The Good, the Bad and the Wild (17 page)

Her back hit the wall with a soft thud.

‘Eva.’ His voice reverberated over her skin as
he braced his hand above her, caging her in, the scent of musk and man filling her senses. ‘Why read about it, when you can do it for real?’

‘Because I don’t want to,’ she blurted out, seeing the hungry promise in his eyes as the breeze brushed her bare legs, and a delicious tremble of reaction shimmered down to her toes.

He touched his lips to her ear lobe, and whispered: ‘You’re lying.’

She opened her mouth, but the denial got stuck in her throat. She could feel the slickness of her sex, the tenderness of her breasts, hear the rasp of her own breathing.

One rough palm settled on her leg, cutting off her air supply completely. Her thigh muscles quivered and bunched, her breath expelling from her lungs in a rush as his hand trailed upwards.

‘You want to know how I can tell you’re lying?’ he murmured.

She shook her head, but revelled in the zing of sensation as his callused palm rose up her leg.

His thumb brushed across her hip and traced the top of her thigh. She shuddered, her fingers releasing the paperback, the gentle thump as it hit the floor barely registering as his thumb dipped into the curls covering her sex. ‘You’re wet and ready for me right now, aren’t you, Eva?’

‘Please…’ she begged as longing blazed through her. She
was
wet, and ready. Ready to forget everything. Her job, her sensible well-ordered
life, her sanity, if only he would touch her more. Touch her there.

He bit into her ear lobe, the sharp nip a delicious counterpoint to the painful shock of pleasure as his thumb found the perfect spot at last and rubbed.

She sobbed, clutching the muscle of his bicep, and clung on, riding his stroking thumb to increase the torment. Her swollen breasts arched into his chest as the orgasm swept through her in one tumultuous, all-consuming wave.

She forced herself to let go of his arm as she drifted back to her senses. She pressed back into the wall, knees still weak from the intensity of her climax. But instead of the smug expression she had expected, all she saw in his face was fierce lust burning the golden brown of his irises to a molten chocolate.

‘I rest my case,’ he rasped, lifting his thumb to his lips and licking.

‘You’re right,’ she said, her voice as shaky as her legs. ‘I do want you, but you scare me too.’

Was what she felt for him more powerful, more overwhelming than simple lust? She swallowed heavily, looked away from his penetrating gaze, ashamed of her own cowardice, and worse, terrified that he would see the yearning in her eyes. And realise how needy she was.

He lifted her chin, and her eyes met his, the tenderness and concern in them making the frantic beat of her heart increase. ‘Don’t be
scared, Eva,’ he said gently. ‘I won’t take you until you’re ready. Not this time.’

‘What do you mean?’ she said, confused by the note of self-loathing she detected.

He stepped back, huffed out a breath. ‘I did that once before and look what happened. You lost your job.’

‘That wasn’t your fault,’ she corrected, more confused than ever. What was he saying? That he felt responsible for her losing her job?

‘Whatever.’ He shrugged. ‘The point is, it doesn’t matter now because you’ve got it back.’ The words were delivered in an offhand manner, as if the information was irrelevant, but as soon as he said them something she had never understood suddenly became blindingly obvious.

‘Oh, my goodness!’ She pressed her palm to her mouth, her shock as real as the disturbing rush of emotion at the thought of what he’d done. ‘That’s why you agreed to come here. That’s why you changed your mind about meeting your grandfather. To make Mr Crenshawe give me my job back.’

She’d thought he’d done it out of some vindictive desire to punish her, when what he’d really been doing was helping her.

He gave a strained laugh. ‘Yeah, like I’m really that noble,’ he said, but she wasn’t fooled.

‘But you are,’ she said, all the more convinced because of his attempt to deny it. ‘You didn’t have to insist I accompany you. But you
knew Crenshawe would have to re-employ me if you did.’

‘Stop being so naïve,’ he said, frustration sharpening his voice. ‘I engineered this whole thing so I could have you again. You getting your job back was just a nice fringe benefit.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ She thought of his defensiveness when she’d spoken about his mother. His prickly response to his grandfather. And the emotions swirling in his eyes when she’d confronted him that afternoon. Why would he go through all that just to sleep with her, when he could have any woman?

‘Yeah, well, you should.’

‘You did something good. Something kind and sweet,’ she shot back. ‘Why is that so hard for you to admit?’

He swore, flattening her body against the wall. ‘Because, damn it, I’m not kind and sweet.’ Large hands grasped her waist, lifting her, until the long, hard ridge in his jeans pressed against her. ‘Feel that—that’s what I want from you. That’s the only reason I’m here.’

Firecrackers of need exploded in her sex at the memory of his thick girth lodged deep inside her, stretching pain turning to blinding pleasure.

She writhed and he gave a harsh laugh. ‘I’m not one of the good guys, Eva. Remember that,’ he snarled, his erection grinding into the juncture of her thighs. ‘But I’m going to wait for you
to come to me this time. So you know exactly what you’re getting into.’

He let her go.

‘But I already know,’ she said, the words shuddering out on a shocked sob.

‘No, you don’t.’ He ran his thumb down her cheek. ‘Because you’re way too sweet and naïve for your own good.’ Tucking his forefinger beneath her chin, he raised her gaze to his. ‘Sex is all I’m looking for. There aren’t going to be any hearts and flowers like in your book. Not with me. And I want you to understand that before we go any further.’ He placed a firm, possessive kiss on her lips. ‘Now go get me Leonardo’s journal.’

‘I… Why?’ she stammered.

‘I need something to help me sleep. And your girly porn isn’t going to cut it.’

She nodded, skirting around him, and then crossed to the antique dresser, her thoughts whirring at what he’d revealed. Why was he so convinced he was one of the bad guys?

