“You are a minx,” he chastised.
“Absolutely.” She chuckled lightly, the soft corners of her mouth tilting upwards, a shining brightness in her eyes once more.
“So, what are these ideas?”
Marco waited impatiently while she pretended to consider it carefully.
“How about making you wear a loin cloth?”
He gulped. What the hell had he got himself into? He should have kept his mouth shut. But, oh, no, he’d gone and asked.
“Genies always wear a loin cloth when they’re serving their masters. Well in this case, mistress,” she corrected.
“Mistress?” Marco kept his voice smooth as silk. “You want to be my mistress?”
He heard her sharp gasp, embarrassment registering on her face, and felt a moment of triumph.
“That’s not what I meant at all.”
“No? You disappoint me.” Yeah. Shame. “Is it that a mistress is not the same in Italian as in English?”
Carly’s face flushed with color and her lips parted. She wiped the tip of her tongue over them, and his body tightened.
“You’re having me on.”
Marco heard a shaking resonance in her voice. He wanted to smile at her courage under fire, but restrained himself. She was a good sparring partner, and he always liked a challenge. “As if I would.”
“Yeah.” She smiled. “You would. You know perfectly well I wasn’t inferring I’d be your mistress.”
He grinned then took another sip of his wine, savoring the fruity taste as it slid over his tongue. He rested his gaze on her lips. Lush and ripe. Ready to be kissed.
“This is a game,” he admitted, smiling. “Like cat and mouse.” Yet he had still to decide who was who.
Dinner over, night loomed, and with no city lights, the glow of the lighthouse to the north was the only evidence of man. On the table, the naked flame of candlelight flickered.
“Fancy a coffee?” Marco asked and passed her a cup. Carly took it, giving a brief nod, and headed out to the patio. He followed like the proverbial bee to honey, he thought with a wry sense of self-mockery.
Outside, the night air was warm, a testament to the gulf winds. Cicadas chirped, and a faint breeze wafted up from the ocean, stirring the tips of the palms and banana trees. The fragrance from the wild frangipani and the gardenia growing nearby were a heady mix to his already over-indulged senses.
Carly sat on the step and rested against the railing. He followed.
She burst into laughter as they both spoke at once.
“You first,” he acquiesced.
“Okay, I was…um,” she prevaricated. “I was teasing, before. Joking, you understand.”
“About being my mistress?”
“Mm.” Embarrassed, she looked away.
“How do you know I wasn’t?”
Her head whipped up and she stared at him wide-eyed, lips parted. It set his body into overload once more.
“Your lips are for kissing and your body made for loving.”
“You know the deal, Mr. Valente,” she said, her tone thick with a concoction of fear and formality. “I’m not sleeping with you. There are separate rooms. I expect you to be honorable.”
“Deals can be broken,” he suggested.
“You are joking—aren’t you?”
He wished he were, but realized as soon as he’d said the words, he meant them. Totally. His body told him. Heat coursed through his veins as the thought of sleeping with Carly lit his brain like fireworks on bonfire night.
“For forty-eight hours I’ve wondered what it would be like to make love with you. Feel your body under mine, touching, tasting. Filling you…”
“Enough.” Carly jumped up. Her cup toppled to the sand, and the wail of an owl fluttering overhead brought Marco crashing to his senses. He shouldn’t tease her. He wasn’t some uncouth youth unable to control himself. He stamped back an oath and sucked in a steadying breath.
“Carly?”
But it was too late. He’d scared her off. She’d scuttled to her own cabin, leaving him alone and his body on fire for what he couldn’t have.
So much for bedtime. Sleep eluded Marco as it had the previous night, and the reason was exactly the same.
Carly.
Carly with eyes so somber and sad at times he wanted to hold her and tell her everything would be all right. His reaction was an anomaly he couldn’t understand. He wasn’t acting like the Marco Valente he knew himself to be. That Marco was business first and pleasure second, with no room for relationships.
