Josie watched the water splashing down from beneath heavy curtains of fern and ivy. It escaped over bare wet rocks to send ripples dancing out over the clean, clear water.
‘There doesn’t look to be anything to be scared of.’
Dario chuckled. ‘You say that now, but when you’re six years old an ancient carved face hidden among the rocks can seem very scary. Local legend says it’s Etruscan, but an expert like you would need to check it out to make certain. Antonia has never got around to it.’
Josie’s eyes lit up. ‘Now you’ve got me interested.’
‘I knew I would.’ His smile widened mischievously. ‘So—what do you say? Would you dare to come with me now and take a look?’
Josie couldn’t answer. She was studying the pool. It had been edged with wide stones, but everything was now worn with age and green with algae. It looked treacherous. Dario was already striding around the perimeter to the other side and calling across the water to her.
‘I’ll go first. Look, it’s perfectly safe—but, if you’re nervous, you’ll get a better view if you stand over there, beside that nearest alder …’
Josie had dropped her bag and reached his side before he finished speaking. Her fear of being thought not up to a task was greater than her fear of the water, until she saw where she would have to walk. The path to the spring’s source was narrow and cut into solid rock. In places, water splashed and played over it as though from a hose.
Edging along, she followed as close behind Dario as she dared. As he crossed the wettest place she took a step forward, felt her foot slip and caught her breath in a tiny cry of panic. Instantly, he grabbed her hand but she had already fought and won the battle to retain her footing. Once again she pulled herself from his grasp.
‘I’m fine, thank you.’
Dario wasn’t convinced, but grudgingly gave her the benefit of the doubt. ‘As long as you’re sure.’
‘I didn’t mean to alarm you. Water just isn’t my thing, that’s all,’ she said, gritting her teeth.
‘Does that mean you won’t be using the swimming pool down at the castello during your stay?’ he murmured as they pressed on.
She steeled herself to ignore the interesting tone in his voice.
‘Not if I can help it.’
‘A shame. Though I, too, much prefer the fun that can be had on dry land.’ His words were suggestive, but when Josie glanced at him suspiciously he met her gaze innocently, belying the wickedness she could see in his smile.
‘At a time like this I’m inclined to agree with you,’ she answered with grim determination as she concentrated on keeping her balance and ignoring the butterflies in her stomach. ‘Can you hurry up and show me whatever it is? This is turning into some kind of endurance test!’
‘As someone who is in the business of teaching, you should know that nothing good comes without effort.’
‘The benefits of hard work can be overstated,’ Josie said quietly before she could stop herself.
She had to concentrate grimly on her footwork, but Dario could afford to look at her quizzically.
‘What do you mean?’
Josie cursed the twin distractions of Etruscan art and the slippery surface. She had said too much. Furious with herself for accidentally bringing up such a sensitive subject, she tried to laugh it off.
‘Oh … while I was studying, my boyfriend found someone else to catalogue his artefacts for him. You know how it is,’ she finished lamely, expecting him to laugh.
He didn’t. Instead, he looked at her for a quiet moment, while Josie shivered under his leisurely, assessing gaze.
‘What a foolish man, not to see what he had,’ he said quietly, before turning away as if the compliment had never happened. Josie took a deep breath, trying to control the adrenalin suddenly fizzing through her veins.
‘Here we are … careful … now look at this …’
Reaching out, Dario pushed aside the curtain of young hart’s tongue fronds. Nourished by the run off from the slopes above, they were easily two feet long and covered the source of the waterfall with thick green ripples. As he moved the leaves apart, Josie saw that the water poured out from the mouth of a hideous grinning mask. It must have truly terrified Antonia when she’d played here as a child, more than twenty years before.
‘Wow!’ she breathed.
In her excitement she forgot all her fears about the slippery surface. Squeezing in front of Dario, she leaned forward for a closer look. At that moment a wren burst out indignantly from its hiding place behind the stone head. Whirring past Josie’s face, it missed her by inches and gave her such a fright she jumped, lost her footing—and toppled straight into the pool.
