Chapter Three #4
‘Allie is getting some fancy hair treatment. I’d had enough fluffing and fussing, so I left her to it,’ Zia advanced awkwardly, positively affronted to find herself on full display in a figure-hugging swimsuit in front of Orazio, because the water at that point only washed to her thighs and exposed all the parts of her figure that embarrassed her: the bountiful breasts, the full hips, the meaty thighs.
Raised in the vicinity of Sandrine, who had about as many curves as a sheet of cardboard, Zia had very set ideas about what made a woman attractive and fanciable to the male sex.
A casual boyfriend who had suggested that a diet would be a good idea hadn’t helped her self-image.
‘Not a fan of spas?’ Raz quipped.
‘Never been to a spa until today but the major makeover on your yacht was enough,’ she stressed with a slight wince. ‘Primping and preening to this extent wouldn’t be an interest for me, but I could see that Allie was having a whale of a time and I didn’t want to be the damp squib.’
‘You’re far from being that,’ Raz intoned, his dark deep drawl scraping down her taut spine in the tomblike silence of the basement in which only echoes and the soft background sound of moving water featured.
‘I only wanted you to enjoy yourself this weekend. The tutoring you’ve received is not exactly fun—’
‘Oh, I have enjoyed this break,’ she hastened to assure him, because he had gone to a lot of trouble to organise the kind of stuff she had never known before, like travel and seeing historic sights and being spoiled.
She didn’t want him to think that she was ungrateful for all those new experiences.
Zia clashed involuntarily with shimmering green eyes and her heartbeat landed somewhere in her throat and she felt her nipples tighten into painful points.
The drops falling from the mini waterfall beside her seemed preternaturally loud and her tongue flicked out to nervously slick along her lower lip as she took an instinctive step back.
His gaze narrowed and a pulsating buzz kicked up low in her belly, making her feel uncomfortably warm.
‘Zia…’ Raz muttered thickly.
‘I guess we shouldn’t be here alone together. I mean, Allie was warning me how careful I now need to be around men,’ Zia muttered in embarrassment. ‘She made it sound like Victorian times back in Mandovia…a clean reputation is everything.’
‘She probably aimed that warning at you while thinking of me,’ Raz remarked, shifting a step closer, hugely aroused as she continued to worry at her sultry pink lower lip and he only got harder and more heated. ‘She views me as a predator with women.’
‘Are you one?’ Zia asked baldly.
‘If you’re looking for anything more than a flirtation, probably,’ Raz conceded grudgingly.
‘Oh, I’m not,’ Zia admitted instantly. ‘I don’t want to be tied down to anyone.’
Taken aback by that bold admission, Raz rested a hand down on her slight shoulder, her damp skin silky soft to his touch. ‘Neither do I.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Watched my parents fight through a dying marriage. It left an indelible impression,’ he admitted.
Shivering below the clasp of his hand, Zia gazed up at him.
‘I don’t have that excuse. I don’t have bad memories of my parents’ marriage.
I don’t have any kind of memories. I suspect my mother couldn’t possibly have been happy with a man like him but she was loyal and probably made the best of it,’ she surmised.
Raz stared down into violet-blue eyes that shone like stars and it was as if there were a sudden hiccup in his brain.
All of a sudden, he couldn’t think, couldn’t rationalise, couldn’t recall all the many reasons why he should never ever touch her.
The urge to connect with her was too powerful to resist. Without warning, he was reaching down to grip her other shoulder before sliding his hands down to hoist her up against him because, really, she was too small to kiss any other way.
Lifting her to his level was non-negotiable.
‘Shouldn’t be doing this,’ he groaned in an inadvertent, clumsy confession that infuriated him.
‘Agreed, this is such a mistake,’ Zia mumbled, all but drowning in the velvety soft touch of his shapely mouth on hers as he curved her spread thighs around his waist.
And it was electrifying, as if a literal lightning bolt struck her, a surge of heat engulfing her like a tropical storm.
He was touching her everywhere. Her heart pounded in the moment that he crushed her against his heated muscular torso and kissed her breathless, his tongue delving and exploring, setting up a chain of physical reactions that were shockingly new to her.
So that was what real passion should feel like, she was thinking, dimly recalling those teenage explorations that had only disappointed and disillusioned, failing every time to reach her fond and hopeful expectations.
Raz was dispensing the kind of seductive, provocative magic that tugged at every fibre of her quivering body, making her want more… and then more.