“Can’t we stay here?” she asked. “It’s so beautiful.”
He smiled. “Have you ever made love in the sand?”
She shook her head. “Have you? Forget I asked that, it’s none of my business who you bring here.”
“I’ve never brought a woman here before,” he said. “I told you I come here to be alone.”
Relief washed over her, and she reached out with an unsteady hand. The skin of his chest was like warm silk beneath her fingertips, and she trailed them down over the ridges of his ribs, flattened her hand over his taut stomach. At his sharp intake of breath, she gripped the material of his shirt and tugged him toward her. “Make love to me, Luc.”
He framed her face between his large hands, his thumbs stroking over her cheeks, then smoothing over her lower lip, dipping inside when her mouth opened slightly. She flicked her tongue against him, tasting him. His hands shifted to the back of her neck, burrowing in the long tangle of hair. He tilted her head and kissed her, his mouth warm and firm against hers, his tongue sliding into her mouth, stroking against hers, against her teeth, the sensitive roof of her mouth, until she whimpered in need.
He abandoned her lips to trail light kisses across her cheek, then nipped at her earlobe, breathed warm breath into her ear, and she groaned again. Panic stirred inside her, until he smiled down into her eyes. He plucked open the buttons that ran down the front of the sundress, slowly baring her skin.
Lia swayed toward him as the dress slipped down to her waist and the warm breeze played gently over her bare skin, teasing her taut nipples. Luc’s hands cupped her small breasts, and for a moment, Lia stopped breathing. The rough pads of his thumb stroked over the sensitive peaks, stirring them to immediate life, and her eyes fluttered closed. She stood perfectly still, savoring the sensations quivering through her body. He pinched one nipple between his thumb and finger, and the shock ran through her body like a jolt of electricity.
When she forced her eyes open, he was staring down at her, a small smile on his face. She frowned; she wanted him as affected as she was. Her hands were still gripping his shirt as though it could save her from falling. She released her hold and pressed both palms flat against his stomach. It was hard, the skin hot and lightly furred with silky dark hair that formed a line leading down below the drawstring of the trousers. She rubbed her palms lightly against it, and his hands at her breasts went still. She didn’t quite have the courage to follow that trail. Instead, she slid her hands around his waist, then beneath the material and over his hard buttocks where the skin was satin smooth over rigid muscles. His palms glided down from her breasts, skimmed over her rib cage and around her back. He pulled her against him so the hard length of his entire body pressed against her.
He took a step back so he could tug at her dress, and it pooled at her ankles. She stepped out of it on trembling legs and stood before him, naked except for a white lace thong. As she watched, he shrugged out of his linen shirt and sank to his knees in front of her. He kissed the tip of one breast, licking at the stiffening point before moving lower to press his open mouth to the flat plain of her belly. Lia closed her eyes as she allowed the sensations to wash over her. He kissed the lace at the base of her belly, and the air was sucked out of her lungs. She gasped. He glanced up at the sound, his face fierce and intent, then he clasped a hand on her hips and slowly dragged the thong down over her long legs. He pulled her toward him, blew gently against the golden curls.
“You are so incredibly beautiful,” he said.
He kissed her there again, this time against her naked flesh, his tongue snaking out to lick between her thighs, and her knees gave out. Luc caught her as she fell, held her for a moment, carried them both backward so Lia sprawled full-length on top of him. He ran his hands down her back, over the swell of her buttocks, and Lia writhed against him.
His hands moved between them, loosening his pants, his muscles bunching as he raised himself up slightly in order to kick them off. Underneath, he was naked, huge, and hard.
Curling his hands around the back of her thighs, he shifted her on him so she straddled his hips, pulling her down. Lia lowered her face to him so he could kiss her with hard, urgent kisses as his hand moved between them to stroke her belly, between her thighs. One finger pushed easily inside her, and she gasped at the exquisite sensation. He shifted again, this time lifting her slightly, and she felt him there, poised at the heart of her. With one thrust, he was inside, filling her, possessing her.
She cried out, and he went still beneath her. “Okay?”
She tried to speak, but in the end nodded. He smiled, then flexed his hips, his eyes remaining fixed on her face. He moved slowly at first, then faster as the urgency increased. Lia felt his body moving under her, the sensations concentrated on that place between her thighs.
Stroke by stroke the feelings built within her, flickers of flame licking out from the point where his body joined with hers, until she was consumed by fire. Still it burned brighter until at last she exploded in a surge of sensation that pulsated through her whole body. She cried out as he continued to thrust within her, wringing more pleasure from her than she had thought possible. Finally, when she thought she could take no more, he stiffened, then cried out as his own climax overtook him.
Lia sank down against his chest, limp, sated. Breathing in the hot masculine scent of musk and sweat, she listened to the sound of his heart as its heavy beating slowed. His arms came around her and he held her close, wrapping her against him, neither of them moving for a long time.
The sun had vanished by the time Luc pulled her to her feet and brushed her down.
“I did warn you about the sand,” he said laughing slightly.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I know the perfect way to clean you up.”
