Love Letters Volume 4: Travel to Temptation Read online

  “Are you ready?”

  Sam bit back a sigh as she stared at the man leaning against the doorframe. Just hours before, he’d stood inches from the exact spot and kissed the daylights out of her. Again. Then the bastard had the balls to play the perfect gentleman and back away, promises tumbling from those lush lips and smoldering in his dark eyes.

  “Oh, yes.” Okay, her agreement did come out a little breathless and squeaky, but how could she help that? The man was too handsome for words, too good to be believed, and too real to be safe. She grabbed a crocheted sweater from the closet and slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder. “I’m almost ready. I just need to find my camera.”

  The truth was, she couldn’t give a damn about the camera. She’d been primed and ready since the moment he first pressed his mouth to hers. She’d lain awake and restless for hours after he left her the night before, trying to tap into a little of the bravado that carried her this far and hoping today would be the day they took things further.

  “You’ll have to post your pictures so I can see them.”

  Her cheeks burned as she snatched the digital camera from the dresser. She’d die if he knew how many of her souvenir snapshots were dedicated to him. “Nothing worse than feeling compelled to look at someone’s boring vacation pictures.”

  “You find Malta boring?” He pushed away from the doorframe and stepped into her room. “You told me once you dreamed of living on the ocean. Here we are on an island surrounded by ocean. That means I have been a poor tour guide. I’m sorry that I couldn’t take more time the last couple of days. It’s always crazy at the start of a project,” he explained as he took the sweater from her hand. A shiver raced down her spine when he draped it over her shoulders. The heat of his palms seeped through the loose knit and his fingers curled around her upper arms. He pulled her close. “Many decisions to be made.”

  His breath stirred her hair and a kiss grazed her temple. She could feel the steady strum of his heart.

  “Did you miss kissing me today? I missed kissing you.”

  She closed her eyes, the hot flush of mortification prickling her neck. He’d teased her about the kissing throughout dinner the night before. His amusement embarrassed her, but not nearly enough to make her step away. At last, she was right where she wanted to be, in his arms. “You kissed and ran last night.”

  “I had to.” He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, but the intensity that shone in his coffee-colored eyes made her pulse quicken. Eloquent eyebrows rose. “Otherwise, I may not have been a gentleman.”

  Sam found it hard to tell if he was completely without guile or if his forthright manner was a ploy meant to disarm. Either way, she found herself ill-equipped to defend against it. “I don’t want you to be a gentleman.”

  The bold confession shocked her but seemed to supercharge him. He stepped closer, crowding her just enough to capture her undivided attention. His dark eyes were magnetic. “You want me to kiss you again.”

  His words were not a question, they were a fact softly stated. The melodic cadence of his accented English drew her in. His hot, moist breath tickled her lips. She puckered them in silent invitation. He smiled but his eyes darkened with an urgency that tugged at the threads of her self-control, unraveling her inch by inch. She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. If she opened her mouth, everything she wanted might come tumbling out.

  The radiant smile didn’t fade one watt as he cocked his head, but his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Was it more than kissing that brought you to Malta?” He asked the teasing question in a tone so silky it made her insides ache. “Did my American girlfriend travel thousands of miles from her home because she wanted much more than a kiss? Or perhaps it was the call of the waves?”

  Girlfriend. Somewhere in the past three days he’d lost the pause that tipped the descriptor away from friend and into lover. Each time she heard it, a thrill chased up her spine. Still, his question threw her a bit. If she answered honestly, he would think she was a slut or pathetically desperate. Besides, his direct gaze would slice through any lame lie she might concoct. She’d never been good at masking her feelings. With Luca, she didn’t even want to try.

  “Do you know I’ve fantasized about you all these past months?”

  A soft whimper of surrender escaped her parted lips.

  “Do you want to know all I’ve thought about since I first saw your name appear on my screen?”

  “Luca—”

  He brushed a lock of hair back, his thumb wisping along the curve of her cheek. “Things a gentleman would never say or do to a woman as lovely as you.”

  “Oh God.”

