“Cara, don’t you realize this yet? This whole island is another world. This paradise is your grotto.”
“That sounds rather magical,” she sighed. Moving toward the shoreline, she stepped onto the sand and bent over to wring out the excess water from her hair. But when she stood, it was to face Marco whose blatant arousal burned in his darkly powerful eyes. She quickly looked away.
“You’re getting burnt.”
“Am I?” Her voice was a soft whisper.
“Si. You need to put on more sun block.” Marco walked a few steps away, reached for his bag and pulled out a white tube. “See, I’m a regular boy scout.”
“My hero. Are you prepared for everything?” But the moment she uttered the words, Carly realized how searching they were and blushed to the roots of her hair. She tried to subdue the racing imagery that whirred like a recurring video in her mind, and failed.
“Did you join the Boy Scouts in Italy?” she finally managed to ask, hoping the change of topic would douse the fire igniting in her belly.
“What makes you think I live in Italy?” Marco’s tone was sharply reproving.
“Well, don’t you? I mean you are Italian, right?”
“Si.” But he didn’t expand and, as his fingers slathered the thick cream across her shoulders and down her back to just above the line of her bikini bottom, all air evaporated from her lungs. Her body reacted with a tantalizingly aching awareness to the slick graze of his caress, while her brain struggled with a silent plea. No. Stop. Don’t tempt me.
“Italy was the land of my birth, but my mother is English.”
“Oh.” Carly wished she could think of something more intelligent to say, but every word dried up on the tip of her tongue as he continued to massage the cream into her overheated skin. It was like an elixir, setting her on fire with desire. One she really should douse, but didn’t. She played for time, anything to dissipate the want. “When did you come to New Zealand?”
“Ten years ago. I’ve lived in New Zealand and Italy.”
“And your mother?”
Marco faltered. He was clearly uncomfortable, and Carly heard his barely audible sigh. She snatched a look at him over her shoulder, shocked as she saw a deep and abiding sadness etched in the suddenly somber lines of his face.
“My mother lives here now.”
“Is she married?” He hadn’t said mother and father, so Carly presumed Papa Valente wasn’t in the picture. Funny, Papa Valente sounded just like Papa Mason.
“Married. Oh, si, Mama marries. Well not at the moment, but…” His voice trailed off and he dropped his hand from her shoulder. “Enough about the real world. This island is not reality. Let’s enjoy it.”
Carly wondered at his sudden change, but chose to say nothing. “Isn’t that the truth. This island definitely isn’t reality. Mind you, the whole scenario is something from cloud cuckoo land,” she said. And who would have believed she would be ensconced with her own version of Romeo.
“Right, like good Boy and Girl Scouts,” Marco instructed, his mood lightening in the flicker of an eye, “we will explore the island.”
He held his hand out to her and smiled. It was as infectious as it was dazzling, and also very sexy, sending Carly’s stomach into a tailspin. Damn it, those butterflies were at it again, kicking up their heels at her expense.
An hour later however, they’d tramped inland after having run out of beach, finding the craggy crevices too steep and sharp to traverse.
The vegetation was quite dense inland, and as Carly edged her way through an archway of palms, she recognized the tinkling sound of water coming from behind a small copse. Veering toward the sound, she brushed aside a heavy frond and came to an abrupt halt. There, on the other side of the clearing, was a sparkling clear waterfall. Like a jewel in a crown of green emeralds, it cascaded over a wall of rock and into a crescent-shaped pool. Carly thought she had died and gone to heaven. The sound was an elixir to her hot and sticky body and beckoned instantly.
“It’s glorious,” she called out as she trailed a hand in the crystal-clear pool.
Marco followed suit, dipped his fingers and grimaced.
“Okay, so it’s chilly,” she admitted.
“Try freezing.”
“Where’s your Boy Scout spirit gone to now? I thought Italian men prided themselves on machismo.”
A burst of deep male laughter ricocheted around their hidden oasis. “You calling me a chicken? I am not some Italian youth who sandpapers the front of his jeans to look manly.”
