tremble deepened, making her knees shake. She had to get ahold of herself. Before the situation was too far out of her control. Before she was utterly lost! “This is just a dance, nothing more.”
He stopped suddenly on the dance floor. “Prove your words.”
All the bravado left her when she saw the intent in his eyes. Here, on the dance floor, he meant to kiss her—staking his claim of possession for the entire world to see.
“No,” she gasped.
Ruthlessly he lowered his lips to hers.
His kiss was demanding and hungry. It seared her to the core. His lips moved against her own, suffusing her with his heat. Against her will, she fell against him, surrendering to the sweet languorous stroke of his tongue.
She wanted him. Wanted this.
She wanted it like a drowning woman wanted air.
As she felt him move against her, his strong hands moving against the soft skin of her naked back, a low moan escaped her. His power and warmth enveloped her as his sensual lips seduced her, allowing her to hold nothing back.
How long had she been drowning?
How long had she been all but dead?
Her breaths came in little shallow gasps as his kiss deepened. She heard the shocked hiss and jealous mutters of the crowds around them. “Crikey,” one man muttered, “I would have paid a million for that.”
But as Lia tried to pull away, he only held her more forcefully, plundering her lips until she again sagged in his arms. She forgot her name. Forgot everything but her desire to give anything—anything at all—to keep his heat and fire hard against her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him close against her body as she kissed him back with the ravenous hunger of fresh new life—
Then he released her, and her body instantly fell back into the icy breath of winter.
Opening her eyes, she looked into the face of the man who’d so cruelly brought her to life only to discard her. She expected to see smug, masculine arrogance. After all, he’d amply proven his point.
Instead he looked shocked. Almost as dazed as she felt. He gave his head a slight shake, as if clearing the fog from his mind.
Then his expression again became arrogant and ruthless. Leaving Lia to wonder if she’d just imagined a momentary bewilderment to match her own.
She touched her still-throbbing lips in shock. Oh, my God, what was wrong with her? With Giovanni not two weeks in his grave!
With the commanding force of the handsome stranger’s kiss, he’d made her forget everything—her grief, her pain, her emptiness—and surrender herself completely. It was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. And even at this moment she wanted more of him. Thirsted for him like a woman abandoned in the desert…
She took another short breath, gasping for air, for sanity and control.
Putting her hands on her head in despair, Lia backed away from him. “What have you done?” she whispered.
His dark gaze sharpened on her own. His eyes were hot enough to melt glass, skewering her heart. Burning her.
“The dance isn’t done.” The deep fiber of his voice commanded her, compelling her to return to his arms.
“Stay away from me!” Turning too quickly in a jerky, uneven movement, she nearly slipped on the hem of her white satin gown in her desperation to flee. Cheeks aflame, she ran through the crowded ballroom, leaving behind the winter fairyland of black lattice trees and twinkling white lights.
She raced past the shocked guests, past her horrified society friends, past everyone who tried to grab her, who tried to ask questions or offer back-handed sympathy.
She had to escape. Had to get away from the dark stranger and all the unwilling tumult of scandalous desires he caused within her.
Glancing back, she saw him in grim pursuit.
And she didn’t hesitate. Didn’t think. Kicking off her four-inch stiletto heels, she just ran. Ran down the hallway of the hotel, ran until her whole body burned, as she hadn’t done since her school days when she’d competed fiercely on the track team.
And yet still he gained on her! How was it possible?
Because she wasn’t the lithe, fit girl she’d been ten years ago, she realized. Years of inactivity in Italy, of long days sitting by Giovanni’s bedside, and nights of crying alone in her bed with a broken heart, were finally catching up with her.
And so was the stranger.
Panting, she dashed into the hotel lobby. Wealthy tourists in polo shirts and chic little summer dresses stared at her with their mouths agape as she stumbled across the marble floor and pushed violently out through the revolving door into the summery violet of dusk.
The doorman cried out when she nearly knocked him over. “Hey!”
“I’m sorry!” she cried back at him, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Not with the man so close behind her.
In the distance she could see a subway entrance. She ran for it with all her might.
She was fast. But he was faster. She heard the heavy echo of his footsteps on the sidewalk behind her. She weaved through a crowd of tourists browsing the shop windows along Fifth Avenue. She saw a taxi pull in front of Tiffany’s, right behind a dog walker surrounded by dogs of all sizes.
She leaped over the man’s tangled leashes like a hurdle. She heard the rip of her white satin gown as she landed on the other side. Panting, she flung herself into the taxi over the back of the exiting passenger.
Behind her, she heard the stranger curse aloud, caught up in leashes, dogs, and tourists loaded with shopping bags.
“Go!” she shouted at the taxi driver.
“Where, lady?”
“Anywhere!” Looking back through the window at the approaching stranger, she gasped and held up the hundred-dollar bill she always tucked in her bra. “There’s someone following me—get me out of here!”
The taxi driver glanced in the rearview mirror, saw the hundred-dollar bill and the panicked expression on her face, then stomped on the gas pedal. The car roared away, its tires scattering water from the nearby gutter as they ducked into the evening traffic.
Turning around to look out the back window, Lia saw the diminishing figure of the dark stranger behind her. Wet with water, he stared after her in repressed fury, his mouth a grim line.
She’d escaped him. She nearly cried with relief.
Then she caught her breath and realized she’d just fled her own party. What had she been so afraid of? What?
His fire.
Her body shook with suppressed longing as she sank her head against her hands…and really cried.
CHAPTER FOUR
ROARK returned to the ballroom empty-handed, furious and soaking wet. He took a towel from a beverage cart and grimly wiped the grimy water from his neck and the shirt and lapels of his tuxedo.
She’d gotten away.
How was it possible?
He scowled in fury. He’d never had any woman turn him down before for anything. He’d never had any woman even pretend to resist.
Lia Villani had not only resisted him, she’d outrun him.
Crumpling the wet towel angrily, he tossed it on the empty tray of a passing waiter. Clenching his jaw, he looked across the ballroom.
He saw Nathan on the crowded dance floor, swaying with a plump-cheeked girl with honey-blond hair.
Roark