The fact that she lay on the other side of his bedroom wall was in no way soothing. He was wired, and every sound reverberated in his ears tenfold. Playing Romeo was a lot harder than he’d expected. Groaning, he turned onto his side and tossed aside the coverlet. His skin prickled from the soft ocean breeze wafting through the window.
Good.
Perhaps a little chill would tame his libido. But as the crescendo of the crashing waves with their age-old rhythm drifted from the foreshore, he cursed, mouthing the worst Italian he could think of. He rolled onto his stomach, shoved the pillow over his head and tried to drown out all sound.
Minutes ticked past and he rolled over again. It wasn’t working. Besides, who was he trying to kid? It had nothing to do with the beach, the waves or even the constant chorus of cicadas. It was Carly. Carly with the lustrous hair that tantalized him so relentlessly. He wanted to wind his fingers through it and let it drape across his bare skin. Carly with the long, sleek legs that were every man’s fantasy—especially his.
“Shit.” It was no good. Sleep was impossible. Giving up, he hauled himself out of bed. Perhaps a swim would knock some sense into him.
Some hope. But he’d try anything to expunge the vision of auburn tresses and legs from heaven from his brain.
He hadn’t gone more than a few yards when he heard a whispered breath.
“Who’s there?”
Marco stepped closer and froze. Carly wore the skimpiest of nightdresses. A baby-doll number that was enticing yet innocent all at once.
He gulped. Under the shards of the silvery night sky, her attire was as sexy as hell and outlined every curve, every nuance, molding to the crest of her breasts. Who needed lace and silk when white cotton and Carly were combined? The vision was as alluring as anything he’d ever seen.
A shy smile lit her face. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Must be the sea air. Too much of a good thing.”
“Mm.” Her gaze returned to the ocean, while his was held captive by the siren in front of him.
Moonbeams swept across the sky and over the peak of the waves, making them glitter, while the stars appeared like icy diamonds in the inky blackness. Every few minutes, the beacon from the lighthouse scanned the horizon then disappeared. As it vanished from view, Carly shivered.
“Here, let me.” Marco pulled her to him, exhaling as she leaned into his chest. He wrapped her in the circle of his arms and held her close. His body tightened as the tangle of her glorious auburn locks brushed across his bare chest. “That better?” he finally managed to ask.
She nodded.
He was thankful she wasn’t in one of her bantering moods because he didn’t think he could string more than two syllables together, let alone a sentence.
He trailed a kiss across her hair, inhaling the heady scent he had come to recognize as hers. Lavender and roses, a combination as old-fashioned as it was intoxicating.
Time stood still. Lost in his own world, he could only feel. And it felt damn good. The rise and fall of her breasts swelling against the cotton drugged him, catching him in a web of need. His body was on fire, hungry for hers.
“I should get some sleep.” Carly’s soft voice interrupted Marco’s wild dreams and thrust him back to reality. He dropped his hands, and she stepped from him. The emptiness swallowed him whole.
“Sleep would be good,” he agreed. It was an outright lie. Sleep was impossible. What he really wanted wa
s to keep her here at his side. To touch her, taste, feel. Blood surged in his veins. His body was awake with an urgent, burning and absolute desire he’d never felt before.
But without a backward glance Carly walked away and he could only stand and watch, mesmerized by the sensual sway of her buttocks beneath the filmy nightdress. His groin swelled in protest, and he bit back a groan. Right now any sort of oblivion would be better than the war his body waged.
Marco desperately wanted to follow her.
He didn’t.
Instead, he turned and stared numbly out across the ocean with his brain cells in a go-slow mood. It suited him just fine. That way he didn’t have to feel or think.
Huh! Who was he kidding? Carly was very much under his skin—and it itched like hell.
She’d survived day one.
Carly snuggled beneath the bed covers as daylight filtered through the lace panel undulating in the breeze at the open window. She wondered what day two would bring. And day three and four?
More of the same?
She hoped—for what?
Hoped not?
