Gino’s Arranged Bride Read online

  But she must also think of Gino, whose outrage hadn’t abated, although he now disguised it with an ironic demeanour.

  He’d said, ‘I am an Italian, not a milky Englishman,’ and she was beginning to understand what that meant. There was a dark, brilliant edge to him, almost a hint of danger, that warned her not to provoke him further.

  Over a pair of black lacy panties she slipped on the red satin basque, whose bust was wired to push up her bosom, emphasising its fullness. It was laced up in the front, the edges not meeting, but leaving an inch of skin showing. Then she smoothed the sheer black stockings up her legs, fastening them with suspenders.

  She made up her face with delicate precision; just enough, not too much. Finally she slipped on a cotton dress over her erotic finery, and covered that with a coat.

  Gino was waiting for her downstairs, and together they went out to the car.

  ‘Where are we heading?’ he asked.

  ‘The Angel’s Head. It’s a pub on the other side of town.’

  His hackles rose as soon as he saw the place, which was down at heel. From inside came the sound of noisy male singing. Laura thought wryly that perhaps, after all, she was glad Gino was here.

  Mark was waiting for them just outside the door. He was a tall, middle-aged man with a fussy manner. Gino relaxed a little, but his greeting to Mark was reserved.

  ‘Mark, this is my husband,’ Laura said.

  ‘Well, well, I didn’t know you’d got married.’

  ‘But you’ll understand why my wife will not be appearing again after tonight,’ Gino said quietly.

  ‘Ah, well, that would be a pity. I’ve got several things lined up-’

  Gino’s voice was like an arctic fog.

  ‘You’ll have to find somebody else. My wife’s decision is final.’

  ‘But surely-’

  ‘Final,’ Gino said, and something about that one soft word stopped Mark in his tracks.

  ‘Is anyone else coming?’ Laura asked Mark.

  ‘No, I’m playing the man, tonight,’ he said, then, in answer to Gino’s sharp glance he added quickly, ‘I just provide the background and play the music.’ He held up a cassette player placatingly.

  ‘OK,’ Gino said briefly.

  Inside the pub she went to the cloakroom and put on the policewoman’s uniform that Mark had given her. It was specially designed to be removed easily, being fastened with Velcro.

  As a final touch she pushed up her hair beneath the hat to make herself look severe. Now she was ready.

  She found Mark waiting for her, also dressed in a police uniform. Gino had vanished.

  ‘Thank goodness for that!’ Mark said fervently. ‘He’s really scary. So, you won’t be doing this any more after tonight.’

  ‘That’s what Gino says but-’

  ‘No, it’s what I say too. I’m not ready to die. You didn’t see how he was looking at me. He’s not a gangster, is he?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Well, he’s possessed by the devil.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense, he-’ she faded into silence.

  Mark was right. Gino wasn’t Gino any more. He was someone else, a man filled with suppressed fury.

  ‘Here’s your notebook, with your words,’ Mark muttered.

  A young man came towards them. ‘Ready?’ he said. ‘Henry Rufford is the fellow in the red shirt.’

  ‘Here we go,’ Mark muttered.

  Assuming stern frowns they pushed through the crowd, which fell silent at the sight of their uniforms, and took up position in front of a large man in a red shirt.

  ‘Henry Rufford?’ Mark demanded.

  ‘Yes.’ The man looked nervous.

  ‘Is that your vehicle outside?’

  ‘Yes-yes, but-’

  ‘Are you aware that it’s been reported stolen?’

  ‘But it can’t-’

  ‘Officer, read him the report.’

  He produced a small cassette radio from under his coat, while Laura began to read from the notebook in a fierce, official voice.

  ‘Henry Rufford, it is here reported that on the twentieth day of August you did reach the age of fifty-five years, and that in consequence your friends have clubbed together to wish you Happy Birthday!’

  Rufford burst out into relieved laughter. Mark hit a button, making music come from the cassette player, and Laura went into action.

