Cipriani's Innocent Captive

by Cathy Williams

  But he knew, deep down, that even though he had dismissed any notion of going anywhere near Katy the prospect of being holed up with her for a fortnight had not exactly filled him with distaste.

  He wondered whether he had even played with the forbidden thought of doing what his body wanted against the wishes of his brain. Or maybe he had been invigorated just by the novelty of having that mental tussle at all. In his well-ordered life, getting what he wanted had never posed a challenge, and internal debates about what he should or shouldn’t do rarely featured, especially when it came to women.

  He thought that if she had lived down to expectations and proved herself to be the sort of girl who had no morals, and really might have tried her luck with him, he would have had no trouble in eating, breathing and sleeping work. However, she hadn’t, and the more his curiosity about her had been piqued the more he had been drawn to her like a wanderer hearing the call of a siren.

  Which was so not him at all that he almost didn’t know how to deal with it.

  Except, his body was dealing with it in the time-honoured way, he thought, and then hard on the heels of that thought he wondered what she would do if she looked and saw the kind of response she’d awakened in him.

  Katy wasn’t sure whether it was the sudden silence, or just something thick and electric in the air, but she opened her eyes and turned her head, her mouth already opening to say something bland and chirpy to dispel the sudden tension.

  His eyes caught hers and she stopped breathing. She had a drowning sensation as she was swallowed up in the deep, dark, quiet depths of his eyes. Those eyes were telegraphing a message to her, or they seemed to be. Was she imagining it? She had no experience of a man like him. That cool, brooding, speculative expression seemed to be inviting a response, but was it? Flustered and confused, her eyes dipped...

  And then there was no doubt exactly what message was being telegraphed.

  For a few seconds, Katy froze while her mind went into free fall. He was turned on. Did he think that he could try it on and she would fall in line because she was easy? Who knew, he probably still believed that she was the sort who had affairs with married men, even though he surely should know better, because she had shared stuff with him, told him about her childhood and her parents and the morals they had instilled in her. Maybe he hadn’t believed her. Maybe he had taken it all with a pinch of salt because he was suspicious and mistrustful.

  She wasn’t easy. And yet, unleashed desire flooded through her in an unwanted torrent, crashing through common sense and good intentions. She wanted this man, this unsuitable man, and she wanted him with a craving that was as powerful as a depth charge.

  The shocking intensity of a physical response she had never, ever felt towards any man, including Duncan, scared the living daylights out of her. Mumbling something under her breath, she leapt to her feet, the glittering blue of the infinity pool beckoning like an oasis of safety away from the onslaught of confusion overwhelming her.

  Heart hammering in her chest, she scrambled forward, missed the step that gave down to the smooth wood around the pool and found herself flying forward.

  She landed with a painful thump, her knees stinging where she had grazed them after her airborne flight.

  Clutching her leg, she watched in fascinated slow motion as Lucas strode towards her, every lean muscle of his body intent.

  ‘What were you thinking?’ he asked urgently, scooping her up and ignoring her protests that he put her down because she was absolutely fine. ‘You took off like a bat out of hell. Something I said?’

  He was striding away from the pool area, carrying her as easily as he would carry a couple of cushions. Katy clutched his broad shoulders, horribly aware that in this semi-folded position there were bits of her on view that made her want to die an early death from embarrassment.

  One glance down and he would practically be able to see the shadow of one of her nipples.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ she croaked. ‘This is ridiculous. I tripped and fell!’

  ‘You could have broken something.’

  ‘I haven’t broken anything!’ Katy practically sobbed.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because if I had I wouldn’t be able to walk!’

  ‘You’re not walking. I’m carrying you. How much do you weigh, by the way? You’re as light as a feather. If I didn’t see how much food you’re capable of putting away, I’d be worried.’

  ‘I’ve always been thin,’ Katy said faintly, barely noticing where they were going because she was concentrating very hard on making sure no more of her bikini-clad body went on show. She felt she might be on the verge of passing out. ‘Please just take me to my cabin. That would be fine. I can clean my knee up and I’ll be as right as rain.’

  ‘Nonsense. How could I live with myself if I didn’t do the gentlemanly thing and make sure you’re all right? I wasn’t brought up to ignore damsels in distress.’

  ‘I’m not one of those!’

  ‘Here we are,’ Lucas intoned with satisfaction. He kicked open the door and, when Katy tore her focus away from her excruciating attempts to keep her body safely tucked away in the swimsuit, she realised where he had taken her.

  Away from the safety of the pool and straight into the hellfire of his private quarters.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LUCAS’S CABIN WAS different from hers insofar as it was twice the size and unnervingly masculine: dark-grey silky throw on the bed, dark-grey pillows, built-in furniture in rich walnut that matched the wooden flooring. He laid her on the bed and she immediately wriggled into a sitting position, wishing that she had something to tug down to cover herself, but instead having to make do with arranging herself into the most modest position possible, back upright, legs rammed close together and hands primly folded on her lap.

  Sick with tension, she watched him disappear into an adjoining bathroom, that made hers look like a shower cubicle, to return a minute later with a first-aid kit.

