The Good, the Bad and the Wild

by Heidi Rice

  She touched the soft hair of his forearm. ‘What are you so upset about?’

  The sinews in his arm tensed, and the muscle in his jaw bunched. But that was his only reaction to the question.

  He grasped a lever on the dashboard, which looked like a throttle. ‘You wanted to ride,’ he said, yanking the lever down. ‘So let’s see what this baby can do.’

  The engine roared, lifting them up and throwing Eva back against the seat. Then the boat powered across the water as if catapulted out of a sling, skimming over the choppy surface as they shot towards the sun. Eva’s bottom bounced on the bench, the wind and spray refreshing as she screwed up her eyes and held on tight, the punch of adrenaline making her heart pound.

  Nick stood, his hands gripped on the steering wheel as he negotiated the leisure traffic with practised ease.

  He looked fierce, indomitable. And yet she’d seen the moment of vulnerability when his gaze had met hers in the dining salon. Meeting Don Vincenzo, learning about his biological father had been hard for him. Probably much harder than he had imagined or would ever admit. And her heart went out to him, even if he didn’t want it to.

  Minutes passed as they drove to the far end of the lake, leaving the crowds of smaller craft and the heavily developed shoreline behind. Heading back into the shallows, the boat rounded a rocky outcropping and entered a quiet cove. The engine slowed as they approached a ramshackle dock that listed to one side. A stone shrine topped with a crucifix nestled among the plants and bushes edging the water.

  She had no idea where they were as Nick eased the throttle down and the boat kicked and settled in the water. But wherever they were, they were alone. The gentle lap of the water on the powerboat’s hull the only sound above the rasp of her own breathing. She could feel the prickle of heat and anticipation shimmering over her skin, the mist from their ride dampening her cotton blouse but doing nothing to cool the heat pulsing through her veins. His hooded gaze locked on her face, the fine spray of water on his hair sending it into unruly furrows as he whisked it back from his forehead.

  He looked wild and untamed, the anger when she’d jumped on board replaced by fierce arousal. But the harsh desire on his face didn’t frighten her, because she’d had time to think about what she was letting herself in for.

  Nick wasn’t looking for love or commitment. But then neither was she. He was a complex man, who guarded his feelings and his vulnerabilities and, she suspected, found it next to impossible to trust anyone because of the circumstances of his birth. She’d really have to be a romantic fool to think that she, with her limited knowledge of relationships, could have any hope of changing that.

  But that didn’t mean they couldn’t share something worthwhile together for the short time they had. He’d warned her that this could only ever be a purely sexual adventure. But she already knew it was more than that. Because whatever Nick wanted to believe, she already cared about him, and he cared about her.

  Propping his butt on the control panel, he crossed his legs at the ankle and beckoned her with his forefinger. ‘Come here,’ he said, his voice husky with hunger.

  She stood still, the desire burning.

  Leaning forward, he hooked his forefinger in the waistband of her skirt and yanked. ‘I said, come here.’

  She stumbled towards him, flattened her palms on his chest. Rough, urgent hands lifted her skirt, caressed her thighs and moulded her buttocks, his lips fastening on her throat, his teeth nipping at the place where her pulse hammered.

  She dropped her head back to give him better access, ground her backside into his palms, whispering: ‘I thought you wanted to be alone?’

  ‘Not any more,’ he growled, the demand urgent in his voice. Rough hands snuck under the waistband of her panties, then ruthless fingers found the zip on her skirt and dragged it down.

  She looped her arms round his neck, hoping he couldn’t feel the quiver of trepidation as he sat on the bench seat and yanked her down to straddle his lap.

  She grasped his shoulders as he captured her mouth. Moist heat flooded between her thighs, his erection confined by soft denim rubbing against the damp cotton of her panties as she let the hunger that had built in the last two days consume her.

  She rode his length, revelled in his staggered breathing and threaded her fingers into the hair at his nape. Then urgent seduction turned to violent need. He ripped at her blouse, buttons popping. She dragged his T-shirt over his head, exploring the ridged steel of his abdomen, the velvet steel of his chest.

