‘I’m fine,’ she lied, her pulse skittering suddenly as her mind tried to get a handle on her unease. She pushed herself up to sitting and wrapped her arms around her knees, feeling ridiculous trying to hold a conversation lying down, while she watched his progress with the buttons down the shirt.
She hadn’t meant to watch. Hadn’t meant to take any notice. But the way that beautiful sweat-sheened column of olive skin grew longer, as one by one his skilful fingers brought them undone, what choice did she have?
He had beautiful fingers, long and tapered, and what he could do with them …
Oh, my, she rationalized, remembering—who wouldn’t feel distinctly shaky when they’d just climaxed in spectacular fashion and a man like Rafe was only now getting around to taking his clothes off?
In preparation for a repeat performance? One could only hope.
He frowned, his face angling to look more closely at hers in the soft light. ‘Did I hurt you? Are you feeling unwell? I didn’t think to take it slow.’
Distracted by the sudden concern in his voice that brought with it a return of the strange gnawing feeling in her gut, her head got lost between a nod and a shake. ‘No. Yes.’ She closed her eyes and shook it, this time more decisively. ‘Really, you didn’t hurt me. I’ve been fine lately, so long as I avoid certain things.’
And that was the truth. The day she’d arrived at the island, and the following day when she’d tried to leave—those days had been the worst. Since then her morning sickness had been precisely that, a morning phenomenon, and if she was careful, limited to no more than a general queasiness, with no repeat of that early illness. How much of that had been down to stress and the tension of having this man back in her life?
He gave a shrug of his shoulders and peeled the shirt away, letting it drop to the floor, and in the process revealing the full glory of his muscle-sculpted chest, from the wide shoulders and the taut skin to the dusting of hair that focused to a line and drew her eyes down to where it disappeared at his belt. ‘I was worried I was too eager for you. I promise this time we’ll take it slower.’
She looked up. ‘This time.’ She repeated the words like a mantra, and he smiled.
‘I told you I couldn’t wait to remove that dress. I haven’t changed my mind.’
Sienna swallowed as he pushed his pants down past hips lean and strong, carelessly stepping out of them. She watched, wide-eyed, as his sleek-fitting black underwear met the same fate, and she stopped breathing altogether when he moved closer. Of course once wouldn’t be enough. On their one previous night together, Rafe had shown he had stamina to burn. He knelt on the side of the bed, reached out, and lifted one foot in his hands. Deftly he undid the tiny diamante-studded buckle at the side of her shoe and, holding her ankle in one hand, swept the shoe from her foot with the other, tossing it and the best part of several hundred euros carelessly to the floor behind him.
Vaguely she registered that he must have no idea how much shoes cost, or didn’t care, but after a moment, she didn’t care either, not when his thumbs started their dance over the ball of her foot. She groaned.
She’d read articles where people had claimed the feet could be erogenous zones, and she’d largely discounted them as fanciful and fictional, but the graze of his fingers, the brush of his skin against the silkiness of her stockings, had her trembling and rethinking her ideas. Or maybe it had nothing to do with her feet and everything to do with the way he looked at her while his fingers worked, dark eyes made darker with desire, more insistent with need.
Or maybe not, she thought, as the other shoe met a similar fate and Rafe stroked the underside of her foot with his thumbs, causing her back to arch and a sigh of pleasure to erupt from her lips.
‘Do you like that?’ he said, repeating the action, and she licked her lips and nodded.
‘It’s … nice.’
‘Only nice?’ He sounded disappointed. ‘Then do you like this?’ His fingers trailed up her calf, disappearing beneath a sea of green silk that lapped around her legs like the incoming tide, his fingertips tracing circles higher and higher up her leg.
‘It’s all good,’ she conceded, ‘although I can’t help but feel a little overdressed.’
He laughed, low in his throat, and the vibrations and the sound were almost enough to bring her undone. He reached up a hand and undid the jewelled clasp at her neck. Instinctively she reached up a hand to prevent the bodice falling down, but he stopped her arm and the fabric slid unrestrained to her waist, releasing her breasts to the air, and to his gaze.
