Too Devious to Tame (The Giovanni Clan) (15 page)

He let go of her and stood up so abruptly, Jemima jumped. He paced around the room, hands balled into fists, and she had to remind herself to breathe, so caught up was she in the scene unfolding in front of her. She glanced at Giorgio, and he, too, looked grim and ready to murder someone. At her anguished whimper he smiled at her, but it didn't reach his eyes, and an icy sense of foreboding spread over her skin. The fine hair on her body stood on end, and gooseflesh broke out over her arms. Giorgio's warm hands rubbed them away, and he dropped a kiss on her exposed shoulder.

"Tell her. She deserves to know what happened."

Her father stopped his frantic pacing and leaned against the wall as though he was in need of the support.

"What happened, daddy?" The barely audible whisper made her father look at her, and she was shocked to see the tears in his eyes.

"The man I'd testified against escaped. We were moved immediately, and we kept moving, only ever barely a step ahead of him. I was terrified that he would use my family against me. The day your mother and you girls were involved in a car accident I knew I had to leave. Elodie wouldn't accept it. We had a massive row. She said it was just coincidence, but I wasn't prepared to take that chance. I left that night. If you weren't with me, you would be safe. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, but I would do it again in a heartbeat if it meant you were safe."

Jemima swallowed past the lump in her throat. He made it sound so simple, but she knew it hadn't been. Again she glanced at Giorgio's closed face, and she knew without the shadow of a doubt, that she would reach the same decision. She would leave him, to keep him safe. She had done so once, after all. She would do so again if she had to.

"What happened to you after you left?" Again her voice was just a croaky whisper. She seemed utterly incapable of projecting her voice with any conviction.

"He caught up with me, of course. Turns out I was worth more to him alive than dead. He needed my computer skills. The FBI didn't take kindly to my 'conversion' as it were.  I went along with it, because as long as I stayed alive, I knew he wouldn't go after you. Plus, I made good money. I put it all in a trust fund for you and Elise. You are both very wealthy young ladies by now, or at least you will be the day my life finally catches up with me."

He smiled at her gasped outrage.

"Don't knock it, Jem. That money is clean. It's the least I could do for my girls. Around the time your mum died, he was finally caught again. By then I was so heavily involved in all this shit, I had to disappear. I couldn't have come for you then, no matter how much I wanted you, and I ached to hold you both. Anyway, I reinvented myself again, became Henry James. Don Luigi offered me his protection, and I have been in the family ever since. I can't see myself leaving any time soon."

"I see." She did see, all too clearly. The choices they made, it set you on a path you couldn't veer off easily.

"My only true regret is that you got caught up in all that mess anyway."

"What do you mean?" Jemima asked.

"He means," Giorgio's voice had dropped an octave, and a shiver went through her at the barely concealed violence behind it. "Someone knows you're his daughter, and they are trying to use you for their ends. We need to get you away from here, until the Don figures out who the bastard is."

The cold breeze of the English Channel blew her hair in her face, and Jemima shivered in her thin robe. The Don's private yacht glided effortlessly through the water. A few fluffy clouds trailed across the full moon hanging so low in the sky, Jemima had to resist the childish urge to reach up and try and touch it. Fourteen days had passed since her father's astonishing revelation. Fourteen days and nights during which she hadn't seen much of Giorgio at all. He'd thrown himself head first into negotiations with the Don, and finding out who the mole was.

At first Don Luigi had refused to entertain the notion that there could be a mole in his organization. Eventually, and presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he'd relented. A cold shiver went down Jemima's spine even now, recalling the deadly fury in the Don's eyes. He'd grasped her by the shoulders, and his heavily accented words had settled in her stomach like granite weighing her down ever since.

"We will find who is responsible for this, and I will deal with them personally. No one threatens my family. No one."

