Chapter Twelve #2
‘You are aware that I am supposedly being married off to at least three women a month?’
‘Your modesty is one of your most charming characteristics.’
There was zero warning as he reached down and ran his hand over the brand-new silk kimono she wore over a strapless bikini. ‘That’s new—I like it, but I prefer you without it.’
The sound of her hand connecting with his cheek was shocking.
‘Oh, God, I am so, so sorry! I shouldn’t have… You just make me so mad! How the hell did you think it was appropriate to make a pass at me at this moment? I’ve never hit anyone in my entire life. I am mortified…’
He caught the shaking hand she had pressed to her mouth and pulled it to his lips, holding her eyes as he spread her fingers and kissed her palm. ‘I’m sorry I wound you up, cara. I admit I was a bit of a bastard.’
Amy blinked at the unexpected climbdown, shock combining with confusion, hot tingles spreading like a web from her palm along her nerve-endings.
‘I really shouldn’t have done that, though.’
‘Your vicious little tongue does a lot more harm than your left hook, cara. You barely touched me.’ The levity in his words were not reflected in the tension-carved angles and planes of his face, which projected an intense, driven quality.
‘I should be immune to gossip. I am immune.’ Or he’d thought he was. ‘I usually ignore it when people write lies about me, when I find human rats going through my recycling bin looking for private information. It doesn’t matter to me what strangers think.’
It mattered what Amy thought of him, though.
The discovery of this vulnerability had not made him overly sympathetic to her distress and he’d deliberately goaded her until she’d snapped.
Her eyes flickered down to their single point of contact, which still hadn’t been broken. He hadn’t let go of her hand and there was something hypnotic about the way his thumb was tracing tiny arabesques on her palm.
When she drew her hand back and nursed it against her chest, he made no attempt to prevent her. ‘I am not a stranger,’ she said huskily.
‘No, you’re not, and I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I am not engaged—not to Sophia nor to anyone else. Despite my grandfather’s constant matchmaking, I remain single. Do you believe me?’ His ink-dark eyes scanned her face.
The reply came without a pause. ‘Yes, I do…’ In her head she could hear herself saying those words standing in a church but, before her fantasy could solidify, she pushed it away.
‘Believe you, that is,’ she tacked on, hastily adding, ‘I suppose it’s only natural that your grandfather wants an heir. ’
He might be holding out but one day, perhaps when his grandfather realised that Leo did not react well to being pushed, he would oblige, and produce the future Romano generation.
An image of dark-eyed children arranged by height flashed before her eyes. Children they might have had together in another life.
‘I know what we are…or rather what we are not. What we share is just sex. I get that.’ She should do; he’d said it often enough. As if she was likely to forget when he recited it like a post-coital mantra.
‘But honesty is important to me and there are some lines that I am not willing to cross.’ Lines, she realised, that could look very blurred just because she burned so fiercely for this man.
But if she bent her own rules and crossed those lines once, she would never stop crossing them, and she would end up a paler version of the person she was.
Someone she didn’t like.
She jerked as a wave lapped over her toes with a hiss and retreated.
‘Sophia is coming to the gala,’ he said.
Her toes dug into the wet sand. ‘I know this, and me being here is still an exercise in humiliation.’ Her throat closed up as she angrily blinked away tears. ‘Was she supposed to be part of it? I just didn’t realise how far you would take it… I feel pretty stupid right now.’
‘You feel stupid? How the hell do you think I feel?’
Unnerved by the raw anger in his voice, she took a step back.
‘Do you think any of this is going the way I planned? Nine years ago, I felt happier than I’d ever been, ever dreamt I could be, and then you walked away from me.
Well, maybe it was all for the good. Before my grandfather found me, I had already discovered I had skills, a knack for making money.
Initially, it was just about trying to prove myself to you and your family, then I discovered I was really good at thinking outside the box. ’
‘And making even more money.’
He nodded and gave a negligent shrug. ‘Yes. Seeing you reminds me of what I once thought my life was. It reminds me of all my weaknesses.’ His heavy lids drooped.
‘You think I’m a weakness?’
Amy was half fascinated and half repelled by his admission.
‘I think you are my nemesis.’ He paused, his chest lifting as he sucked in a deep breath.
‘You have a face and a body that would tempt a saint and I am definitely no saint.’ He gave a devil-on-steroids white grin and caught her by the waist and…
did he drag her towards him, or did she throw herself at him?
