Insatiable. Julie Leto
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true invitation. Instead, Sam twisted around him and used her full body weight to shove him to the exit. The sheer velocity of her push sent the crowd fumbling and tripping over one another, allowing her the split second she needed to squeeze him through the heavy security door.
She slipped in behind him and immediately threw her back against the door to attempt to close and lock it.
“Which one are you, anyway?” she asked, annoyed. “George, John, Paul or Ringo?”
A growl tore from her throat as she met with resistance from the other side.
Sex-crazed bimbos! Desperate, man-stupid teenyboppers!
“Don’t be shy,” LaRocca said between pants. “Tell them what you really think.”
She’d tossed him into the hallway so forcefully, he’d hit the opposite wall with a grunt. The loosened knot in his tie had flipped over his collar and the left hip pocket of his jacket hung loose at his side. His nostrils flared as he gasped for breath, then he used the opposite wall to launch himself against the door.
Against her.
The contact cracked the air around them with a pop nearly inaudible with women screaming on the other side of the door. But the surge of static electricity burned Samantha from the outer layer of her skin straight through to her heart. She shook her head, trying to dispel the resonating tingle, and pressed her back to the door. She dug in with her powerful legs, legs now tangled between the Pasta God’s marble thighs. His scent was as crisp and clean as his starched white shirt, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. The image of him in nothing but a fluffy white towel immediately sprang to mind.
“Did I say that out loud?” she asked, hoping like hell that he’d interpret the flush of her skin as natural exertion, even embarrassment at her mouthy tirade. She refused to look up in his face, though gazing straight into his chest wasn’t any less dangerous when she knew, thanks to the sauce label, exactly what his chest looked like bare.
“Loud and clear. But I’m not arguing. You’d think these women had never seen a man before.” He struggled to help her close the door, but hands and fingers, even an ankle or two stuck through the six inches of space between the steel barrier and quiet freedom. Over the noise from the other side, Sam finally heard the arrival of reinforcements.
“Back. Back. Move back!”
Hands and feet disappeared from the doorway, but the press from the other side remained constant, probably from the guards struggling to clear the doorway. They wouldn’t be safe until they closed the door, and her counterparts on the other side apparently had their hands full just blocking the exit.
Glancing down at her for approval, Dominick LaRocca took another deep breath. “On three.”
She nodded, bracing herself for further impact. The rush of adrenaline snapped her head up. Good Lord. He’s going to throw his weight against the door. Against me!
He counted, “One…”
His eyes mirrored the color of freshly crushed mint.
“Two…”
His jaw looked chiseled from flesh-toned granite.
“Three!”
Pressed Italian silk didn’t hide an erection worth a damn.
2
NICK THREW HIS FULL weight into shutting the door. In his mad rush, he trapped the sapphire-eyed security guard beneath him. The latch caught and a sensation not unlike an electric shock snapped all around him. Instantaneous stimulation surged through his blood and rushed straight to his groin.
He hadn’t expected the spitfire in uniform to have anything soft about her, anything luscious or feminine. He’d been wrong. Just the brief contact stirred the primal male urge he’d kept in careful check for so long—a self-restraint made especially difficult with women of various degrees of desirability making offers any sane man couldn’t refuse. Yet, as she pushed the deadbolt into place, the lush warmth of her curves hugged him straight through his jacket, shirt and tie, making him wish he could forget his responsibilities to his family. Just this once.
“Sorry.” He rolled aside, straightening his suit, trying to ignore that his skin tingled as if he’d just been struck by lightning. His grandmothers often mused that a thunderbolt would probably strike him dead before he met a woman who could stir him out of his rigid, business-and-family-first way of thinking.
For once, Rosalia LaRocca and Rafaela Durante might be wrong.
“I’m the one who should apologize.” Her eyes reflected blue like the sun-sparkling water of a swimming pool. On a scorching day. One hundred and ten degrees. In the shade. But before he drowned in her liquid irises, she turned aside, patting her slim waist as she checked the presence of her nightstick, walkie-talkie and keys. The moisture in Nick’s mouth evaporated.
“The Expo isn’t really prepared for mass hysteria,” she added, chastisement totally undisguised. “Don’t you have personal security?”
Her snippy tone reminded him of the reasons why he’d been without a lover for so long—why his body was primed for sexual games he couldn’t afford to play. Ever since his picture made it onto that label, women he’d never met had been offering to do things for him—to him—that even his ex-fiancée would consider depraved. He’d received naked snapshots in the mail, wrapped in lacy panties that had obviously been worn. Just last night, a woman in a bikini had ambushed them at the airport, throwing herself spread-eagle over the hood of his hired limousine.
His family had been hounding him to employ a bodyguard, but the last thing he needed was some goon in a dark suit following him around as if he were John Gotti or Al Capone. No thanks. He had enough trouble with Italian stereotypes without traveling with hired muscle.
“I’m a businessman, not a celebrity.”
“Care to tell that to the women on the other side of this door?” She turned and moved to undo the lock.
“No.” He rushed to grab her hand, stopping short when she smiled, winked and released the latch. He smoothed his palm over his hair, attempting a nonchalant recovery. Too bad there was nothing nonchalant about the wave of disappointment that rolled over him because he couldn’t touch her again. Ever.
Man, he had to put a stop to this hysteria soon. The barrage of willing women, coupled with his decision to neglect his personal life and personal needs, at least until the European distribution deal solidified LaRocca Food’s solvency, threatened to undo him.
And the adorable pucker on the security guard’s lips wasn’t helping one damn bit.
“That mob shouldn’t have happened,” he insisted, jabbing his finger at the door in an attempt to regain his trademark snarl.
She shrugged. “Shouldn’t have is one thing, but it did. What did you expect anyway? Your picture on that label is more provocative than most Playgirl centerfolds.”
Nick jammed his hand through his hair again, reminding himself that this woman’s haughtiness and her all-too-true observation were insufficient reasons to lose his temper. The label was provocative. He had the sales figures to prove it.
“That picture was not my doing.”
She crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one leg. The pose was disbelief and sassiness potently combined. “You are the CEO of that company, aren’t you?”
“CEO, but not chairman. Some decisions can be made without my knowledge. Or at least, they could before.”
“This isn’t just a little bit about your ego? All those women screaming? Tearing at your clothes?”
His eyebrows shot up. He wasn’t used to talking turkey with a stranger. “You don’t mince words, do you?” he asked.
“No point. I’m a call-’em-like-I-see-’em kind of gal.”
And