Pretty Packages (16 page)

Giada moaned, highly turned on by the possessiveness of his voice and touch. “Yes, baby. You branded me for sure today.” She would never forget how fervent he’d been with her today.

“Baby, I branded you the first time we made love. You just didn’t know it back then, remember?”
Kentucky
chuckled.

“You’re right.” Giada smiled. “Now let me do a little branding of you,” she added, leaning up on tiptoes to suck his neck hard, intent on leaving behind the biggest hickey she could.

* * * *

Kentucky
moaned at Giada’s aggression. He knew what she was trying to do at his neck, and he liked it. “Suck harder, baby.”

Jumping upon his waist, Giada wrapped her legs about his torso and went for broke. By the time she’d placed two large passion marks on either side of his neck,
Kentucky
was breathing hard and ready to return the favor.

Lifting her upon his shoulders, he left two hickeys at both joints of her inner thighs. “You see where I left those passion marks?”
Kentucky
asked huskily as he lowered her legs from his neck and shoulder areas.

“Yes,” Giada panted out, looking ready for round four now. But that wasn’t going to happen. The fact that he placed her back on her feet again instead of carrying her over to the bed confirmed that truth.

“Those hickeys prove that I’m not sending you back to the boat to pretend to be Fabian’s girlfriend for another day, much less two more weeks. They will also remind you not to undress in front of him when you go back today to pack and leave in order to avoid a scandal.”
Kentucky
’s nostrils flared at even the thought of Fabian seeing her naked body again.

“I love your brilliance and your jealousy.” Giada smiled. “But I wasn’t going to undress in front of him again anyway,” she assured her new man. “But won’t my leaving so suddenly create a scandal in and of itself? Fabian is going to want answers. Plus, he can be a very sensitive guy when he wants to be. The man has major abandonment issues stemming from being left by his mother and raised in foster homes. Me breaking up with him might negatively affect the rest of his tour. I couldn’t do that to Fabian. Not after he’s been so nice to me all these months. What I did behind his back today is bad enough, despite the fact that he spiked my drink behind my back.” Giada actually looked remorseful now.

Had falling in love given her a conscience? And why wasn’t
Kentucky
, one of the most principled men on the planet, feeling just as remorseful?

Kentucky
did
feel remorseful, but only slightly. Though he liked Fabian as a person, he didn’t like the way the man treated Giada. Instead of treating her like an equal, Fabian treated her like some little kid who he had to spoil, thereby catering to her materialistic side and forever stunting her growth.

Giada needed a man in her life who knew how to treat her special, but who could also challenge her to grow as a person. She needed
Kentucky
. Finally they both realized that now.

“I’m not happy about going behind another man’s back either since I definitely wouldn’t want that to happen to me,”
Kentucky
finally replied after a bit of thought. “But what’s done is done. We can’t take back what we did. I wouldn’t want to, not in a million years.” He bent to kiss her forehead before releasing her completely. “All we can do now is damage control.”

Then, as Giada put her clothes back on,
Kentucky
instructed her on ways that she could remove herself from the rest of the tour without upsetting Fabian too much. He also told her what his expectations were concerning the new relationship she was about to start with him.

One, Giada had to officially break up with Fabian once the tour was over. Two, she had to move out of the condo that she shared with Fabian. Three, she had to go back to work and enroll in law school.

Giada huffed in protest. “Why can’t I just move in with you while I go to law school?” She turned away from the mirror where she’d been styling her hair.

“Because I need to see you standing on your own two feet for a change, not on my feet or some other man’s,”
Kentucky
replied from where he sat on the side of the bed. “Besides, it’s not like you don’t have a house of your own. Matter of fact, you have
two
houses to choose from.”

“But if I move back into one of my houses, I’m going to be cutting myself off from steady income,” Giada replied, “income that I could use to pay for law school, mind you. Especially since I have no idea what kind of money I’ll be making at this unknown job you want me to get.”

Like the wise man that he was,
Kentucky
knew when to compromise. “Okay, I understand that you have to learn to crawl before you can walk, so I’ll put in a good word for you with Mama. I’m sure she’ll let you stay there while you work and go to school. Mama could use the extra company, you can save money, and I’ll have unlimited access to you when I’m in town.”

Giada chuckled, clearly liking that compromise. “But I thought you didn’t have sex under your mother’s roof.”

“I don’t,”
Kentucky
said, lying back on the bed with his arms propped behind his head. “I intend to sex you up at my place as often as possible,” he added huskily as his lower body stirred to life again.

Giada moaned with need at the high tent in his briefs. “Can you sex me up one more time before I go? You know, one for the road?”

