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Authors: Ann Christopher

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BOOK: Sinful Seduction
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Sandro hesitated, not wanting to set anything off again but determined to get his brother the help he needed.

“Are you, aah—”

“Seeing anybody?” Tony finished for him. “Taking anything? Yeah. This is better, actually. If you can believe it.”

“It takes time.”

“Time,” Tony echoed dully. “Yeah.”

“What’ll you do?”

Another shrug. “Maybe take a stab at the auction business. Listen—” he swung around, turning to face Sandro on the sofa and picking his words carefully “—about Skylar—”

A few minutes of brotherly reconciliation, it turned out, did not kill, or even maim, the roaring jealousy inside Sandro’s chest. He felt his jaw tighten into finely tuned piano wire.

“I’m not giving her up,” he said flatly. “She belongs with me.”

Judging by the sudden flash of annoyance in Tony’s eyes, he didn’t appreciate the tone, but that was too freaking bad. They needed to get a few things straight between them, and Skylar was not a gray area. He squared his shoulders, gearing up for a battle, but Tony surprised him.

“Yeah, she does.”

“Just so we’re clear—wait,
what?

“If you’re pulling that tough-guy shit with me, then this conversation’s over. Let me know.”

“Fine.” With a lot of difficulty, Sandro reined in his possessive streak and locked it in its cage. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

Tony nodded, looking mollified, but when he opened his mouth again, the words didn’t come. The moment stretched, heading into awkward territory. Sandro waited, studying his knees, and pretended he didn’t see the way Tony’s cheeks flooded with color or the way his nostrils flared.

“The thing is,” Tony said finally, “she was never…like that…with me.”

Thunderstruck, Sandro stared at him and wondered if he was saying what he thought he was saying.

“When I walked in on… Jesus. Don’t make me say it, man.”

Sandro thought about the way Skylar melted down in his arms and the way she looked at him. The way she’d always looked at him. How she’d been saying, over and over again, how much she loved him.

And he got it.

He also understood something else with stark clarity: Tony was a million times the man Sandro was. Because there was no way—no way in a thousand lifetimes and a million universes—that he could ever stand aside and wish Skylar happiness with another man.

“Thanks,” he said gruffly. “I, aah—thanks.”

Tony’s gaze narrowed with warning. “She loves you, man. So you better take good care of her so I don’t change my mind about wanting her back.”

Sandro now knew that it didn’t matter what Tony wanted. Skylar’s choice was the important thing here, and they all knew she’d picked Sandro.

“I plan to treat her like a queen,” Sandro assured him. “Now I have a question for you.”

Tony raised a brow, looking wary.

“Who’s Talia?” Sandro asked.

Slippers, Skylar remembered. She needed her slippers, which she’d kicked under the bed the other night. Oh, and also the blue sweater she’d worn the other day, which was probably still draped over the back of the armchair. So she’d have to get that when she went downstairs. She eyeballed her mostly packed suitcase, which was open on the bed, and checked the time: five thirty-three. In the morning.

Which was a tad too early to head to the airport for her three-thirty flight.

The sensible thing to do, since it was still dark outside, would be to go back to bed and try to get some sleep. Too bad she wasn’t in a sensible mood. It was more like a scream-in-frustration-and-rip-her-hair-out-by-the-roots-and-then-smash-something sort of mood.

And underneath all that? Blinding terror.

Because despite all the progress she’d made and the relationship she’d thought they were building, Sandro was still trapped by his guilt and shackled to his honor. Now that Tony was alive—and thank God for that!—wasn’t it only a matter of time before he dumped her? What would she do then? How would she recover when he smashed her heart to dust?

Tony, meanwhile, was a train wreck in progress; she knew it. Who would help him once she ran away? She didn’t delude herself about this whole packed-suitcase thing. She was turning tail and running, and it really chapped her hide, because she wasn’t a coward. Not normally, anyway.

If she left, how could she and Sandro ever work things out?

How would they—

Someone tapped quietly on her door.

She stilled. Deep inside her chest, her heart did several cartwheeling backflips.

She was still frozen with indecision when Sandro, wearing a T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms, slipped inside the room and closed the door, shutting them in together with so many seething emotions that Skylar was sure she’d explode.

He looked just like she felt: wired and exhausted. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and his face had tightened with tension, making him all sharp edges and intense eyes. He didn’t smile.

“I need to tell you something,” he told her.

Here it came. The big kiss-off, filled with noble sprinklings about what he could or could not do as an honorable brother and blah, blah, blah. Anger surged, because she was pretty sure nothing she could say right now would change his mind, but she damn sure wasn’t going to go down quietly, packed suitcase or no.

“I can’t believe you’re going to throw our whole relationship away because of a goodbye kiss. I mean, I know how it probably looked, but it didn’t mean anything and I just don’t understand—”

“I’m in love with you.”

“—how you can think that there’s still anything between me and Tony. I mean, come on. Think about it. We had our chance and it didn’t—”

“And I want you to unpack all your stuff and stay here with me.”

“—work out, so you have to know that I—wait,
what?
What did you say?”

He stepped closer, his glittering gaze locked with hers. She held her breath, not wanting to miss it this time.