Carly did a double take. “You’re not serious, are you?”
“It has been known.”
“Oh, my.” She blushed to her roots.
“Don’t worry, it is not something I’ve ever resorted to.”
She gulped, working double hard to stifle the urge to glance down his length. “Glad to hear it. I mean, not that I’m glad…oh, you know what I mean.” Well, what else could she say? Sandpaper. Yikes. Talk about desperate. She stole a glance at Marco. There was nothing desperate about this man. He oozed sex without even trying. He was macho, manly, whatever you wanted to call it. He wore it like a second skin, a part of him that was so integral that it was one and the same. Yet, she acknowledged, she barely knew anything about him. There was no way, however, she would call Marco “Mr. Invisible”. He couldn’t help but stand out.
Carly fanned her face with her hand. She was hot. Way too hot, and it wasn’t anything to do with the sun or the temperature. Still clad in her bikini, she slipped and stood under the waterfall, letting it spill around her, sending watery ripples across the pool.
“Why don’t you join me, or is it too cold?” she teased.
Marco’s eyes narrowed, shadowed by the heavy fall of his coal-black lashes. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what he was thinking.
“Is that a challenge?”
Oh, boy. Her tongue licked over her suddenly parched lips. “You could look at it that way, I suppose,” she teased.
“I never run from a challenge, cara mia.”
His answer hung between them, though it was what he hadn’t said that worried her. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.” But before she had time to refute the challenge, Marco stripped off the still-damp jeans he’d donned after their swim and joined her.
Naked! He was naked. Completely naked. Oh, my God. She choked back a gasp as he circled her like a lion on the prowl. Her head began to spin and her breasts peaked, aroused to fever pitch, the buds swollen and achingly sensitive.
“You should never challenge a man. It is like that English saying, a red rag to a bull.”
There was a roaring in Carly’s head and the only thing she could focus on was a bare-chested Marco, the taut muscles of his shoulders and washboard abdomen tapering down…
Her gaze lowered to where the water lapped his torso, and she blinked furiously. Nope, she wouldn’t, couldn’t and definitely shouldn’t think about it, but when Marco bent his head to hers, Carly knew she was lost.
Again.
“I want to meet your challenge.”
“How do you know what my challenge is?” she parried, surprised any words could actually pass her lips.
Heaven help her. Carly groaned inwardly at the audacity of her teasing remark. Marco was so close she could feel the heat radiating from his body. So close that when his breath fanned her inordinately sensitive skin, her eyes shuttered momentarily and she gloried in every wave after shockingly wanton wave of sensations.
He laughed then, a deep, barrel-chested sound. “You are the challenge. You challenge me with every movement.”
Oh, Lordy! “You’re being fanciful.” But there was a knot of tense emotion blasting her body that Carly knew she had no chance of controlling.
“Fanciful. Si. Very much so. I fancy you very much.”
“You do?” Her voice came out as a squeak. Why was it that around Marco she couldn’t think or speak or anything?
“You seem surprised.”
Her eyes widened even further, but she had no time to answer. No time to think. Besides, she wasn’t sure she wanted to think. Marco lowered his head to hers, blocking out the sun, shadowing her as he pulled her against the hardness of his body. Strong arms held her tight. Her body melted into his as his heat threaded a path through her. But when his lips sought hers in an oh-so-very-tantalizing kiss, all air was sucked from her lungs, casting her senses into a world she had never known until now…but wanted to, very much.
She clung to him for dear life, not trusting her limbs to support her if she let go. She wanted his kisses to go on and on. Forever, she prayed as his lips slanted over hers. He slipped a hand beneath her bikini top and began to pay undivided attention to her breasts. Carly reveled in the feeling of pure pleasure his touch elicited. If she had thought she had died and gone to heaven, then surely this was paradise.
Over and over his fingers brushed across one hardened peak till she wanted to scream, his touch sending sparks of liquid fire racing through her, drugging her brain. She could only feel, thought totally impossible. She swayed toward him, aching for more, and when his arousal pulsed and pressed against her stomach, she let out a deep, satisfied sigh.
