When She Fell for the Billionaire(57)

This time, he spoke in English so she wouldn’t lose anything in translation. “Too late. I’ve already caught you.”

He fisted her hair in his hand, caught her lips in a fierce kiss, and punished her because she had frightened him out of his mind. She opened her mouth, putting up no resistance, gentling him. He went on kissing her as a truth bomb detonated in his soul.

He never, ever wanted to let her go.





Chapter 16





Several wolf whistles penetrated Sabrina’s passion-induced haze. She broke the kiss reluctantly, but Luca caught her lower lip between his own and worried it. She was sprawled on his hard thighs. He had a hand at her nape, the other on her back.

“’Er giwing ‘wem a show.” She couldn’t talk properly while he was refusing to back down from their lip lock. His erection was nestled between her butt cheeks.

He murmured in Italian, his tone irritated.

She yanked his hair. That finally got his attention.

Sort of. His eyes were a pool of liquid blue. Glazed blue. If she weren’t still horizontal on the pavement, she would have melted in one gooey mess on the street.

“I want to get up, Luca.” She was beginning to feel various aches and pains all over. “Ouch.” His cufflink grazed her knee where there was an abrasion.

“Forgive me,” he murmured.

Sabrina felt the earth move. She clutched at his shoulders but it was only Luca lifting her into his arms. When her life was flashing before her eyes as she rolled down the street, her only regrets were about those things she hadn’t done. She wished she had called her mother more often, had initiated contact and had not let the gap between them grow. She wished she had come to Seirenada sooner, had swallowed her pride and asked Chase to loan her money for a plane ticket so she could have had met her father when he was still alive. She wished she had been completely honest with Luca from the start. Then maybe she wouldn’t have ended up at a bottom of a street having her ‘aha’ moment.

“What are you doing?” she gasped.

“Kidnapping you,” he retaliated dryly.

Her head whipped around. “My bag!”

“Relax, strega. Luciano already has it.”

Luciano the driver/bodyguard, had the rear passenger door of a black Mercedes opened, waiting for them at the corner of the intersection. His face was impassive as Luca carefully deposited her inside the car. Once she was comfortably settled, he went to the other side of the vehicle and climbed in beside her. The door closed with a muted thunk.

His crisp cologne, so familiar, wafted in the closed confines of the car. She wanted so badly to lean in. Inhale him.

“Take us to the hospital.” His eyes were taking a catalogue of her cuts and scrapes.

“No. I’m fine.” She rolled her arms and scanned other body parts. Nothing broken. Her fingers had a slight tremor, but it was just a reaction to the harrowing events. “Just a bit banged up, but I’m okay.”

“I insist. I want a doctor to take a look at you.”

“It’s nothing that a first aid kit can’t take care of. Really. I’m good.”

Luca seemed to have an internal struggle, but then he relented gruffly, “Alright. But you tell me the minute something starts to bother you.”

You’re bothering me, but I’m afraid the doctor won’t have a cure for that.

“I will.” She leaned between them and took his hand. “Thanks for catching me.” She tried to release it, but he held on to her.

“You gave me a fright.”

“I gave myself quite a fright, too.” She chuckled, trying to deflect the sudden tension in the car at his raw pronouncement.

Now that the drama over her fall and rescue had abated, Sabrina was able to take in his attire. Her breathing constricted. He looked elegant and dapper in a grey coat, the kind that was cut off at the waist and curved to tails at the back. His shirt was white but his tie and waistcoat were also grey, as was his finely striped trousers. Only a lock of hair falling across his brow, dislodged in the act of rescuing damsels in distress, marred his perfection.

But maybe not. She stooped low and pulled on the hem of his pants.

His socks were in a paisley pattern of aubergine and silver this time.

She straightened. Grinned. “You never disappoint.”

“I do my best,” he replied solemnly.

Sabrina was done with skirting the issue. In a roundabout way. “Why aren’t you at the wedding?” Why are you here?

“I was. I learned about Eleni’s visit and grew concerned. What did she want, strega?”

“You,” she answered starkly, then laughed at the sheer outrageousness of the Greek woman’s visit. “She was willing to pay me a huge amount if I kept away from you. Can you believe it? Like I was a gold digger she could pay off…” Of course he could believe it. The evidence was in the yacht, inside the boxes. And she had damned herself in his eyes with the letter.