  The exhalation made him chuckle. His eyes sparkled with devilish delight. “Yes, you are right.” His words slowed as he wove his fingers through her hair. “The things I thought about would most certainly send a better man straight to confession.”

  “You’re not a better man?” she asked, mesmerized.

  “I don’t always think so.” He cradled her jaw and stroked the throbbing pulse in her throat with the pad of his thumb. “On most days I am a good man,” he murmured. “Will that be enough, my Samantha?”

  Her eyelids grew heavy. Each brush of his fingertips raised fresh chill bumps on her skin. The warmth radiating from his body threatened to melt her bones. Struggling against the weight of her lashes, she held his gaze and asked the one question she needed an answer for the most.

  “You really want me?”

  His short laugh of disbelief sent a rush of molten arousal coursing through her bloodstream. She pressed her thighs together, embarrassed by the liquid heat dampening the panties she’d chosen in hopes that he would see them.

  “Do I truly need to answer that question?”

  The note of annoyance in his tone startled her from her haze. Her heart hopscotched in her chest. A blush warmed her cheeks as she lowered her eyes. “I’m not this woman.” Her voice came out in the barest of whispers. “This woman is so much more than me.”

  Luca caressed her cheek, gently insisting she raise her gaze to his again. “You think you are not, but you’re wrong.” She blinked, enthralled by the surety she saw reflected in the depths of those espresso eyes. “You thought you needed that ludicrous skirt and the shoes no woman should wear outside of the bedroom to look desirable, but you do not.” He brushed a whisper of a kiss across her lips. “The first night you contacted me, all I could think about was unbuttoning your painting smock, laying you out on my bed and burying myself inside you.”

  Sam gasped, shocked and aroused by his forthright manner, but more than a little confused by the context. “Painting smock?”

  He skimmed his thumb across her bottom lip then pressed it to the very center. “There was a picture of you on your page. With the children you teach. They made pictures of rainbows and big yellow suns. You wore a white shirt that came to your knees and paint on your hands.”

  The pieces fell slowly into place. “Finger painting.”

  Luca dragged down her lower lip with his thumb. Unable to resist, Sam opened her mouth, drawing lightly on his sea-scented skin.

  “It was a man’s shirt, splattered with paint. It covered whatever you wore beneath.” His gaze slid over the flirty, flouncy sundress she wore, but his eyes were clouded with memory and arousal. “Your legs were bare, like they are today.”

  Emboldened by his sharp intake of breath and fueled by the flare of his nostrils, she wrapped her tongue around his thumb and drew it deeper into her mouth. His chest rose and fell as he gulped greedy breaths. A flush of pure feminine pleasure heated her skin when a groan tangled in his throat.

  “That night you contacted me, you told me you thought of me often over the years. That night, I thought of you bare beneath that shirt,” he confessed. “Bare beneath me.”

  “Oh thank God,” she whispered.

  Her gushing prayer was answered when he kicked the door shut with his heel, pressing her farther into the room. The slam barely twitched the Richter
scale compared to the tremors of pleasure that rippled through her as he pulled her snug against his chest. He weighed and measured each word, his brow furrowing in concentration.

  “If you do not tell me to leave, I don’t know how much longer I can remain a gentleman.” He dragged his damp digit along her jaw then wrapped his hand around the nape of her neck, forcing her to look up into his eyes. “Irriedek issa.”

  Sam held his smoldering gaze. “I want you too.”

  A startled laugh burst from his lips. He shook his head in wonderment. “How did you—”

  “Twenty-plus hours in airports and on planes. I had time to look up a few key phrases.”

  He flashed a pirate’s grin, plucked her up as though she weighed no more than a feather and strode toward the bed. He stumbled just shy of his goal. A giggle tripped from her lips when he followed her down, catching his weight on palms planted wide on the mattress. She tugged ineffectually on her dress, but it was caught high between their bodies, revealing the lacy edge of her panties.

  Luca ducked his head and a low groan morphed into an almost animal growl as he reached down to stroke her thigh. “How about sabiħa?” He drew her knee up against his hip then peered down into her eyes. “Did you look that up too?”