Marco stilled and pulled back a fraction, his dark, shrouded eyes gazing down at her nakedness, firing a sudden shyness in her. Nervously, she bit at her lower lip. She could still taste him.
“Beautiful,” he whispered. A look of adoration glittered in his blue eyes. Carly stepped out of his arms, surprised at the intense need seemingly taking over her every action and reaction. She’d let her guard down, the sentry to her heart not challenging everything that was Marco. She shook her head at the irony. How she had fought this—her need for Marco’s touch.
Not now, though. Now she wanted it.
She smiled a sweet, tentative sort of smile. Never before had she felt so beautiful to a man. Never had she been so reassured, so wanted.
Be careful, Cupid may pierce your heart.
But Carly refused to listen to the inner warnings.
Just then a flock of birds flew overhead, their cawing startling her, and she slipped, tumbling off balance, her feet sliding out from beneath her. Marco made a grab for her, but she slipped beneath the surface, swallowing a mouthful as she went, her head and arms scraping painfully across the rocky bottom.
In one swift movement, he pulled her choking and spluttering to the surface. Mud and silt rained down her face, stinging her eyes. As she brushed her hair aside, something warm oozed across her hand and trickled between her fingers.
“Dio mio.” Marco scooped her up without another word and carried her to the side of the rock pool. Gently, he set her on the edge. He held her arm out to inspect it. “Hold still,” he instructed, as he examined the damage through the rivulets of blood trailing down her arm.
“Don’t fuss, Marco, it’s just a scratch.”
“Hardly. There’s a jagged cut.”
She stared down at her arm. A long, purplish graze littered with shards of ground rock mixed with blood covered the entire length of her arm. A surge of shock and delayed pain ripped through her. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block it out.
“It hurts?”
“Of course it damn well hurts,” she snapped and blinked back unshed tears.
Marco’s lips pursed with concern. “This needs attention.”
“Don’t fuss. Just get me back to the cabin, it’ll be all right.”
“It needs cleaning.”
“Yes, yes. Marco, take me back to the cabin. Please.” Carly wasn’t sure she could keep her emotions buckled much longer. Her arm hurt—a lot. Actually, more than a lot. For a second, she concentrated on her breathing—slow and deep, garnering the strength to subdue the still-threatening tears. Marco swept her back into his arms.
“What the heck are you doing?”
“Taking you home.”
“I can walk,” she protested.
“Not if I can carry you.”
“But…”
Marco interrupted. “Woman, are you going to argue till you bleed to death?”
“It’s not that bad,” she whimpered, knowing her protests were feeble. But goodness, how could she cope with this? The man was naked as the day he was born.
“It’s not good, either,” he advised. “You have a large graze and you’re bleeding.”
“At least it’s red and not blue blood like royals,” she tried to joke.
Marco didn’t laugh.
“You have to do something first, Mr. Genie,” Carly whispered. As another bout of pain ripped through her, she squeezed her eyes closed.
“Your wish is my command.”
Her eyes opened and she battled to douse the flush of heat that stained her cheeks. Okay, she could do this. “Well, do you think you could actually put some clothes on?”
“Oh…is that all?”
That all? Wasn’t it enough he stood there buck naked, holding her?
But without saying a word, Marco propped her against a rocky outcrop. Her eyes fluttered open, but she refused to let her gaze drop. Oh, no, siree. She wouldn’t look.
Much as she’d like to.
She squeezed them shut again.
They say hearing is the last thing to go, and boy, oh, boy, she could hear. She heard Marco slide on his jeans, heard his grunt as he pulled the taut fabric over obviously still-damp skin and heard the zip slide up.
Then he was at her side again, lifting her into his arms. “Now do me a favor. Be quiet, lie still. We’ll be home in no time.”
Suitably chastised, Carly did as she was told and lay still in his arms, her head resting against his shoulder. She said nothing, but neither did Marco, though nothing could drown out the roar of his heart as it beat in rapid unison with hers.