Lifting her easily in his strong arms, he strolled to the water’s edge, then waded in until the water lapped at her, washing the clinging sand from her body.
…
“What was it like in prison?” Lia asked. They were sitting entwined on one of the loungers by the pool, having come up in search of food. Night had fallen, but the moon had yet to rise.
“You don’t want to know, cara.”
“Yes, I do. I want to understand what you went through.”
He swirled the drink in his glass for a moment, staring at it. “I thought I was tough,” he said at last. “Then the cell doors closed that night, and I knew I wasn’t tough enough.”
Lia felt the tears spill over.
“You are so soft, cara,” he murmured, running the ball of his thumb down her cheek. “How did you ever get so soft?”
“I’m not soft.” She sniffed. “I can’t bear the thought of you in a place like that. You were only a boy.”
He smiled. “At eighteen, I hadn’t been a boy for years. Still, I would have been in trouble except for your old friend Harley.”
“Harley?”
He stroked the scar that ran down his cheek. “A lot of accidents can happen inside, and the man that put me there wanted me dead. I would have been if not for Harley. He was in doing a stretch at the time, GBH I think.”
“GBH? What’s that?”
He grinned. “Grievous bodily harm. Anyway, he looked out for me. And no, cara, I did not repay him in kind.”
Lia blushed, “I wasn’t…”
He cast her a look of disbelief and Lia smiled.
“You bought him the club.”
“Who told you that?”
“Maggie.”
He visibly relaxed. “I might have guessed.”
“And you set her up in business. You’re a nice man.”
Luc snorted in amusement. “No cara, I am not a nice man.”
“Well, I think you are.”
He put down his drink, plucked her glass from her fingers, and placed it next to his own. Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her down so she lay beneath him. Then he kissed her.
Chapter Sixteen
“Would you like to go to the races, Lia?”
They were lying in bed. Luc had made love to her, and her body felt languid and replete. She thought about the question.
“Where? When? Why?”
He laughed. “In Rome. Today. And because I have a horse running.”
“A horse? You have a horse?”
“I have several. I inherited them from my grandfather. Now I keep them because I like to go to the races.”
She pulled herself up, dragging the sheet over her breasts. “Is it okay for us to go out?”
“I would think so. And much as I would like to, we can’t stay in seclusion forever.”
They had been on the island for over a week. Lia experienced the occasional pang of guilt when she thought about her job, but she thrust it to the back of her mind. She was falling in love. She accepted it now. She didn’t know what the future held, but she was certain that Luc felt something for her, and for the moment that had to be enough.
They took a helicopter ride to the racetrack. Lia had dressed in another of the outfits Maggie had chosen for her and she knew she looked good. Luc had even told her so. He was dressed in a perfectly cut silver-gray suit with a white silk shirt open at the throat, and he looked so damn hot. He touched her all the time, his hand at her waist as they walked or his arm around her shoulder as if he couldn’t bear to have her away from him. The day was warm and sunny, and Lia couldn’t conceive of anything going wrong. Many people approached them, but Luc dismissed them all politely but efficiently.
Luc’s horse won its race and they celebrated with champagne and strawberries. Everything was perfect, until Lia heard Luc swear softly. She glanced across to see a man approaching them. He came to a halt in front of Luc, and Lia studied him curiously. He appeared to be somewhere in his fifties, and he would have been handsome but for the furious scowl marring his features.
He spoke to Luc in rapid Italian that Lia had no hope of following. Luc had been teaching her, but this was too fast. Luc snapped a curt answer, and the man replied with another torrent of Italian.
Luc’s eyes were blank, but she could sense that he was on the point of losing his own temper. He waited until the man had finished, then replied in clipped tones. He finally nodded, slipped his arm around Lia’s waist, and led her away.
“Who was that?” Lia peeked over her shoulder to see the man still watching them through narrowed eyes.
“My mother’s husband.”
“He’s your stepfather?”
“Yes.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “She married him after she returned to Italy, but we really don’t have that sort of relationship. He was the lawyer she hired to get me out of prison. He overturned the case, but he never approved of me.”
“He seemed angry. What was he saying?”
“Nothing.”
“It didn’t sound like nothing.”
“It was nothing important. Nothing that should bother you. Come on, we’re leaving.”
He smiled at her, but for Lia the day was spoiled. She didn’t understand what was going on, and the fact that Luc wouldn’t explain increased her misgivings. Why had Luc’s stepfather been so angry? She knew they had been talking about her.
She’d spent the week ignoring the difficult questions she knew still existed between them, pushing unpleasant thoughts to the back of her mind, but they were still there. And the realization made her feel uneasy, as though things were fragile and could fall apart at any moment. A wave of panic threatened to topple her perfect dream world. She didn’t want it to end. She didn’t want to go back to real life.
A life without Luc.
…
Luc was distracted, almost distant, and that night his lovemaking held a hint of desperation she had never noticed before. The next morning, she woke to the sound of a helicopter landing. Luc was fully dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed. He took her hand.
“I have to go to Rome,” he said.
“What?” She sat up, pulling the sheet against her naked breasts. Her brain was befuddled from sleep. “Why? Can I come?”