Kentucky
gave her a heated look. “I want to, but you’ve already been here five hours of unaccounted-for time as it is,” he replied, looking at the clock on the nightstand now. “And with you not answering your cell phone all these hours, Fabian might send the police out looking for you. If he hasn’t already.”

Giada exhaled in frustration. “These are going to be the longest two weeks of my life.” She turned back to the mirror.

Kentucky
chuckled. “Not if you stay busy packing, job hunting, and filling out college applications it won’t.”

Giada laughed, too.

Together they made a very happy couple. It was unfortunate that their happiness had to come at the expense of someone else’s unhappiness.

Chapter Fourteen

“It looks like it’s just going to be us guys for the rest of the tour,” Bartley told
Kentucky
when he arrived back at the yacht late Sunday night around midnight.

“Giada’s gone?”
Kentucky
asked, acting as if he didn’t know that already. She’d called him as soon as she made it to the island airport. She called him again after she landed in
Miami
.

“Yes, she and Fabian had a fight,” Bartley replied, looking downright gleeful. “It seems that she was missing for over five hours this afternoon. Didn’t answer her cell phone or anything when he tried to reach her. When she finally returned, she told him that she’d stayed on the island for so long because she was tired of being at sea, was missing her dog, and was trying to build up the courage to tell him she wanted to go home without hurting his feelings. Since Fabian couldn’t cancel the rest of his tour on a whim, he sent her home alone.”

“I see,”
Kentucky
replied, keeping his face neutral.

“Yes, Fabian put her in a cab and sent her to the airport alone since it was your day off and he didn’t want to disturb you.” Bartley grinned. “He knew you had an itch to scratch today,” he said, referring to the brief conversation the men had had before
Kentucky
left this morning for the hotel. “Judging by those hickeys on your neck, it looks like you scratched that itch well.”

“Yeah,”
Kentucky
replied, not liking the gleam in Bartley’s eye at all. The man was a little bit
too
happy about Giada being gone. And although
Kentucky
was happy about the same thing, yet for different reasons, Bartley’s glee irritated him for some reason.

Promptly excusing himself from Bartley’s annoying presence,
Kentucky
made his way to his cabin. He’d barely gotten the door closed before his cell phone rang.

It was Alexandra. Though she’d been told that he would call her, desire for
Kentucky
had caused her to grow impatient. Now she wanted to know when or even if he’d be able to come see her before he left the island.

“No, Alexandra,”
Kentucky
replied, determined to let her down as easily as possible with him being as honest as possible. “Actually, me and another one of my old flames decided to get back together and try to make a real go of our relationship this time.”

Alexandra groaned with disappointment. “So duty really didn’t call yesterday, huh?”

“Not really. I apologize for the fib. The truth of the matter is that she showed up unexpectedly yesterday, old feelings got stirred back up, and . . . well, we decided to start over fresh.”

“Lucky girl. I wish you all the best,
Kentucky
. But if it doesn’t work out, call on Alexandra. I can help you get over
any
heartbreak,” she replied good-naturedly.

Kentucky
smiled at the classy way Alexandra had just handled herself in the face of rejection. After telling her what a wonderful person she was, he hung up and called Giada with the results of his conversation with his stepmother.

“Mama says she’d be happy to have you and Mercedes stay with her for as long as you need to. She’s also happy to know that we finally came to our senses and got together.”
Kentucky
chuckled, recalling the animated conversation he’d had with his stepmother on the ride back to the marina.

Giada gasped in surprise at his last statement. “How did she know we even liked each other?”

“Mama claims she knew you were special to me the first night you stayed over. How any other woman I would have just taken to my place or put up in a hotel that night. The fact that I brought you to our family home, where we could be properly chaperoned, meant that I felt something deeper for you.”

“So I take it she approves? Even though you told her I was a gold digger?”

“An
ex
–gold digger. And yes, Mama approves. After you looked out for our family home, she quickly overlooked every fault you had. Didn’t all those free meals tell you anything?”

“I thought she was the type of person to feed anybody.”

Kentucky
chuckled. “No, you got it wrong, baby. Mama will
bake
for anybody, but she only cooks full meals for those she has a special fondness for.”

“That’s good to know. I’m going to make sure I give her two kisses when I see her again. One for keeping Mercedes. The other for looking past my faults.” Giada smiled. “Speaking of kisses, I miss you already,” she added, changing the subject.

“I miss you, too, baby.”
Kentucky
groaned with need into the phone. “By the way, I think you were right. These
are
going to be the longest two weeks of both of our lives.”

* * * *

In order to keep from missing Giada too much,
Kentucky
took on extra tasks about the yacht. He helped the day crew, who came to clean the boat, fix meals, and transport them from one place to the other, with their duties. He even took on more chauffeuring assignments.