The Italian Read online

  “Are you afraid of water?” Stefano asked, directing her toward the glistening pool.

  She was pulled from her consideration of how Stefano’s security detail had managed to provide him with the safest of breaks. “What? No.”

  “Can you swim?”

  Jamie kept her smile to herself. Oh yes, she could swim. She simply nodded.

  “Good,” Stefano said. He shucked off his robe, stripped her quickly of hers, wrapped his arms around her and tumbled them both into the pool.

  He made sure he fell in first and that her head stayed above water. He didn’t want to drown her and he didn’t want to hurt her in any way, but he did want to…play. Just a little.

  Cristo, how long had it been since he’d played with a beautiful woman? Since his life had been anything other than danger and duty?

  It had been a long, long time. There’d been Francesca the year after his divorce. They’d gone scuba diving off Sardinia. He’d taken her a couple of times to La Scala. They’d had fun and she’d been very inventive in bed, but it had all come with a huge price. Francesca turned out to be shamelessly vain and pouted if he didn’t shower her constantly with compliments. If she had a new pair of shoes or had changed her makeup, he was expected to notice.

  That wasn’t who he was. He didn’t give a shit how anyone was dressed. He barely noticed what he was wearing on any given day. Francesca had been exhausting, prickly and difficult. The relationship had fizzled out in a couple of months.

  Jamie was even more beautiful than Francesca—naturally so, without cosmetic enhancement—but she didn’t seem to have a vain bone in her body. She was never coy, didn’t expect him to flatter her…actually, she didn’t seem to expect anything at all from him. She just enjoyed his company—and man, he enjoyed hers.

  She sputtered in the water, smiling, and he smiled back, then tilted his head and laughed up into the sun. God, he felt like a gopher coming up for air after years in dark underground tunnels.

  Playtime.

  “Look.”

  She watched, head tilted, as he slapped a huge button on the side of the pool. The owner of the hotel had told him about it when showing him around. Instantly, small fountains sprouted up at the deep end, culminating in a six-foot bronze spout with water cascading down. At the shallow end of the pool, underwater jets sprang into action. It looked as if they were in some hidden pool with a waterfall deep in the jungle.

  “Race you to the other side,” she said, and he nodded, watching her move smoothly through the water. He set off slowly. He was a powerful swimmer and didn’t want to beat her by too much.

  The water was cool, a delightful contrast to the heat of the day. He powered his way through the water, enjoying the pull of muscles he didn’t use during judo sessions. Judo was physical but it was also mental. He wasn’t using his head at all here, just his body, pulling himself through the sparkling water until he touched the red terracotta border of the shallow end. He shook his head, water drops scattering, and looked around for Jamie…

  Eyes widening as he saw her at the midway point, heading back to the deep end. She’d already reached the shallow end and was heading back.

  She stopped swimming and turned. A slender arm waved. “Come on! Race you! Ten laps!”

  A challenge. God, he loved challenges. “And the winner gets…?” he called.

  Jamie smiled a mysterious smile that drove him crazy. Her voice was low and vibrant and carried perfectly across the water to him. “Gets their favorite sexual fantasy.”

  His cock swelled at her words. Oh fuck.

  And then the minx dipped below the water and came up ten meters later, moving swiftly and elegantly, arms and legs like metronomes.

  He shook his head, remembering her face as she said she could swim.

  Oh yeah, she knew how to swim.

  He admired her movements for a few more seconds. She was like a mermaid, only with legs. As she moved, her graceful arms and back emerged and submerged, naked buttocks and legs visible through the churning froth.

  Ordinarily he’d be a gentleman and let her win the race, but the prize was his favorite sexual fantasy and his heated head was full of them, not just one but about ten. And with a prize like that, he wasn’t about to lose.

  He shot forward with a powerful push off the edge of the pool and swam as strongly as he could. He had to really push it to keep up with her, but by the fifth lap he was ahead and kept the edge till the tenth and final lap. She was a great swimmer but so was he, and she simply didn’t have the muscle mass he did.

