He arched a dark brow in a wry manner. ‘It’s hardly public out here.’
‘You’re here.’
His gaze slowly but surely moved over her like a minesweeper, detonating all of her senses in the process. ‘Wasn’t that your goal, to get me outside of the château?’
She wrapped her arms around her body, hoping the light wasn’t good enough for him to see her in too much detail. ‘I want to get out. I’m getting cold.’
‘So?’
‘So you need to leave.’
His dark eyes did another lazy sweep of her upper body, lingering for a moment on the upthrust of her breasts where her crossed-over arms had showcased them as good as any push-up bra. Her flesh tingled where his gaze had rested. It felt like a fire had been lit beneath her skin.
‘Last time I looked, this was my château and my pool. If anyone is trespassing it is you.’
Lily set her mouth. ‘I’m not getting out until you leave.’
He gave her a devil-may-care smile, his hazel eyes glinting. ‘I’m not leaving until you get out.’
The water hadn’t seemed cold until he had laid down that challenge. Goose bumps peppered all over her body as she tried to stare him down. Her T-shirt clung to her like a wet sheet and she knew that right at this moment it was probably showing far more than she was trying to hide.
Was the moonlight muted enough that he wouldn’t see the roadmap of her pain on her arms? What did it matter if he did see it? It wasn’t as if she were trying to impress him. She was leaving at first light. She had packed all her things and was ready to go. Dominique had slipped the flight details he had booked under her door only a couple of hours ago.
‘Could you pass me my towel?’ It was a form of compromise but there was no way Lily was going to let him win this battle.
‘Swim a lap without the T-shirt.’
‘Pardon?’
His eyes trapped hers. ‘Take it off.’
She felt a traitorous frisson pass over her flesh at his authoritative tone. ‘I’ll take it off if you join me in the water.’ As soon as she issued the challenge, she regretted it. What was she thinking? He loved a challenge. Didn’t she know that by now?
‘Nice one.’ He gave her a gleaming half smile. ‘Clever. Tactical.’
‘So...’ She swallowed. ‘You’ll do it?’ Don’t do it! Don’t do it!
He moved his chair closer to the side of the pool. His eyes stayed on hers as he unbuttoned his shirt. Her breath stalled as each inch of his chest was revealed. He shrugged himself out of his shirt and tossed it to one side.
Lily gulped as he started on the waistband of his trousers. Was he really going to join her in the water? Yikes! ‘Um...maybe this is not such a great idea. What about your plaster cast? It’ll get soak—’
‘I’ll get another one put on if it gets wet. Anyway, it’s almost time it came off. What’s a couple of weeks?’
‘You can’t just ignore your doctor’s orders to do what you like.’
‘Water therapy was part of your plan for me, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, but you told me you didn’t want me to stay,’ Lily quickly reminded him. ‘I’m officially off duty. You terminated my contract. I don’t have to do anything with you if I don’t want to— What are you doing?’
‘I’m getting undressed.’
Lily clamped her hands over her eyes. ‘You can’t do that!’
‘I always swim naked when I’m at home. It’s totally private here.’
‘But I can see you!’
‘So?’
She stole a little peek from between her fingers. ‘I don’t want to see you.’
‘Then don’t look.’
How could she not look? He looked like he had just stepped down off a plinth in the Louvre, so beautifully carved and sculptured. Everything about him spoke of a man in the prime of his life, strong, virile and staggeringly potent if the proud heft of him beneath the black underwear he was wearing was any indication.
Was he going to take them off?
She opened her fingers a tiny bit wider. The muscles of his left arm bunched as they took his weight as he eased out of the chair but he left his underwear on. She wondered if peeling them off would be too difficult in the chair. Maybe once he was in the water...
Eek! He was in the water!
Lily snatched in a breath as the water his body displaced when he entered the pool moved across her breast like a liquid caress. Her nipples reacted as if he had touched them, tight and aching, so sensitive she could feel them pushing against the lace of her sodden bra.
Her belly quivered as she roved her gaze over his chest. He had the broad and well-defined shoulders and biceps of a regular swimmer. His chest was generously covered with coarse masculine hair that spread from a wide T across his pectoral muscles, narrowing down over the washboard of his flat abdomen to disappear—rather tantalisingly, she thought—beneath his hip-hugging briefs.
OK, my girl, remember that pair of lungs inside your chest? They’re for breathing.
Lily drew in a breath but it fluttered against her windpipe like the wings of a moth trapped inside a straw. Her heart was doing a crazy little pitter-pat pitter-pat behind her ribcage and the desire she thought had been dead and buried long ago reared its head and screamed, I’m alive!
He was holding on to the side of the pool with his left arm while he kept his other raised just above the water. He moved along the wall until he was in the deeper end so the water could support him, but even so his head and shoulders easily cleared the surface. For the first time Lily got a sense of how tall he was. She wouldn’t come up to his chin in her bare feet.
‘How does it feel?’ she asked.
‘Wet.’