A light tap at her door interrupted her musings, and when Marco entered, her heartbeat upped a notch and her senses came suddenly alive.
“Breakfast, madam.” He held a tray. A bud of hibiscus lay to one side beside a cup of steaming hot coffee and a plate of toast and jam. The rich and intoxicating fertile aroma of the toasted coffee beans yanked Carly instantly awake, the pungency making her nostrils flare. She sat up, aware at the same time of where she was, and hauled the bed cover up under her chin.
“You didn’t have to do this,” she said, annoyed her cheeks heated automatically.
Marco acknowledged her blush with a slight upward flick at the corner of his mouth, an action that sent the blood surging through her veins and made her bones melt. Her own lips were as parched as the desert, and it wasn’t because she was thirsty—well, at least not for water.
“Perhaps not, but as your genie, it is my honor to serve you.”
“Honor, now that’s a word you don’t hear too often these days.”
“Honor is a lost commodity.”
“Is honor important to you?” she asked.
“Honor in life, in business. Family. These are important things.”
“You’ve never mentioned your family,” she said, hoping he might hint at his past. So far, she knew absolutely zilch.
“My family is a confused affair,” he said, not offering anything more. “Eat your breakfast, we have a busy day.”
“Sounds promising.”
Framed by the door, he turned to her. “Was yesterday so terrible? Do you need to bury yourself in the sand with your laptop?”
“No… I,” she stuttered. “Once I’d gotten over the shock of being alone with a virtual stranger—correction, complete stranger,” she said, giving him a tentative smile only to have her pulse lurch when his brows rose in tandem and he winked at her. She coughed and cleared her throat. “Actually, it turned out to be a rather nice day.”
“Nice?”
“Yes, nice. Is there something wrong with nice?”
Marco laughed and gave her a teasing smile. “We fly on my magic carpet to an island paradise, I indulge your fantasies, and you call it nice.”
Fantasy—if only he knew.
“Once I decided to give in rather than fight it, I did begin to enjoy myself.”
“That’s a relief. To think it was only nice would destroy the genie myth,” he said and placed a hand across his heart in mock horror.
“Well, we can’t have that.” Carly tossed the bed covers back, forgetting her barely there nightdress until it was too late, but when she caught the flicker of bold assessing in his gaze before he looked away, she faltered then decided to brazen it out. “So, what have you planned?”
“Eat, put some clothes on,” he instructed. “Then see what the day holds.”
“Great.” She shot him a smile. “Now get out of here. Can’t have a genie in the boudoir too long. I need to dress.”
Placing her palms firmly on his shoulders, she turned him around and gave him a playful pat on the derrière.
He left pronto, and her gaze followed him out of her bedroom, focusing on that way too cute butt of his.
Oh, boy, big mistake.
Heat scalded every inch of Carly’s body, and when she glanced down to her open hand, she was surprised there wasn’t a burn mark on it where her fingers had touched his taut jean-clad derrière.
“Don’t touch what you can’t afford.”
This was bad. Very bad.
She slammed the bedroom door shut and retreated to dress. She had better get her head round this before day two began.
“Pure bliss,” Carly drooled as she took the last step onto the patio.
“You deserved a good day.”
And it had been. Her genie had seen to that. Relaxing by the shore, swimming. Marco peeling the exotic fruit, feeding her. All the things a genie should do. The weather had been perfect, the day perfect. Which surprised her. Carly hadn’t expected to enjoy her time here. She was focused. Centered. But somehow, Marco had wiped the slate clean, and she hadn’t thought about work all day.
She turned to face her genie. “It has been a lovely day. Thank you.”
Marco bowed low. “My pleasure.”
Pleasure. Pure pleasure. Suddenly, her tongue thickened and she struggled to speak. “You’re good company,” she finally managed to say.
He leaned against the railing, eyes narrowed, shading them from the glaring late afternoon sun. “You sound as if you’re surprised.”