  When he touched the edge of the deep end of the pool for the tenth time, he turned to watch her coming toward him. She was at midpoint and reached him a minute later. Instead of touching the edge, she touched his chest, hooking her hands on his shoulders and pulling herself up out of the water to kiss him.

  “You win,” she said, water from the brass spout running over them, and laughed again.

  His blood was up and so was his cock. The water was cool but where she touched him, he was hot—chest, hips, legs. He bent to kiss her under the spout, lingering at her mouth so long he nearly drowned them.

  “Come.” Stefano swam away on his back, Jamie lying on him as if he were a surfboard. Which was apt since he remembered the Americans calling an erection a “woodie”. Oh yes, it felt like wood, like steel, this heavy weight on his belly, with her belly right on top of it. It felt permanent too, as if he would never detumesce again, ever. Certainly not with a naked Jamie McIntyre in his arms.

  Using the strength of his legs, he swam them back to the shallow end, to the underwater jets, because what he wanted to do would be awkward if he couldn’t plant his feet.

  They bumped gently against the opposite edge of the pool, right near a jet, and he kissed her. Because maybe ten minutes had gone by without kissing Jamie and that was much too long a period. He lifted his lips from hers, pushing her hair out of her face, smiling down at her.

  She smiled back. “So, champ.” She swiveled her hips against his and even underwater he was sure she could feel the blood pulsing through his cock, making him even bigger. “What’s your sexual fantasy?”

  “Just one? I’ve got lots.” He bent to kiss her again. “You’re a really good swimmer but now that I know I can beat you, you can be sure I’ll challenge you over and over.” And over and over and over. Right now, he couldn’t even begin to imagine fulfilling all his sexual fantasies with this woman. It would take centuries. “But let’s start with one. Turn around.”

  Her auburn eyebrows lifted but she did as he asked. He was holding onto the edge of the pool so she turned in the cage of his arms and, for a moment, he was entranced by the view. She was a goddess from every angle but right now, what he was seeing over her shoulder would resuscitate a dead man. Ivory skin over sleek muscles, perfect breasts, long legs.

  He could feel his breath coming more heavily now, the air suddenly thick and hot. One hand on her waist, he took them both a step to the right, exactly where the jet was. Arms crossed around her, one hand on her rib cage, the other smoothing down her flat belly, down, down, down, over her mound.

  Some minute shifts and with his index and middle fingers, he opened her up right over the jet of water, nudging her pelvis forward with his hips. And it was as if he’d thrown a switch, turning her on.

  She stiffened and moaned on an intake of breath. “Oh!” she whispered as he held her so her clitoris was right over the spout of bubbling water.

  She hummed; there was no other word for it. Stefano watched, fascinated, as she took her pleasure.

  His forked fingers kept her open while his other hand smoothed its way up to her breast, stroking that silky skin. Her long neck tilted and he bent to kiss behind her ear, then nibble his way down to her shoulder. She jerked when he bit her lightly exactly where the neck joined the shoulder.

  Oh God, every sense was so alive. The splash of water from fountains at the other end of the pool mixed with their breathing, growing heavier an
d heavier as she approached climax. His excitement rose with and matched hers. He could smell her skin and the laurel hedges and faint whiffs of roses that must have been around the corner. He couldn’t see them but he could smell them.

  Jamie tasted and felt so fucking delicious. He licked the skin behind her ear again and felt her uncontrollable response, a shuddering ripple running through her that he felt against the palms of his hands.

  And the sight—that was the very best. She was dappled in the clear, sun-bright water. He nudged her hips forward so he could see just a trace of the tender pink flesh opened by his fingers and the lines of the water jet stroking her just there. The stippled reflections over her pale skin make it look as if she were wearing jewelry all over her body.

  Stefano kissed her ear, tasting the lobe, nibbling while he nudged her even closer to the jet, and that set her off. He slid his middle finger inside her and could feel the exact moment of her climax as she moaned and jerked and clenched, the flesh suddenly hotter and silkier.