  The brown of his irises darkened before his mouth covered her breast through the delicate lace of her bra. She cried out, the keening sound of pleasure echoing away on the breeze as he tasted and teased with his teeth, then suckled strongly. Eva bowed back, arching into his mouth to feel more, to take more. Clever fingers released the bra’s hook, peeled away the wet lace. She shivered, the nipple tightening, swelling. His lips feasted on naked flesh: hot, hard, perfect.

  She lost focus, delirious with longing and exhilaration. He needed this, needed her as much as she needed him.

  He swore softly, banded his arms round her waist. ‘Hold on,’ he croaked, lifting them off the bench together. ‘We’re taking this below deck.’

  She wrapped her legs round his waist, clung on, as her dazed brain registered the rumbling hum of a passing speedboat. He staggered down the steps into the boat’s cabin, then strode through the galley to the bedroom.

  She landed on the wide double bed that took up most of the compact space. Rising on her elbows, she watched him kicking off his deck shoes, struggling out of his jeans and boxer shorts, then grabbing a small foil packet from the back pocket.

  Her breath expelled in a rush. He looked magnificent. But she wasn’t worried any more. Rising on her knees, she touched the powerful erection. Marvelling at the hardness, she cupped the generous weight of him in her palm.

  Gazing up, she met eyes ablaze with arousal. ‘Can I kiss you there?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ he groaned.

  He threaded her fingers through his, pulling them away from his flesh before he rolled on the condom.

  He climbed on the bed, forcing her back. Cradling her cheek, his fingers trailed down her neck to stroke the curve of her collarbone. ‘Later,’ he murmured. ‘Or this is going to be over way too soon.’

  His hand shaped her breasts, caressed her hip, cradled her buttocks, then long, talented fingers delved into the wet curls at her core.

  She bucked, clamped her knees together, the shocking touch almost more than she could bear.

  ‘Open for me,’ he urged.

  Her knees weakened, loosened for him of their own accord. He rubbed, stroked, circled the burning nub. She heard her own broken sobs as his fingertip skimmed over the heart of her. She cried out as the slick heat built to an impossible crescendo. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, but as she clung to that desperate edge, her senses screaming, she knew this wasn’t how she wanted it. Not this time.

  She closed her legs, shivered against him. ‘Please… I want you inside me.’ She choked out the bold request.

  He rolled onto his back, pulling her with him, forcing her to spread her legs and bracket his hips. ‘Then I want you on top,’ he demanded.

  Large hands cupped her buttocks, directing her to his shaft and then he drew her down. She shuddered, the shock of penetration too much as she took him in to the hilt. But then he began to move, bumping a place deep inside. The pleasure intensified as she moved with him, taking him deeper still in a wild, unstoppable ride to oblivion.

  The orgasm hit hard, in a wave that went on and on until it crested with the speed and force of a tsunami. Slamming into her, robbing her of breath, it powered through from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. She heard his shout of completion, the sound a million miles away as her body shattered into glittery shards of ecstasy.

  She collapsed on top of him, his sweat-slicked body slippery against her own.

  His hands stroked he
r buttocks, roamed up her back. ‘I never thought I’d say this, but that was actually worth the wait.’

  An exhausted grin formed on her lips as she settled beside him, and he tucked her under his arm. She rested her hand on his chest, stroked down the elegant line of hair, and her fingertips touched the raised edge of the scar that slashed across his abdomen. The grin died as tenderness engulfed her, and her heart careered into her ribcage.

  Foolish tears prickled the backs of her eyelids. She blinked furiously, struggling to find something witty and clever to say to push the emotion back where it belonged.

  Their love-making had been wild and uncontrolled. It had felt like more than just sex. But how much more? And why did the thought suddenly terrify her?

  He tipped her face up to his. ‘You okay? I was a little rough.’

  ‘No, you weren’t, I enjoyed it,’ she said, her cheeks flushing at the smile that curved his lips.

  Well, it wasn’t exactly witty or clever, but at least it was accurate.

  His thumb trailed down her cheek as he studied her face, his golden gaze still dazed with afterglow. ‘So did I.’ The soft words had her heart jumping into her throat again.

