by Olivia Gates
Every step closer to his mystery woman solidified into fact what Durante had sensed from the first moment he saw her.
This was new. Surprising and stimulating. When he’d been certain nothing and no one would ever surprise or stimulate him. She did both, and far more, with every breath.
Her effect on him was so unprecedented that he’d done the unprecedented. He’d delegated running the rest of the charity function to his deputy. And he’d sent his bodyguards away, forbade them to follow him. He wanted to be alone with her at any price.
Her face tilted up as he approached. Beams from the nearest streetlight embraced it in a swathe of highlights and shadows. Her tresses billowed in the night breeze like undulating flames.
Contradictory compulsions wrenched at each other inside him. The need to capture, conquer, and the urge to savor, slow down.
The second impulse won out, forced his feet to stop before they took him all the way pressing her against her car.
He was close enough to reach out and run his fingers through that blazing cascade of hair. He didn’t. Somehow. He drew deep of her scent instead, let it permeate him, before he let it escape on a grudging exhalation. “So…you bid one million dollars for an hour with me.”
Her shoulders jerked on a dejected shrug. “Yeah. And for the record, I would have doubled the winning bid if I could have.”
He inhaled sharply. “You think I’m worth that much?”
“I think you’re worth every dollar of your billions.”
He bit into his lip. It was either that or drag her to him and bite into hers. As he would. Just not yet. What flowed between them deserved the reward of leisure and thoroughness. But holding back was a punishment, too. One her every word made harder to take. He was used to flattery, could sense falseness and self-interest even in trace quantities. He detected only sincerity from her. Alien urges swamped him, to punch the air, to thump his chest.
He shoved his hands into his pockets so they wouldn’t find their way around her. “I do have more hours available apart from the one that other bidder won, you know?”
“Oh. Oh. You mean…?”
The surge of hope on her face made him fist his hands in his pockets, emphasizing his—problem. It was either that or snatch them out and pounce on her. “I mean, if you’re still interested, I’ll take that million-dollar check.”
“If?” She coughed. Her eyes tore from his, slammed around, the dazed excitement in them tingling through him on a path that connected his fingertips to his scalp, his loins to his toes. Her gaze settled at her feet. “There it is.” She dropped down in a crouch, pooling her flowing taffeta skirt on the ground, making her look like a gigantic flower as she retrieved the matching evening bag. She jerked back up, not lingering to look up at him from that position, to milk it for all the sensual promise it could yield.
She didn’t need any of that. She needed only to breathe—to be—to exercise maximum effect on him. But it pleased him beyond measure that she didn’t operate that way.
She fumbled with her bag, produced her checkbook. He watched as she scribbled furiously with even, beautiful print. Then she tore out the check, extended it to him. “Fill in the beneficiary.”
He took it, folded and placed it in his outer pocket before he reached into his inner one, produced his own checkbook and pen.
In a minute he tore a check out, handed it to her. “I’m bidding two million. Add to that whatever amount you see fit, fill in the total and make it out to whomever you like.”
Her movement to take the check felt like a reflex. She didn’t look at it, remained gaping at him. “What’s this for?”
“The two million is my bid for the time we’ve had together so far. The amount you’ll specify is for the rest of the evening.”
“The whole evening?”
“And the night.”
“The night?”
Durante’s lips twitched. Her squeaks would have amused him if they weren’t pouring fuel on his inflamed senses. She really hadn’t thought it a possibility he’d offer this. “If you wish it.”
Her blush intensified until she seemed to smolder in the night. And he saw it in his mind’s eye in high-definition clarity, himself carrying her to the nearest flat surface to ravish her for that hour she’d bid on, before sweeping her away from the world to do so again for several nights on end.
It was all so surreal he felt he was dreaming it. Yet it was so real it abraded him with its intensity and immediacy. He’d never experienced such a state of distressed arousal. And for him to be in this condition just by looking, imagining…Unbelievable.
At last she spluttered, “Uh…isn’t this a bit…you know…?”
He inclined his head. “Too fast? Too soon? You think so?”
A moan-giggle escaped her, another blow to his restraint. “If you think I can think right now, think again.”
“Exactly. This isn’t about thinking. This is about feeling. About knowing. I know what you make me feel. You made me feel it from the first moment. I wanted more than an hour with you. I want this night, bellissima, and as many more as you’ll give me.”
“That’s assuming you’ll want more nights after the first…” Her face scrunched into a wince. “Okay, excuse me as I give swallowing my tongue a serious shot.”
“With me around to do it? What a waste that would be. And why would you even want to try?”
“Because it sounded as if I was agreeing to share this night with you and was trying to make sure it wouldn’t be the one and only.”
Every word out of her mouth…He pressed the heel of his palm to his breastbone, as if that would quell the itching behind it. “And you didn’t mean that?”
“God, no, I-I…” She threw both hands over her face, before looking up at him, helplessness and accusation filling her expression. “It’s your fault. Exposure to you is turning my gray matter into day-old milkshake.”