  Her hair swished against the plush coverlet as she shook her head. “No. What’s that?”

  “It’s a word for beautiful. It’s a word that means you,” he murmured. “A woman who chases dreams like waves on the beach and paints the sky with her fingertips.”

  He captured her lips in a slow, steamy kiss far different from the eager, hungry skirmishes they’d shared the night before. This kiss packed promises of long, lingering explorations. He angled his head, the tip of his tongue sliding over the seam of her lips, patiently coaxing the surrender she ached to give. Sensual and searing, each lazy swirl of his tongue left her dazed and dizzy with desire. She undulated beneath him, molding to the hard planes of his body and drowning the last of her good-girl reserve in the ocean of want he opened up inside her.

  Hot, hungry kisses peppered her jaw and throat. His teeth grazed her earlobe. He found the maddeningly sensitive spot just below her jaw, and her back bowed. She plunged her hands into his hair and curled her fingers tight, tugging him close but half tempted to push him away.

  His mouth on her skin felt too damn good. Too right. He whispered words into her ear. Words she didn’t know but needed no translation. They didn’t mean anything. And even if she knew what they meant, she wouldn’t let herself believe them, even though she wanted to more than she wanted her next breath. Each hot, ragged exhalation made her shiver with need. A hard knot of want formed in her stomach. She raked her nails over the thin fabric covering his shoulders, exulting in the sharp hiss her efforts elicited. It was better to think about lust and want. She didn’t need to know if those whispered words meant anything more. She needed every ounce of strength she could muster to remember there was no way a man who lived on the wrong side of the world could be her Mister Right.

  Luca slipped a hand into the bodice of her dress, claiming her breast with a surety that left her panting. He raised his head and stared straight into her eyes, watching her reaction when he pinched her nipple. Judging by the wicked smile that crept across his face, her gasp didn’t disappoint. She was his to command and he damn well knew it. He rolled the aching tip between his thumb and forefinger and her eyelids grew too heavy to hold open.

  “No, no. Look at me. I want to see you while we make love.” She opened her eyes and his smile gentled, radiating enough warmth to dissolve what little reserve she had left. “So beautiful.”

  He tugged the straps tied at her nape and the halter-style top came loose. Sam fought the urge to cover her herself as he drew the fabric down, exposing her to his heated gaze. His eyes met hers, his pupils dilated with want he didn’t bother to disguise. He cupped her with a reverence that made her throat ache. His frank appreciation of her assets smothered her unease.

  Pushing her breasts together, he buried his face between them, all the while murmuring. “Sabiħa…Kemm int sabiha.” He looked up at her, a twinkle of mischief lighting his bottomless eyes. “I’m so glad I did not meet you when we were young. I’m having, uh…difficulty now…as a man.”

  The sight of her breasts seemed to strip him of his mastery of the language, but his caresses grew more bold and demanding. He shaped her to his palms even as he shrugged away the fumbling explanations. Her breath caught on a gasp when he tweaked her nipples.

  “Once, the thought of kissing you was enough to make me lay awake at night. Now, I know much better ways for us to lose our sleep.”

  Sam smoothed her hands over his hair, his neck, his shoulder, anxious to take all he had to give. “Luca…”

  He kissed her hard and hot, squeezing her breasts and groaning into her mouth when she rose to meet the hard ridge of his crotch. “Yes.” He hissed the word as he drew away, pulling her up with him as he mapped the back of her dress with eager hands. “Say my name again.”

  “Luca.”

  A grunt of frustration propelled him back onto his knees. “You’ll shout it later,” he promised. “I’ll make sure you do.” His brow puckered and he glared at the rumpled fabric gathered at her waist. “Where does this unfasten?”

  Pleased with his unconcealed urgency, she smiled. “Here. On the side.” She reached for the tab on the zipper, drawing it down over her ribs a few inches before Luca brushed her hand away. She raised her hips and he whisked the dress down her legs then tossed it over his shoulder. “Better?”

  His dark eyes climbed her legs inch by skin-tingling inch. “Much better.”

