Bargain Bride, Billionaire Groom Read online

  “I want to watch you…make you come,” he growled, and slipped his other hand beneath her head to cup it, to lift her lips up to his parched mouth.

  Her pelvis ground against his hand. He smiled, enjoying every second of her sensuous hip slides as he stretched her, pleasured her sheathe with long-fingered strokes, diving in, sliding out, sliding home again, then taking his time as sensation surged through her body like raging tides.

  When her eyes opened wide and she whispered his name, he knew she was begging him for permission to let go.

  Jio gave it. He slicked his thumb ever so delicately across that membrane that hooded her pleasure knot, back and forth, fast and slow, round and round and round…

  “You are a wild sea, darling,” he murmured against her greedy lips as he sped up the tempo of his fingers spiraling inside her cache, diving in and out of her juices. Jio felt singed by the lust that torched her writhing body, aware she hovered on the edge. About to explode beneath his hand. His lips.

  “Come for me,” he urged softly.

  Her headlong sweep into that first wave of feeling, when she latched her lips onto his, had him rushing in with her. He tasted her whispers, devoured them as she murmured his name. He sank his tongue inside her mouth and meshed his fingers inside the sultry wet haven between her thighs.

  “Jio!” she gasped, and when she burst it was like getting swept away in a tidal surge.

  She bucked against his hand. He held her close and ate her sexy moans as she clutched at his shoulders. Even he clung for dear life to her erotically charged body as she splintered beneath the sensations crashing through her.

  Crumbling inside her turbulence, she took him down with her, rolling her hips against the pressure of his fingers. His hand was soaked with the power of her climax and, after hitting one last stormy note, contentment streamed into her body and finished the last dribbles of her orgasm.

  Gently, he withdrew his fingers and hand out from between her drenched thighs and kissed her. He caressed her and cradled in his arms. The sheer force of her afterglow bathed them both in her satisfaction.

  “Mmm.” She kissed his jaw, stroked his cheek, and slid her leg around his fully clothed thighs.

  “Was that good?” he queried against her misty cheek.

  “Hmm. Very much so,” she whispered back. “Jio, I want to make love to you like this…” she licked his bottom lip, and then dragged its fullness into her mouth for a light suck before releasing it. “Let me taste you. Suckle you. Please?”

  The moonlight pooling around them turned her eyes into liquid desire. His body wrenched in pained desperation. They couldn’t go there. He wouldn’t stop there. He’d want all of her, outside and in.

  Guilt stabbed at his sexually charged body. He still couldn’t tear himself away from her, or even attempt to climb out from the sinkhole of disaster he’d hurled himself into.

  “Let me hold you just like this for a few minutes,” he whispered, knowing his hard-on would hurt like a son of a bitch if he didn’t get some relief. Or if he didn’t relieve himself but…perhaps this was his punishment for what he’d just done.

  “Don’t worry.” His words were rough and husky at the edges, given his body’s aroused state. “We have all night, darling.”

  Her lips curved into a smile of happiness, and as she kissed him, he swept her hair back along her pillow. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hooked her leg higher up around his hips.

  Jio savored her trusting hugs, her kisses and her affection. Moments later, when her little snores cut through space between them, he smiled. She’d fallen asleep in his arms and it was the sweetest feeling he’d ever known…

  When she woke up the next morning, he was gone.

  Chapter Six

  Thunder rattled across gray skies as Golden accelerated down the mile-long spool of red dirt that connected the Lani Kai estate to Marcus’s sprawling ranch.

  Turning into the road leading up to his villa, a smattering of raindrops splatted across her truck’s windshield. She thought of Gado and the field hands up on the mauka range—the mountain slopes where their higher elevation coffee grew. Today they planned to spread fertilizer around each tree.

  Come late summer, they’d pick each bean by hand as mechanical harvesters were useless in the hilly terrain where their gourmet Arabica coffee thrived. If the day’s rains made the ground too muddy for workers to traverse, the field hands knew to take shelter in nearby caves until the storm passed.

  Memories of helping her parents in the crop plantings brought a smile to her lips. Lily would help too someday, in their coffee harvests.

