by Julie Leto
“Can’t sleep?” he asked.
Her smile barely curved her lips, but lit her eyes nonetheless. “Oh, I could sleep, I think. I haven’t tried yet. Brandon left?”
He nodded. “We’re safe and sound.”
When she turned toward the table beside her bed, she slipped a small book beneath the covers. “Brandy?” she asked, indicating the decanter and snifter beneath her lamp.
“Sure.”
He accepted the glass, then glanced around the room for somewhere to sit. While an overstuffed chaise and a striped wing chair were available, he preferred something closer. He slid onto the edge of her bed and propped himself against one of the tall posts, grinning when she didn’t seem to mind.
“What are you reading?” he asked.
She pursed her lips, forcing Grey to realize that the pout he’d been admiring all day wasn’t a result of her carefully applied lipstick. Her bottom lip possessed a natural curve that immediately drew his attention, instantaneously sparking his desire to kiss her.
“A diary.”
Grey sipped his brandy. The liquor, incredibly smooth and undoubtedly expensive, warmed and relaxed him. “The one by the jeweler?”
She hesitated, swiping her tongue over her teeth, then reached across the pillows to fill another glass for herself. “Not exactly.” Swirling the bronze liquid, she inhaled, watching him from over the rim.
He smiled. “Reina has a secret.”
“Unlike Zane, Reina has a lot of secrets,” she answered.
“Tell me one.”
She took a drink, then stretched her leg from beneath her. Grey supposed that, by design, her nightwear would be considered tame. Long pants, long sleeves, satin buttons. Styled like men’s pajamas but, on her, decidedly feminine. Her ample breasts curved enticingly beneath the silk, and the black color couldn’t disguise the points of her nipples any more than it could hide the sleek shape of her thighs.
“Just one?”
“For starters,” he replied.
Her gaze darted aside and she squirmed a bit. Grey sensed a tension in her body, in her motions, that seemed totally out of character. He already knew Reina dropped her guard with his brother, altering the aloof seductress persona she presented to men like Claudio and customers in her gallery to a more natural sensuality—one she couldn’t rein in so readily. Still, if he didn’t know better, he’d guess his presence—Zane’s presence—now made her uncomfortable.
And aroused. Or was he just indulging in a little wishful thinking?
She slipped her glass onto the table and retrieved the diary from under the covers.
“This was written by the jeweler’s mistress.”
She handed him the book. The leather cover had hardly a nick or crease. The pages were yellowed and the ink slightly faded, but even his untrained eye determined the diary hadn’t been written in the sixteenth century. “It doesn’t look that old.”
“It’s not. This is a translation of her diary, probably written, I don’t know, fifty, sixty years ago. Claudio’s mother did it, supposedly to improve her English. I’ve been reading for a few hours. The woman did a very good job.”
He flipped through the pages, wishing he had his glasses. He’d used them several times tonight, when Reina wasn’t around. But Zane had had surgery to correct his farsightedness, so Grey couldn’t very well retrieve his glasses now, could he?
“Read some to me.”
She snatched the book from his hands. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“It’s very…revealing.”
He took another sip of brandy. “I can see that.” Even without his glasses and with the light relatively dim, he saw the flush of pink across her skin. “You mean erotic, don’t you?”
She only nodded. “Have you read Il Gioielliere’s Diaries?”
He shook his head.
“Well, everyone’s been calling the man’s recount of his trysts with his mistress the new Kama Sutra. He kept copious notes on the best ways to pleasure his woman, not to mention several interesting ways to pleasure a man. But, Viviana’s recollections…” She held up the book. “Truly incendiary.”
He now understood Reina’s physical antsiness. She was aroused. Unfortunately, not by him. At least, not yet.
“Read me something.”
She licked her lips again. Her quick glance at the memoir betrayed her temptation.
“You sure?”
She meant more than she said. Had Zane been the one to end their former relationship? Had Zane been the one to insist they keep their interactions platonic? That wasn’t unlikely. Stupid, but not unlikely. If the relationship he’d had with Reina had gotten too deep, too serious, Zane would have found a way to end things. Actually, so far as Grey knew, Zane had never had one interaction with a woman that could actually be called a relationship. Grey had relationships. Zane had flings.
And tonight, and for at least the next couple of days, he was Zane. “Absolutely,” he said.
After only a second more of hesitation, Reina retrieved the book and flipped through until she found the page she sought.
“This is the first time he came to her. The man had style. Patience and style.” She moistened her lips with a slow, stiff tongue, then settled back into the cushions before she began to read.
“Il Gio visited me today. He brought money for my necklace, and he was generous, paying more than the bauble was worth. He also brought me a gift—a very long, thin gold chain with beautiful soft links and a heavy charm on the end shaped like a lock. I thought he was only being kind, maybe even sorry that I had to sell my fine jewels to pay my taxes, but he claimed the metal would help keep me cool during the summer night. He said I should wind the chains around my neck and keep the lock near my heart.
“The light of a secret danced in his eyes. I couldn’t resist him. I dressed lightly for bed, only a camisole and his chain. I kept the doors to my balcony open, wishing for a breeze. None came. But he did.
