The Italian (6 page)

Straight to a spectacular orgasm, as surely as day followed night. She didn’t always come during sex. She’d learned early on the fine feminine art of faking it, because the hound-dog expression on a man’s face when she didn’t come was too depressing to face.

There was absolutely no need to fake it now. From the moment Stefano started moving inside her again, she could feel the climax building, like watching thunder clouds moving on the horizon.

She didn’t have to do anything, she didn’t have to will herself into it; it came straight toward her like an express train. Each movement he made stoked the fire higher and higher.

They were holding each other so tightly. Stefano’s breath sent harsh puffs of air against her neck, the large hand on her bottom holding her still for him as he pumped up into her, each movement fire and blinding pleasure.

He shifted, positioned her slightly differently, and oh God! That thick, long penis found some hidden spot inside her, rubbed against it, a spot so pleasurable it sent her spiraling immediately into orgasm, her vagina pulsing so strongly she could feel the pull of it in her thighs and stomach. She gave a cry when he pushed up hard one last time and stayed there while coming.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t think, all she could do was cling to him desperately, twining her legs around the chair back and pulling so she could feel every single inch of him.

At last they were still, chests heaving, wet, sated.

He kissed her behind her ear, gently, forehead beaded with sweat. “I was wrong,” he growled.

Jamie barely had the energy to raise her eyebrows. It took her a few breaths even to manage to say one word. “How?”

“You
were
sent to kill me. I’m not going to survive this.”

She gave a startled laugh and swatted his shoulder. “I was
not
!” The notion was so outlandish she laughed again, couldn’t stop. Even depleted and exhausted from the sex, he exuded power and strength.

Stefano laughed too and the movement was enough to cause him to slip right out of her. He easily lifted her off him, steadying her but keeping her by his side. She actually had to stiffen her knees to stay upright.

“Open your legs,” he whispered, “and lift your skirt.”

He grabbed one of the linen napkins, poured some water from the crystal pitcher on it and washed her gently between her legs, watching her eyes all the time.

He’d come in her twice and she was soaked. At any other time and with any other man, Jamie would have cringed with embarrassment and headed for the bathroom immediately. But there was something so exciting, so incredibly intimate in having this man clean her, the rough linen slightly abrasive against her over-sensitized tissues, that she simply stood there and watched him.

His hand moved gently, waggling a bit, and she opened her legs farther.

“This pleases me enormously.” Stefano’s voice was low, tender. “Feeling my seed in you.” A long, tender swipe and her legs started trembling. He lifted her skirt higher and bent to kiss her, right over her mound.

There were still pearls of his semen on her thighs. He touched one, finger picking up the slight moisture. He pressed the finger against her lips, eyes flaring when she licked. The slight salty taste was exciting.

A shudder went through him. His penis, lying semi-erect on his thigh, swelled. “Sit,” he commanded, “or we’ll never eat and Francesco will never forgive me.”

Jamie dropped her skirt and collapsed more than sat in the chair, shocked that she could even have contemplated round three. He hitched his pants up, zipped and, in a few moments, they looked like a normal couple at the dinner table, sedate even. No one would guess they had just made love. Twice.

Her sex was still swollen and wet, and she wished she were in bed instead of at the table. It was disconcerting feeling so sexual, wanton even. She had to distract herself. She pointed at a platter near her hand. It looked like brioche pastry but with tomato sauce on top. “What’s that?”

“Hmm?” Stefano reached out and ran his forefinger down her cheek. “So soft,” he murmured. Then he blinked as if coming back to himself. “What did you say?”

“This. Here, try it.” She cut the round bread and a mouthwatering perfume of ragout filled the air. She laughed and placed half on his plate. One taste and her eyes rounded.

“Wow. What’s this called?”

He’d already finished his half. “I have no idea but it’s delicious. Here. Try this.” A morsel of delicate white fish was on the tines of his fork together with a black olive. It smelled heavenly—of lemon and the sea. She ate from his fork as he watched.

Jamie barely stopped herself from moaning. “What’s
that
called?”

“Fish,” he said, with another morsel already waiting at her mouth. “Now open up,” he ordered. The voice was that of a general commanding troops but the smile was a lover’s smile.

Jamie was caught between leaning into him and leaning back. Leaning back, jumping out of her seat, running out the door, down those torch-lit stairs, into a cab and back to her apartment, where she could start becoming herself again. Right now she felt caught in some dark power she was helpless to resist.