  “See Mahcus-Poppa?” Lily asked, familiar with the road.

  “Yes.” Golden looked into the rear view mirror and smiled into her daughter’s eyes, a rich maple color so much like Enzo’s—the man she should have married.

  Jio and Enzo might have had different fathers, but both possessed bold jawlines, and well-defined chins. Both were fit and ultra-handsome. There were differences, too.

  Jio was four inches taller than Enzo had been. A Tyrolean bloodline fused with his Mediterranean heritage could have given Jio his intense blue eyes and dark blond hair. But where Enzo’s eyes always brimmed with humor and love for her, it was the mysterious lethal blue ones of his brother’s that dominated her every waking moment of this past week.

  That rat! That fiend! She’d allowed herself one muffled sob-fest—the morning she woke up, abandoned and alone in her bed. Jio didn’t leave a note. And the most unforgivable thing of all? He didn’t even kiss her goodbye!

  Golden swiped at her tears. Thank goodness Lily was in the car with her otherwise she would have pulled over and cried her heart out. Here she’d been telling Jio of her hopes to move on with another man, only for him to lay her on her bed, climb inside and open her up to his lips, his skilled fingers…

  The crunching of her tires over the pea gravel driveway in front of Marcus’s villa dragged her away from the direction of her thoughts.

  She parked next to an unfamiliar vehicle, a red cruiser, and hurried to take Lily out from her car seat. Lily always traveled with her favorite blanket, and Golden now used it to cover Lily’s head before slamming the door shut.

  Holding her tight, she ran up the walkway whose pattern of flat stones flowed throughout the grass. A multi-tiered fountain in the interior courtyard bubbled out a warm welcome. The second she put her down, Lily ran over to gaze after and poke at the goldfish swimming around in the lower tier.

  “Come along, Lily. Let’s go say ‘hi’ to mister Marcus.” She grasped her daughter’s hand and together they walked through the arch of the front entryway. The door was wide open, but there was no sign of Marcus in the formal areas of the villa.

  She ventured further, about to call out his name when she heard voices drifting from the rear of the house. Thinking he might have his television on, she plucked Lily up and followed the sounds to where they led.

  In the great room, a couple held each other in the grip of a passionate embrace. Struck by the other woman’s honey blonde hair, she noticed the woman’s clothing, undone and falling down around a slender and naked back—one that even her fabulous hair shimmering down over the tanned arms of the man who held her in his embrace couldn’t hide.

  Clutching Lily close, Golden stood there, startled and staring as Marcus kissed the woman with a lust-charged energy she couldn’t ever recall him showering on her.

  “Mahcus-Poppa!” Lily peeped, just as Golden stepped back to make a quiet exit.

  Marcus looked up. His cheeks darkened with a tide of color.

  “Marcus?” The woman looked over her shoulder. Surprise rounded her vivid green eyes to see Lily and Golden staring back at them. “Oh!” Winged brows set in a heart-shaped face shot up in distress as she pulled her clothing back up to her neck.

  Golden tamped town a flicker of irritation. This was the man she’d hoped to move forward with a week ago! If he wanted someone else, he could have at
least been honest—just as she was here to break news she thought would upset him, but it meant being honest!

  She pulled in a breath. A strange sense of relief swam through her and took over her indignation. She’d brought news that she thought would upset him. While it still might, she now had every confidence that this woman would offer Marcus some pretty potent comfort measures.

  “I’m sorry, Marcus. I thought this was a good time to call on you,” she said. That feeling of dismay she experienced at having interrupted them faded with the reminder; Marcus had been walking into and out of her home without the formality of knocking for the past month—just as she’d been walking into his. “I didn’t get to see you last week, and I hadn’t heard from you, so I thought—”

  “Sweetheart, I meant to call,” he said, shaken.

  “It’s okay. I should have called before coming over. Look, this is obviously not a good time so I’ll make it quick. I came by to tell you…I’ve decided to take Lily to Starfire Ridge. I’ll be back in a month or so.”

  “Honey!” he called out as she turned away. He caught up to her just before she reached the courtyard. “Wait, please. Are you going to Starfire Ridge because you want to? Or because of what you’ve just seen?”

