She swallowed hard, debating the wisdom of spending the rest of the afternoon with him, especially as she knew how much his nearness affected her. How weak she could be with him if she let go. And that was the key. She couldn’t let go. She had to keep pushing forward, pushing hard for what she wanted. What she believed herself capable of doing.
What better reason could there be for wanting to take this reckless course?
None. At least not for her.
The longer she dawdled here following Luciano’s relaxed schedule, the more personal torment she would endure. She looked toward the day that she would put a period on this project and walk away with her head held proud. She would not slink off in the night as she’d done before.
“It’s still early, right?” she said, carefully extracting herself from his light hold to glance at the clock, pretending she was totally unaffected by him. “So if we leave now, it’ll take an hour to drive up. Even if we waste thirty minutes there, we would still be back at la Duchi Royal before five p.m.”
He snorted. “I don’t want to hear any complaints about the bumpy drive.”
“Hey, I grew up in the rugged Rockies. Rough mountains tracks and roads are home to me,” she said, meaning it.
“You’re sure of this?”
“Positive.” Never mind that it all sounded heavenly and inviting and far too dangerous a place to be secluded with him.
“Fine. We’ll go now.”
He ushered her out the door without ceremony toward his private elevator. Yet as the door swished open and she stepped inside, she felt his power throb and grow, felt the pulse of the man beating in her veins as well. Her heart pounded in rhythm and felt expectation ripple through her.
How stupid could she get! Luciano was nothing more than her business associate. Old friend. Never lover. Never. She willed that vow to embed itself in her mind and sucked in air, but that only drew the spicy scent of him deeper into her lungs and her blood.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She feared she’d never be all right again, but nodded. “I’m just anxious to see the design of your rifugio.” Anxious to get this leg over with, return to the lodge and have a moment’s peace without Luciano.
“Soon.”
* * *
Having dressed in appropriate gear, they arrived in a garage lined with a dazzling array of cars, all high octane and high dollar, she was certain.
Instead of going for the sedan they’d arrived in or the Land Rover, he ducked his head under the open canopy and swung his long, muscled leg over the black padded seat of an impressively large all-terrain vehicle. “Climb on. I would prefer getting there before it turns dark or storms.”
She looked at the sky and shivered. Though a good distance from them, a dark cloud bank was moments away from blocking out the sun and her avenue of daylight.
Being in the mountains after dark didn’t bother her nearly as much as the thought of getting caught out in bad weather. His handsome face, carved in impatient lines with a critical inspection of the rugged ATV tires, got her moving forward. She swung on behind him just as he fired up the powerful engine, sending an unsettling vibration through her nerves and her blood that she had so longed for.
“Is anything wrong?”
“Nothing. Hang on,” came his clipped order as he shifted gears and backed them from the massive garage.
Caprice spent a millisecond running her palms down the passenger grab bars before she pressed her spine against the plush seat back. The war between hanging on to to the bars or simply relishing reckless freedom darted within her.
Luciano barked an order. “Buckle up or hang on.”
His muscled physique was inviting. Too inviting.
She fastened the black web belt over her flat belly with a snap because she wasn’t about to wrap her arms around him. No matter the allure. No matter how much a part of her wanted to touch him, feel him, taste him. She wasn’t about to do any of that.
He gave her one quick look back before he sent the ATV in motion and took a trail that wound above the massive manicured lawn of the lodge to a rugged track that angled away from the ski village. The harsh beauty of the mountains called to her soul while the sensual pulse of the man before her threatened to tempt her heart.
In what seemed like moments, the ATV swerved and jolted up the uneven mountain trail that ran parallel to a rushing stream littered with rocks, climbing higher at an angle that took them so far from the ski village she couldn’t even see those roofs now. Each yard they traveled threatened to slam her against his broad back. She resisted, staying strong. Away from him.
The air was thinner at this elevation and deep snow still hid in crevices and shadowed nooks on the northern slopes high above the trail. Really, it was similar to the terrain in Colorado, where hearty trees struggled for survival on the unforgiving terrain of rocks and soil. The occasional alteration in the track below bore swaths that screamed danger, clear evidence of massive slides of soil and rock likely brought down the slope by heavy slabs of snow.
Her unease compounded as the wind tormented her with his spicy scent, forcing her to breathe him in with each breath she took, to feel the man on her skin and in her blood. The uneven terrain conspired against her battle to keep a careful distance.
“Hold on. It gets rough for the next few kilometers,” he said after they’d been on the trail a good thirty minutes.
Halfway point, she hoped. Yet this was an exhilarating slice of heaven she wouldn’t have wanted to miss. The vistas were incredible, dwarfing the Rockies with their beauty.
Just as she was getting into her stride the heavy ATV busted over the uneven track with another, larger, bared slope rising to the summit. Clearly a small avalanche had scrubbed a narrow pathway, leaving gullies and massive boulders clinging to the face. The ATV bucked and sprayed gravel, sand and slush in a rooster’s fantail that covered their trail over this rugged patch. Then the route evened with thick trees on the slope and a swift running stream to their right.