It seemed as her father's daughter she had automatically gained access to the
family
in ways her marriage to Giorgio hadn't. Then again, the Don hadn't believed in the validity of that marriage. She wasn't sure it was real herself, until Giorgio had produced the carefully preserved marriage certificate. They were indeed married in every way that mattered, under the church and the civil banner.

Her father had smiled, and Giorgio had drawn her up against his long frame, the grip on her arm painful, as though he dared her to disagree. Jemima had been far too light headed to utter any response at all.  It was far too early to tell, but the sick feeling rolling through her stomach right now did little to reassure her. Too late she'd remembered that they had not used any contraception at all, and the thought of a possible pregnancy weighed heavy on her mind. She'd never wanted children, but deep down she knew that if she were pregnant she would treasure this baby, because it was Giorgio's.

She couldn't tell him of her suspicions, even if they'd had more than five minutes on their own since, which they hadn't. Alfonso had not left her side, and every free minute she had had, she had spent catching up with her father. It would take a lot longer than two weeks to bridge the chasm of hurt between them, but she was willing to try. The tear-filled Skype conversation they'd all had with Elise, and a scowling Marco Giovanni in the back ground, had drained her of the last of her emotional reserves, and it had been a huge relief when Giorgio had announced that he was taking her home to the UK.

They had left the Don's compound under the cover of darkness, driving such a complicated route, that Jemima had been hopelessly lost. The yacht had been moored at a private harbor under armed guard, and Jemima had fallen into an exhausted sleep the minute her head had touched the luxurious Egyptian cotton pillow. When she'd woken up in the middle of the night, Giorgio had been sleeping next to her, and she'd drunk in his classic Roman profile until her rolling stomach had sent her up deck to gulp in some much needed night air.

She wasn't entirely convinced that she would feel safer in the UK, but she longed to see Elise, and some of the horror that still filled her every time she closed her eyes abated with every mile they put between themselves and the continent.

"What are you doing up here? You'll freeze to death." Giorgio's deep voice wrapped itself around her senses at the same time as his warm body crowded her against the ship's rail. He nuzzled her neck, and Jemima turned round in his arms and buried her head in his chest. He was naked under his robe, bar a pair of satin boxers, and she shut her eyes and inhaled his unique scent. His hands massaged her ass cheeks briefly before he wrapped the ends of his robe around them both.

"Chin up,
cara mia.
We'll be in London, come morning. And if I know the Giovanni there will be a huge celebration waiting for us. My ears are still ringing from Mamma G's screech down the phone."

Jemima smiled against his chest. The formidable head of the Giovanni clan had indeed screeched like a girl when Giorgio announced he was bringing his wife home. She hadn't caught the rest of the conversation uttered in rapid Italian, but Giorgio had looked rather dazed when he had finally managed to put the phone down.

"I'm surprised she wants to see me at all." Jemima mumbled the words into his impressive pectorals, fascinated by the way they flexed under her lips. Giorgio groaned, and with a gentle tug to her hair forced her chin up.

"Don't! The past doesn't matter anymore. You're my wife. A wife she has been berating me for ages to take on, so of course she is pleased to see you. They all are. How we arrived at this state is irrelevant really. As far as the Giovanni are concerned we are madly in love, and that is exactly the cover we need to keep you safe and to throw the bloodhounds off our trail."

She shivered anew at the reminder of the deadly threat they'd left behind, and he pulled her closer into him still. With her breasts flattened against him, her thighs nestled in between his powerful ones, she felt small, feminine, surrounded, and above all safe. She was also far too aware of him as man, and she bit back a groan when he shifted slightly. The hardness prodding into her belly left her in no doubt that he was as aware of her current state of undress as she was of his. She held her breath as his eyes darkened in desire.