Never had she been so glad to be back at their cabin. It had taken a lot longer than she’d expected, but Marco never complained and carried her the entire way.
“Stay there,” he instructed, depositing her on her bed and retreating to the bathroom. She heard him opening the cupboards and a few minutes later he returned carrying antiseptic cream, a bandage and a bowl of warm water.
“What are you going to do?”
“Play doctor.”
Carly’s eyes widened. “Now wait a minute, what do you know about first aid?”
“Enough. You want your arm to get infected?”
“Of course not, but…” Carly’s words trailed off as she looked down at the vicious laceration. It wasn’t that she didn’t want him treating her, but even now uncertainty ran deep. Only a short time ago she had been in his arms, kissing him, drugged by his touch.
She should have known better, should have resisted temptation. Never before had she thought being wounded would be her savior.
“It’s stopped bleeding, but it won’t take much to set it off. It looks like something out of a horror movie.”
Carly grimaced. “Thanks a bunch. So what am I, Lily Munster?”
“I don’t think it’s very deep. Lots of bleeding, like a head wound.”
As a grim-faced Marco cleaned away the embedded blood and grime, she bit down on her tongue, holding back tears as waves of pain washed over her.
But, like a knight in shining armor, he treated her like his queen, bandaging her wound then carrying her to the bathroom so she could clean herself up.
Marco took over. Dealt with her injury, cooked dinner. Now, as he put away the last of the evening meal, Carly watched him work in silence.
“You’re some guy, Marco,” she admitted.
He cocked an eyebrow, smiling slightly, but said nothing and continued cleaning the kitchen.
“Cook, nursemaid, doctor, Tarzan. Although your tree-climbing skills need a bit of a shake up,” she teased.
“Thanks very much. Next time we need a bunch of bananas from the tallest tree this side of the island, I’ll let you climb.”
“Not a problem. I was a regular tomboy as a child. The first to climb
to the top of the jungle gym.”
“I’ll bet.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Oh, si, I believe you to be the best of all challengers.”
Challenge.
Carly’s mind filled with memories of his kisses, his touch, and her throat dried up. Deciding it best to divert her attention, and hopefully Marco’s, she gazed out the french doors. Night had arrived. Day two was almost over. Suddenly, Carly was hit by an overwhelming wave of tiredness. It inched through her, limb by limb, encasing her in a desperate need to sleep. Her eyes fluttered closed and her head lolled to one side and within minutes, her breathing was regular.
Glued to the chair, Marco was unable to drag his gaze away from a sleeping Carly. Guilt, oppressive and weighty, coiled in impenetrable knots in his gut. He’d made another quick call to the office. All was well, but it hadn’t lightened his mood, which was deathly black.
Okay, so things were going smoothly on the mainland. He should be ecstatic. The deal was sealed and going ahead as scheduled. In several months CV Hotels would be starting the next phase of their expansion to include the boutique hotel market. Why the hell then did he not feel content?
A whispered snuffle escaped Carly’s lips, and she stirred, drawing Marco out of his self-censure. She turned onto her side, and the quilt he’d draped over her fell to the ground.
Pushing himself out of his chair, he stooped and picked it up. About to put it back over her, he hesitated and brought it to his face. He inhaled. He could smell her fragrance, heady and teasing.
Lavender.
The perfume tangled with memories of his childhood, of Italy, of his mother, his stepfathers…
His eyes shuttered, and an overwhelming sense of loss ripped through him, a pain so physical, yet it was merely his mind reeling with past hurts. He dropped back into the chair, and his shoulders sagged. He cradled his head in his hands and took a deep, steadying breath.
He used to hate the smell of lavender.
Used to.
But now… His gaze dropped to the woman in front of him, at peace in her sleepy world. Now, the scent meant only one thing.
Carly.
He watched her, ensconced in her tranquil sleep-filled oblivion. He had promised her four days. He would keep his promise.
Romeo for Hire Page 7