“No. It’s just…” Carly exhaled a loud sigh. “Let’s face it, we didn’t exactly know each other before this, um…”
“Experiment,” he suggested.
Embarrassed, she looked away.
“The trouble is, no one is going to know about it, and more importantly, your friends won’t even know the mystery man turned up.”
“No. I was thinking about that. I thought maybe I could say Mr. Invisible and I had a row.”
“A row?”
“We’ll have a blazing argument and I’ll tell my friends Mr. Invisible was really a big jerk and I tossed him.”
“A jerk? You’re going to dump me?” Marco’s voice held a hint of astonishment.
Surprised at his reaction, Carly took a sideways glance at his inscrutable face and her heart did a gigantic flip. She wished she knew what he was thinking, but one look at the ever-changing color of Marco’s eyes only served to augment her mounting urge to bolt. With every passing hour she was increasingly out of her depth.
But something, whatever it was, held her back. Besides, swimming to the mainland wasn’t an option in paradise.
“Not you, exactly,” she corrected, “but my so-called mystery man.”
“That is me. A man has his pride. You’re going to dump me.”
“Well, not really you. I mean, you came, but it could have been a thousand other men.”
“A thousand. That is impressive. I didn’t know you’d interviewed a thousand.”
“I didn’t.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear it.”
“You are?”
“Competition is good, but a thousand other men. Even I know the odds,” he chuckled.
Wordless, Carly stared at her hired Romeo. Even if there were a hundred thousand other men, she reasoned, Marco would have won hands down. That particular thought shocked Carly and she began to tremble, overtaken by lightheadedness.
“You all right?” Marco reached for her hand, holding it in his. Touch to touch, skin on skin, his thumb stroking a path across her palm. He laced his fingers through hers and gently massaged her hand.
Once again words hung in her throat as she stared down at her own pale hand dotted with the sun’s kisses, resting in the broad expanse of his. His touch was surprisingly soft, a caress, slow and languorous, a hypnotizing motion that teased and soundlessly promised more.
&nbs
p; Carly blinked several times and pulled herself out of Marco’s grasp. That was enough of those wayward thoughts. This was getting ridiculous.
Vainly, she tried to steady her shaking hands and shoved them behind her back as if it would hide the heat Marco’s touch ignited. “I’m fine,” she lied, keeping her face averted. Marco had a way of seeing into her thoughts, her soul, and she wasn’t going to fall into that trap. “I need some time alone, that’s all.”
“You want to run away again, cara mia.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Am I? Think about it. You relax, you begin to enjoy yourself and then you want to hide away, to not think, to not feel. You are scared of feeling.”
“Am not,” she denied hotly, realizing at the same time she sounded like a petulant child.
But Marco merely smiled, the soft lines at the corners of his eyes crinkling, sending blood rushing to her temples. Beneath her shirt, her breasts thrust against the constraints of her lacy bra. This was pure, unadulterated heat—and lust.
He stood close by. Too close for comfort.
And, yes, she wanted to run—sort of.
“Last night you didn’t run from my touch. You welcomed my arms around you.”
“I was cold.”
Marco chuckled, his tone richly bold and inviting. “Hmm, but you warmed under my touch.”
“I’m not my sisters, Marco. Nor my mother. Don’t even think I’ll have a fling with you. I’ve worked hard and hauled myself out from the cyclic environment of my family. I’ve succeeded beyond my dreams.” Carly broke her monologue and gasped for air. Marco’s gaze bored down on her, and she folded her arms across her chest, lifting her chin with defiance.
“But what about your wildest dreams, cara? What about those?”
“I don’t have any.”
“Liar,” he whispered. His intense gaze speared right through her, and she tried to look away, but his fingers gripped her chin, holding it fast.
“Everyone has dreams, Carly. Even you. Dreams. Fantasies. What about them?”
Her lips pursed into a thin, disapproving line.
“Don’t deny it, cara. Dig a little deeper, search for them.”
Romeo for Hire Page 5