Her world exploded in a mass of bubbles. Before she had time to realise what was happening, she was grabbed and pulled above the surface again. Half drowned and spluttering, she found herself held tightly in Dario’s arms. She felt his body shaking and heard his laughter, but her indignation died as she discovered how incredible it felt to be pressed against his hard, unyielding body.
She stopped struggling. For one glorious moment the glade fell still and silent. All she could hear was the sound of her own heartbeat and feel Dario’s pulse beating in time with hers. It was intoxicating, and such a primal feeling. His beautiful face was so close, she felt her lips part in anticipation of something so wonderful she dared not give it a name.
Then she remembered what it felt like when temptation led to betrayal. Panic engulfed her. In a surge of desperation, she tried to wriggle from his grasp, flailing the water into a maelstrom.
‘Hold still!’
Josie stopped splashing. Her feet floated down and she found her toes brushing the floor of the pool.
‘Oh …’ she moaned, feeling a complete fool.
‘You’re quite safe with me,’ he said reassuringly, and Josie wanted to believe it.
She tipped her head back to look at him properly. Water trickling over the carved intensity of his face sparkled in golden streaks of sunlight flickering through the trees.
‘Oh, dear—you seem to have got a faceful of water!’ She blushed. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Dario said nothing. His white shirt was plastered against his chest, showing dark shadows of hair beneath. Feeling his body, so hot and vital in the cool seductive depths of the pool, Josie unconsciously relaxed against him. Her whole body felt as liquid as the water, ready to absorb him and flow around him for ever. His eyes feasted on her face, and it was the ultimate aphrodisiac. When his hands began to move, she held her breath in an agony of expectation. As he gently brushed a lock of wet hair away from the corner of her mouth, she closed her eyes again. Unable to resist, she parted her lips and this time she knew exactly what she wanted. Her breathing quickened in desperate anticipation of his kiss.
Then, at the last moment, either her common sense returned or her nerve failed her—she never knew which it was. Opening her eyes, she shook her head so quickly and violently that droplets of water flew through the air like shards of glass. Letting go of his supportive hand, she waded away from him and towards the edge of the pool. There, she hauled herself out of the water and began to walk away, back to where her things lay scattered on the forest floor. She had never felt so tempted by a man before in her life. She knew she had to put some distance between them as soon as possible, for the sake of her own sanity.
Still waist-deep in the water, Dario surveyed her like Neptune.
‘You should be more careful.’
‘I know—that’s why I got out of there as soon as I could,’ Josie snapped. ‘I’ll be keeping well away from the edge from now on, believe me.’
In every sense of the word, she added silently.
The thought of Dario leaping in to save her again if she got into difficulties was doing very strange things to her body.
Dario hardly heard what she said. Josie amazed him. Not many people were prepared to stand up to him. Now, soaked to the skin and with her wet white T-shirt clinging
to her body in almost transparent folds, she was a breathtaking sight.
Acutely aware of his scrutiny, Josie kept on walking away from him, trying to wring the water out of her clothes and ponytail as she did so.
‘And please don’t look at me like that.’
‘Have you got eyes in the back of your head?’
‘I don’t need them, where you’re concerned. I can feel you looking at me.’
‘It’s meant as a compliment,’ he mused.
‘Then thank you, but please stop,’ she said sharply. ‘I’d like to get a photograph of that spring. It’s exactly the sort of thing I’m interested in. If you really do want to help me, Dario, you could tell me if there are any more hidden treasures like that one on your estate.’
She could already feel the heat of the day pulling the moisture out of her cheap, thin clothes. If she blushed much more, they would be drying out from the inside as well as the outside. Trying to ignore the sounds behind her of Dario stripping off his sodden shirt, she knelt on the forest floor. Emptying the contents of her messenger bag onto the soft green moss surrounding the pool, she picked out her camera.