  Her heart ached to see him like this, with faint shadows beneath his eyes. Lines of tension creased their outer corners and she wondered if she, or the woman inside, was the cause of it. It didn’t matter.

  Marcus deserved that beautiful woman waiting for him. He was a decent man who deserved better than a woman who’d pinned hopes of a relationship on him, only to jump into bed with another man—her in-name only husband, of all people!

  “I’m going because of all that lightning we talked about the other night, Marcus. I’m-I’m feeling it in a major way,” Golden admitted, seeing a humorous twist in what she and Marcus had gotten up to with other people. “Sonic booms, thunder—it’s all there. That’s what I came to tell you.”

  He nodded. “I see,” he said gravely. “I won’t stop you, then. All I ask is that we talk when you return?”

  “Yes, we’ll talk. I promise,” she said, and as she turned away, Lily looked back at him wonderingly. Lily pulled her thumb out of her mouth.

  “Mahcus-Poppa?” she piped.

  “Hi, little one,” he greeted quietly, and didn’t say another word as he watched them leave.

  ~~*~~

  “Here we are, Mrs. Falcone,” Starfire Ridge’s airport shuttle driver announced as he brought the beefy black vehicle to a halt beneath a rustic porte corchére.

  Exposed trusses of big-timbered logs were vined with twinkling fairy lights that set a festive winter tone. A heavy layer of snow blanketed the lodge’s rooftops and surrounding landscape.

  Icy winds churned up the heated interior when the driver swept his door open and stepped outside. The blast sheared across Golden’s frayed nerves. She unbuckled a sound-asleep Lily from the car seat and bundled her in the blanket she’d thought to bring along.

  “Watch your step,” the driver cautioned, and helped her out of the vehicle.

  Why didn’t she look over weather reports this time of the year in the Colorado Rockies? Her chocolate colored pants that buckled low on her waist and flared at mid-calf, and a matching wrap-around top that knotted at her side did nothing to insulate her from frosty winds. The suede jacket that she wore over her clothes was no match for the ten degree temperatures biting into her bones.

  The bellhop who’d removed her luggage from the trunk followed behind as the driver ushered them into the lodge. After the driver thanked her, he then left to pick up his next arrival of passengers.

  Inside the lodge, Golden stood in awe of the tall ceilings that were beamed with more peeled timber. The reception area’s walls of glass captured all around views of the lodge’s evergreen forest surround. Snow-capped slopes beyond the glass added a big country feel to the lodge’s interior.

  Those dramatic mountain vistas were upstaged by a fieldstone fireplace that soared from floor to ceiling, and towered over an open seating area. Thick red candles on wrought iron stands had also been lit for evening, and soft glimmers of welcome danced in the lodge’s relaxing ambiance.

  “Welcome to the Lodge at Starfire, ma’am,” greeted a neat blonde with a western drawl. “Mrs….” The concierge stared closely at Golden’s driver’s license as she looked up her reservation, “…Falcone?”

  “Yes. I’m here to meet up with my husband—Jiovanni. I hope he’s here.”

  The woman laughed, thinking perhaps that Golden was joking around. “Oh yes, ma’am. He most certainly is!”

  As the other woman picked up the phone and requested the presence of the lodge manager, Golden wondered what Jio would say about her showing up, unannounced.

  At the time she’d made flight reservations, the sensible part of her thought it might be a good idea to call ahead and warn him of their arrival. The carefree girl she used to be thought she should surprise him. But the seething shrew she’d turned into the past week had raged at her to go forth and rattle the man’s cage! After the stunt he pulled on her, he deserved zero courtesies!

  “Mrs. Falcone, welcome, welcome!” The lodge manager appeared at her side, introduced himself then directed the bellhop with instructions to have her luggage brought to her room. He then turned to her and said, “Come with me, ma’am. Let’s go find that husband of yours!”

  Lily stirred in her arms. Her drowsy eyes lit upon the cedar garlands that draped above the windows. “See Jee-oh Poppa?”

