by C. C. Gibbs
“I know,” she said with a lavish grin. “I find you very attractive.”
He laughed. “And I find you,” he said, his voice taking on a husky resonance, “my reward for ignoring every cautionary precept in my life.” His gaze shuttered slightly as he contemplated her. “I’m both disturbed and obsessed, but,” he added more softly, feeling an improbable pleasure, “I’m looking forward to my obsession.”
“Is this where I say I’ll be gentle and not take advantage of you?”
“God no.” His smile was sunny. “By all means take advantage of me.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she teased.
She was too tempting, he thought, as she stood before him, barely clothed, confident and assured, aware of her extravagant beauty, and for a moment, his gaze cooled.
She could see that he was uncomfortable; too many compliant women had left him unequipped to deal with her directness. “Forgive me. I only meant it in fun. If you like, I promise not to be demanding.”
Her astonishing offer made him smile. “You couldn’t do it.”
The light of mischief shone in her eyes. “For you, I’d really try.”
“You’ll have to show me then,” he said circumspect and polite, as if she’d offered him some superficial kindness.
“My pleasure.”
Rafe smiled. “I know,” he said cryptically. “Now—give me a description and we’ll get Fiona up here.”
Chapter 4
Shortly after Rafe left to shower, there was a discreet knock on the door and a crew member ushered Fiona into the stateroom, then quietly withdrew.
“Holy shit! Is that a real Picasso?” Fiona moved toward the painting over the lime green sofa.
Nicole smiled. “I guess. It’s signed.”
Fiona surveyed the enormous painting of Picasso’s young family on the beach at Juan-les-Pins. “I recognize this from Art One.” She swung around. “And that and that,” she added, pointing at several more works of art. “Fuck this is real money.” She waved her arms. “Everything here is like antique or designer. Did you really score the god himself?” She grinned. “Or am I in a museum?”
“No museum. And he’s just a man, so relax.”
“Yeah, right. Like Brad Pitt is just the boy next door and Justin Timberlake is just a kid who dances well.”
“Okay,” Nicole said drily, “I get the picture. He’s got something else going for him.”
“About a gazillion somethings. Where is he?” Her face fell. “Oh, God, sorry. Did he hit and run? Am I here to take you away?”
“Have a little faith, babe.” Nicole grinned. “He likes me. I like him. We like each other.” She gestured over her shoulder. “He’s in the shower washing off the scent of Silvie Fermetti. It looked like they were about to have sex when I accidently barged in.”
“You’re kidding!”
“I couldn’t see for sure, but he was zipping up when he came to his feet.”
“Oh my God!” Fiona dropped into the nearest chair as though knocked off her feet by the shock. Then her smile appeared, widened, and crinkled the corners of her eyes. “Tell me every little sordid, titillating detail.” She shoved herself upright. “Mostly how he got rid of the firebrand Silvie Fermetti. You know how wild she looked in those pictures in Paris Match last week. And that guy she was punching—”
“I’ll tell you later.” Nicole glanced over her shoulder. “Privately. What I wanted to tell you was that I’m going to stay with him for a while.”
“A while!”
“Calm down. Seriously, it’s not that big a deal.” Nicole took the chair beside her friend. “And Rafe said if you want to come sailing with us, you’re welcome. Also, if you want introductions to anyone, or if you want him to set you up with some titled dude, he’s willing.”
“Wow. So I can put in my order and he’ll do the pimping?”
Nicole smiled. “It sounded like it. See anyone you want today?”
“Lordy, lordy, if I have that big a menu,” Fiona murmured. “Lemme think…”
While Fiona was trying to decide, Rafe had already made a few decisions. First, he’d prefer being alone with Nicole. Second, the title of prince seemed to have a certain cachet with women. And last, his cousin Giacomino, owed him a favor.
Picking up the phone in the shower, he gave instructions for someone to find Prince Giacomino Santori and a few minutes later, the phone rang.
“How busy are you?” Rafe’s Italian was rapid fire. “I’m in the shower. I don’t have much time.”
Giacomino knew that tone of voice and with a smile for the lady he was flirting with, he moved away from her. “Not that busy, Rafe. What do you need?”
“I’m calling in my marker. Do this for me and we’re even.”
Since Giacomino owed Rafe three hundred K, his answer was predictable. “Name it.”
“There’s a lady in my stateroom I need you to take off my hands. I haven’t seen her, but I’m assuming she won’t hurt your eyes. Her name’s Fiona, she’s blond, and since I want her friend for myself, I need you to entertain Fiona somewhere else for a few days.”
“Presumably this Fiona has a choice. What if she’s not interested?”
“We both know you can make her interested. So just do it. Take her shopping, to the casino, wine and dine her. Spend what you need to make her happy—although I’m not paying for your lack of skill so don’t run up any charges at the roulette table. Carlos will give you a credit card. Use it, no questions asked. Okay?”
“Fuck yes.”
“Oh, and be sure you see that Fiona is happy sexually too—or she’ll move on. Apparently she’s adding up her conquests this summer.”
“Cristo Dios—you don’t want much.”
“Actually, I do. I want three hundred K and expenses worth of fucking. We both know you can do it. Hell, you might even like her. See you in five.”
Rafe was walking out of the bathroom, dressed in fresh clothes, his T-shirt faintly damp against his skin, rubbing his hair with a towel when the corridor door opened and a tall, blond, very handsome man stood on the threshold.