‘Christo,’ he uttered, as he reached for them with his hands, ‘but you are beautiful.’ His hands cupped her breasts, his thumbs grazing her nipples before he leaned over and took one pink peak into his mouth.
Pleasure speared downwards, like arrows fired and finding their mark, to that place he’d already filled and which ached to be filled again. He worked magic on one breast, and then the other, before lifting his head and swallowing her into the perfect kiss.
She felt his hand low behind her, wondered at his expert discovery of her invisible zip, and felt the cool sweep of air as he tugged down her gown over her hips.
She made a move to remove one satin glove, and he stilled her hands, running his hand along one long satin-cased arm, running another down one silk-clad leg. ‘No,’ he said, ‘leave these. You feel and look exquisite exactly how you are.’
She wanted to believe him, even though her make-up must be smudged beyond repair, her lips pink and swollen, and she could feel her hair coming loose, heavy coiled tendrils even now tumbling around her shoulders. But who was she to argue, when his touch made her feel the seductress she had set out to be?
‘You’re not angry with me,’ she asked on a gasp as he pushed her back into the pillows, his tongue lapping its way first around and then into her belly button, an erotic prequel of what was to follow, ‘for coming tonight?’
He lifted his head the merest fraction. ‘If I had my way, you would come every night.’
She laughed a husky laugh and shuddered against the bedclothes, her back arching as his tongue renewed its exploratory journey. ‘I meant about coming to the casino. You’re not angry?’
His fingers dug into her thighs; his face lay buried in her belly as he grazed her skin with his teeth. ‘You have a strange concept of foreplay. What does it take, I wonder, to shut you up.’ His teeth nipped at her skin, and she laughed and squirmed again, and he pushed himself higher so his mouth was once again within reach of her nipples. ‘But no. Do I look angry?’ He paused on the way up, laving at her skin. And he drew one perfect breast deep into his mouth, his tongue circling an even more perfect peak.
She arched into his mouth, her breath quickening. ‘It’s such a beautiful place.’
‘Still won’t shut up?’ He found her other breast, lavishing the same attention for detail on that one, his hot mouth, his lips and tongue working together like an orchestra.
Teeth grazed her nipple, and she flinched, a deliciously compelling combination of pleasure and pain, a symphony of sensation. ‘Sebastiano described it as the jewel in Montvelatte’s crown.’
He lifted himself higher, hovering over her as he kissed her eyes, her chin and nose. His lips found hers, teased them open with his tongue and pulled her into a kiss so deep she was lost in it. Then he drew back and she opened her eyes, waiting. Perplexed.
‘Sebastiano was wrong,’he said tightly, every angle and plane in his face suddenly accentuated, an exercise in barely restrained control. ‘Because you are the jewel in Montvelatte’s crown.’
And then he plunged into her in one fluid stroke that vanquished the air from her lungs and the conversation from her lips. In that hitched moment, they breathed the same air, shared the same oxygen and, as he filled her completely, shared the exact same space.
Satin-clad hands tangled in his hair, swept the powerful skinscape of his back, and held him to her. Silken-clad legs slid along his, tightening around him and ur
ging him still deeper. And all the while his silken words tangled in her mind, part of the magic, no small part of the sensation.
It might have been a slower build up this time, less frenetic, and with more time to discover and rediscover each other’s bodies, but when she came apart, it was a different kind of power that took her shuddering to completion, a different kind of wholeness that brought her back, holding him close, her limbs entwined with his.
A different feeling that left her more confused than ever.
‘So that’s what it takes to make you shut up.’
Minutes had passed, minutes in which the gradual calming of her breathing belied the growing turmoil of her mind.
Getting him to care for her wasn’t supposed to feel like this.
She unburied her face from his shoulder, breathing in his warm male scent, relishing it, even though at the same time the amount she enjoyed it bothered her on another level. ‘Apparently.’
