Free To Catch a Groom by Rebecca Winters Page A

exciting verbal skirmish, she felt a seductive rhythm building like the flow of the tide, racing up the beach a little higher, a little stronger. It filled all the aching spaces in her body which yearned toward him of its own volition.
    His mouth created such sweet ecstasy, pleasure pains never before awakened came alive, demanding assuagement from the source that created them.
    The moans she heard turned out to be her own.
    Moans of need, of desire she didn’t know she could feel. She felt helpless, beautiful. Alive. She didn’t know herself anymore. He was making her feel immor—
    “Greer?”
    Olivia’s voice.
    The door flew open. “Quick! We’ve got some—Greer!”
    Piper’s shocked cry reverberated in the cabin.
    Greer wrenched her lips from the man who’d been kissing her into oblivion and turned around in guilty reaction, but her senses were reeling.
    Ironically her captor had to be the one to steady her in his strong arms. It would take time to recover from an experience that had been a breathtaking education in what really went on between a man and woman.
    “Buona sera, signorine.”
    “What’s going on?” Olivia demanded in a quiet, yet chilling voice. Piper looked ready to tackle him to the ground. Greer didn’t know her siblings could be this fierce.
    Of course they wouldn’t have had any success if they’d tried to restrain him. The fact that he ignored their edicts and still held her arms firmly in his grasp testified to that truth.
    “I-it isn’t what you think,” Greer stammered. “You’ve misinterpreted what was happening.”
    “That’s right,” he said in a suave tone. “Your sister and I were getting…reacquainted. Last night there was so little time before she ran off to bed, leaving me desolate.”
    Her chest heaved.
    “Olivia? Piper?” Every breath sounded ragged, even to her own ears. “T-this is the man I met at the Splendido last night.”
    After the way she’d carried on about him earlier, she couldn’t believe she was defending him now. However she drew the line at accusing him of a crime her sisters assumed would have taken place if they hadn’t barged in.
    To her shame, nothing had gone on she hadn’t let happen and he knew it!
    The truth was, it had given her a perverse thrill to spar with him. She’d loved baiting him. The last thing on her mind had been to scream her head off at the first sight of him so her sisters would come running.
    When they recalled this incident later, they would have to admit she hadn’t been struggling with him. Au contraire. She’d ended up being an eager participant.
    That’s what was so mortifying—to realize how completely out of control she’d been the second his mouth had covered hers.
    He’d kissed her as if he were starving for her. Admittedly she’d kissed him back with a matching hunger that seemed to have come out of nowhere and sought appeasement only he could give.
    Who knew how long their passionate interlude might have gone on if her prolonged absence hadn’t prompted her sisters to come in search of her? She had only herself to blame for this latest disaster.
    Piper made no move to leave. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
    “I don’t believe we caught his name,” Olivia murmured.
    A betraying blush crept into Greer’s cheeks.
    “Allow me to do the honors,” said the man whose mouth had done things that were still sending out shock waves to the tiniest follicle of her body.
    “I’m Max, the first mate on the Piccione . I saw the three of you out walking last night. It was a beautiful sight, one I’ll never forget.”
    His hands caressed her arms down to the fingertips, then relinquished them. While Greer continued to tremble in reaction, he’d reached the open doorway in a few athletic strides.
    Before disappearing he said, “ Signorine? Meet me ondeck in five minutes with the life jackets you’ll find in the footlockers of your staterooms. I’ll show you how to fasten them correctly. Knowing