  ‘This really isn’t necessary...er... Lucas.’

  ‘You managed the first name. Congratulations. I wondered whether you would.’

  ‘I have a few grazes, that’s all.’

  He was kneeling in front of her and he began to feel her ankle with surprisingly gently fingers. ‘Tell me if anything hurts.’

  ‘Nothing,’ Katy stated firmly. She gave a trial tug of her leg so that Lucas could get the hint that this was all pretty ridiculous and overblown but he wasn’t having it.

  Relax, she told herself sternly; relax and it’ll be over and done with in a second and you can bolt back to your cabin. But how could she even begin to relax when those fingers were doing all sorts of things to her body?

  The feathery delicacy of his touch was stirring her up, making her breathing quicken and sending tingling, delicious sensations racing through her body like little lightning sparks. She looked at his down-bent head, the raven-black hair, and had to stop herself from reaching out and touching it just to see what it felt like between her fingers.

  Then she thought of the bulge of his arousal and felt faint all over again.

  ‘I’m surprised you have a first-aid kit to hand,’ she said breathlessly, tearing her fascinated gaze away from him and focusing hard on trying to normalise the situation with pointless conversation.

  ‘Why?’ Lucas glanced up briefly before continuing with his exceedingly slow exploration of her foot.

  ‘Because you don’t seem to be the type to do this sort of thing,’ Katy said honestly.

  ‘It’s essential to have a first-aid kit on board a sailing vessel. In fact, this is just one of many. There’s a comprehensive supply of medical equipment in a store room on the middle deck. You would be surprised at the sort of unexpected accidents that can happen when you’re out at sea, and there’s no ambulance available to make a five-minute dash to collect and take you to the nearest hospital.’ He was working his way gently up her calf, which was smooth, slender and sprinkled with g
olden hair. Her skin was like satin and still warm from the sun.

  ‘And you know how to deal with all those unexpected accidents?’ Lucas’s long, clever fingers were getting higher and, with each encroaching inch, her body lit up like a Christmas tree just a tiny bit more. Any higher and she would go up in flames.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ Lucas drawled. ‘Your knees are in a pretty terrible state, but after I’ve cleaned them up you should be fine. You’ll be pleased to know that nothing’s been broken.’

  ‘I told you that,’ Katy reminded him. ‘Why would I be surprised?’

  He was now gently swabbing her raw, torn skin and she winced as he patted the area with some oversized alcohol wipes, making sure to get rid of every last bit of dirt.

  ‘Because,’ Lucas said wryly, not looking at her, ‘I get the feeling you’ve pigeonholed me as the sort of money-hungry, ambitious businessman who hasn’t got time for anything other than getting richer and richer and richer, probably at the expense of everyone around him. Am I right?’

  ‘I never said that,’ Katy told him faintly.

  ‘It’s hard not to join the dots when your opening words to me were to accuse me of being capable of kidnapping you.’

  ‘You were kidnapping me, in a manner of speaking!’

  ‘Tell me how it feels to be a kidnap victim.’ His voice was light and teasing as he continued to tend to her knee, now applying some kind of transparent ointment, before laboriously bandaging it and then turning his attention to foot number two. ‘I always wanted to be a doctor,’ he surprised her and himself by saying.

  ‘What happened?’ For the first time since she had been deposited on his bed, Katy felt herself begin to relax, the nervous tension temporarily driven away by a piercing curiosity. Lucas could be many things, as she had discovered over the past few days. He could be witty, amusing, arrogant and always, always wildly, extravagantly intelligent. But confiding? No.

  ‘My father’s various wives happened,’ Lucas said drily. ‘One after each other. They looked alike and they certainly were all cut from the same cloth. They had their eyes on the main prize and, when their tenure ran out, my father’s fortune was vastly diminished. By the time I hit sixteen, I realised that, left to his own devices, he would end up with nothing to live on. It would have killed my father to have seen the empire his grandfather had built dwindle away in a series of lawsuits and maintenance payments to greedy ex-wives.

  ‘I knew my father had planned on my inheriting the business and taking over, and I had always thought that I’d talk to him about that change of plan when the time was right; but, as it turned out, the time never became right because without me the company would have ended up subdivided amongst a string of gold-diggers and that would have been that.’

  ‘So you gave up your hopes and dreams?’

  ‘Don’t get too heavy on the pity card.’ Lucas laughed, sitting back on his heels to inspect his work, head tilted to one side. He looked at her and her mouth went dry as their eyes tangled. ‘I enjoy my life.’

  ‘But it’s a far cry from being a doctor.’ She had never imagined him having anything to do with the caring profession and something else was added to the swirling mix of complex responses she was stockpiling towards him. She thought that the medical profession had lost something pretty big when he had decided to pursue a career in finance because, knowing the determination and drive he brought to his chosen field of work, he surely would have brought tenfold to the field of medicine.

  ‘So it is,’ Lucas concurred. ‘Hence the fact that I actually enjoy being hands-on when it comes to dealing with situations like this.’

  ‘And have you had to deal with many of them?’ She thought of him touching another woman, one of the skinny, leggy ones to whom those thong swimsuits forgotten on the yacht belonged, carefully stored just in case someone like her might come along and need to borrow one of them.