Rafe sat up, poured a glass of water from a covered decanter on the bedside table and turned, his eyes brushing along her body as she lay, eyes that took everything in. It was ridiculous to feel shy after what they’d done and what they’d shared, but she still did, still felt exposed. And a trifle ridiculous still wearing stockings and her satin gloves. Then he handed her the glass and she scooted up in the bed, accepting it gratefully, suddenly realising her thirst exceeded her embarrassment.
‘I’ll speak to Sebastiano,’ Rafe continued. ‘Get him to free up my diary for a day or two.’
She blinked up at him, hopeful and suspicious in the same motion. ‘Why?’
‘I’ve been working too hard. And because we have a lot to catch up on.’ He padded across the floor and pulled open a closet, totally at ease with his nudity. And why not, she thought, when you had a body built as if it should be immortalised in marble, every movement revealing the play of superb muscle structure beneath his skin? He was a living sculpture, perfectly proportioned in all the right places, abundantly proportioned where it mattered most. He pulled a white robe from the closet and slipped it over his shoulders, swiping another golden robe from a hanger.
He handed it to her, and for now she clutched it to her chest. ‘What did you have in mind?’
‘Once news gets out about the wedding, media coverage will make going anywhere a nightmare, but there’s still so much you haven’t seen here yet. The southern part of the island, for instance. Or we could go for a cruise around the island. Maybe take a closer look at Iseo’s Pyramid if you liked?’
‘That sounds good,’ she heard herself say, not wanting to sound too grateful, too desperate for the opportunity.
He reached out a hand to her and she took it. ‘I have to talk to Sebastiano. Why don’t you start in the shower and I’ll join you shortly.’
She would love a hot shower to massage her spent bones. She’d love it even more with him. She remembered another night, what seemed for ever ago, another promised shower. Maybe this time he might actually join her there. The look in his eyes told him he was definitely planning to.
Her hand in his, she stepped from the bed to the floor. ‘So you won’t be needing this, after all,’ he said, tugging the robe from her hands so it slid to a golden pool at their feet. ‘And you won’t be needing these any more.’ He slowly drew down first one glove and then the other until she was totally naked but for her lace-topped stockings.
His eyes gleamed with heat and fire, his breathing short and hard, and she wondered how it was possible for one man to recover so quickly, and for that man to rekindle the fire in her, so that she too was feeling that familiar ache of need.
He dropped his forehead to hers. ‘Dio,’ he muttered, ‘what you do to me. But I knew you would come to me.’
‘You were so sure?’
‘I knew. But had I remembered just how good it could be, I would have taken you that very first night.’
‘You tried,’ she reminded him, wondering what he’d say or do if he knew the real reason she’d decided to fall back into his bed. ‘I didn’t let you.’
‘It was inevitable,’ he said, lifting his head. ‘As inevitable as the sun rising in the morning.’
She bristled, having to remind herself what she was trying to achieve and why she even cared. This marriage would happen, she could see no way out, and so she would make of it she damn well could. ‘You sound very sure of yourself.’
‘I am. As I am sure of you.’
Don’t bet on it, she thought, as he let her go to make his call, thinking she knew less and less what it was that she wanted herself.
Don’t bet on it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHATEVER Sebastiano had thought of more of his plans being turned upside down, Sienna couldn’t imagine, but Rafe had done it, convincing him that another day’s meetings could wait. And it was paradise.
Rafe had driven them down the mountain in the sporty Alfa Romeo car, with the top down and the wheels hugging the tight curves as sure-footedly as a cat.
At the marina they’d transferred to the luxury yacht that would take them around the island. It was more like a floating palace, Sienna decided as she was given a tour. Rich mahogany timbers were set off with gold and brass fittings, mirrors and strategic lighting making the most of the space. Not that there was any shortage of that in the vast master suite.
What would it be like to make love in a floating palace, she wondered, looking forward to finding out.
And now up on deck, with Rafe by her side, the launch sliced through the azure water, the wind whipping around them, salt spray sparkling in the air. In loafers and shorts, a casual shirt unbuttoned at his neck and his hair blown freestyle by the wind, he looked magnificent, his olive skin glowing under the sun, his white-teethed smile wide. He looked more relaxed than she’d ever seen him, more together.