On the other side of the stream rose a smaller ledge of firs that flattened out into a dense stand of trees. It made the area they traveled more a wedge of safety than a valley, and by no means eliminated them from danger. In fact she couldn’t imagine this route being used at all during the winter months. Isolated? Chillingly so, she thought on a shiver.
A mile or perhaps more up the winding rising track, the surface turned dangerously rocky. Luciano geared down and took it slower over the track, which rose unevenly. Instinctively she looked up the towering slope to the slab of deep snow suspended in above them, stretching across the face near the summit.
“Has it been cool here?” she asked in a near shout.
She felt him tense and peer up the slope as well. “It had been, but my groundsman alerted me to the sudden spike in temperatures yesterday and today, coupled with above-freezing numbers at the summit.”
Her stomach clenched painfully, her heart kicking up pace. “Avalanche danger.”
“It’s a possibility,” he said. “That is why I was hesitant to come up here today.”
It wouldn’t take much for that ridge of snow to turn deadly. Above-freezing temperatures at night. Hot days. Rain. Any combination could send that mass of ice and slush tumbling down the slope, wiping out everything in its path.
“Why didn’t you say so at the lodge?” she asked.
He snorted. “You wanted this done with, and I do as well.”
Was she that transparent to him? Was he that anxious to be free of her?
Her palms skimmed over the grab bars until a burst of speed up the tree-lined track jolted her. She wrapped her arms around his lean waist and leaned against his strong back. Cooler air buffeted her face and back while the heat of the man seeped into her length.
“Hang on. We’re almost ther
e. See the green roof on the far ledge?” he shouted over the rev of the engine that tormented the tender flesh between her legs in a sinfully delicious way. “That is my rifugio.”
She caught a glimpse of the chalet-like structure before the winding trail took the ATV speeding down a sharp, curving dip in the trail. She buried her face against his broad back for a millisecond, then looked up.
Excitement hummed through her, her heart accelerating with each rev of the engine that gave a sensual jolt of her body against his broad back. Feeling his muscles tighten was a delicious torment that she had never felt on a pleasurable level, but she wanted more, wanted to explore those feelings.
Don’t pursue it, the rational part of her brain warned as the ATV all but crawled over the rough track, the dips and jolts creating a delicious torture she hadn’t anticipated.
A sound like thunder turned her blood cold and yanked her attention from the man to the mountain. Snow sprayed over a high ledge into the air, quickly tumbling downward. The wide surf of tumbling, sliding white snow flung rocks ahead of it, the mass turning browner as it gathered more snow, soil and trees. A new fear skittered up her spine.
“Avalanche!” she screamed.
“Hang on,” he ordered at the same time as he boosted the ATV to a reckless speed.
She splayed her fingers on his chest and held tight, heart pounding in rapid tandem with the beat of his against her palm. The roar up the slope increased and a glance up proved the snow slide was gaining more speed than they were. My God, they’d get eaten alive by the snow.
“Go faster,” she implored.
“We’re at top speed now,” he shouted back.
Not fast enough. That realization played over and over in her mind, a litany of doom to come. One by one, the trees disappeared under a wall of snow and soil, the crack and splintering louder than violent cracks of lightning over the hum and rev of the ATV. Massive boulders vanished, torn from their mooring of earth only to shoot out amid sprays of ice and dirt ahead of the wall of dirty white, tumbling into a hellish maelstrom that raced toward them.
“Can we outrun it?” she gasped, holding on to him for dear life, heart in her throat.
He flicked a glance back at the deathly gray slope, blue eyes hard as flint and tinged with terror. “I hope to hell so. If not...”
She knew from her last glance that the horrendous slide was too close. The tumbling tide of snow in front of the avalanche was less than twenty feet from engulfing them and gaining fast. Too fast. A glance ahead had her guessing how far they were from the safe zone.
They had a fifty-fifty chance. If that much.
The fear and horror of her past paled in comparison to this horror. No terror compared to the nanosecond the spray slammed into them, tossing them off track.
Luciano spat a curse and the ATV revved and roared, swerving and bucking for a heart-stopping moment. She couldn’t make out any details, not even the man she clung to. Snow and mud rained down on them, soaking her with muck and fear. Stones pummeled her head, her back so much she wanted to scream out the pain.
Somewhere came the crash of snow and trees. Deafening deadly sounds. Ice pellets pounded her back and arms and head. It soaked her in seconds, matting her hair to her head. Each labored breath was torture.
Something hard, a limb, or perhaps rocks slammed into the back of the ATV. She whimpered, eyes blurring, at the same time Luciano swore violently. Her fingers scrambled to find purchase on his soaked clothes, her head spinning and aching.
Tired. She was so damned tired of clinging to him. And afraid, more than she’d ever been in her life. Their chances of outrunning an avalanche had been slim. Surviving one was a rarity.
“Hold tight!” Luciano shouted.
She jerked and did just that, plastering herself against his broad back, knowing he was taking the brunt of the fallout, wildly thinking this was what clothes felt like tossed in a washing machine. Soaked. Wrung out. Limp.