A laugh tore out of him, drove his head back with the force of its unexpectedness and power. “Turnabout is fair play. Although you turn mine into the boiling version.” He reduced the distance between them another step, testing his stamina, thrilling to the torture of balancing on the edge of loss of control. “And I will want more nights. As many as I can have. I hope you won’t hold back to observe an ‘appropriate’ period before indulging in intimacy. I want nothing more than to end this night with you in my arms, in my bed.”
She melted back against her car. “And I want nothing more than to end this night in both.”
Gabrielle watched Durante’s eyes flare at her admission, knew he’d reach for her. She had to say the rest now. Now.
“But I can’t.”
The flare subsided, ice putting out the blue-hot flames.
Something twisted beneath her ribs. She couldn’t bear to see disappointment replacing exhilaration in his eyes.
She hurtled on. “Believe it or not, I did approach you with business and only business in mind.”
Relief swamped her when his eyes simmered again. “I believe you. But it ceased to be business the moment you laid eyes on me.”
She didn’t even think of denying the fact. “Yes.” She still had to qualify it. “But I can’t afford to let it be that way—”
He cut across her unsteady words. “You can’t afford to let it be any other way. Business will be taken care of in due time. But I’m not postponing this for anything else’s sake.”
“But what is this?”
“Something unknown to either of us, something unprecedented. And you know it as well as I do.”
Gabrielle stared at him. He kept stunning her. But what most amazed her was that she picked up no malice from him, that malignant triumph most men transmitted when women made the mistake of not only falling for them, but admitting it, too.
Not him. She felt he was above pettiness and double standards. This was also no line that he gave every desirable woman he met. In fact, his ruthlessness likely originated from his never instigating the p
ursuit. He was renowned for his detachment.
There was nothing detached about him now. She just knew he was being swept along the same unstoppable current as she was.
That didn’t mean she could let herself be swept. There was far more at stake than the elapsing of “an appropriate period before indulging in intimacies.” And not only couldn’t she tell him what, but that this was happening at all made her feel she’d fallen flat on her face into someone else’s life. Men like him—and there were no men like him—didn’t appear in hers.
She looked up at him, at once pleading for him to understand her chaos and afraid he’d shimmer and disappear. “Whatever this unknown and unprecedented thing is, and no matter how I feel about it or how right it feels to feel this way, I’m still totally weirded out by the detour everything has taken. Hours ago I didn’t dream…”
“…you’d see me and the world would cease to matter.”
His confidence sent her explanations scattering. “Oh, quit making it harder for me to make sense. The world might have ceased to matter, but it didn’t cease to exist. I had this proposal memorized and now I barely remember what it was all about.”
“I barely remember why I came here tonight, too. I don’t care about anything now beyond you.”
“Maybe if you hear my proposal, you’ll change your mind.”
“I won’t. Not even if you’re coming to me with the patent for an eternal-youth or super-power serum.”
“Actually, I was thinking along opposite lines. That you’d be so opposed to my offer, you’d drop me.”
“So it’s something you think I’m liable to turn down flat? Is that why you were trying to sweeten me with the hundred grand? Is there something dark and controversial about you, mia ragazzaccia?”
The way he said “my bad girl” quickened her melting rate. “Oh, I wish. Okay, really, I don’t. I’m pretty grateful there’s nothing so…interesting about me. I’m just—”
“The woman I want to know everything about. And to that end, I want to conduct an experiment.”
She blinked. “An experiment?” She stopped. “God, I keep repeating things. I might start asking for crackers next.” His smile widened, blinding her with a flash of charisma. She groaned. “So, what’s this experiment? What are you out to prove?”
“That you were onto something great when you approached me without revealing your identity and purpose. The labels might have interfered with our impact on each other. I don’t think your name or your business will shed any light on who you really are. I want to know you. What you are, what makes you tick, what shaped you, what you want and why and how you want it. I want to revel in what we have blazing between us, to enjoy us, man to woman. For tonight.”
Another breaker of reaction shuddered through her. “Are you for real, or am I dreaming you up?”
The heat of his smile became almost unbearable. “I take it you agree to participate in my experiment.”
She shook her head. “That experiment is skewed and the results are bound to be unreliable. I know exactly who you are.”
“You only think you do. But what do you know? My statistics? My reputation, status and estimated fortune? Sterile facts mixed with conjectures and financial data. Did knowing any of the above prepare you for the effect I have on you in the flesh?”
She raised her hands begging for respite. “Okay. I admit the ‘labels’ conjured up a man who, while impressive, has nothing to do with the flesh-and-blood reality of you. In fact, I’m having a tough time connecting you at all to that man.”
“You see? If you can’t access your preconceived ideas about me, we’re on a level playing field. Say yes, bellissima.”
“Now I know why you’ve soared so high. You’re relentless.”
“That’s your expert opinion as a fellow unstoppable force?”
“Hah, I wish. Or again, not really. Okay. On one condition.”
“Anything.”
She exhaled a tremulous chuckle. “Not very businessman-like of you, all these carte-blanche concessions.”
“I’m not a businessman now. I’m just a man who knows you’re the woman to whom only carte-blanche concessions will do justice.”