“Open.” She opened, chewed, swallowed. They looked at each other, the room suddenly quiet. The music had stopped. They could have been alone in the world. Stefano’s gaze circled her face, settling on her mouth. His own mouth opened and he breathed out a puff of air. “No,” he whispered.

“No,” Jamie answered, her own voice breathless. Making love again would be…reckless. She was halfway to falling in love with this man. She had to retreat, just a little. She had to prove that she could converse with him like a normal person. That what they had was, yes, a strong sexual attraction but a controllable one. That it wasn’t insanity.

Stefano shivered once then turned back to the table. “Francesco pays his chef a fortune so we had better do this justice.” He was ferrying tons of food to her plate and it all looked and smelled divine.

Jamie pulled herself back from that dark place she’d almost gone to and opened her senses outward. This was a magical evening, the setting almost otherworldly. This kind of evening might never come again.
Enjoy it!
she told herself.

Italians ate in courses, but clearly someone had thought through a waiter-less meal. They had fragrant plate after fragrant plate of food on serving dishes, and to one side, two enormous majolica serving platters, one filled with cannoli and slices of
cassata
and the other filled with luscious sliced fruit.

“There.” Stefano looked enormously pleased with himself, smiling at their two heaping plates. He picked up a strip of what looked like fried bread with perhaps tomato paste and popped it in his mouth. His eyes widened.

Jamie did the same and her eyes widened too.

“What
is
this stuff?” she asked after swallowing. “It’s delicious.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. I just know it’s good.” Stefano speared something crispy and yellow. “This stuff is delicious too. Here.” He held out his fork and she ate the bite.

She closed her eyes as she savored then sighed. When she opened them again he was watching her carefully, eyes narrowed.

“What? Do I have sauce on my chin?”

“No.” He shook his head, gaze never leaving hers. “It’s just…”

“Just what?”

He’d suddenly turned serious. He took her hand, turning it over, pressing a kiss to her palm. “Talk to me,” he whispered.

Jamie tilted her head. “Talk?”

“Talk to me. I haven’t had a conversation in so long.”

She blinked. There was yearning in his voice and she suddenly saw him. Saw
him
. Not the sexy foreigner, not the commanding judge. She saw the human being. The man who had sacrificed so much for duty.

“Talk,” he said again. “Tell me things.”

And she did.

She told him her hopes for her fledgling design studio, about crazy clients she’d had, how much she loved her grandfather, what she liked to read. They had different tastes in books, similar tastes in movies. They both loved hiking and detested skiing. She felt humans were basically good and Stefano didn’t. He thought technology would save their asses in the nick of time and she didn’t.

They talked and ate as the candles burned low and suddenly there was a knock on the door. Stefano stopped smiling, his broad shoulders slumped.

Jamie touched his hand lightly. He turned his hand, held hers, brought it to his mouth. Stood.

“Midnight,” he said. “My men are going off duty and now I turn back into a pumpkin.”

Jamie fought back tears. Tears had no place here. She curved her lips, hoping he would take it for a smile. “It was her carriage that turned back into a pumpkin, silly. And anyway, that glass slipper would never fit you.”

“No, it wouldn’t.” He lifted her to her feet and simply looked. There was another knock on the door. This time more peremptory, less discreet.

In the space of a minute he had morphed from charming dinner companion to the judge. Stern, remote. Moving away from her with every heartbeat, though he was standing still.

“I enjoyed this.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “So did I.”

“You will have to stay here until my car leaves the premises. My men will come for you.”

“Okay.”

He still didn’t move. A third knock. This time heavy—someone was taking his fist to the door instead of his knuckles.

“I don’t think I can call you tomorrow, Jamie. But I will definitely call on Saturday. Maybe—” He stopped, bit his lips. “I must go.”

She nodded, throat too tight for words.

“I can’t kiss you. I simply can’t. I won’t be able to stop.”

She nodded again.

He turned and walked to the heavy door, opening it just as one of the police officers had a fist raised.

“
Andiamo
,” she heard him say. Let’s go. The door closed behind him and she sat again, staring out the window, waiting for his men to come for her.

* * * * *

He checked the corridor then slipped into the room, closing the door quietly behind him. There was no artificial light, only candles everywhere, a few of them still flickering, providing a dim light. The smell of hot wax rose above the smell of food.

There was another smell too.