  She traced the line of the scar and felt him tense. ‘How did you get this scar?’

  Sadness overwhelmed her when she watched the haze of arousal clear from his eyes and the familiar caution return.

  Taking his arm from around her, he sat up with his back to her. She noticed the stiff set of his shoulders as he dragged his T-shirt over his head, covering the scar.

  ‘We should head back,’ he said, as if she hadn’t said anything, then grabbed his boxers up and stood to put them on. ‘Before they come looking for us.’

  She reached for a bed sheet to cover herself, acutely aware of her own nakedness, and swallowed down the stupid lump of hurt at the way he had ignored her question. What they had wasn’t permanent and her curiosity was just that. Curiosity. If he didn’t feel comfortable talking about his past, he certainly didn’t have to.

  ‘Do you think the duca will guess what we’ve been doing?’ she asked, concerned about what the old man might make of their behaviour. She doubted he’d be all that impressed.

  ‘Maybe.’ He shrugged, glancing over his shoulder while fastening the button-fly of his jeans. ‘But who cares? I expect Eduardo will inform him we’re sharing a bedroom before too long.’

  She shot upright, clutching the bed sheet to her bosom. ‘We can’t share a bedroom.’

  ‘Yeah, we can,’ he said easily. ‘And we will.’

  ‘But… Then everyone will know,’ she said, worrying her bottom lip. ‘Maybe we could just—’

  ‘Eva, sweetheart,’ he interrupted her panicked reasoning, sitting down on the edge of the bed. ‘As much as I enjoy playing pirate captain to your damsel in distress—’ he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear ‘—no way in hell am I risking my neck on that balcony every night to have you.’

  She let out a jerky breath, the tenderness of his touch making the foolish emotion rush back. ‘But you don’t have to. We have the connecting bathroom. You could easily—’

  ‘No, I couldn’t.’ He silenced her with a quick kiss. ‘I’m not sneaking around like some horny teenager. I want you in my bed at night.’ He gave his eyebrows a saucy lift. ‘And in the morning—and any other time in between that takes our fancy. We’ve got another week and a half here and I plan to have you as much as is humanly possible. If you don’t want me, all you have to do is say so.’

  ‘I do want you,’ she said. ‘You know I do.’

  But did she want him too much?

  They only had a week and a half, and she had to keep sight of that. She mustn’t let her romantic nature and her affection for him—not to mention their thrilling sexual chemistry—get in the way of her common sense.

  But she could take that risk, she decided. She was ready—and she was through being a coward about her own needs and desires.

  ‘Well, good.’ His smile turned to a triumphant grin. He grasped her waist and tumbled her back onto the bed. ‘But you’d better get dressed pronto,’ he added. She shrieked, giddy with excitement, as he wrestled the sheet off to nuzzle her exposed nipple.

  ‘Or I’m going to make you prove it.’

  And then he did.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘THERE you are. What are you hiding in here for?’

  Eva looked up from the exquisite parchment that had the Alegria family tree hand-drawn on it by fourteenth-century monks, to see Nick striding into the palazzo’s library with a frown on his face and a picnic basket under his arm.

  ‘Studying your ancestors,’ she replied, acknowledging the flutter of excitement that always gripped her when she saw him again.

  ‘Don’t start. I’ve already had a lecture about my so-called ancestors from Don Vincenzo today,’ he said, but to her joy he sounded exasperated rather than upset.

  It had been over a week since she’d eavesdropped on his lunch with Don Vincenzo—and since then she’d enjoyed watching his relationship with his grandfather soften and grow. She knew Nick was still opposed to inheriting the palazzo, but Don Vincenzo had proved to be patient and kind and surprisingly astute—and he’d worn down Nick’s resistance to him on every other front. The two men had a lot in common, despite Nick’s attempts to dwell on their differences, and it had been sweet to see him struggling to cope with his growing affection for the old man. She wondered if he knew he was making an attachment here he would find it hard to break.

  ‘I thought you had a whole day of meetings with Don Vincenzo’s lawyers in Milan?’ she said, inordinately pleased to see him back so soon.