  With a swift movement she whipped off the jacket, revealing the top of the red satin basque. An appreciative roar went up from the watching men. Then the skirt came off, revealing the rest of the basque, fringed with black lace, and stockings.

  She began to sway with the music, smiling at the audience but always keeping her distance. Gradually she began easing the gloves down her arms, and the roars grew.

  The sound startled her. Removing a glove was innocent enough, surely?

  Just watching it removed is exciting. That was what Gino had said.

  She started on the other glove, sliding it down inch by inch. Henry Rufford leapt to his feet and planted himself in front of her, ogling her bosom with eyes that were practically on stalks.

  What happened next was too fast for him to follow. The punch that connected with his chin came out of nowhere, knocking him off his feet. As he sprawled on the floor the contents of a beer mug were deposited over him, and a coldly furious voice in his ear said, ‘You’re lucky to be alive.’

  ‘Gino-’ Laura started to protest.

  ‘Silenzio,’ he snapped, rising to confront her. ‘You leave this place.’

  ‘Look-’

  ‘No, you look. I tried doing it your way. Now we do it my way.’

  Before she realised what he meant to do Gino lifted her off her feet. The next moment he was storming out of the building with Laura tossed over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘J UST what do you think you’re doing?’ Laura demanded crossly as they emerged into the street. She was struggling to free herself but Gino’s arm across her back was immovable.

  ‘What I should have done earlier,’ he said.

  ‘There’s no need for you to act like a caveman. Will you please put me down?’

  ‘Sure. We’re here now.’

  He’d reached the car. Opening the rear door he set her down, keeping hold of her and silently indicating for her to get in. It would have given Laura great pleasure to refuse but she couldn’t risk a scene in the street, especially dressed as she was. So she climbed into the back of the car and sat, seething in silence, as they drove home.

  To her relief the house was dark and empty.

  ‘I think we should go upstairs,’ she said grimly when the front door had closed behind them. ‘There are things to be said.’

  ‘There certainly are,’ he agreed, indicating the stairs with an ironic gesture. ‘After you, my lady.’

  The events of the evening must have affected her, for she was uncomfortably aware that her scantily clad behind was right in his sights as they climbed the stairs. Or perhaps it was something new about Gino himself that made her intensely conscious of her own body.

  When they were safely in the bedroom she rounded on him. ‘You’ve got a nerve, Gino, acting like that, showing me up-’

  ‘You were making a pretty good job of that yourself.’

  ‘I told you what would happen-’

  ‘You told me you could cope.’

  ‘So I could.’

  ‘Rufford was trying to grope you up,’ he shouted.

  ‘I could have handled him.’

  ‘That’s what he wanted,’ Gino said crudely.

  ‘To think I used to believe you were a civilised man.’

  ‘No, I’m an Italian. It’s not the same. I have my own notions of “civilised”, and they don’t include standing by while my wife strips for other men. And don’t hand me that line about how innocent it is because I saw their eyes.’

  He was breathing hard. ‘Every man there wanted to tear the last piece of cl
othing off you, and it wouldn’t have been difficult.’

  ‘It would have been impossible because I wouldn’t have allowed it,’ she said hotly.

  ‘You think you’d have had any say? It would be easy to pull open that bow at the front-like this.’

  With one swift movement he proved his point. Just one little tug at the satin strings that tied the basque in the front, and the knot slid undone. Another tug at the strings and the whole lace-up down the front was loosened.

  Laura stared down at herself, then up at him. Her heart beat faster at something she saw in his eyes. He was watching her, trying to read her expression.

  ‘You see how easy it is?’ he asked softly. ‘You were never as safe as you thought in this flimsy thing. It only needs one man without any manners.’

  As he spoke he was twining his fingers in the strings, easing them open, widening the gap so that the two sides fell further apart, revealing her waist and her breasts.

  A pulse in her throat was making it hard to speak, but she managed to say, ‘I’ve never before met a man without any manners.’

  ‘You have now,’ he said, his eyes on her breasts.