  There was no way to resist. He didn’t even think about it—he who had been nothing but a walking brain for the past several years. He entered her because it was unthinkable not to; entered her just as her climax was dying down. In the cool water, it was like sticking his cock straight into a wet furnace. God.

  When he slid in, he could feel the shudders and spasms speed up again and there he was—fully inside her, and he didn’t even have to move because she was moving around him, clenching in excited little pulls.

  Her legs had gone weak but that was okay, he was holding her around the waist with one hand, clutching the edge of the pool with the other, holding on for both of them because just the feeling of her cunt milking him set him off.

  That’s right—Mr. Stamina, the man who had to ensure he didn’t make his partners sore, started coming as soon as he entered this woman, so excited he couldn’t last a second longer. Just like a fucking teenager.

  He held her against him and simply let go, releasing into her in strong pulses that felt like jolts of electricity as he came and came and came, shuddering and moaning. If they hadn’t been at the shallow end of the pool he’d have drowned them both, holding onto her tightly, sinking like a climaxing stone to the bottom.

  He rested against her back when the last of the pulses stopped, heart racing, panting next to her ear. Her head had dropped back to his shoulder and when he was finally able to open his eyes he could see a foreshortened view of her face, like those Renaissance masterpieces of perspective his art history teacher had tried to drum into his head. Smooth, pale brow, ridiculously long eyelashes against a high cheekbone narrowing to a pointed chin. He could barely see the small dent in it.

  She was so still she could be dead if he hadn’t felt her heart racing against his hand.

  She stirred, opened her eyes, looked around as if dazed.

  There was a faint chime in the distance.

  “Oh God,” Jamie moaned. “I think I died. I think I died and went to heaven and I’m hearing bells.”

  He knew exactly how she felt.

  Barely able to move more than his head, he nuzzled her neck. Down below, he slipped out of her, his cock feeling the cold water like a form of punishment, wanting to push back into her body. Quite rightly too.

  He smiled against her neck. “Not bells,” he whispered. “Lunch.”

  Chapter Seven

  The next afternoon Jamie sat in the most comfortable armchair on earth and sketched the sexiest man in the world.

  She was naked under the bathrobe. She and Stefano hadn’t dressed since they’d arrived the day before. They spent their time eating amazing meals in the linen-draped gazebo, swimming naked in the pool or making love, and none of those activities required clothing other than the decadently posh terrycloth robes with the hand-stitched coat of arms of the Torraca family over the heart.

  Their time was coming to an end. Stefano hadn’t mentioned time passing in any way. He clearly wanted to pretend that they were in some endless now. But it was Sunday afternoon and she knew they would have to leave.

  Much as she wanted to, they couldn’t stay here forever.

  They’d had another amazing meal at lunch. They’d made love afterward and fallen asleep in each other’s arms. She’d woken up after an hour and slipped out of Stefano’s embrace. He’d fallen into a sleep so deep it seemed like a coma.

  No wonder. She couldn’t count the number of times they’d made love. It was as if he were making up for lost time. And in a way, so was she.

  Restless, but not wanting to leave the room, she’d pulled out her sketchpad and calmed immediately. Sketching always soothed her nerves, put her in a kind of alpha-wave zone where the cares of the world slipped away.

  She sat down in an armchair facing Stefano and sketched bits of him. A powerful hairy thigh. A strong, tanned hand stretched out on the white piquet bedspread. Finally, as if these had been finger exercises, she settled down to the symphony and sketched the whole figure.

  Her first impression had been correct. Naked, hair tousled, sprawled on his side and lost in sleep, he still looked like an emperor. Sleep couldn’t erase the lines of power and authority from his face but they could erase the lines of care. He looked younger than when she’d first seen him.

  The vacation would end in only a few hours. If this could be called a vacation. It was more like two days clawed out of the face of a rock.

  They’d eaten together, swum together, showered together, slept together, made love together. Stefano hadn’t once mentioned the future, or even a future where they would be together. It was as if the future tense had been banned from their vocabulary.