Lily couldn’t read his expression, as he was in the shadow cast by the nearby shrubbery, but she got the sense he was not totally at ease being back in the water. She wondered if it was bringing back horrible memories of his accident. A water-based accident always held the terrifying prospect of drowning. How soon had help come to him? How long had he floundered with his arm broken and his spine damaged?
But a challenge was a challenge and he was clearly taking her up on it.
She moved closer to him, her legs treading water to keep her afloat as she got within touching distance. ‘Do you need a hand?’
‘Right now a pair of legs would be quite handy. The ones I’ve got don’t seem to be working all that well.’
‘Can you move them at all? Sometimes the water helps you become more aware of your body.’
‘I’m aware of it, all right.’
This time Lily could see his expression and her belly gave another little swoop and dive at the glitter of male desire shining there. She was aware of his body, too.
Very aware.
One of her legs brushed against one of his underneath the water. It sent a shockwave of fizzing sensations all the way to her core.
His gaze went to her mouth, lingering there for a heart-stopping moment before ensnaring hers once more. ‘So, you’ve got me outside and now you’ve got me in the water. What’s the next step in your plan?’
She gave him an arch look. ‘I get you to apologise.’
‘For what?’
‘For telling me to get out of your sight.’
His eyes measured hers for a pulsing moment. She could see the battle playing out on his features: the tiny twitch of a muscle near the corner of his mouth; the tensing of his jaw; the set of his lips into a tight line; the fissure of a frown between his black eyebrows.
‘I never wanted you here in the first place.’
‘There are much better ways of telling a person their services are no longer required than dismissing them from the table like a misbehaving child,’ she tossed back.
‘You o
verstepped the mark.’
‘Because I dared to criticise your personality?’
‘No.’ His eyes were as hard as diamonds. ‘Because you wouldn’t do as I said.’
‘I’m sure you’re used to people bowing and scraping to you because you’ve got truckloads of money, but in my opinion respect has to be earned, not bought. And, just for the record, I don’t take orders and I won’t be bullied into obedience.’
‘We seem to be at somewhat of an impasse, Miss Archer, for I won’t apologise and you won’t take an order.’
Lily didn’t back down even though his look was long and steely and the set to his mouth determined. ‘It won’t matter come tomorrow. I’ll be leaving, as per your instructions. And, let me tell you, I’m very glad to be going. Glad, glad, glad. Ecstatic, actually.’
‘Of course you are.’ His top lip curled in that mocking way he had perfected. ‘You’ve been looking for an escape route from the first moment you arrived. I’m playing right into your hands by telling you to leave.’
Then why did it feel so wrong to be going? ‘You’re not my preferred type of client.’
‘Because I’m male?’
‘Because you’re arrogant and insufferably rude.’
The warm night air sizzled with electricity as his green-and-brown gaze held hers in silent combat. But it seemed much more than a simple battle of wills. Lily was intensely aware that the same water that surrounded and touched her body was surrounding and touching his. It added a level of intimacy that was disturbing and yet exciting at the same time.
‘Why are you wearing a T-shirt?’
The question coming out of the silence threw her for a moment. ‘I—I have very sensitive skin.’
‘The moon doesn’t have UV rays.’
She gave him a withering look as she folded her arms across her chest. ‘Ha ha.’
His eyes grazed the shape of her breasts and then narrowed as they came to rest on her forearms. His gaze came back to hers, dark and concerned. ‘What happened to your arms?’
Lily dropped her arms back down below the water. ‘Nothing.’
‘Doesn’t look like nothing to me. It looks like you got up close and personal with a razor blade. Did you need stitches?’
‘No.’
‘Hospitalisation?’
Lily compressed her lips. She didn’t want to talk about that time in her life. She didn’t want to have to explain why she had felt so compelled to do what she had done. She just wanted to put it all behind her and move on.
She had moved on.
‘Did you cut anywhere else?’ His voice was gentle now rather than judgemental, which totally surprised her. Disarmed her.
She let out a breath of resignation. She was leaving in the morning; he could think what he liked of her. ‘My thighs.’
He winced as if he had personally felt each and every slice of the blades that had marked her flesh. ‘What happened to you?’
‘I bled. A lot.’
‘Not when you cut.’ He frowned at her attempt at black humour. ‘What happened to make you want to do that?’
Lily put on her tough-as-nails face. ‘I was a bit messed up a few years ago. I took it out on myself. Not a great way of handling things, but still.’
‘Drugs?’
‘No.’
‘Relationship problems?’
She gave a little cough of humourless laughter. ‘You could say that.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘No.’
‘Do you still cut?’
Lily flashed him an irritated look. ‘No, of course not.’
He held her gaze for longer than she felt comfortable with. He seemed to be seeing right through her façade.
It terrified her.
‘I’d like to get out of the pool.’ She gave him a haughty look. ‘Do I have to ask permission or are you going to stand there and watch me freeze to death?’
‘I’m not standing,’ he pointed out wryly. ‘I’m leaning. And you’re not freezing, you’re scared.’