  Now he was pulling the string out, letting it slither through the holes, so that the basque fell further and further apart until it was completely released, and he tossed it aside.

  His next act took her by surprise. Placing his hands on her waist he lifted her up high, as easily as if she weighed nothing.

  As he lowered her gently he drew her closer, so that his face fitted naturally between her breasts. At once Laura forgot all notion of quarrelling with him. Who needed it? Overwhelmed, she took his head between her hands, pressing his face against her, feeling his mouth against her flesh.

  The sensation was so good that she let out a long sigh of satisfaction. This felt right and she was ready to give herself over to it totally.

  She could feel Gino shaking as he lowered her slowly to the ground and began raining fierce kisses on her neck, her throat. He kissed like a man who’d restrained himself for too long and wouldn’t be denied now. His mouth moved over hers with purpose, coaxing and demanding at the same time, in a way that deeply excited her.

  She pressed closer to him, offering her own mouth to his, answering his desire with ardour of her own. She’d thought passion was dead in her. Instead it had been banked down, waiting for the touch that would ignite it and bring it to new heights.

  He lowered her quickly onto the bed and began to strip the clothes from his tall, lean body. Seeing him naked, Laura realised that his shoulders were broader than she had thought, the thighs more powerful, deepening her impression that this was a man she’d never really known.

  He was ready for her, his urgency unmistakeable. The sight made her heart thump faster as she thought of what must happen soon.

  But at that moment Gino stopped as though an arresting hand had been put on his shoulder. Instead of lying on the bed beside her he sat down, breathing hard but in control of himself. Laura saw the sudden question in his eyes, and understood it.

  She answered it silently, reaching up her hand, grasping his and pulling him closer to her. His face relaxed.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he whispered.

  ‘Quite, quite sure.’

  She was on fire, half wild from the need to have him touch her, and when he did so, just lightly with his fingertips, she reacted so swiftly that she startled herself.

  The heat seemed to stream through her, bringing a pink flush to her skin, making her breasts grow firm and peaked. She was embarrassed to have revealed so much about her own need. She’d been wanting exactly this for some time, and now he would suspect.

  But such practical thoughts were swallowed up in the rising tide of sensuality that was blotting out the rest of the world. All her perception was narrowing down to this one moment, this one man, who was caressing her with skilled hands.

  He’d drawn back, wanting to be certain she was willing, but now nothing could have held him. His body pressed her down against the bed while his mouth covered hers. His tongue flickered against the inside, causing a sigh of pleasure to break from her.

  She pressed back against him, her arms wrapped around his neck, while she could feel him trying to touch her everywhere, rousing her until she was impatient for him. The moment when he plunged into her felt like the culmination of her entire life.

  She seized him, drawing him in, driving against him, relishing his power and her own, inciting him on to claim her more and more completely.

  This answered all questions. How long had she secretly wanted Gino in her bed? Since that first day on the park bench when she’d admired him as a healthy, beautiful animal?

  What had really prompted her to propose to him? She’d hidden the truth from herself, but now it was fighting its way to the surface. She was seized up in the fierce rhythm of desire, moving faster with him until there was nowhere else to go but into the glittering void.

  In the moments when reality returned they discovered that they were still clinging on to each other, as though for safety. As they drew apart she could read her own astonishment reflected in his face.

  ‘I had no idea,’ she murmured.

  ‘Nor had I until recently.’

  He threw himself onto his back, gasping, but still holding onto her hand while he recovered. Then he propped himself up and looked at her naked body, pale and mysterious in the dim light.

  ‘You’ve been holding out on me,’ he said wryly.

  ‘I have? How?’

  ‘Those prim and proper clothes you wear-’

  ‘Plain and dowdy, you mean?’

  ‘Some of them, almost like you were doing it on purpose.’

  ‘That’s how I saw my life,’ she admitted, breathing slowly to steady herself against the turmoil that was only gradually subsiding. ‘I suppose I dressed for the part.’