He picked up a napkin off the floor and brought it to his nose. Ah yes. The smell of sex.

Everything about the room was fine, elegant beyond anything in his experience. The heavy linen tablecloth, the plates, the crystal glasses, the silverware. The room itself was a pure example of the things he would never have in his life. At home, he and his wife ate in the kitchen, just barely bigger than this table. There were no frescoes overhead, only damp stains from a leak he couldn’t afford to fix because it would require breaking the walls and putting in new tubing.

The fluttering curtains framed a view worthy of a prince—an ornate garden lit by torchlight. His kitchen window looked out onto a greasy courtyard and the wall of the building next door.

This was another world, the world he was risking his life to protect, even though he would never have access to it.

Or…maybe he would.

He pulled out a cellphone. A very basic Nokia. Like everyone, he wanted an iPhone but couldn’t afford it, though he did have a better phone than this. But this phone was a one-off. He could only make one call, then had to destroy it.

He punched a number and it was answered in a single ring.

“
Sí
.” The usual voice, low and deep with a strong Sicilian accent. He had no idea if this was the Big Man himself or a lieutenant.

“They had sex. At dinner.”

“You sure?”

He sniffed the napkin again. “Oh yeah.”

“Good.” The connection was broken.

Fine. He didn’t want to talk. The most important thing about the information was the package he’d find inside his mailbox. An envelope stuffed with €100 notes. Last time it had been €10,000. This time it would be more, because it was information about a weakness.

Judge Stefano Leone had a weakness, and it would be used—and when it was, the package would be much, much bigger.

Chapter Six

The next day, Stefano hit the mat so hard he lost his breath for a second. Just the second Buzzanca needed to nail his hand to the mat. Buzzanca kneeled on his wrist, grinding. Stefano could feel his bones bending.

“You let your guard down.” Buzzanca kneeled harder. “Stop thinking with your fucking dick, you moron.”

“Christ, Buzzanca,” Stefano growled. “Off.”

Buzzanca leapt up as if he were on springs then circled on the balls of his feet. “Two out of three.”

Stefano had won the first round by sheer chance. Normally he and Buzzanca pulled their punches, but not today. This was supposed to be exercise, damn it. A way for him to keep in shape and blow off steam. It wasn’t warfare, though Buzzanca was making it just that. He was mad and showing it.

They circled each other, Buzzanca’s dark eyes alight with an intense focus. “You asshole,” he growled.

Stefano sighed. “Come on, Buzzanca. Spit it out.”

Buzzanca kicked and Stefano pulled away at the last possible second, feeling the wind of the powerful motion ruffle his gi. If the kick had landed, Stefano would have been knocked out.

“She’s trouble.” Buzzanca’s head lowered like a bull’s. It wasn’t good form and it showed animal rage. “She’s trouble with a cunt.”

Stefano felt his own rage rise, swift and sudden and surprising.

He didn’t do rage. He was calm and steadfast—and if Buzzanca called Jamie a cunt again he’d rip his fucking head off.

They circled each other now, heads down, eyes locked. “Stay out of my business.” Stefano hardly recognized his own voice, guttural and vicious.

“She
is
my business, you stupid asshole,” Buzzanca spat. “You’re endangering your own life and
our
lives for a fuck. She’s pretty but she’s not worth—”

Stefano charged, silent and deadly. Forget form. Fuck form. He was sheer, raw power, and in a second Buzzanca was on the mat with Stefano’s arm across his throat, pressing. Hard. He pressed harder and Buzzanca started turning blue.

Buzzanca didn’t even try to resist, he just stared up at Stefano, whose panting was loud in the room.

The other men—who always enjoyed their sparring—had fallen silent. Suddenly there was something in the room that had never been there before. Stefano put his nose to Buzzanca’s and spoke low, so no one else could hear.

“You listen to me, you son of a bitch. You go home to your wife every single fucking night. You have kids, you have nieces and nephews. You go to the beach on weekends. You have a fucking
life
. I have lived in a cage for three years. I have barely seen the sun in those three years. So don’t you fucking talk to me about trouble.”

Buzzanca refused to beg. One slap of his palm on the mat and Stefano would reflexively ease up, but Buzzanca was too proud to relent. “I like that woman. I
more than
like her. She makes me feel alive. She reminds me why I do what I do. So leave her alone and
back the fuck off
!”

