The Vengeful Groom. SARA WOOD

admired the way he had won the interest of the students. He’d done something for them; now it would be their turn to do something for him. Like answering his questions, she thought with apprehension.

      And their eyes met, his triumph plain to see. Tina felt trapped, wanting to run away but unable to. It seemed that whatever she did, he’d find out that she’d kept a secret from him all these years. One so important that by rights she should have told him.

      “I won’t be long, darling,” he said warmly to Tina. At her gasp, he gave a theatrical groan and a sheepish grin, releasing appealing laughter lines around his dark eyes. “I’ve let the cat out of the bag!” he exclaimed. “I suppose they don’t even know we were once close friends—”

      “Stop it, Gio!” Tina interrupted desperately.

      “Aw, shucks! Mustn’t tease my best girl, must I?” He grinned, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her fondly into his hip. He looked down at her as if they were lovers reunited.

      Tina wanted to hit him. Aw, shucks and best girl indeed! She caught the look in Giovanni’s eye and was furious to see that he was vastly amused by the way he’d put her on the defensive. Time she got Giovanni somewhere he couldn’t bring her name into disrepute! Already his hipbone was burning into hers with more heat than friends ought to generate between them.

      “Not if you want to reach thirty, you mustn’t,” Tina agreed lightly, without a clue in the world as to how to get rid of him safely. But at least she could lose their audience while she did it. So she swallowed her pride and her fear, flashed him a big friendly smile and tucked her arm in his. “I might see you guys at the beach,” she said to the students. “If I’m carrying a tub of ice cream, it’s because I’m going to take my revenge on a bully—”

      “I hope you’re not planning on pouring it into my gas tank,” he said with a low laugh, squeezing her waist with his big crushing hand and making her gasp.

      “No,” she said sweetly. “Down your cream suit.”

      He chucked her indulgently under the chin. “Saucy witch!” he said fondly. His lips parted and his eyes became drugged with a drowsy desire. “You know I’d make you lick it off.”

      There was an intake of breath all round. Giovanni’s trick of wrapping each word in curling sensuality had made that sound like a highly erotic act. Red in the face with embarrassment, Tina felt his fingers sliding down her hip, and she could see from the expression on the students’ faces that she needed to play the remark down or she’d lose all credibility as an upholder of the moral tone.

      “Idiot,” she said fondly. “Don’t take any notice of this guy,” she said in an offhand way to the students, trying to hold his roaming hand still. The rhythm was penetrating her bones and creating far-reaching vibrations in places she’d rather not remember. “He’s a real joker. Won the debating prize most years. You know the kind. All talk, no do. Come on,” she said, grimly shooting the amused Giovanni a hands-off look. “Tell your aunty Teen what you’ve been up to since you left and how your lovely wife is and your—is it eight?—children. Loves kids,” she confided, her voice a little wobbly now from the strain. “Bye, everyone. Have a nice day.”

      With knowing smirks that made her want to scream, the teenagers wandered away and Tina drew in a deep breath. First blow to her. And then her brief sense of deliverance vanished rather rapidly when she found herself being firmly propelled toward her apartment door.

      “I knew you’d see sense,” murmured Giovanni.

      “Now it’s your turn,” began Tina. But suddenly she found his arms around her. “Gio!” she warned huskily.

      “Mmm?” he said with a slow smile.

      She felt his long fingers sliding down her back and tensed, ready to raise her knee and… Tina blinked rapidly. Both his hands were pushed into the side pockets of her shorts, and for a few delicious seconds her hipbones were being treated to a seductive massage. She stiffened, motionless as a statue. Giovanni’s long fingers had crept into the warm socket beyond her pelvic bones and the caress was driving heat into her loins. Lovely liquid heat that made her back arch involuntarily and her head lift till her face was uptilted and available.

      He murmured something and then laughed softly. She heard a clink and saw that he was waving her key in front of her nose.

      “No!” she wailed, furious with herself for not realizing what he was doing. Always he tricked her. Always she fell for it! Angrily she shot her hand up for the key. He lifted it higher, waggling it about in smug triumph. Tall he might be, but she could jump, couldn’t she? And wipe that smile off! Her knees flexed and she sprang into the air just as he stepped closer. And to anyone watching, it must have seemed she’d leapt into his waiting embrace with unseemly eagerness.

      Giovanni reacted with typical enthusiasm. “Tina!” he said silkily, wrapping his arms around her with the speed of lightning.

      Helplessly she kicked her dangling legs in midair only too uncomfortably aware that her body was being pressed into his and her mouth had ended up inches away from his jaw. “Opportunist!” she gasped, the breath being crushed from her. To her horror, she saw a movement at the Alden place and her eyes widened in dismay. “Put me down!” she yelped.

      He glanced behind him and also saw that Lisa had returned and was straightening up from collecting something she’d left behind by the car. With a cruelly mocking grin, he turned back, at the same time casually kicking out at a gas can stowed in the porch.

      “I think you’d better stop wiggling,” he said huskily. “I’m enjoying it too much. Do you know where your pelvis is?”

      The distraught Tina went instantly limp. Of course she knew! Wasn’t she wishing she didn’t? “Put me down!” she whispered, her mouth a lick away from his. “Lisa must have heard the rattle of the can….”

      “Oh, do you think so?” he asked innocently. “I imagine she’s glancing over now, don’t you? I’m afraid,” he added gravely, “that it’ll look as if we’re locked in a friendly clinch.”

      “Manipulator! Down!” she whispered fiercely against his laughing mouth.

      “If you insist. Mmm. Gorgeous.” His mouth drifted lower to her throat. A hand, thrust between them, crept to the top of her thighs.

      “I…mmm! I meant down as in put me down!” she mumbled breathily, feeling the quick rush of flowing need spreading from where his hand had briefly rested and radiating through her whole body.

      “Okay.”

      One arm alone held her slight weight. She heard the sound of the key being inserted into the lock, but before she could protest, she was being carried inside and the door had slammed. Almost immediately Giovanni let her go and she tumbled to the floor in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs. So did he.

      “Well, this is nice,” he murmured, halfheartedly untangling his legs from hers. “Like Bambi and Thumper, when they bumped on the ice.” She gave him a look of loathing, and his hand clamped around her chin. Her mutinous eyes glowered at him, he gave her a crooked grin, then touched his lips to hers.

      “They were friends,” she muttered through the kiss, unwillingly adoring the taste of him as her inner lip moved against his mouth.

      “I love your sulky pout. Mmm. Your tongue’s so sour tipped when you talk to me and yet you’re really tasty,” he mused. “Must be all those doughnuts. Sugar sweet. I’m crazy about sweet things. Chocolate ice cream on naked flesh, honey-tipped breasts, your luscious poppy red lips. Come here.”

      “Gio!” she protested, deeply shocked. His mouth swooped on hers again and she felt his laugh shape the kiss and his breath feeding into her with a rush of deliciously tingling warmth. Weakly she fought the instant pleasure, appalled that she found it wonderful to be drowning in his arms once more and that it was a joy to be mingling the taste of her lips with his, inhaling the clean-showered scent of his body and