possibly fortune hunters, had been apparent from the outset, but Ermanno had remained adamant. He intended to marry Vanessa with, or without, his father’s approval.
Fortunately his mother, Lidia, had scoffed at her husband’s suspicions, and given the couple her blessing, thus smoothing over the tensions threatening their future. Whatever his other personality flaws, Salvatore was a doting husband who adored his wife. If she was willing to embrace into the family their son’s choice of a mate, he’d swallow his misgivings and indulge her wish to throw a lavish wedding.
And lavish it was, with champagne enough to float a boat, a feast worthy of royalty—the Raineros actually had been members of the nobility in times gone by, which probably accounted for Salvatore’s elevated notions of grandeur—and a two-foot high wedding cake created by an army of Rome’s most renowned bakers and pastry chefs. For Callie, though, the high point of the whole affair had been when the best man escorted her onto the dance floor and took her in his arms.
She melted in the warmth of his dark-eyed gaze, in the bold intimacy of his hands sliding down her spine and urging her close. Intoxicated by his scent, by the sheer power of his masculine aura, she let him mold her body to his, and cared not one iota that his father scowled from the sidelines.
“So beautiful una damigella d’onore outshines the bride,” Paolo murmured hotly in her ear. “It is my good fortune that my brother chose to marry your sister, and left me with the greater prize.”
No boyfriend had ever spoken to her with such unfettered, lyrical passion, nor held her so close that she could feel the hard thrust of his arousal pressing against her, undeterred by a pair of finely tailored black trousers or the folds of a silk chiffon bridesmaid’s gown.
No boyfriend had dared slide his arm so far around her waist that he could brush his fingers up the under-slope of her breast and, in so doing, incite a wash of heat between her legs.
All of which, she concluded dizzily, was what separated the man from the boys.
Later, he danced with his mother, the mother of the bride, and the other four bridesmaids. Waltzed sedately with an elderly widowed aunt. Twirled the flower girls around the terrace, much to their shrieking delight. Boogied with other men’s wives, then returned them to their husbands, flushed and breathless and decidedly reluctant to let him go.
Finally, with the wedding festivities reaching a fever pitch of laughter and music and wine, he sought out Callie again.
“Come with me, la mia bella,” he urged, tugging her by the hand beyond the flare of twinkling lights illuminating the terrace, and into the shadows of the garden. “Let me show you our island, made all the more lovely by moonlight.”
The mere idea left her quivering with anticipation, but, “I think we’re supposed to stay until the bride and groom leave,” she replied primly.
“But they will not leave,” he assured her, snagging an open bottle of champagne chilling in a silver wine bucket. “Italian weddings do not end with the setting sun, cara mia. They are celebrated well into the small hours of the morning. We will return before anyone has the chance to miss us.”
She fought a brief, losing battle with her conscience, knowing her mother wouldn’t approve of her abandoning her maid-of-honor duties to run off with the best man. But wedding decorum couldn’t hold a candle to Paolo’s magnetic pull.
Fingers entwined with his, she followed him as he skirted the shrubbery separating the garden proper from the shore. The moon cast a path of hammered silver over the sea, and feathered in black the clumps of grass lining the beach.
“It’s breathtaking,” she whispered, entranced by the sight.
But Paolo grinned, his teeth blindingly white against the night-dark olive of his skin, and dragging her farther away from the light and music of the wedding, said, “You have seen nothing, yet, bella. Follow me.”
She knew the first thread of uneasiness, then. What, after all, did she really know about him? But as if he sensed her sudden qualms, he cupped her chin and, raising her face to his, said thickly, “What, Caroline? Are you not at all the woman I took you for, but a shy, untutored girl, unused to the attentions of a man like myself? If so, you have but to speak out, and I will take you back to your madre.”
“No,” she said, the faintly scornful laughter in his voice spurring her to recklessness. “I want to be with you, Paolo.”
He kissed her then, a hot, openmouthed kiss drenched in passion. She’d never been kissed like that before, with such ardent finesse. Never savored the heated taste of a man. Never realized that the thrust and retreat of his tongue in the dark moist confines of her mouth could arouse an elemental craving for the same invasion, there in that cloistered, feminine part of her no boy had ever stirred to awareness.
Conscious of the dull, sweet ache in her lower body, she let him guide her around a small outcropping of rock, to a secluded crescent of beach. A cabana stood in the lee of the low cliff. A private, safe place, perfect for an illicit tryst.
Without a word, she went inside with him. Let him pull her down beside him on a long, cushioned bench. Laughed, and pretended she was used to champagne, drinking it directly from the bottle, as he did.
It coursed through her blood. Stripped away her inhibitions. She felt his hands toying with the tiny straps holding up her gown, the cool play of night air on her bare breasts.
In some misty recess of her mind, it occurred to her that she should stop him. But he was flicking his tongue in her ear, whispering, in Italian, words of love no sane woman could resist: tesoro…bella…te amo…
Then his mouth was at her breast, and she was clutching handfuls of his hair and gasping with startled pleasure. She wanted more, and so did he. She heard his muttered curse, and the whisper of fragile chiffon splitting.
He pressed her down on the bench, ran his palm under her skirt. Up her legs. Between her thighs.
She stiffened, not so much afraid, as embarrassed. She didn’t want him to discover that her satin panties were damp…there, in that private place.
He stilled his hand immediately, and lifted his head to look at her. Although moonlight filtered through the latticed window openings, his face was shadowed, preventing her from reading his expression clearly, but she heard again the sudden doubt in his voice. “You want me to stop, cara mia? You are, perhaps, not as eager or willing as you led me to believe?”
“Of course I am!” she whispered, at once desperate and terrified. Desperate for him to continue, and terrified that he would.
“You are sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure!” she cried, as if, by protesting loudly enough, she could silence the voice of conscience battling to be heard, and listen only to the yearning in her heart. “I want you to make love to me, Paolo.”
When he seemed still to remain unconvinced, she took a hefty swallow of the champagne. Then, riding high on the false courage it gave her, she put the bottle aside and did the unthinkable. She clamped her thighs together, imprisoning his cupped hand against her. At the same time, she reached down and dared to touch him.
He was so hard and big that the fabric of his trousers was pulled taut. Enthralled, she shaped her fingers delicately over the contours of his erection.
Confined though it was by his clothing, his flesh throbbed. She could feel it. And all because of her!
His muffled groan of pleasure filled her with a heady sense of female power. All sleek muscle and tensile strength, he stood well over six feet tall. In physical confrontation with any other man, he would doubtless prove a formidable opponent. Yet she, at only five feet six inches, and weighing no more than a hundred and fifteen pounds, held him captive in the palm of her hand, both literally and figuratively. He was her prisoner; her slave!
Bolder by the second, she unsnapped the fastening of his trousers and inched open his fly. Wove her fingers inside his briefs until, freed at last, he sprang, hot and heavy and smooth as silk, into