‘You should come out here in the sunshine with me. You’ll get dry quicker,’ Dario called.
Before she could stop herself, Josie looked up and saw him in magnificent silhouette. He was rubbing some still-dry parts of his shirt over his wet body before sliding his arms into its damp embrace again. ‘It’s a great way to cool off, but when I decided to treat you to lunch out here I never expected to need towels as well.’
‘Lunch?’
‘You don’t think I’d come out to find you without being fully prepared?’ He strolled across the glade, doing up the buttons of his shirt as he walked. Josie purposely avoided watching the way his fingers moved, as it brought back all too clearly the memory of their potent strength. Instead, she looked him straight in the face—but that laid her wide open to the devastating effect of his smile.
Holding Josie powerless in his arms had aroused all sorts of feelings in Dario. Now, he couldn’t stop thinking about the best use for secluded glades—and that was seduction. When he had ridden out here to surprise her with an impromptu picnic, he hadn’t expected to end up holding her so tightly against his body, even in the role of lifeguard. Dario was a typical red-blooded Italian male and found it difficult to ignore temptation. Especially when it came in the form of a voluptuous woman in thin, wet clothing.
As Dario raised his arm to unstrap the picnic basket from his horse’s saddle, his white sleeve flickered brightly against the mysterious depths of the wood. It was as good as a signal to Josie. She tensed as he walked back to join her.
‘Hmm … as I thought—the staff have only packed hand towels, although if I put this picnic rug around your shoulders—’
The rug was folded up so tightly he needed both hands to shake it free. Unfurling it, he moved forward to swirl it around Josie’s shoulders, but when he touched her she drew in her breath and backed away.
‘I can manage, thank you.’ Reaching out, she snatched the picnic rug from his fingers.
‘You’re shivering. Let’s go and sit in that patch of sunshine over there.’
Picking up the picnic basket, he went over to the far side of the clearing. When he looked back she was following, but slowly and at a distance. Dario smiled to himself; he had enough experience to know when a woman was nearly his. He started to unpack the things he had brought, then sat back on his heels as she came towards him cautiously.
‘The archaeology isn’t suddenly going to disappear before you can get to it, and I’m hardly going to eat you when my kitchen has provided us with all this.’ He spread a hand towards the tempting display he was setting out. ‘Why not take the time actually to enjoy yourself for once, Josie? Are you too sensible to relax? Give it a try over lunch—there’s no one here to see!’
Unable to resist his challenge, as he’d known she would be, she sat down, but several feet away from him. When Dario went back to his work without comment, she eventually leaned forward to help. Without moving his head, he saw her hands moving in and out of his peripheral vision, arranging pristine white crockery like clouds against the sky-blue picnic cloth.
‘There. What could be better than that?’ He turned to her.
For a split second they looked into each other’s eyes, then her glance slipped away to the half a dozen tempting types of antipasto the castello’s kitchen had packed for them. As the pool of sunlight gilded her wet brown hair, Dario opened a bottle of limoncello and poured a shot of it into each of two crystal glasses. Topping them up with chilled mineral water, he handed one to Josie. Then, touching his glass lightly against hers, he said softly, ‘Salute!’
She gazed at him, then at the food on display, and then at the drink in her hand.
‘You did all this for me?’ Her tone was one of sheer disbelief.
‘Where I come from, picnics are a couple of rounds of sandwiches grabbed from a supermarket. I don’t know what to say … or where to start …’ she began, but Dario didn’t need to be told—the look in her eyes said it all. He moved around, away from the sudden rush of emotion he felt at her obvious pleasure, until he was on the far side of their feast. From there, safely back in seduction mode, he started to offer her little dishes of caponata and pasta salad, smiling as she gave in to temptation.