The man nodded under Stefano’s arm and Stefano sprang up, ashamed of himself. Sort of. Buzzanca climbed to his feet, unsteady. They stood watching each other, two friends, now adversaries…

Buzzanca stuck out his hand and Stefano grasped it.

Now friends again.

Stefano nodded sharply. “Okay, back to the office. We have a trip to plan.”

* * * * *

“Pack a bag.”

Saturday morning Jamie opened an eye and checked the time. Eight thirty a.m. “I’m sorry? And good morning.”

“Good morning, sleepyhead.” That deep voice sounded amused and completely awake. “Pack a bag for two days. My men will come for you in an hour.”

O-kay.
“What am I packing for?”

“Sun, swimming and…” He didn’t need to add the third element. It was there in his amused voice.
Sex.
A surge of electricity went through her.

“Can I know where we’re going?”

The amusement fled from his voice. “No,
cara
, I’m sorry. I can’t tell you. I wish I could. But I can say you won’t be disappointed.”

No, she wouldn’t be disappointed. She wouldn’t be disappointed if she were flown to an igloo in the Arctic. Stefano would be there. That was enough.

She packed her bag and, at the last minute, packed her sketchbook and pencils. Wherever they were going, it was Italy and it was going to be beautiful and if she had a spare moment, she wanted to get it down.

Pity it was the wrong time to try to catch her grandfather. It was one a.m. back home and she didn’t want to risk waking him. Assuming he even
was
at home.

She frowned. She’d tried all day yesterday to contact him and the answering service had been turned off. Not answering the phone and not telling her he’d be away was unusual. But if he was sick, surely someone would have called?

The knock on the door startled her. Stefano’s men. They were here.

When she opened the door, she submitted to the security protocol with a sigh, even though she was wearing a silk tee, light cotton capri pants and sandals. She was still frisked, as if she could have somehow hidden a bazooka on her person.

Purse, bag inspected. Inspector Buzzanca hesitated for a moment at her sketchbook and even rifled through it, but not even he could see anything suspicious in renderings of palm trees, cornices and the waterfront.

He actually checked each pencil, presumably to see if it was a real pencil or…her mind blanked for a second as to what else it could be. Maybe something to squirt poison? But then how could she avoid squirting poison on herself?

It must be exhausting to be a spy.

Buzzanca packed everything neatly back into her bag, dark eyes cold and remote, and accompanied her down the stairs and into a waiting police car, the middle one of three.

The little convoy took off, racing north. She watched as they left the historic city center and entered the concrete wasteland of the suburbs.

Mafia country. The Mafia here was heavily into concrete. She’d read that often in her preparatory reading for the trip. The buildings
looked
like the Mafia. Heavy and oppressive and ugly, like the concrete monstrosities Russian Communism had thrown up. The power behind both was the same—brutal and uncompromising.

These kinds of buildings in a country that worshiped beauty were just the exterior face of the brutal hold the Mafia had. It was what Stefano was fighting. He was not just an amazingly sexy and powerfully attractive man. He was a fighter for justice, risking his life to bring down the forces of darkness.

She saw his men—even Inspector Buzzanca—in a different light. Looking at Buzzanca’s stiff back in the front passenger seat, his hair badly cut, all duty and no nonsense, she realized that all he wanted was to keep Stefano alive. She wasn’t a threat to Stefano, not in any way, but Buzzanca and his men probably thought she was, or at least that she was distracting him.

So she sat quietly and waited to see where the car took her.

It took her to the airport. Or rather,
an
airport. Not the one she’d flown into upon her arrival in Sicily.

This looked like a military airport, the planes painted a dull green, with EI—
Esercito Italiano
, Italian Army—stenciled on the sides. The car drove right onto the runway and stopped in front of a large helicopter. As soon as the car parked, the rotors started slowly spinning. The car door opened and an officer pointed at a short set of steps leading up into the cabin.

Jamie hesitated. She’d never been in a helicopter before. She looked around her, at all the men who’d been summoned to convey her to this specific place at this specific time, and realized it was too late to think of resisting. This had the feel of some unstoppable force sweeping her forward.

She walked up the steps and into the cabin, bending slightly. The cabin had six seats. She took one and the other five filled up with police officers. The last man to board was carrying her roll-on case and stowed it carefully under a seat.