She pulled the leather-bound book from her suitcase, handed it to him.

Her heart plummeted at the sight of his long fingers closing over his father’s diary. Reading the truth of that cruel, long-ago seduction would only make this trip harder for him.

‘I’m afraid I only have the original,’ she said and bit back the urge to snatch the journal from him, knowing he would only scoff at her concern.

He flipped the book up, caught it one-handed. ‘That’s okay.’ He touched the spine to her cheek, trailed it down her throat, and traced the neckline of her gown, her bosom rising and falling in jerky spasms. ‘Get a good night’s sleep, Eva Redmond.’ A suggestive grin flashed across his handsome features. ‘Because it may be your last.’

She gave a nervous little laugh as he walked through the terrace doors, clamping down on the urge to call him back. To tell him to finish what he’d started, that she wanted him now, that she was ready.

The wrought-iron railing creaked as he jumped onto the balcony and disappeared into the night. She returned to her empty bed, climbed beneath the sheets, and turned off the bedside lamp.

Nick Delisantro wasn’t right about himself. He was a better man than he believed himself to be. And he wasn’t right about her either. She wasn’t naïve, she was only inexperienced. And just because she got a vicarious pleasure from reading about virile pirate captains and their beautiful captives, she did know the difference between fiction and reality—thank you very much.

But he was right about one thing. She needed time and space to analyse her feelings, to consider the situation rationally and sensibly before she did something wild and reckless again—and then discovered she couldn’t control the consequences.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The smell of her arousal makes me hard. She’s begging for it. Her husband is a fool, and as inexperienced as she is, he can’t satisfy her, so I will. And afterward she’ll always wish it was me between her thighs and not him.

N
ICK
slammed the book closed and growled out a guttural expletive, his fingers digging into the worn leather.

What a creep
.

He slung the journal onto the coffee table. If he’d learned one thing over the last two sleepless nights waiting for Eva to come to him, apart from the fact that he was his own worst enemy, it was that Conte Leonardo Vittorio Vincenzo De Rossi had been a lecherous, egotistical, misogynist jerk who had about as much restraint as a horny schoolboy and a lot less literary talent.

Nick levered himself out of the armchair and stalked across the bedroom to the balcony. The
night air was still and silent but for the quiet chirping of some unknown insect. He took a deep breath into his lungs. The perfumed scent of the garden’s flowers mingled with the fresh scent of lake water and went some way to clearing away the stench that clung to him after reading Leonardo’s grubby little secrets.

The light spilling from Eva’s open terrace doors had the last of the grim thoughts clearing away to be replaced by a healthier frustration.

Shoving his fists into the pockets of his sweat pants, he leaned back against the balcony rail, and contemplated his own stupidity. And the miserable thought of spending another torturous night without Eva’s lush little body under his.

Why had he said he’d wait for her to come to him?

Then the image of her trusting blue eyes, wide with confusion, and her body trembling with arousal yesterday evening came back to him. And he knew he hadn’t had much of a choice.

She’d responded so beautifully, come apart so easily in his arms. After the smallest of touches she’d been wet for him, pleading for release. When she’d climaxed, he’d been so close to burying himself up to the hilt and satisfying both their hungers that it was making him hard just thinking about it.

But then she’d whispered that line about wanting him, but being scared of him too—and
his conscience had as good as kicked him in the nuts.

She’d sounded so young and so impossibly vulnerable. And things had only got worse when she’d got some insane idea into her head about him coming to Italy to get her her job back, when his motives hadn’t been anywhere near that pure. And then started spouting loads more nonsense about him being a nice guy. Nonsense he could see she actually believed.

He braced his hands on the balcony, stared out into the night, his frustration making the muscles in his shoulders throb.

Him? A nice guy? Hardly.

The woman had led a seriously sheltered life if she believed that. She’d certainly read way too many of those racy books that peddled all that happy-ever-after stuff and made women think that hot sex equalled love.

He gave a harsh laugh. As if real life were anything like that.

He propped his butt against the balcony rail, alert to even the slightest sound from her room. But all he heard was the cricket going berserk and the water lapping on the dock below. His nose wrinkled, the citrusy aroma of lemons floating up from the tree under his balcony reminding him of the sharp, fresh scent of Eva.

He dropped his head back and gazed at the stars sprinkling the night sky, the tension in his
shoulders almost as pronounced as the tension in his groin.

But wasn’t that just the problem with Eva? She hadn’t had a real life, not yet anyway. How could she have and still have been a virgin at twenty-four?

He let his chin drop and cursed. Which was why he had to treat her with a little more care than any of the other women he’d slept with. Not only did she not know the score, she probably didn’t even know there was a score.

He knew how much she wanted him. That sure as hell wasn’t in any doubt. If it hadn’t already been obvious after her live-wire response to his caresses last night, it had been even more so today during their scheduled trip to Riva del Garda.

He’d heard her strangled little gasp when his thumb had lingered on the inside of her elbow as he’d helped her into the duca’s motor launch. Had smelt the glow of sweat forming on her nape when he’d stood just a little bit too close as they were escorted round the duca’s riverside offices. Had felt her body quiver when he’d stroked his palm down her spine, and left it resting above the curve of her buttocks to direct her to her seat in the waterfront restaurant Don Vincenzo had booked for lunch. Had seen the way her eyes darkened when he’d brushed a lock of silky hair behind her ear during their pre-dinner drinks at the palazzo.

Truth was, he’d been so damned attuned to every one of her responses—every single sight, scent, sound and touch—he’d actually been grateful to have the duca there chaperoning them, or he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself dragging her off and forgetting about his stupid promise altogether.