  The leisurely inspection ground to a halt when he reached the pale peach bikini panties stretched tight and low on her hips. The thin silk did nothing to hide the shadow of dark hair covering her pussy. His tongue darted out to wet his lips. He stared transfixed for a long heartbeat.

  “Almost bare,” he whispered. When he looked up at her, the playful roguishness that laced his drugging kisses was gone. “Almost as I thought it would be, but better. So much better.”

  Without warning he slipped off the end of the bed. Hooking his arms under her legs, he yanked her to the edge of the mattress as he sank to his knees. She gasped when he looked up at her, a commanding supplicant prepared to give her everything she needed as a means of taking what he wanted. Dark eyes dared her to shy away as he spread her legs wide. She didn’t.

  Mindless with want, Sam pressed her heels to the edge of the bed and lifted her hips, making demands of her own. But Luca would not be easily brought to heel. Instead of stripping off the thin barrier of material that kept her from getting what she wanted, he used it to torment her. He pressed the tip of his patrician nose to the very center of her, drawing a deep, appreciative hit of her arousal.

  A long, low moan escaped her when his tongue skated over her, tracing the length of her slit through her panties. He drew the fabric into his mouth, drinking the essence of her excitement from the slippery silk. Knotting her fingers in his hair, she pulled him closer, circling her hips shamelessly, using every wile at her command to lure him into giving her more.

  Each flicker of his tongue was accompanied by a murmur. She had no idea what he said. Every whispered word was paired with a mind-melting gust of hot breath seeping through soaked silk. Some wafted through her, melodic words of praise and admiration spoken in flawless Italian. Guttural demands issued in English fractured by desire stoked the fire banked deep inside her. His tongue slipped under the lace edging and she arched into him. His fingers dipped into her wetness and came away glistening. Her breaths came fast and shallow as she watched him meticulously lick each fingertip.

  The panties came apart at the seams, and so did she. She watched through heavy-lidded eyes as scraps of gossamer silk floated to the floor. Her nipples tightened and her pussy swelled. Luca crooned to her in a steady flow of English and Maltese as he stripped off his clothes. He shoved his hands into the poc
kets of his jeans to push them down. She lay naked and panting, staring unabashedly at the miles of gold-kissed skin stretched taut over hard ridges of muscle. A thin line of silky black hair trailed over flat abs and pooled in an inky snarl of coarse curls at the base of his cock. She reached out to collect the pearly drop of come glistening at the tip of the broad, blunt head.

  “Luca.” She rolled the name off her tongue just to watch the fire in his eyes ignite. She wasn’t disappointed.

  “Again.” The mattress dipped under his weight. He knelt above her, using a volley of hot, sweet kisses to press her back onto the bed, each one so blatantly seductive she had no choice but to surrender. Sam raised her arms over her head, knocking the jumble of pillows askew as she sought a handhold on the carved headboard. “Touch me again. Say my name again.”

  The order flowed over her rich as spiced honey. She wrapped her fingers around his thick shaft and squeezed. White teeth sank into his lower lip. He rose up onto his knees, straddling her hips, his hands hanging loose at his sides. She stroked his cock, keeping her eyes locked on his as he let her have her way with him. He pressed his fists to his thighs and flexed his hips, thrusting into her grip. A deep, muffled groan rumbled in his chest. The head of his cock swelled so tight his skin looked like velvet worn shiny. Tucking her chin to her chest, she curled up to taste him, but he lunged, pressing her flat on her back.

  “Oh no.” He shook his head adamantly. “Later. If you take me now I’ll never last.”

  “I want…”

  “Oh, I do too, Irried… I want.” He kissed her long and hard, his tongue sweeping into her mouth and erasing all but the taste of him from her senses. “I want to love you deep and slow, and if we go any further now it will be over too fast. Later I will kiss you and tease you and make you beg. Later you may do the same to me, but now, I must be inside you.”

  Sam swallowed hard, moved by the raw honesty that stripped his voice to a rasp. Wetting her parched lips, she held his steady gaze. “I bought condoms at the gift shop downstairs.”