Amy wasn’t sure. It was one of those moments when the cord that seemed to connect them was almost visible as she strained to press closer to him.
‘It doesn’t matter what I say, my body betrays me…’ The groan that followed his laugh had a tortured sound that she physically felt. ‘As does yours,’ he said, his mouth moving down the column of her throat. ‘I can smell it on you. You’re ready for me now.’
She whimpered and his dark eyes flared before his mouth covered hers in a devouring kiss.
Their mutual frantic kissing took them several feet from the water’s edge, where they collapsed to their knees onto the sand, pulling off each other’s clothes, hands on hot skin as they fell onto the sand.
‘Sorry, I’m squashing you.’
‘No!’ She placed one hand on the back of his head and held him where he was. ‘I like it.’
‘This is…’ he started to say.
Just sex.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked sharply.
She shook her head, an intent expression settling on her face as she traced the sharp angles of his face with the forefinger of her free hand. Then she arched her back to increase the delicious friction of their bodies.
His eyes were black as he turned his head, taking her palm and kissing it before catching her probing finger and drawing it into his mouth and sucking. His hands moved up and down her body before he lowered his head and kissed her, sliding his tongue between her parted lips.
This was no practised technique; it was all fire and raw need, and Amy felt as though she was burning up from the inside.
‘Open your legs for me,’ he urged throatily.
A hungry sound, half growl, half moan of longing, left her lips as he thrust into her willing heat. Her breath left her in one long sibilant hiss as her body stretched to accommodate him and hold him tight, her head flung back in sheer pleasure.
She could feel him plunging deep inside her, hot and hard, every cell aware of him. She moved as one with him, swiftly climbing to the peak with him and then leaping off the top with such a tumultuous freefall of sensation that she didn’t know where he began and she ended.
They lay sprawled on the sand, both breathing hard.
‘Don’t move,’ she begged when he began to roll off her.
He lifted his head and kissed her flushed cheek. ‘I have to—there are drinks before the party with a select few guests and my grandfather has arrived.’
He stood up in one fluid motion. She sighed dreamily. His body was a work of art, utterly perfect in every way.
‘And I suppose I should go back to work,’ she said, not moving.
He was fastening the clip on the waist of his shorts when he paused.
‘What is it?’ she asked, sensing his unease.
He paused but didn’t meet her eyes as he said, ‘I’m sorry if I hurt you.’
She suddenly just wanted to hug him—not in a sexual way but to provide comfort. ‘I’m really not so fragile.’
He gave a half nod and felt a rush of relief. Lust had never taken him over so totally before and the idea of hurting her was more painful than a knife blade.
‘You didn’t hurt me, but maybe I hurt you?’ She rose from the sand and stood behind him, running her finger along the small, raised crescents on the satiny skin of his muscled back, from her fingernails clutching him in sheer ecstasy. ‘I don’t think I broke the skin, though.’
‘My little cat.’ He turned and caught her in his arms and kissed her, hard and hungry.
‘You’re the one purring,’ she retorted, wading through the sand to where her bikini top had landed. ‘Where are my…? Thanks,’ she said as he handed her the bottom half of her bikini.
He watched her slide the bottoms over her slim, shapely thighs while he struggled with what to say. He never usually shared, he never explained, but it was a concession of sorts. ‘Just to warn you, Sophia will also be at the pre-party drinks.’
Amy felt a pressure in her chest as she adjusted the string ties of her bikini bottoms.
The long beat of silence lengthened.
‘Listen, Amy, I…’
‘Is this some sort of test?’ She rounded on him.
‘No, of course not.’
‘Then why did you tell me that?’ And spoil a perfect moment.
‘Dio, but I can’t win with you, can I? You wanted me to share.’
‘You call that sharing?’ She hooted. ‘Rubbing in the fact that you’ll be upstairs with Sophia while I’m cooking her dinner in the kitchen.’ She managed a shrug. ‘Well, the joke’s on you. The kitchen is actually where I prefer to be.’
‘Yes, I know you are queen there. As for Sophia, our paths may have crossed, but we have never been lovers. I’m not her type.’
Her eyes widened fractionally. ‘So she is—’
‘In love with someone else who… Well, it’s not my story to tell, but I can tell you that she wants to make this someone—’
‘Jealous?’