“God, stop with the impossible-to-live-up-to stuff.”
“You’ve already lived up to all of it by making me feel this way, think this way. So, what’s your condition?”
“That you give me back my check.”
He didn’t hesitate, not in expression, not in action. He produced her check as the words left her lips. Delight fizzed in her blood. He hadn’t paused to ponder her intention, trusted that whatever it was, there was nothing underhanded about it.
Her hand trembled as she extended his back to him. “Here’s yours. Now I don’t owe you untold millions.”
He didn’t reach for it. “Keep it, bellissima. You wouldn’t owe me a cent. That’s for the causes of your choice.”
“Oh, I would owe you. I wanted to make a donation through you, while gaining something for myself. But if I take your check, I would be ‘donating’ your money. So, you donate what you wish and I’ll do the same and let’s take money out of the equation, start this on a real equal footing.”
He took the check. “I’ll just keep it until you wish to donate something you can’t afford. Now, shall we?”
Her heart began to race her. “Shall we…what exactly?”
“Spend the rest of the evening together. As for the night…I won’t push for anything you can’t wait to…donate.”
Three
Durante leaned back against the railing of his yacht, almost tasting the beauty of his bellissima an arm’s reach away.
She stood on the first rung, holding on to the railing, arching into the wind, framed against the lit-up Manhattan skyline they were sailing parallel to.
They’d just left port. There was no moon, but stars hung like tiny beacons above her, and beams of light from the yacht’s interior stroked her back in gold, flaring fire through the tresses that billowed behind her as if they were powered by her vitality.
Up until a moment ago, he’d kept catching himself bating his breath. He realized why.
Subconsciously, he’d been waiting for something to kick in, that cynicism that had always been an integral part of him. On some level, he expected to be slammed back to a reality that had nothing to do with this state of affinity. Experience—his and others’—kept trying to intrude with warnings that interaction always doused the testosterone-generated spark.
But then, his pleasure in being near her wasn’t just about anticipating the pleasures of bedding her, being inside her. He thrilled to her every gesture and glance. Her every word engaged his demanding sense of the absurd, fueled his eagerness for repartee. He’d wondered if the uncontainable drive to possess her painted his reactions to the rest of her in such intensity, or if it was the other way around.
Now he knew. The amalgam that was her was inextricable to his senses, his mind. Physically and mentally, she was a woman the likes of which he’d never dreamed of encountering.
The thrill of their encounter had been escalating, and he’d gladly succumbed to that unprecedented rapport, reveled in the overpowering attraction. And he hadn’t even touched her yet.
“This is magic.”
He hardened more at her huskily voiced wonder just as he softened, too, inside. “Si, ciò è magica, bellissima. You are.”
She swung toward him, a smile frolicking across her lips, her eyes glittering with awareness and delight. There was also a touch of mischief. But the emotion that made him struggle not to crush her in his arms was the hint of hesitation—trepidation, even.
Could it be she was wary of him?
No. He knew she trusted him just as instinctively as he did her. So why was she uneasy? Did she suspect that this couldn’t be real? That it would end? He didn’t share that worry. Not anymore. He couldn’t tell her not to worry, but he would show her she had no need to.
She took one hand off the
rail, swept her arm in a graceful arc, eloquently encompassing their surroundings. “I meant this. This perfect night, on this enchanting yacht as it sails through the placid ink of the river.”
“But take your magic—ours—out of the equation and it would be just another yacht cruise on another pleasant evening.”
She sighed, a sound of contentment. “You must be right. I’ve been on night cruises before, in great weather. Felt nothing like this.”
Before he could revel in her admission, Giancarlo, his all-around right-hand man, caught his eye in the distance.
Durante inclined his head at her. “Are you ready to eat?”
She jumped down from the railing. “I’m ready to dive into the river and catch fish in my teeth.”
“Why didn’t you say you were hungry?”
She seemed taken aback. “I didn’t realize I was.”
“I didn’t, either. Other hungers overshadowed it.”
Delight swelled in his chest at the guilelessness, the unhesitating consent of her gaze and nod.
He wanted to forget his resolve to delay their gratification, knew she wouldn’t stop him if he did. But holding back, while chafing, was more gratifying than anything he’d ever done. He gestured for her to precede him, exhilaration shooting through him. She gave a choked laugh and almost skipped ahead.
As they traversed the massive deck to the dining hall, she exclaimed, “Is that another swimming pool, under that plexi roof? There was a huge one on the second-level deck.”
“Yes, that’s the covered one. I’ll take you around after I’ve fed you. You can take a dip in either. I can’t offer you something to wear, but you’ll be draped in night and wrapped in water, their silk caressing yours unhindered by barriers.”
She sped ahead as if to escape his suggestion, muttering, “I’ll take a dip-check, thanks.”
He chuckled, pointed out another section. “This is where the whirlpools, saunas and Turkish bath are.” He pointed to another area. “And there are the only modern additions to the yacht’s outfitting—a fitness room and comprehensive water sports equipment storage. We can windsurf, water-ski, jet-ski, scuba dive and sail, if you’re into any of those.”