“I’m in love with you,” he said slowly. “Stay with me.”

Oh, God.

One of her shaky hands flew up to cover her heart and keep it from bursting out of her chest. “You—you’re in love with me?”

“You know I am.”

That was a great start, but with him it was only half the battle.

“And you know I love you, right?
You.

Those familiar dark shadows tried to float across his face, but he blinked them away. She watched, disbelieving, as a smile curled one side of his mouth.

“After my performance earlier? I’m not sure you should.”

“Sandro.”

“Come here.”

She went and he caught her up, lifting her off her feet until only her toes skimmed the floor. She locked her arms around his neck and held tight, home where she belonged and determined to stay there. He hung on to her waist and buried his face in the curve where her shoulder met her neck, breathing her like the air. They might have stayed like that forever, but, as always, the heat between them burned too bright to be ignored.

“I need you,” he told her.

“I know.”

“Now.” He swung her around and laid her across the bed, his face hard and dark as he swept his T-shirt over his head, dropped it to the floor and went to work on his pajama bottoms. Straightening, he revealed a jutting erection that was full and thick, which was good because she was more than ready.

He crawled onto the bed and loomed over her, finding his place in the cradle between her open thighs and yanking her panties down her legs. “Now.”

“I know.”

She’d already slithered out of her silky robe and reached for him, her back arching and hips thrusting with no conscious command from her brain. It had always been this way with him, since that first time they laid eyes on each other. Heat. Instinct. Home. Nothing else was important.

A quick stroke with his fingers told him how hot she was and made his eyes roll closed with what looked like ecstasy. She waited, her breath stalled in her throat, but instead of the insistent surge of his member, she felt those talented fingers again, and he touched her there, right there—

“Sandro, please.” She writhed, not sure if she wanted him to stop or not. “I want you inside me when I come.”

He shrugged, flashing a hint of a smile that was more wicked than remorseful. “I don’t think you can wait.”

He was right. Those slick fingers glided slowly…slowly…and she came with a sharp cry of relief and pleasure.

There was no chance to catch her breath. “Sandro,” she said. “Sandro, please—”

“I really like the sound of that.” Hooking an elbow behind one of her knees, he spread her wide and drove deep inside her body with a single thrust.

“Hmm… What?” she gasped, trying to focus against the spiraling tension as it pooled, again, in her engorged sex. “Hearing me beg?”

“Hearing you come.”

“Oh, good. Because you’re about to hear it again.”

“Good deal.”

Dipping his head, he caught her mouth beneath his, surging with his tongue in time to the swiveling of his hips.

She moaned and arched back into the pillows, her face twisting with pleasure. “Hmm, yeah… Right there…ah, yeah, right there.”

“Here?”

He worked her harder, just the way she needed, and she opened her eyes, focusing on the straining cords in his neck, the sweat across his forehead and the glitter in his half-closed eyes.

“Tell me,” she said.

“What? How crazy I am about you?”

“That you love me.”

“I love you.”

“And you’ve always loved me.”

His lips thinned, and he faltered, choked with sudden emotion. “I’ve always loved you. Always.”

“And you always will.”

He blinked furiously, but his eyes overflowed. A single tear fell, splashing her cheek, and her heart swelled beyond anything she thought she could survive.

“And I always will,” he whispered.

Later, as they lay twined together under the downy comforter, their sweat-slicked bodies cooling as their breath evened out, Sandro pressed her closer to his side and traced lazy circles on her back.

“You know,” he warned her, “the Davies family is in a state of, aah—”

“Upheaval?”

“I was going to say chaos, but, yeah, let’s go with upheaval. Nikolas and I still have issues to work out, and most days he’s not even talking to me.”

“True.”

“Tony’s in bad shape. He’s having nightmares and he told me a little bit about what they did to him when—”

Jesus. He couldn’t finish.

Skylar, of course, understood. She nuzzled closer, pressing a sweet kiss to his chest. “I understand.”

“He’s going to need help.”

“I know.”

“From both of us.”

She raised her head, studying him with worried eyes. “Are you okay with that?”

“Yes,” he said honestly.

She dimpled. “Good.”

“And we’re going to call my sister Arianna in a little while. Let her know he’s still alive. So I imagine the second that she pops that baby—”

“Wow. You’re so eloquent.”

“—she and her husband and the baby are going to show up on our doorstep.”

“Good to know.”

“Plus, we’ve got Mickey rolling around here, bossing us around and generally being a sarcastic pain in the ass.”

“Right.”

“And there’s a growing menagerie of pets that I don’t know what to do with.”

“Good thing you know a vet, right?”

He rolled over, easing her beneath him so he could see her face for this next part. “So the point I’m making,” he told her, “is that when you marry me, you’ll be marrying all of this. Got it?”

She smiled, her eyes tearing up. “Oh, yeah. I got it.”

He’d thought he’d reached the outer limits of his happiness with Skylar already, but he was, as usual, wrong. Joy swelled in his chest, threatening to split him open down the middle.

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a yes,” she said. “I can’t wait to see what further adventures the Davies family has in store for me.”

* * * * *

ISBN: 9781459220805

Copyright © 2012 by Sally Young Moore

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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BOOK: Sinful Seduction
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