to yourself and you’re damned dangerous to me.” He was looking at her as though he wanted to smack her. Then he shook his head and plowed his fingers through his hair. “Oh, what the hell!” And like Paula, he turned on his heel and stomped off. Only he walked in the opposite direction, along the side of the swimming pool, toward the far deep end. It was shrouded in evening shadows.

Rafaella watched him, not moving. He was a complex man and she wished desperately that she could have met him in another time, in another place, anywhere
but here, with Dominick Giovanni. She recognized this in herself and accepted it, but not willingly. He was making her crazy. Even now she was looking after him, not wanting him out of her sight. She watched him stop suddenly and jerk around. He stared down into the water. Then he dropped to his hands and knees, peering over the edge of the pool, his body tense, his eyes searching. She watched him pull something out of his pocket and toss it behind him. Then in a fluid movement he straightened and dived into the water.

Her heart jumped. Oh, Lord, what was wrong? What had he seen? A body? Something, something—? Adrenaline surged.

She ran to the other end of the pool, stared down into the shadowed water, saw Marcus’s outline, and without further hesitation kicked off her shoes and jumped in. She sucked in air and kicked downward, her beautiful silk floral dress billowing up around her chest.

His hands went around her waist and he pulled her to the surface, still holding her.

She sputtered out water and tried to wipe her hair out of her eyes. “What are you doing? What’s wrong? What’s down there?”

Marcus gave her an evil grin and pushed her against the side of the pool, letting her find her footing on the narrow ledge. It was nearly dark, they were in deep shadows, and the air was soft. Hummingbirds dived about the bougainvillea, pausing to feed, then dipping and fluttering to another blossom. Evening insects hummed. They were alone.

Rafaella tried to pull away from him, but he held on. “You scared the hell out of me. What did you see?”

“There was nothing in the pool.”

“Then why—?”

“I just wanted you to come running, and you did.”

Marcus wrapped her wet hair around his hand, pulling her forward, and kissed her. She felt him hard and pushing against her belly. The air went out of her and every wonderful feeling imaginable swirled about inside her, and when he pulled back only to push her floating dress up to her breasts, she just looked at his mouth, wanting him to kiss her again. His hand slid up her thigh and beneath her panties. He jerked them down to her knees. Then he cupped her, his fingers closing over her, resting there, and he sighed and kissed her again.

“Very nice, Ms. Holland,” he said in her mouth, and she wondered if she’d lost her mind. She kissed him again, resolving to worry about it later. He had the sexiest mouth, and his tongue—

His fingers moved, and she moved with his fingers. His middle finger eased inside her and she jerked against him, sucking in her breath in a loud whoosh.

“Easy now,” he said, and nibbled her earlobe.

He pushed his finger deeper, then stopped, resting again, seemingly content, and she looked at him. His eyes were dark with pleasure and lust.

She said the obvious again because she couldn’t think of anything else: “You did all that just to get me in the water?”

“It worked.” He moved his finger and stroked his thumb over her, teasing and pressing inward until he’d found her. And he just stopped his fingers again. “You’re such a little heroine, rushing headlong into the unknown, into dangers unimagined, straight into the pool, not caring what lurking terrors await you. Do you like this, Ms. Holland?” And his resting fingers stopped resting.

She moaned.

“You do. Very nice. Yes, I knew you’d come dashing to my rescue—that or to satisfy your curiosity about what was in the pool. A fleet of marines couldn’t have held you back. I like that about you.
You don’t think, do you? You could have been Saint Georgia. You don’t worry about consequences.”

“Evidently not. Just look at what I’m letting you do to me.”

“There’s a difference this time, and you know it. This time I firmly intend to take the final plunge. How about right now? I thought about your words this morning—your final-plunge joke—and decided to carry through with it, replete with swimming pool and all the water you could want. I admit I would have felt the consummate fool, however, had you merely stood at the side of the pool and stared down at me. I would have had to drag you into the water. This way, you leapt to your fate with great willingness. Now, let’s see if everything is working.” He pulled back his hand and felt her lower body quiver when his fingers left her. He kissed her even as he unzipped his pants and freed his erect sex.

“Now,” he said with deep satisfaction. “Now.”

He lifted her off the ledge, keeping her pressed against the pool wall, his fingers parting her, and without warning he came fast and hard into her.

Rafaella cried out at the shock of him, deep and thick, filling her, but then he was kissing her again, holding her tightly against him, pressing her against the side of the pool, making the water swirl around them. And then his fingers found her, and quickly, so very quickly, she was struggling with an orgasm that would overwhelm her, make her lose control, and she didn’t want that but she couldn’t stop it. She didn’t understand this unacceptable effect he had on her, and at the moment she simply didn’t care whether she did or not.

She cried out and he quickly kissed her again and moaned into her mouth and pounded into her, and after she’d jerked and heaved and exploded wildly, he let himself go.

He held her close, his cheek against her wet hair, still deep inside her.