“I don’t know when I awoke or when I realized he stood beside me. I didn’t open my eyes. But I knew it was him. He whispered my name. Insisted he was not really there, only an apparition conjured from my own desires.
“The sheets were tangled around my thighs. He tugged them free. I wore nothing beneath my camisole. I knew the moon was high. He could see me. All of me. Without touching me, he removed the laces. He whispered to me. How beautiful I was. How much he wanted me. But like a priceless diamond, he couldn’t yet afford me. If I would, if I agreed, he would buy my love with pleasure.
“Pleasure? I laughed. I admitted to him that I’d read stories, heard tales, but I didn’t know the pleasure of love firsthand. He told me my pleasure would be his greatest creation, if only I promised to keep my eyes closed. I did. I could still see his image in my mind, his dark skin and bright blue eyes…”
Reina faltered, cleared her throat, and reached across to the table for another sip of brandy. A moment elapsed before Grey realized that the description of the man she read about fit him as well.
“So,” Grey asked, breaking the silence. “How did they know each other?”
Reina smiled. “She was a young widow, considered incredibly beautiful, but because her husband left her with no dowry and a load of debt, no man would marry her. She had no family. She sold il Gio her jewelry just to keep a roof over her head.”
“Why didn’t he marry her, I mean…if he was so interested?”
“He was already married.”
“But he didn’t love his wife?”
Reina shook her head. “An arranged marriage to a cold woman. According to his diary, when he tried to awaken his wife’s sexual appetites, she ran off to a nunnery and prayed for his soul for over a year. She returned and forbade him to ever enter her bedroom again, unless he wanted more children. They already had three sons.”
“So, apparently, they’d already had sex.”
She pulled a copy of il Gio’s bestselling diary off her night table and
tossed it toward him. “It’s all in the first few chapters. Yes, he’d made love to his wife, but the experience was hardly memorable. Some people just aren’t compatible, I guess. From what I’ve read, she encouraged him to take a mistress. At first.”
Grey flipped through the pages, but then put the book down. Not only could he not read very much without his glasses, he’d rather Reina narrated, if for no other reason than to hear her voice. Soft and sultry, the timbre possessed a natural music, highlighted with hints of a European accent. Rounded vowels and clipped consonants. And even though they were alone in the house, she spoke in a whisper just as she had during dinner, as if she wanted him to have to lean forward, scoot closer, to hear everything she said.
“Things changed?”
“His mistress became his obsession. His business suffered for a little while, since all his creations were for Viviana and were not for sale. But soon, there were rumors about his jewels, their potential uses for pleasure. Men traveled from all over Italy to buy his wares. He became very rich. But he never sold anything he’d created for Viviana. Not even a copy.”
Grey nodded toward the discarded, translated diary. “And his obsession never faltered?”
She put the brandy aside and took up the book again, their brief pause of conversation resurrecting her enthusiasm. “Not according to Viviana. This first night started a cat-and-mouse game of seduction and satisfaction that lasted twenty years.”
Grey whistled. He couldn’t imagine an affair lasting that long. A marriage, sure. His own parents were nearing forty years together. Though Grey doubted they experimented with sex toys—he actually didn’t want to go anywhere near that possibility—the passion between Elizabeth and Nathan Masterson seemed as fresh today as it had been when Grey and Zane were teenagers. The boys had found their parents’ cuddles and kisses embarrassing at the time, but being raised in a house where affection overflowed probably explained why Zane and Grey both had a healthy predilection for sex from such early ages.
“Read more,” Grey asked.
“It’s late.”
He groaned at her flimsy excuse. “So what? We’ve been to parties together that lasted all night and into the next day. I want to know how this guy seduced her. That first night. How far did he go?”
With a wiggle of his brows, Grey challenged Reina, certain his brother would have been just as curious as he was, though Grey realized he had ulterior motives. He wanted her to read more because Viviana’s confessions stirred Reina’s desires. He had seen the telltale blush of wanting on her skin. He’d witnessed the soft, dreamy look in her obsidian eyes. He wanted to inspire those reactions himself, and he figured reading a little more of the confessional might help in that direction.
She retrieved the book and found her place.
“As he instructed, I’d worn the lock near my heart, wrapping the chain twice around my throat. It was so long! I couldn’t imagine why someone would want a chain that reached nearly to the knees. But with light fingers, he showed me. He lifted the heavy gold piece, then stretched the cool metal chain to its full length, pulling the soft links over my bare skin. He dipped the lock between my legs, so that any tiny movement slapped the weight against my labia.”
Grey nodded, impressed. The devil had placed a weight on his paramour’s sensitive outer lips, and he could imagine the chain dipped over the tender ridge, close to her clit. He closed his eyes, imagining Reina draped similarly across her bed, undressed, with him standing over her, wielding the glimmering gold over her flesh.