Inspector Buzzanca handed her a headset and indicated she should buckle her seat belt. It was already too loud in the cabin to be able to hear anyone. Any communication was by hand signs. The snap of the belt was like a signal and, with a heavy lurch that left her stomach behind, the helicopter lifted, nose down, and banked steeply.

The men were talking to each other, lips moving. Jamie understood that they were on an internal com system she wasn’t connected to. Her headset was merely there for noise abatement. She was cut off.

Okay. Then she’d enjoy the ride to wherever it was they were going.

The military field was on the ocean. At first their route followed the coastline, brilliant blue sea to the left, low green hills of orange and lemon groves to the right. They flew over a tawny city of brick and stone, perched on a high promontory whose edges dropped straight down to the sea. A Romanesque cathedral, light gold in the late-morning sun, rose up like a stone ship on a high cliff. She’d seen prints of the cathedral, but it was much more beautiful in real life. Cefalù.

The helicopter suddenly veered right, inland, and flew over the sunbaked interior, over dun-colored fields dotted with isolated homes that looked more like fortresses, surrounded by oleander and prickly pear.

After about forty minutes, they reached the coast again and started climbing up a hill so beautiful it looked landscaped, following a winding road flanked by pink oleander bushes.

The scenery here was lush and green, studded with villas boasting enchanting gardens surrounded by bougainvillea-covered walls. They flew past a Greek temple and she watched the helicopter’s shadow flow over a Greek amphitheater, the stone semicircle a graceful comma set in olive and orange groves. Elegant, pencil-thin cypresses stood like green soldiers everywhere, flanked by enormous palm trees, some the largest she’d ever seen. Palm trees were slow-growing and she knew she was looking at many that must have been hundreds of years old.

Jamie gave a start when Buzzanca touched her arm. He pointed downward with his thumb. They were landing.

It was only then that she noticed they had climbed to the top of some summit and were banking steeply, losing altitude. The helicopter rotated, and for a second she caught sight of a tall mountain in the distance, wavering in the heat, tendrils of steam rising from its top.

She caught her breath.

Etna! That was Mount Etna, a live volcano and the subject of work by poets and painters through the ages. It was the backdrop to Taormina, a famous resort she’d been dying to see. And sure enough, a wonderland was slowly streaming by below. Tight, narrow cobblestoned streets flanked by ochre, tawny-yellow and pale-pink buildings, opening up randomly into irregular-shaped squares bounded by cafes with colorful sun umbrellas. It was a town of flowers, flowers everywhere—in huge terracotta pots as big as bathtubs, climbing walls, twining around wrought iron balconies.

The helicopter had slowed enough so she could catch details her hungry artist’s eye drank up. They cast a moving shadow over the town and tourists stopped and looked up at them, eyes shaded against the sun, women holding their sundresses down against the wind of the rotors. The tourists were all shapes and sizes and nationalities, dressed in garish summer colors, all united in a common happy expression. Taormina was legendary for the pleasures it had afforded tourists for centuries.

How on earth had Stefano arranged this? A trip to Taormina! It was like a dream. They couldn’t just walk the streets of the town, much as the thought delighted her. Could they? She wanted to be here but she wanted Stefano safe even more.

The helicopter touched down on an open space high above Taormina, probably the world’s only helipad with terracotta tiles. It was just wide enough a space to accommodate them, but the pilot knew what he was doing. He set them down perfectly in the exact center and switched the engine off. She snatched off her headset, savoring the sudden silence, and looked around.

The five
carabinieri
had taken their headsets off too and sprang into action. Inside a minute or two, another set of stairs had been placed against the helicopter. The men had been chatting amongst themselves but now they fanned out to provide a security perimeter for her, silent and grim-faced.

She was funneled through an archway, past a deep, cool courtyard to an arcade supported by thick columns. Behind her, three of the five men scrambled back into the helicopter. The remaining two turned their backs to her and stood, solid sentries, facing away from the building.

“
Signora
?” came a deep male voice and Jamie turned, surprised. A short, broad, very handsome middle-aged man came toward her. He picked up her hand, bowed over it and straightened, smiling. “It is an honor and a pleasure to have you,
signora
. Not to mention the honor and pleasure of having Judge Leone as our guest.”

His voice sounded familiar… “Are you by any chance related to Prince Calderone?”

The man laughed. “Beautiful and astute. A heartbreaking combination. Yes,
signora
, I am related. I am his cousin and the proprietor of
La Rondinaia.
Paolo Torraca, at your service.
”