  ‘Not any more.’ Grabbing her wrist, he hauled her out of the chair. ‘I gave them the slip,’ he said, dragging her out of the room and down the corridor. ‘We’re playing hooky for the rest of the day.’

  ‘We are?’ she asked, excitement making her voice rise.

  He squeezed her hand and grinned. ‘Yeah, we are.’ He lifted the wicket basket. ‘And I’ve bought supplies so we don’t have to come back till we start to starve.’

  She giggled, like a child escaping from the classroom, as he led her out of the palazzo’s back door, then climbed the steeply terraced ornamental gardens towards an overgrown orchard of lemon trees. As they trekked down the country lane through the trees Eva struggled to keep pace with his long strides and control the ecstatic flutter of her heartbeat at the promise of a new adventure.

  She’d become addicted to the adrenaline rush of being Nick Delisantro’s lover. Their time together had rushed past in a haze of hot passion-filled nights and long lazy days as they explored Lake Garda and its surrounding towns and villages—and every inch of each other’s bodies. He never ceased to surprise her, to arouse her, to provoke and excite her—and she’d found herself conquering every challenge and rejoicing in every risk.

  In fact, she was a little bit afraid she might have become as wild as he was. But she couldn’t seem to find the will to worry about it too much. And if there were moments when she held him a little too tightly, when she had to bite back the urge to ask him to confide more about himself and the demons that she knew still haunted him, or wondered about how she was going to cope back in her old life when their time was up, she refused to dwell on them. This was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure that had already changed her for ever. She’d become so much bolder, so much more independent and she was loving the new, improved, devil-may-care Eva Redmond far too much to force her back into her shell even when her dangerous lover was no longer by her side to tempt her into trouble.

  And she didn’t need to know about Nick’s past, because she’d already come to terms with the fact that they had no future together. There were only two days left until he returned to San Francisco and she went back to London. And while neither of them had mentioned it, they both knew it was coming.

  Eventually they reached a sloping meadow, a good mile above the palazzo, edged by ancient trees, and
carpeted with wild flowers. She toed off her sandals and let her bare toes sink into the course grass and fragrant blooms. A light breeze tempered the scorching heat of the summer sun.

  Dumping the basket on the ground, Nick flopped down on his back beside it. ‘We’re stopping here,’ he said, hooking his hands behind his head. ‘That thing weighs a bloody ton.’

  Eva laughed. ‘Fine by me, Romeo,’ she teased.

  ‘Hey, don’t get cocky. I wheedled lunch out of Maria, didn’t I?’ he grumbled, mentioning the palazzo’s chef, just one of the many members of staff who Eva knew adored him—so she doubted much wheedling had been involved. ‘And hefted it all the way up here,’ he finished.

  ‘Fair enough.’ She grinned, kneeling next to him to open the basket. ‘I’ll carry it back.’

  ‘Big deal,’ he said, lifting up on an elbow to pluck out a chilled bottle of Pinot Grigio, while Eva laid out the checkered cloth Maria had packed. ‘It’ll be empty by then.’

  She snorted out an unladylike laugh at the disgruntled expression on his face as she laid out the array of mouth-watering anti-pasti dishes.

  Finding a corkscrew, he twisted it into the bottle in a few efficient strokes and yanked the cork with a satisfying pop. ‘Laugh all you want, sweetheart, but I intend to exact a high price for all my hard work.’

  He handed her a chilled glass of the pale amber wine.

  ‘Oh, goodie!’ she said cheekily, enjoying the way his eyes darkened dangerously as she took a fortifying sip.

  Nick watched Eva eat as he devoured his meal—and thought about devouring her. The agonising sexual tension tightened deliciously every time she flicked him a flirtatious glance over the rim of her wine glass, or when she tore open a ripe fig and bit into the succulent fruit or licked the sweet juice off her lips.

  God, she was so gorgeous. So lush and sexy and playful and provocative. She turned him on to the point of madness, simply by breathing. And yet she’d proved to be a surprisingly calming influence when it came to dealing with all the tangled emotions that the time he spent with his grandfather seemed to bring to the surface.