Josie chose some roasted tomatoes and peppers, gleaming with the estate’s own olive oil, mozzarella and a slice of fragrant focaccia spiked with rosemary and crystals of sea salt. While Dario loaded his plate with a little of everything on display, she watched him covertly. His movements had the smooth assurance of a man born to lead. With another shiver, she noticed the strength in his smooth brown forearms. The sleeves of his shirt were turned back, showing off his taut muscles. That provoked a reaction deeper than anything her ex-fiancé had ever sown in her. Unexpected sensations simmered within her, and they were scary—not because Dario felt threatening, but because of the way her body responded so easily to his. She could remember every nuance of feeling aroused by his capable hands as they rescued her from the water. Her body had been without the touch of a man for so long, she had forgotten how exciting the slightest contact could be.
‘Is there anything else you’d like, Josie?’
In her heightened state, his voice was a purr of encouragement as seductive as the sound of the golden orioles warbling deep in the woodland around them. She felt her mouth go dry. Her whole body began to melt under the warmth of his gaze. To hide her growing arousal, she took a long, slow sip of her limoncello. Nothing in her life so far had prepared her for the sensuous promise she heard in Dario’s voice—or the primitive reactions of her body. The lilt of his rich accent cast a magical spell over her every time he spoke her name.
This is seduction by telepathy, she thought.
Dario seemed perfectly attuned to her, and her physical response to his confident masculinity. Her body turned to water beneath his gaze, ebbing and flowing like the warm flush that threatened to engulf her entirely. It was a struggle to conceal the effect he was having on her. Before they met, she had assumed any contact with this man would be brief and boring. Now his silent temptation threatened to undermine all her good intentions to concentrate on her work while she had the chance.
‘Let me guess. Before you got here, you had already assumed you would dislike me on sight. Now you find I’m not the man you expected. Isn’t that so?’ he said quietly.
Josie swallowed her reply. It would only incriminate her, when her expression alone was enough to set the light of amusement dancing in his amazing eyes.
‘And now you are wondering how I know that! It’s because I thought exactly the same about you, Josie. To begin with.’
She picked up her cutlery, pretending to be more interested in her meal than she was in Dario. It was a mistake. She might be able to ignore the tremors of excitement powering through her body but it was impossible to suppress the way her hands were tr
embling. Sunlight filtering between the leaves high above flickered and danced over her silver fork, betraying her.
‘You’re making me nervous,’ she announced in her defence.
‘Really? I don’t know why. It’s never been my intention to scare you.’
‘I didn’t say I was scared. It’s more a kind of … passive intimidation …’ she managed. The past histories of her mother, her best friend and her own broken engagement were powerful reminders of what could happen when a man didn’t get things his own way, but right now defiance was the last thing on Josie’s mind.
Dario’s beautifully sculpted mouth lifted in a smile. ‘I imagine my forebears would be pleased to hear you say that. They ruled by the sword. But, speaking for myself, I’ve never liked to think I make people nervous. I want you to enjoy yourself, Josie. So … what more can I do to please you?’
The tempting lilt in his voice was deliberately ambiguous. She could see it in his eloquent dark eyes.
‘I think this lovely lunch is enough for the time being, thank you,’ she told him unsteadily.
He nodded, and turned his attention to his own plate.
Josie felt a sudden stab of disappointment that he had taken her words as a hint to back off.
‘What keeps a man like you buried out here in the countryside?’ she said, desperate to steer the topic of conversation away from herself. As she moved, a mischievous little breeze cooled the damp T-shirt beneath the blanket around her shoulders. It clung to the smooth curves of her breasts, sharpening her nipples into almost painful points. They were tingling in a way that made her want to learn a whole lot more about Dario, despite all her reservations.
‘I can’t tear myself away from the place.’ He raised both his hands in a gesture of resignation. ‘This estate, these people—they are my duty but, beyond that, this countryside is part of me. Although I couldn’t expect a modern woman to understand this.’
The Count's Prize Page 4