He shook his head. “I have some business I need to see to, and you would be bored. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He kissed her, and Lia clung to him for a brief moment. She let him go and watched him walk away.
…
She spent the morning sunbathing. When she heard the helicopter landing, she pulled on a robe and went running, expecting Luc to step out from it. Instead, a tall, elegant woman strolled across the tarmac toward her. Two men in dark suits, who could only be bodyguards, flanked her.
Lia stopped abruptly. The woman was beautiful, obviously Italian, and she knew instantly that she must be Luc’s mother. She forced herself to move toward her. After all, Maggie had said she was nice, friendly. Lia told herself she had nothing to fear, but glancing into the other woman’s face, she realized she looked anything but friendly—her face was cold and closed as she inspected Lia as though she was something unpleasant.
Lia had been holding out her hand to shake; now she dropped it to her side.
“Ms. Brent?”
Lia nodded.
“My name is Isabella Vittori. I am Luc’s mother.”
“Luc’s not here at the moment,” Lia said.
“I know. It is you I have come to speak to.”
“Do you want to come to the house?”
“No, this will not take long. Ms. Brent, I want you to leave my son alone.”
“What?” Lia asked, bewildered.
“It’s quite simple. I want you to pack your things and be gone before Luc returns.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can. I could not believe it when Stephano said he saw you yesterday. We read about you in the papers but did not believe for a moment that you would flaunt yourself in our faces in this way. Have you no shame?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Luc’s mother frowned. “You must know what your father was.”
“Yes, of course I know. But so does Luc. If it doesn’t bother him, why should you care? What can it possibly mean to you?”
Isabella was staring at Lia curiously. “You really don’t know, do you?”
Lia was engulfed in a horrible feeling of misgiving. She had an almost overwhelming urge to run and hide, anything to avoid what was coming next. There was a look of compassion in the other woman’s eyes. Somehow, it made Lia feel worse.
“No, you don’t know,” Isabella said softly. “But really, it makes no difference. What do you know?”
Lia gathered her thoughts together. “Just that Luc wants to find my father. He knew him before he went to prison, but then when Luc got out, he disappeared.”
“You know that Luc was innocent?”
“Yes, but what does that have to do with my father?”
“Your father set him up. Luc only acted in self-defense, but your father paid people or terrorized them into lying in court.”
“But why?”
“Because Luc was determined to find out what happened to his own father, and he was getting too close. Jimmy Brent was responsible for Luc’s father’s death, and Luc was determined to expose the truth.”
Lia wanted to shake her head, deny the words, but they all made horrible sense.
“Your father is an evil man,” Isabella said. “That scar on Luc’s face—Jimmy Brent is responsible for that. He wasn’t content with having Luc locked away—he paid people to have him killed in prison. Luckily, Luc had friends.”
Lia couldn’t take it in. Why hadn’t Luc told her? The questions went over and over in her brain. Why? Was he still planning revenge? Still using Lia as bait? She couldn’t bear it.
She swallowed. “I love him.”
Isabella studied her almost sadly. “It’s not enough. I don’t know what Luc is doing with you, using you somehow to get to your father perhaps. But whatever his reasons, it cannot end well. Luc hates your father. At one point,
his whole life revolved around revenge. He got past that, but if he ever finds him, I’m not sure what he would do. Would you have Luc back in prison?” Her face hardened again. “Go away, Ms. Brent. Go away before that happens.”
“I can’t, I have to wait for Luc. I have no way to go.”
“There’s a boat waiting for you at the dock. It will take you to the mainland. A car will meet you there and take you to the airport. Here—” She thrust something into Lia’s hand. “It’s a plane ticket back to London for tonight.” She looked about to say more, then shook her head. “Do us all a favor and go home. Just leave Luc alone. Your family has done him enough harm.”
Lia watched as the helicopter rose slowly into the air amid a swirl of rose-colored dust. Luc’s mother’s face was at the window, staring back at Lia with what could only be pity on her patrician features. She raised a hand in farewell, but Lia didn’t return the gesture.
Her mind was numb; she walked slowly back to the villa and into their bedroom. The maid hadn’t yet been in, and the bed was still rumpled. Lia collapsed onto the mattress and buried her face in Luc’s pillow. She could still smell the sharp exotic cologne he wore, and she breathed in deeply. For long minutes, she lay there, not wanting to think.
She had been living in a fantasy world, totally suspending reality, a world where it was possible to fall in love and live happily ever after, but she had always known that such a world didn’t exist. All those years of watching her mother fall apart should have been proof enough of that.
She’d always known her father was not a good man, but that he had been responsible for Luc’s father’s death was unbelievable. Not only that, but he had nearly ruined Luc’s whole life. Set him up and then tried to finish the job. How could Luc not hate the man responsible for that? How could he not hate her?
Closing her eyes, she remembered his words that morning. She couldn’t believe Luc had done this all out of revenge as his mother had hinted. Oh, it may have been his motive at the start—in fact, she was sure it was, he had made no secret of it. But she was convinced that he felt something for her now.
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