A Facade to Shatter(14)
Her gaze slid over him again. Now that she knew he had Sicilian blood in him, she could see it. He had the hot, dark eyes of a Sicilian. “Then you have been to Sicily before, yes?”
He inclined his head. “But not for many years.”
She went and perched on the edge of the sofa, facing him. His gaze slid over her, warmed her in ways she hadn’t known were possible before tonight. “You are friends with the bride’s family or the groom’s?”
He laughed. “Neither. I came with a friend.” He picked up the phone again and frowned as he glanced at the screen. “I can’t seem to find her, though.”
Her. Lia swallowed as her stomach turned inside out. Of course a man who looked like this one was not alone. But where was his girlfriend, and why hadn’t she come searching for him? If it were Lia, she wouldn’t let him out of her sight.
But now she needed to do just that. Lia stood. “I should go,” she said. “It’s late, and you must be tired… .”
Words failed her. She turned away, blindly, fighting a sudden rush of ridiculous tears. But then he was there, a hand wrapping around her arm, pulling her back against him so that she could feel the hot press of his body through the robe.
“Forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” she said stiffly.
His mouth was on her hair, her temple. “I’m not here with another woman, Lia. Not like that. Taylor is a friend, and she’s here to work.”
“Taylor Carmichael?” Lia knew of only one Taylor who would be in Sicily to work right now, and that was the gorgeous former child star. She’d heard her grandmother talking about Santo’s film, and the troubled woman who was slated to star in it.
She heard Zach sigh. And then he turned her in his arms, put his hands on either side of her face and held her so he could look into her eyes. “Yes, Taylor Carmichael. Yes, she’s beautiful and desirable—but not to me. We’ve only ever been friends. She’s the sister I never had.”
Lia bit her lip. It was almost impossible to believe that two such gorgeous creatures weren’t sleeping together. “I think you need glasses, Zach.”
He laughed. “Hardly. I know when I have a beautiful woman in my arms.”
Lia flushed with pleasure. She’d never felt beautiful. Until tonight. Oh, she still worried that she was too fat and too awkward, but she could hardly deny the evidence of his desire for her. She was quite a good dreamer, but she had definitely not dreamed what had happened in his bed only minutes ago.
What she hoped would happen again.
She closed her eyes. One time with him, and she was already becoming a woman of questionable morals.
He tipped her chin up with a long finger and pressed his lips to hers. Desire, so recently sated, still managed to lift a head and send a finger of need sliding down the pathways of her nervous system.
She stepped closer, her lips parting beneath his … and the kiss slid over the edge of polite and into the realm of hot and amazing. He was in the process of shoving the robe off her shoulders when there was a knock on the door.
He took a step back, breaking the kiss, and tugged the robe into place with a sigh of regret. “Food first,” he said with a wicked smile. “And then we play.”
Lia could only shudder in response.
They spent the night entangled together, their bodies craving the pleasure they found in each other. Lia learned more about sex, about her own body, than she’d dreamed possible.
They showered together in the morning, and then spent the day walking around Palermo, ducking into churches and restaurants, stopping in ancient alleys to kiss and touch, drinking espresso and eating pasta.
It was a perfect day, followed by another perfect evening. They were strangers, and not strangers. It was as if they’d known each other forever. Zach’s smile made her heart throb painfully whenever he turned it on her. His laugh had the power to make her ache with raw hunger.
They talked, in Italian and in English, about endless things. She confessed that she was a Corretti. Zach didn’t seem to care, other than a brief lifting of the eyebrows as he connected her to the hotel owners.
She discovered that Zach lived in Washington, D.C., and that he’d met Taylor Carmichael at a clinic for military veterans. She didn’t ask about his scars because he’d grown tight-lipped when he’d told her that much.
They returned to the hotel, to his room, and spent the entire night wrapped in each other once more. He left the balcony doors open so that a breeze from the sea blew in. Church bells chimed the hour, every hour, but sanctuary was in this room, this bed.