  ‘No.’ He stood up. ‘Like I said, my time on this yacht is limited, and no one to date has obliged me by requiring mouth-to-mouth resuscitation whilst out to sea.’ He disappeared back into the bathroom with the kit and, instead of taking the opportunity to stand up and prepare herself for a speedy exit, Katy remained on the bed, gently flexing both her legs and getting accustomed to the stiffness where the bandages had been applied expertly over her wounds.

  ‘So I’m your first patient?’

  Lucas remained by the door to the bathroom, lounging against the doorframe.

  Katy was riveted at the sight. He was still wearing his bathing trunks although, without her even noticing when he had done it, he had slung on his tee-shirt. He was barefoot and he exuded a raw, animal sexiness that took her breath away.

  ‘Cuts and grazes don’t honestly count.’ Lucas grinned and strolled towards her, holding her spellbound with his easy, graceful strides across the room. He moved to stand by the window which, as did hers, looked out on the blue of an ocean that was as placid as the deepest of lakes. His quarters were air-conditioned, as were hers, but you could almost feel the heat outside because the sun was so bright and the sky was so blue and cloudless.

  ‘I’m sorry if I ruined your down time.’

  ‘You never told me why you leapt off your deckchair and raced for the pool as though the hounds of hell were after you,’ Lucas murmured.

  She was in his bedroom and touching her had ignited a fire inside him, the same fire that had been burning steadily ever since they had been on his yacht. He knew why she had leapt off that deck chair. He had enough experience of the opposite sex to register when a woman wanted him, and it tickled him to think that she wasn’t doing what every other woman would have done and flirting with him. Was that because she worked for him? Was that holding her back? Maybe she thought that he would sack her if she was too obvious. Or maybe she had paid attention to the speech he had given her at the start when he had told her not to get any crazy ideas about a relationship developing between them.

  He almost wished that he hadn’t bothered with that speech because it turned him on to imagine her making a pass at him.

  Lucas enjoyed a couple of seconds wondering what it would feel like to have her begin to touch him, blushing and awkward, but then his innate pragmatism kicked in and he knew that she was probably playing hard to get, which was the oldest game in the world when it came to women. She had revealed all sorts of sides to her that he hadn’t expected, but the reality was that she had had an affair with a married man. She’d denied that she’d known about the wife and kiddies, and maybe she hadn’t. Certainly there was an honesty about her that he found quite charming but, even so, he wasn’t going to be putting any money on her so-called innocence any time soon.

  ‘It was very hot out there,’ Katy muttered awkwardly, heating up as she recalled the pivotal moment when raging, uncontrolled desire had taken her over like a fast-moving virus and she had just had to escape. ‘I just fancied a dip in the pool and unfortunately I didn’t really look where I was going. I should head back to my room now. I think I’ll give my legs a rest just while I have these bandages on—and, by the way, thank you very much for sorting it out. There was no need, but thanks anyway.’

  ‘How long do you think we should carry on pretending that there’s nothing happening between us?’ Which, frankly, was a question Lucas had never had to address to any other women because other women had never needed persuading into his bed. Actually, it was a question he had not envisaged having to ask her, considering the circumstances that had brought them together. But he wanted her and there was no point having a mental tussle over the whys and wherefores or asking himself whether it made sense or not.

  On this occasion, self-denial probably made sense, but Lucas knew himself and he knew that, given the option of going down the route of what made sense or the less sensible route of scratching an itch, then the less sensible route was going to win the day hands down every time.

  He also knew that he wasn’t a man who was into breaking down barriers and jumping o
bstacles in order to get any woman between the sheets—and why would he do that anyway? This wasn’t a game of courtship that was going anywhere. It was a case of two adults who fancied one another marooned on a yacht for a couple of weeks..

  In receipt of this blunt question, presented to her without the benefit of any pretty packaging, Katy’s eyes opened wide and her mouth fell open.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I’ve seen the way you look at me,’ Lucas murmured, moving to sit on the bed right next to her, and depressing the mattress with his weight so that Katy had to shift to adjust her body and stop herself from sliding against him.

  She should have bolted. His lazy, dark eyes on her were like lasers burning a hole right through the good, old-fashioned, grounded common sense that had dictated her behaviour all through her life—with the exception of those few disastrous months when she had fallen for Duncan.

  The slow burning heat that had been coursing through her, the exciting tingle between her legs and the tender pinching of her sensitive nipples—all responses activated by being in his presence and feeling his cool fingers on her—were fast disappearing under a tidal wave of building anger.

  ‘The way I look at you?’

  ‘Don’t be embarrassed. Believe me, it isn’t usually my style to force anyone’s hand, but we’re here and there’s a sexual chemistry between us. Are you going to dispute that? It’s in the air like an invisible electric charge.’ He laughed with some incredulity. ‘You’re not going to believe this, but it’s something I can’t remember feeling in a very long time, if ever.’

  ‘And you think I should be flattered?’

  Lucas frowned because this wasn’t the reaction he had been expecting. ‘Frankly, yes,’ he told her with complete honesty.