She raised her chin. ‘Not of you.’
His gaze held hers in that quietly assessing way that unsettled her so much. ‘I’m very glad to hear it. How could we ever work together if you’re frightened of me?’
Lily blinked at him. ‘You want to work with me?’
‘Yes.’
‘But... But I thought...?’
‘I’d like you to stay for the month. I’ll pay you double the amount my brother offered.’
She looked at him in bafflement. Why had he changed his mind? Hadn’t her scars put him off? Most people shunned her when they saw her body. He was doing the opposite.
Why?
Who cares? Think of the money. Two years’ wages for a month’s work!
‘But I don’t understand...’
‘I quite like the idea of getting to know you, Lily Archer. I suspect no one else has achieved that before.’
She gave him a guarded look. ‘I suppose you see me as yet another challenge to overcome?’
‘No.’ His eyes glanced briefly at her mouth before coming back to mesh with hers. ‘I see you as a temptation I should resist.’
Her brows lifted. ‘Should?’
‘Can’t,’ he said, and before she could move even an inch out of his way he covered her mouth with his.
CHAPTER NINE
THE FEEL OF his mouth on hers made every nerve in Lily’s body stand up and quiver in delight. He tasted of mint and male heat, an intoxicating blend that made her senses spin out of control. His tongue found hers and called it into an erotic dance that made her insides do a series of frantic somersaults. It was a much harder kiss than his previous one, more focused, even more ruthlessly determined.
Even more irresistible.
His body was flush against hers, his erection pressing against her stomach. It burned like a brand against her, the primitive need it signalled calling out to her own. She felt the tingling of her desire deep in her pelvis, the throb-ache pulse that pounded in time with her blood.
Had she ever experienced sexual attraction like this before? If so, she couldn’t remember it, and nor could her body. It was as if she were experiencing desire for the very first time. Never before had her body felt so in tune with a man’s touch. She had never felt a need so strong she couldn’t find an excuse to delay its satiation. She softened against him like molten wax against a source of heat, her legs entwining with his.
Male against female, light against dark. It was a potent mix of hormones and needs that swirled and simmered in the water that enveloped them.
She wanted more.
She wanted to feel his hands and mouth on her breasts. She was so out of practice she didn’t know how to communicate her need. She made a little mewling sound against his lips, pressing closer; conscious he was only supporting himself with his one good arm.
He kissed her again, slowly first, and then deeply and passionately. She tasted the need that was thundering through his body. It called to everything that was female in her. She kissed him back with such fervour it made her heart race to think he wanted her even half as much as she wanted him.
Somehow they got to the steps so he could sit and she could stand between his open thighs. He cupped her breast with a gentle hand, his thumb rolling over the pebbled nipple as his mouth savoured hers in little nips, sucks and licks that thrilled her senses. Whatever fear or trepidation she had felt had completely dissipated. All she could feel was the desire for completion. It was a bone-deep ache that made her blood hum inside the circuitry of her veins.
He lifted his mouth just a fraction off hers, his voice low, deep and sexy. ‘I want to make love to you.’
Lily suddenly realised the implications of what she was
doing. Where was her professionalism? Where was her self-control? What was she thinking, kissing Raoul Caffarelli as if her life depended on it? She wasn’t the type of girl to have a fling. She didn’t know how to be casual about sex; she didn’t want to be casual about it. It went against everything she had learned over the years.
She pulled back out of his embrace, her gaze shifting away from his. ‘I’m sorry...I’m not ready for this. I shouldn’t have given you the impression I was...um...interested. I’m not normally so...so forward.’
‘You don’t have to apologise.’
She met his gaze again. ‘You’re not...angry?’
‘Why would I be angry?’
‘You said you wanted to make love...’
‘I did. I do. But that doesn’t mean I have to do so right this very minute. I might be pretty stubborn and determined in other areas of my life, but I would never force a woman to have sex with me against her will. It’s not what a man with any decency does.’
Lily chewed at her lower lip, struck by how calm and in control he was. There was no sign of anger or resentment or any look that said ‘how could you do this to me?’. No pushing or shoving, no gripping or grabbing and insisting on having his needs met.
Just respect and quiet calm.
Emotions she thought she had safely locked behind the do-not-open-again door in her mind suddenly sprang out of their confinement like a jack-in-the-box let loose. Tears she had sworn she would never shed again sprouted in her eyes. She choked back a sob and buried her head in her hands.
‘Hey...’ His gentle tone made her cry all the harder.
‘I’m sorry.’ She brushed at her streaming eyes with the back of her hand. ‘You must think I’m a fool.’
‘I don’t think that at all.’
She took a shaky breath and tried to get her emotions back under control. ‘You’re the first man I’ve kissed in years. I never thought I’d ever want to get close to a man again. I deliberately didn’t get close...until now.’
‘You were...raped?’ His tone was full of indignation, which she found strangely comforting.
‘Yes.’
Never Underestimate a Caffarelli Page 10