"So, maybe we should practice this in love thing,
cara.
" He didn't give her a chance to respond. He simply dipped his head and claimed her lips as though it was his God-given right to do so, which of course it was. He was her husband after all. Her body responded to him with embarrassing predictability. Her nipples strained against his chest, her breasts grew heavy, and her thong grew wet with the evidence of her instant arousal. She curled her hands into the soft folds of his bath robe and rose on her tip toes, in an effort to get closer to him. Her lips opened under the soft, insistent pressure of his, and they both groaned when he took the kiss deeper. He grabbed her ass again and pulled her up against him, lifting her as though she weighed no more than a feather. She wrapped her legs around his waist and rubbed her sodden core along the now rock hard erection straining his boxers. He wrenched his lips from her and swore, his eyes dark glittering orbs of heat that started an answering heat deep down in her belly.

"You'll pay for that,
cara."

"I certainly hope so, big boy." He frowned at her breathless reply, and when he smiled her stomach flipped over in anticipation. That smile was sin itself, and before she knew what he was about he had her perched on the railing. One arm supported her back to ensure she did not fall to the swirling depths, with the other, he freed his burgeoning cock and then pushed her sodden thong out of the way. Her eyes widened in surprise, but he cut off anything she was about to say with a bruising kiss. In another swift move he impaled her on his cock. She was so wet for him already that he slid right in, and she gasped at the fullness inside her. He went still and murmured an apology that she swallowed up in the kiss she gave him. Held up against his body, the cool air on her exposed back side, the knowledge that they were doing this in full view of any crew who might be watching from the captain's deck, all pitched her arousal higher. A fresh wave of her juices aided his deeper slide into her as her muscles stretched around him, and he swore when she wriggled. She grasped his shoulders and levered herself up, using her thigh muscles to aid the process, and he pulled her hair again, exposing her neck. His lips latched on to the sensitive skin there, and he thrust, pushing her back against the railing.

"Hold on to the rail." She followed his terse command immediately, the robe falling down her shoulders exposing her bare breasts. Both of his hands now anchored on her hips he pulled out until just the tip of his thick cock remained poised at her entrance. Her breath hitched when she looked down her body and saw him press back into her, inch by slow inch. The sight of him disappearing into her cunt was so incredibly erotic she bit her lips to stop from gasping out loud. He pulled out again, his movement so slow she wanted to scream at him to hurry up. The slow slide woke up a million nerves inside of her. He angled his hips, and this time when he slid in his cock rubbed against her clit. The familiar tingles spread in waves along her sweat-slicked skin, and their pelvic bones bumped together when he was seated as deeply as he could be.

"Fuck,
tesoro,
you're so tight and wet. I can't do this slow." He growled the words into her neck, interspersed with his heavy pants as he thrust again, and again. Each time with more force than the one before. The edge of the railing dug into her ass, and the slight pain added to the sensual onslaught. Her fingers cramped with the effort required to hold on, her breasts bounced and jiggled, and she bit her lip so hard she drew blood. He latched onto one of the pale orbs shimmering with sweat in the moonlight and sucked the nipple into his mouth. This time she couldn't hold back her scream as the added simulation drew her so close to her orgasm she saw stars.  He did the same to her other nipple, and all reason forgotten she locked her ankles behind his ass and met him thrust for bone jarring thrust, until her climax washed over her with such breathtaking intensity she couldn't even scream anymore. Her pussy clamped around his cock holding him in, and he moved faster, growling her name, as she shook around him. The wet sounds of their bodies slapping together drowned out the lapping of the water and the distant hum of the yacht's engine. With one final thrust that almost sent her tumbling off the wide mahogany railing, Giorgio grunted his release into her neck, sending her body into another mind-splintering orgasm.

When she finally stopped shaking, reality set in, and she froze. He pulled out of her slowly, setting her on her feet with such tender care that tears rose in her eyes. If only she could believe these moments could last. He pulled her robe back around her and adjusted his boxers with a rueful smile toward the captain's deck. When she tried to hide her flaming cheeks behind her hands, he wouldn't let her. He kissed her nose and whipped her off her feet. She screeched in surprise, and he laughed.