  ‘You fooled me-for a while. There were a few hints, like when you brightened up for Steve. Then nothing-until tonight.’

  He looked down at her and ran one hand over the length of her body. ‘I should have remembered that you’d been a dancer,’ he said. ‘You move like a dancer, graceful in everything. And tonight, you knew just what to do and how to do it. And those few extra pounds you told me about.’ He laid a hand on her hip. ‘Just there, enough to make you nicely curved. And here-’ His fingers drifted over her breasts, sending a little shiver through her.

  ‘I suspected,’ he mused, ‘but I didn’t know for sure until I saw you putting it on display for other men. And-I minded.’

  Gino knew his words didn’t express one tenth of what had been happening inside him, but he couldn’t have found the right words. If there were any. He wasn’t an analytical man. He lived through feelings, not thoughts, and he’d been shying away from feelings, which added to his confusion.

  Since he’d left Italy he’d lived like a monk, from choice. The passing fancies he might once have enjoyed were barred to him by his sense of despair and isolation. At times he’d wondered if he would ever seriously desire a woman again.

  His friendship with Laura had been sweet to him, but things had happened that had taken him by surprise. After her first date with Steve she’d returned home, radiant. He’d held her in his arms and wanted to kiss her, and known that he must not. He’d seen her safely and chastely to bed, but nothing had been quite the same after that.

  There was something else, to do with the time when he was delirious, but that mystery had yet to be explained. What was no longer a mystery was his own reaction to Mark’s telephone call: furious physical jealousy, that had grown worse every moment as he’d stood in the crowd watching her remove her clothes.

  It was, as she’d claimed, a fairly modest strip. But it hadn’t seemed so to a man whose desire for her had caught him suddenly, almost unaware, and was rising by the minute. Every flash of those long, lovely legs, every wriggle of her hips had tortured him, until he snapped.

  ‘Yes,’ he repeated. ‘I minded, more t
han you’ll ever know.’

  She gave a chuckle that sent a frisson of pleasure up his spine. ‘I reckon I do know now,’ she mused.

  ‘Just don’t forget it.’

  ‘I didn’t recognise you, the way you’ve been acting.’

  ‘I didn’t recognise myself.’

  ‘Poor Mark. He thought you were a gangster.’

  ‘Let him go on thinking it. He’ll be safer that way.’

  ‘Gino, you don’t really mean that.’

  He looked at her in an odd way, and did not answer directly. ‘Let’s just say that I’m naturally possessive,’ he said. ‘You’re mine. No argument.’

  ‘Who’s arguing?’

  He was silent for a moment, his face clouded.

  ‘Maybe I have no right to ask,’ he said at last, ‘but-you and Steve-?’

  ‘No,’ she said at once. ‘I never slept with Steve.’

  Compared to this wild, physical craving, how restrained had been her feelings for Steve; not love or passion so much as the need to ease her loneliness and have some kind of future.

  ‘I’m glad,’ Gino said. He began to run his hands over her again.

  To Laura it was thrilling and satisfying to know that she could rouse him to powerful sexual jealousy. It was only a fraction of what she wanted from him, but she couldn’t think of that now that his touch was causing the tide of excitement to rise in her again. For a while there would be nothing else but desire, and craving for the satisfaction that only he could give her.

  He let his fingers drift down over her breasts to where the nipples were peaked.

  ‘Mine,’ he murmured again. ‘And here-’ his hand moved down to her waist ‘-and here-’ his fingers found the tops of her thighs, then eased their way gently in to the place that was now home. ‘Mine.’

  ‘If that’s what you want,’ she murmured, trying to think through the forks of pleasure that were invading her where he touched.

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered against her mouth. ‘That’s what I want.’

  One easy movement brought him over her and then he was inside her again, moving more slowly than before, prolonging the pleasure, bringing skill to the service of strength. Now she discovered him as a subtle, generous lover, as well as a powerful one, seeking to learn the caresses that brought her delight, and offering them gladly.