“The chain tightened around my throat, but with only enough pressure to remind me to be still. I would not choke, but if I turned my head too quickly, the thin gold would break. He manipulated the chain, brushing the cool metal over my nipples, twirling the links around my breasts. Around and around. Pulling tighter. The sensations made me squirm and the lock between my legs slapped against me. Wild thoughts flew through my mind. I wanted to feel the gold inside me. I wanted the pressure. The weight. I would have felt ashamed, except he forbade me to feel so. Women were made to be pleasured, he claimed. And from the moment he kissed me, deeply, his tongue tangling with mine, I believed him.”
Reina closed the book.
“That’s it?” Grey asked, disappointed. He also realized he’d let his eyes close again, enraptured by the sound of her voice painting such an erotic picture.
“Have you ever made love to a virgin?” she asked.
Grey chuckled, wondering how she jumped from one topic to another. “Viviana wasn’t a virgin, was she?”
“Technically? No, but she’d never known pleasure, never had an orgasm, until il Gio. He took such care with her. Such patience. Have you ever been a woman’s first?”
Grey thought, fully aware that he was scrunching his eyebrows together in an expression that was decidedly more Grey than Zane. But he honestly couldn’t remember being any woman’s first lover, which now that he thought about it, said something about the types of women he found attractive.
As for Zane? Frankly, virgins weren’t his brother’s style any more than they were his. They both gravitated toward more sophisticated, experienced women, women with no reason to fear the unknown, no excuse to shy away from sexual satisfaction.
Types like Reina…unless…
He attempted to erase any hint of true curiosity from his face. Look bored, look bored. “Why do you ask?”
Her sigh possessed a wealth of regret. “I sometimes can barely remember my first time. I was so young.” She waved her hand at him before retrieving her brandy and draining the snifter in one long sip. “But I’ve told you about that.”
Grey silently cursed. He couldn’t very well pretend he’d forgotten something so momentous and personal in order to coax her into retelling the tale, no matter how much he wanted to hear about it. She was young. How young? Sixteen? Younger? Who had been her first lover? For some reason, he suspected an older man, but the thought bothered him so much he pushed it aside. He wondered if she, like Viviana, had a diary he could peek into. If she did, he’d be the one to find it. He knew every crack and crevice in this old house.
But he wouldn’t look. That would be an invasion of privacy. The sting of Lane’s revelations, some exaggerated but most true, was still fresh. While he could care less what Lane told her fans about her sexual exploits, he didn’t consider himself a public figure who deserved to have his sexual preferences written about for all to read—especially recorded in such a derisive way. He’d thought he was simply sharing some carnal adventures with a woman he admired. And he had admired Lane, from the first time they had met during a junket for her latest film until the first time she refused his call. Then, the affair had simply been over. No regrets, no second-guessing.
Until the book had hit the stands. Until he’d figured out that he’d been her means to an end—more publicity.
Grey preferred his own affairs to be private, even if he did make a living poking around in the lives of others and publishing accounts of their foibles in black and white. But his paper didn’t dwell on scandal or rely on innuendo. If someone committed a crime, he reported it. If they were mixed up in bribery or had questionable relationships that hindered their ability to perform whatever duty they were elected or hired to do, he took them to task.
But Reina was no politician or billionaire CEO. She was just a woman trying to make a name for herself with her art. He wondered how any man survived in the presence of a woman with such a strong sexual energy for more than an hour without going mad.
Luckily for him, he had honed his interviewing skills long ago. If he asked the right questions, he could get the answers he wanted without letting on that he hadn’t been the Masterson brother to whom she’d once confessed her intimate secret. “Do you ever see him anymore, your first lover?”
“Martine?” A sweet smile curled her mouth. “He still lives in St. Tropez. I saw him, oh, five years ago. He’s married, has three girls. Still runs the old hotel with his father and brother.�
�� She laughed. “I wonder if Paolo ever realized how he made my first time so special?”
Why didn’t it surprise him that she retained a friendly relationship with the man who’d taken her virginity? But wait…Paolo?
“Paolo? I thought Martine was your first lover?”
“He was. But Paolo, who was only a year older than Martine—that would have made him seventeen—he had just made a fool of himself with his first lover, a French college student on holiday. He’d come before the woman had her clothes off and she complained to anyone willing to listen. He was, to say the least, humiliated. Martine was determined not to make the same mistake. He took all summer to seduce me.”
The melancholy in her voice, accompanied by a glassy nostalgia in her gaze, tugged at Grey. Made him jealous of a boy barely sixteen, who’d taken his time awakening his lover, if for no other reason than to insure he didn’t embarrass himself. He’d probably read books. Watched movies. Guys like him torked Grey off. He should have had to flounder and blunder like the rest of the teenage boys in the world.
“No fumbling around, huh?”
Reina blinked her eyes, as if clearing the memory away so she could answer. “Martine? So gentle, so fascinated by my reactions, almost as if he was taking notes. I’m sure he must have fumbled, but how would I have known? I was only fourteen.”
Grey tossed back his brandy, attempting to hide his surprise.
“What?” she asked immediately, sensing his shock. “I told you that before. In fact, if I remember correctly we made a contest of it and I won the first month’s rent on this house.”
She crawled closer to him on the bed, attempting to look through the glass he tried to hide behind. He finished the brandy quickly and diverted her scrutiny by handing her his snifter. “I know. Never fails to throw me.”
