The Italian's Future Bride(5)

Twisting forward again, she stared at him. 'But why should they want to follow us?'



'You are not that naïve,' he derided the question, flicking his eyes  from the rear-view mirror and back to the road ahead. 'Or you would not  have chosen Raffaelle Villani to pull your life-wrecking stunt.'



Life wrecking-? 'N-no.' Rachel gave an urgent shake of her head. 'You don't understand. This was not-'



'Not that it matters,' he interrupted. 'We are here now.'



As inwhere -? Even as Rachel thought the question, one of those shiny  new apartment blocks that flanked the river loomed up close. With a spin  of the wheel he sent the car sweeping on to its forecourt. He stopped  it hard on its brakes and was already out of the car and striding around  it to open her door.



Rachel didn't move. She was trembling like mad and her heart was  thundering. She didn't look at him either, but just stared starkly  ahead.



'Do you get out yourself or do I have to lift you?' he demanded.



Since she'd already learnt the hard way that he was perfectly willing to  do the latter, swallowing tensely, Rachel took the more dignified  choice, unfastened her seat belt and slid out of the car.



It was an odd sensation to find herself standing close to him. Nor did  that sensation make any sense because she'd stood this close once  already tonight and thrown herself right against him a second time, yet  he hadn't felt this tall or as powerfully built or as dangerous as he  did right now.



She shivered, panicked and was about to make a run for it when car doors  started slamming. The paparazzi had arrived right behind them and were  already piling out of their cars.



Raffaelle bit out a curse, then he was wrapping her beneath the hook of a powerful arm.



Cameras flashed. 'Look this way, Elise-!' one of them called out to her.



But she was already being ushered through a pair of doors.



'Keep them out,' Raffaelle instructed the security man manning the foyer.                       
       
           



       



Before Rachel knew what was happening, he'd marched her into a lift and the doors were closing the two of them inside.



It had happened so fast-all of it-everything! And she'd never felt so  afraid in her entire life. Her head was whirling and her legs had gone  hollow. The panic had not subsided and it sent the heels of her shoes  screeching shrilly beneath her as she spun round, then she lifted an arm  and hit out at him with her bag.



He fielded the blow like a man swatting a fly away. 'Calm down,' he gritted.



But Rachel didn't want to calm down. Hair flying about her slender neck  as she struggled with him, 'Let me go-let mego !' she choked out.



Then she threw back her head and opened her mouth to scream.



Only it didn't arrive. Nothing happened. The scream remained just a  thick lump pulsing in the base of her throat. And he didn't attempt to  smother it like he had done outside the hotel but just stood there  looking down at her while she stared up at him.



It was crazy-the whole evening had been crazy, but this wasthe craziest  part because it felt as if they'd both suddenly been frozen in time.



The panic receded. She forgot to breathe. As far as she could tell, he  wasn't breathing either and he was frowning as if he too couldn't  understand what was going on.



Gorgeous frown, she found herself thinking. Gorgeous black silk-hooded  eyes. In fact he was, she saw as if for the first time, altogether  totally breathtaking to look at. His facial bone structure was  striking-the high forehead and good cheekbones, the long narrow nose and  perfectly symmetrical chin.



And his eyes weren't really grey, but an unusual mixture of green  flecked with silver. His skin was amazing, a tightly wrapped casing of  honey-gold her fingers remembered with a tense little twitch. The  satin-black eyebrows, those luxuriously long eyelashes that were  hovering just above the cheekbones, and the mouth …



Don't look at his mouth, she told herself tautly, but she didn't just  look, she stared at it. Slender, smooth, slightly parted. The tip of her  tongue snaked out to wipe away the now familiar tingle she felt take  over her own lips.



He breathed. The warmth of his breath brushed her face, scented with the  heady fruits of a rich dark wine. She tried a tense swallow, looked  back into his eyes and saw what was coming. He was going to kiss her.  Not to stop her screaming or even in anger, but because-



Oh, God, she wanted him to!



He muttered something in Italian. She released the strangest-sounding  groan. In the next second he'd captured her mouth and they were  kissing-really kissing. Not stolen, fought-for, punishing or smothering  kisses, but like two greedy, hungry lovers with a swift, hot, urgent  necessity.



Their tongues flickered and slid in a wild, erotic dance of hungry heat.  Without caring she was doing it, Rachel lifted her arms up over  Raffaelle's shoulders and arched closer until she could feel every inch  of him pressing against her, from his hard-packed chest to powerful  thighs.



He was so pumped up and solid, his hands moving on a restless journey  over the silk dress covering her slender body to the bare flesh of her  shoulders, then back down to her small waist again. She became aware  that she was purring like a well stroked kitten. He breathed something  harsh, then picked her up with his hands and started walking without  breaking the kiss.



Her hands were in his hair now, raking his scalp and scrunching its  smooth style, the swollen globes of her breasts nudging at him high on  his chest.



This should not be happening. Thisshould not be happening! a shrill voice screamed inside her head.



The panic returned; Rachel yanked her head back at the same moment that he did the same thing.



Like two people who did not know what the hell was happening to them,  they stared at each other again, her eyes wide dark pools of shocked  horror and confusion, his blackened by stunned disbelief. Her mouth was  burning, her lips still parted and pulsing and swollen as she panted for  breath.



He put her down so abruptly she almost toppled off the thin heels of her  shoes, her fingers trailing around his shirt collar then down the front  of his jacket where they clung, because they had to, to his black satin  lapels.



Anger burned now. A thick, dark, intense anger that pulsed from every  hard inch of him as he used a key to open a door. Rachel had not noticed  that they'd left the lift, never mind crossed another foyer to reach  the door!



Manoeuvring them both inside, he kicked the door shut with a foot before  peeling her off his front. She staggered dizzily. He walked away down a  spacious hallway, then disappeared through another door.                       
       
           



       



She wanted to faint. She wished shecould faint. She wished the floor  would open up and swallow her whole. Every inch of her body was still  alive and buzzing with excitement and a shrill ringing was filling her  head.



The ringing stopped abruptly and she blinked. Then she heard his voice  ripping out words in sharp Italian and realised the sound had been  coming from a phone. She caught Elise's name and reality came tumbling  over her like a giant snowball, dousing every bit of heat.



It took real willpower to make her trembling legs walk her down that  hallway. But she needed to know what he was saying and to whom he was  saying it.



The door was flung wide open on its hinges and she stilled in the  opening, staring starkly across a spacious living room with wall-to-wall  glass on one side and an expanse of warm wood covering the floor  softened by a big creamy-coloured rug. Everything in here was  clean-lined and modern. He was standing beside one of several black  leather sofas that were carefully placed about the room.



His back was to her. He had a land line telephone clamped to his ear and  his hair was still mussed. Her fingers tingled to remind her who had  done the mussing. As she continued to stand there, he lifted up a set of  long fingers and mussed it up some more.



'Daniella-' he snapped out, then stopped and sighed.



Whatever his stepsister said to him then made his voice alter, the snap  going out of it and low, dark, soothing Italian arriving in its place,  aimed to apologise and reassure.



Me too, please, Rachel wanted to beg. Reassure me too that this is all just a big nightmare.



But it wasn't and her heart was still beating too fast. The low dark  flow of his voice seemed to resonate directly from deep inside his chest  before reaching the rolling caress of his tongue.



Oh, God. She put a set of trembling fingers up to cover her eyes. Did  all Italian men have deep, sexy voices, or was it just that she had been  unlucky enough to meet the only two that could do this to her?