  For all Jamie knew, once the helicopter came—first one for him, then another later for her—she would never see him again. For all she knew, these were their last hours together and he was sleeping them away.

  That was fine.

  Stefano obviously needed the extra sleep; he’d dropped like a stone after lunch. If she had to choose between making more memories with him or safeguarding his rest, his rest came first, hands down.

  That was her first clue that she’d fallen for him. Fallen hard.

  His rest, his comfort, his safety was of paramount importance to her. Even if they never saw each other again, she’d somehow find a way to keep tabs on him, know he was alive and safe. Maybe through her grandfather? She’d ask Gramps to contact that secret brotherhood made up of a globe-spanning network of lawyers and judges and law enforcement officers and keep her up to date on Stefano’s doings.

  It was almost, though not quite, as if she were saying goodbye to him in her heart as her hands busily sketched him. It was one of her finer efforts, but then the subject was remarkable and the portrait was infused with her feelings for him.

  At first she’d thought it was merely sex. The best she’d ever had, granted, but just sex. But it wasn’t that. He was a talented lover, no question, and he knew what he was doing, no question about that either. But it was her feelings for him that pushed the sex they had into the stratosphere. Admiration laced with bittersweet longing, because of course he wasn’t hers, and he couldn’t be. He was locked in a struggle she had no part in and he was given over completely to it.

  Her hand was flying over the page, a completely right-hemisphere effort. Untethered to her extensive knowledge of balance and perspective and chiaroscuro and proportion. It was as if her hand were a separate entity, doing everything in its power to give her Stefano, for when he’d be gone.

  Because there he was, on the page. The very essence of him. The slight but permanent frown between his black eyebrows, that firm mouth stern, cheeks already dark with beard. He’d shaved this morning but he already had a five o’clock shadow, even if it was only three p.m.

  All of a sudden her hand stopped as a shock of electricity shot through her. The memory of the tiny black bristles of his heavy beard against the inside of her thighs and against the tender tissues of her sex, as he’d loved her with his mouth l
ate last night. It was more than a memory—for a second she could feel him, feel his tongue deep inside her, kissing her there, his beard abrading her flesh. She’d arched her back and yelled with the strength of her orgasm.

  That had never happened to her before. When she came, it was always quiet and polite—a couple of spasms of her vagina, a slight flush, very pleasant but nothing more. With Stefano it was as if she’d entered a new country, the country of climaxes, and it was big and broad and never-ending.

  Oh God, the flashback sent bolts of heat to her sex and she shifted, uncomfortable at the sudden stab of arousal, deep and almost painful.

  The pencil shook so much in her hand she had to set it aside. The portrait was complete anyway. She kept the drawing on her lap while looking at the original.

  So powerful, so vulnerable in sleep.

  She’d enjoyed sketching his penis. Except at times in the water, it was the first time she’d been able to study it non-erect. Whenever she looked at him naked it would inevitably swell and rise.

  As penises went, it was a champ. Thick and full even in repose, it rested on his thigh, nestling in a dense bed of dark body hair. She’d drawn it well, she saw. Faithfully and truly.

  Maybe in the months and years to come, she’d pull this sketch out and remember. Maybe it would fill her days and nights, because right now she couldn’t even imagine allowing another man to make love to her. Because what other man could possibly measure up?

  The men she knew were shallow creatures, obsessed with themselves, their careers and material well-being. It was impossible to think of finding another man of substance who was also worldly and sophisticated and, well…hot.

  And kind. He’d shown her a thousand unnecessary courtesies, well beyond the ones a well-mannered man would show. The last bite off a plate was hers, he insisted on it. He always made sure she was never hot or cold or hungry or thirsty, and at the end of a marathon bout of lovemaking, he always inquired whether he’d tired her out.

  He had, of course, but she’d rather bite her tongue off than admit it, because she knew very well she was storing up memories that might have to last her a long, long time.