She took a breath and gagged. Tasted the mud on her lips.
The ATV engine whined and roared, shooting them through a wall of muck that blinded her. The tight pinch to her stomach and heightened rev of the engine told her they’d propelled into the air. Into what? Would they get buried under a massive drift of snow-covered debris? Would the force slam them into boulders or the jagged ledge? Or would they end up propelled over the mountain’s edge?
Was death imminent? Was this her last moment?
She didn’t want to die. Didn’t want Luciano to either. Didn’t want either of them hurt. But it was out of her hands and his.
Please, God, she prayed. Please!
The ATV dropped with a jolt and reared, but somehow Luciano kept it speeding forward. She swallowed a scream and clung to him, unable to see anything ahead of them under the pummeling waterfall of snow and mud.
In a blink they shot out into open space.
She swiped at the grime on her face and stared ahead. Fingers of tumbling snow and debris reached ahead of them. Further ahead were whole trees and unspoiled land. Was safety that close?
The promise of escape barely registered before the ATV plunged into a roiling finger of snow and debris. She cringed as her body was peppered again with God knew what. Inside that maelstrom she couldn’t even see Luciano before her, yet she felt his muscles bunch and clamp down as the ATV tipped on its rear axel. She clung to him over the manic rev of the engine and wheels spinning frantically without purchase. Crashing was imminent and her hands were so sore and slickened by snow and sludge that she could barely hang on.
The debris tormented them for long seconds that felt like hours before the ATV rocketed out from the far fringe of the avalanche tide. The unspoiled track and treed slope she’d glimpsed before was right ahead. Was she dreaming? Had they survived?
Luciano maneuvered the ATV between a tight stand of trees, dropping down and away from the ledge of snow. Something about the surety of man in the face of danger called to her as nothing else ever had.
It was comforting. Strengthening. Seductive.
Danger pulsed in her heart and cried in her soul, danger that had everything to do with nearly losing her life and her heart to this bold, reckless man. She didn’t want either to happen, but she’d never felt this heart-stopping adrenaline rush before.
The ATV sped up the trail along the sloped woods. She held tight to the grab bars with hands that were near numb and peered over her shoulder at the cascading tumble of snow and debris that still raced down the slope. The heart of the avalanche bulldozed across the track they’d narrowly just traveled and dumped into the stream in a mixture of muck mingled with boulders and trees torn from the earth.
In seconds, the trail was blocked, she realized with a sinking heart as the area between the slope and the ridge beyond the stream filled in, burying the trail and damming the stream.
Her breath came short and fast, and her heart thundered in her chest. They’d barely escaped getting buried alive beneath a mountain of earth, stones and crusted snow. They’d cheated death. But how would they get back to the village?
Luciano pulled to a stop at the hillocks summit and swung off the ATV, his breathing labored and eyes unnaturally bright. “All you all right?”
All right? No, she was far from it, but she nodded anyway and got off barely standing on shaky legs, her entire body still riding the wave of charged danger.
It was preternaturally quiet. “Is it over?”
“That one is,” he said, staring at the mountains with critical eyes.
She wanted to cry. Wanted to give up, but she did neither. They were alive. Wet. Filthy. Cold. But alive.
He pulled a blanket from the small boot on the ATV and wrapped it around her without ceremony. “You’re shivering.”
“So are you,” she said and clutched the blanket under her chin. “Tha
nk you.”
He shrugged. “There is always one packed in the ATV.”
“I didn’t mean the blanket. I meant... You did it,” she said in a near sob as she threw her arms around Luciano. “You saved our lives.”
Luc held her in a crushing hug that made his heart pound all the harder, his face pressed to hers for a long, silent moment as the experience brought memories of his brother’s crippling accident to the surface. One near miss with catastrophe was enough in one lifetime. If he’d lost his own life, so be it. But if anything had happened to her under his watch, he never would forgive himself.
They’d cheated death, yet an avalanche of need he couldn’t escape raced within him. He wanted to ride the adrenaline rush to its fullest and run his palms over her breasts, skim them down her torso, her trim waist, the inviting curve of her hip.
Need, more powerful than he’d felt in years, pounded hot and heavy in him. He ached to celebrate life and crush his lips to hers. Break down the walls of her resistance and unleash the passion he knew surged within her. He wanted to plunge his hard length into her and ride the storm of passion to its fullest.
More than anything, he wanted to break his vow to keep her at arm’s length and make her his. Make them one. And that was the last thing he should do.
“That was too close for comfort,” he said, voice hoarse with emotion, his mind muddled with duty and desire.
Caprice swallowed hard, hesitant to pull away from the comfort of his embrace. “God, yes. I’ve never been so terrified in my life.”
He gave a rough laugh and set her back from him, holding her at arm’s length, his expression intense. “That is the dangerous allure of extreme sports.”
The dangerous allure of the man as well? Without a doubt, she decided.
“It’s not for me,” she said, meaning both.
His lips pressed into a thin line and put distance between them. “Or me.”
“The trail is blocked, isn’t it?” she asked, knowing the answer before he nodded.
Bound by the Italian's Contract Page 7