  “Soon, Lily. We’ll see Uncle Jio soon.” Uncle Jio? She could hardly blame Lily for being confused. Her marriage to Jio made him Lily’s stepdad as well.

  She wasn’t doing Lily and herself any favors by staying married to him. Thank God a resolution was in the works, but first things first. He’d promised them a ski vacation and he was damn well going to deliver!

  Lily snuggled into Golden as she followed the manager down a short flight of steps that led to a restaurant filled with appetizing scents and noisy diners. She trailed him through a wide corridor whose halls were lined with framed photographs of celebrities, dignitaries and other world travelers who’d had their pictures taken during their stay at the lodge.

  A set of sliding doors opened for them. Following him into a heated atrium, they went past two more sets of automatic sliding doors before they stepped into an alpine wonderland.

  Sunlight was fading behind the mountaintops. As Golden emerged from under the shade of long-reaching eaves, snowflakes glistening in the lodge lights fell and bounced off her nose.

  “Lily want down!”

  “Not yet,” Golden said. The sneakers on Lily’s feet were useless in the five-inch layer of snow that Golden’s kid leather slip-ons were now sinking into. Immune to the chill, she was actually breaking out in a sweat! No doubt the thought of coming face to face with her husband contributed to her spiked internal temperatures.

  “Wait there, ma’am. Please!” the manager instructed, moving away from her to shine a large, heavy-duty flashlight the size of a car battery up into the wintery vista of evergreens, towards a brightly lit ski run.

  Log cottages interspersed with the occasional chalet nestled in the upper ridges of the surrounding woods.

  “There’s your husband, Mrs. Falcone. He’s on the mogul run.”

  A lone figure in a black ski suit powered into short-radius turns while using his poles to negotiate around, and over, snowy humps in the steep slope. The skier’s breakneck speed wasn’t lost on her. Neither was his breathtaking ability.

  Her heart banging in her chest, she swore he did some sort of crazy side flip, too. It was easier to think her eyes were playing tricks on her, even as she suspected Jio’s incredibly fit body had been hewn by extreme sports such as this.

  She shivered, fearful, despite the expert skill he displayed on the slopes.

  The lodge manager set the light in blink mode, and held it up high over his head. “If Mr. Falcone sees
this, he’ll ski in,” he explained. “You may want to wait inside. It’s much too cold out here.”

  Golden shuddered against the bite of icy winds gnawing through her clothing. She turned and went inside. Hovering just off to the side of the sliding doors, she lingered beneath a hot air vent.

  She knew the second Jio glimpsed the signal. He slowed down before veering into a run that cut through a grove of snow-laced pines. Holding Lily close, she ventured outside to meet him. Breathe, breathe! Her mind and body were so reactive to the man approaching that her mouth watered with a lemony tang of anticipation.

  They walked over to where the manager stood, waiting for Jio next to the ski racks anchored beyond the lodge doors.

  Jio scraped to a halt in the snowy lane that ran alongside the lower section of the lodge, chanced a look up, and saw them peering down at him. He took one look at Golden clutching Lily.

  “Mio Dio!” he swore.

  Using the tip of his ski pole, he pushed down on the left and right heelpiece of his skis and stepped out of their bindings. Then he bent down, loosened the buckles on his boots, grabbed his skis and leaped up the side stairs that would take him from the lower terrace up to their level.

  Honey-dark curls straggled out from beneath his black ski cap. Ski goggles concealed his eyes and while his stare practically drilled into her as he approached them, it was his sexy mouth, stern and down-turned, that launched her heartbeats into a frantic tattoo.

  “Hello, Jio.”

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded, handing his skis and poles to the lodge manager.

  “Well, nice to see you, too. You invited us, remember?”

  “Why didn’t you call me?” he asked, keeping his eyes on her while he loosened his gloves. “I would have come to Denver to pick you up.”

  “I only decided to come out at the last minute. We have unfinished business, Jiovanni.”

  Tension spring-loaded the air between them. Golden relished the tightening of his lips, proof of his inner struggle to make what he could of that. It helped her stand her ground, and while she was definitely freezing her butt off, she burned with an anger she couldn’t soothe. Not after what happened, then didn’t happen, between them.