He felt even better, his arm looped loosely around her shoulders, his hand on her arm as he pointed out the sights of Montvelatte’s coastline, naming the small villages dotted around the cliffs and coves, waving to people in passing vessels, who smiled and cheered when they recognized the royal launch and their new Prince on board.
It was paradise, but it was exhausting, so just as well it was only for a day. The night had been long and full, and the night to come promised to be all of that and more. And Sienna could hardly wait. Even now, just the heat from that looped arm was enough to set her skin to tingling, her pulse to racing. Just the faintest stroke of his fingers against her arm enough to make her nipples ache and firm.
As she’d lain in bed in the dark minutes before dawn, one hand down low on her belly while thinking about the babies growing deep inside and waiting for the first stirrings of the nausea she knew would come, she’d pondered her enthusiasm in his bed, a question that had been plaguing her all day. She’d refused to make love to him when she’d arrived, telling him there was no way she’d sleep with him, fighting off his advances like they were anathema to her. And yet, since the minute she’d invited herself back into his bed, she’d barely been out of it.
But why shouldn’t she enjoy making love to him? It merely meant that she enjoyed the sex, the same as he did. It was purely physical. Purely the means to an end.
Sienna looked up at him again, at the chiselled perfection of his jaw and dark beauty of his features, and for a moment was filled with a fear so huge it threatened to consume her. He was a prince, a man whose body and looks would give the gods a run for their money, a man who could move her world with just one heated look, one sensual caress. Why should he ever love her? What could she offer him but to be a willing partner in bed and a mother for his children?
She already represented those things.
Why was she was kidding herself that he would want more? She lowered her eyes, that now familiar gnawing eating away at her gut, leaving a vacuum that she didn’t understand and had no way to fill.
‘Are you enjoying yourself?’
She turned her face up to his and, even with the sun on her skin,
felt the warmth of the smile that greeted her permeate all the way through to her bones. ‘Thank you,’ she nodded, knowing that whatever happened, she would treasure it forever. ‘It’s wonderful.’
The boat headed out towards the pinnacle of rock known as Iseo’s Pyramid, the mountainous sides reaching further and further into the sky as they approached, the seabirds forming a permanently changing cloud around the peak. Still some distance out, the skipper slowed the engines and cruised gently around the rock; yet even from this distance the rock rose sheer and majestic from the water, its black volcanic walls razor-sharp and magnificent. On one side a tiny beach clung at the base of a cleft in the rock, its white sand framed with wild olive trees and windswept bushes on one side, the jewel-blue sea on the other, and looking like the perfect picnic spot, exclusive, private and with a natural beauty that took her breath away. But there would be no picnic on the beach. ‘We can’t get any closer,’ Rafe explained as the boat bobbed off shore.
And when she looked closer, she could see why, the shadowed outline of rocks submerged just below the surface making any passage through a nightmare, and it was easy to see why the rock had claimed so many victims in its time. For even in the bright light of day, Iseo’s Pyramid loomed dark and menacing. To encounter it during a storm would be a living hell.
Sienna leaned against the side of the boat, her eyes scaling the mountain, trying to imagine what it was in the shape of the rock that Iseo had seen on that night, all those years ago.
‘Where does the Beast live when it’s not in residence, marauding for shipwreck survivors?’
‘The Beast of Iseo? It sleeps, far below the sea, busy digesting the contents of another wayward vessel.’
‘He must be hungry, then, this Beast of yours, given your embargo on sailings on nights with no moon.’
Rafe turned against the railing and looked down at her, his eyes obscured by dark glasses, yet the hint of a smile tugging at his lips. ‘I never thought of that. Do you think it would be wise to make a sacrifice every now and then, in the interests of increasing the opportunities for trade between Montvelatte and our neighbouring countries?’
The #1 Bestsellers Collection 2011 Page 13