Rafe smiled. “Jack, come on in. I looked for you earlier. Did you just get on board?”
“A few minutes ago,” Giacomino said, picking up his cue. “Am I interrupting anything?”
“No, have a drink with us.” Rafe dropped the towel on a chair, quickly finger combed his heavy hair and waved his cousin in. “I’ll introduce you to the ladies.”
Fiona and Nicole were seated beside each other on matching chairs upholstered in white duck hand-painted in a colorful Japanese dragon design.
Arriving from opposite directions, the men met at the chairs. Rafe lifted his hand briefly in his cousin’s direction. “Jack, may I present Nicole Parrish and Fiona”—he hesitated, and Nicole interjected, “Kelly”—“Fiona Kelly. Jack’s my cousin and his entire name is Prince Giacomino Franceschini-Santori, but he prefers Jack. Nicole, Fiona, Jack. There, that’s done.” Rafe smiled. “Now what does everyone want to drink?” He winked at Nicole and lowered his voice. “Another surprise for you?”
“Sure.” She held his gaze and spoke as softly. “I like surprises.”
A small hush fell, a faint frisson of anticipation ruffling the air, the ripe sense of opportunity palpable.
Fiona and Jack exchanged glances. “Would you like us to leave?” Jack asked. “We can find a drink on deck.” He moved to Fiona’s chair, held out his hand, and smiled with incredible charm. “Or if you’re tired of the crowd here, we could go somewhere else. Anywhere you like.”
As he pulled her to her feet, Fiona grinned. “Paris, Rome, Madrid?”
He looked down at her, his gray gaze amused. “Which one first?”
“God no, I was just kidding. But I couldn’t resist a line like that.” She did a little flutter of her fingers. “This—yachts and such—is rarified air for a girl from the suburbs.”
“Why don’t you two fly to Ibiza?” Rafe said, his gaze s
till on Nicole, wondering how one woman could make him so goddamn needy, thinking he’d never seen such flawless skin, a mouth as soft and pink. Feeling his erection begin to rise at the thought, he quickly said, “The nightlife and beaches there are prime. Take my Gulfstream. You’ve two more weeks of vacation, right?”
“Uh-uh—a month,” Fiona corrected.
Rafe shot her a sharp look over his shoulder then turned back to Nicole, the warmth in his eyes extinguished. “A couple of weeks?” There was a sudden hostile edge to his voice.
She stared right back. “You’d just explained your ice cube policy to me.” She shrugged. “I was giving myself options.”
His riveting eyes narrowed. “What makes you think you have options?”
“Fuck you,” she said through her teeth, starting to rise.
Moving with surprising speed, he shoved her back down with a stunningly soft push and, planting his palms on the chair arms, leaned in close. “Don’t be childish,” he said under his breath.
She glared at him. “I decide when I leave, okay?”
“Come on, kids, no fighting on a nice summer day,” Jack drawled.
Rafe silenced him with a raised palm.
“Really, I don’t need a protector, but thank you,” Nicole said into the electric silence, not a trace of anxiety in her expression. She smiled at Jack over Rafe’s shoulder. “Why don’t you get our drinks while Rafe and I talk?”
Jack had recovered his equilibrium. “Only if you two promise to make up,” he said with a cheerful breeziness.
Rafe glanced at his cousin. “I’ll have a whiskey. Neat.”
That clipped tone didn’t suggest further conversation, nor did the prince’s large debt inspire him to persist. And when Nicole said, “The same for me, thanks,” Jack readily surrendered his conciliatory role.
As Fiona and Jack walked away, Rafe pulled up a matching hassock so close to Nicole’s chair her feet were in imminent danger. But before her alarm fully registered, Rafe slid his hand under her legs, lifted them, dropped the hassock, sat, and placed her feet in his lap.
Then, quietly infuriated, half hoping she’d resist, he leaned forward, slid his palms up her legs, her inner thighs, and when his thumbs came to rest on the flowered silk covering her crotch, he looked up and met her angry gaze. “I told you this isn’t a game,” he said, his voice taut with challenge, pressing his thumbs deeper. “Did you not get the message?”
It took her a half second to reply with the lustful jolt shimmering through her senses in a totally outrageous give-it-to-me now response. But the blue of her eyes sparked flame hot when she snapped, “Our messages must have crossed then, because I distinctly remember telling you I don’t take orders. That includes me telling you everything I’m thinking in advance.”
“So is it two weeks or a month?” he growled.
“If you don’t change your damned tone, it’ll be two minutes.”
Rafe slid his thumbs under the bikini bottom and gently stroked her silky wetness. “Two minutes?” His smile was knowing. “I’m guessing a pussy this wet is going to want longer than that.”
“Stop it,” she snapped, attempting to draw away.
Hooking his thumbs in her slick heat, he dragged her back. “Liar,” he whispered, the single word uttered in a low, husky, obscenely sexy tone, the soft assertion rich with authority, making her squirm and turn liquid around his fingers. “You like that?” he said, amused. “Or are you just glad to see me?” His thumbs stroked up and down, gently, deftly, divinely, while she melted inside, grew slippery with longing, and tried not to openly pant.
Rafe shot a quick look toward the bar. “Give us some privacy,” he said in Italian. “Go.”
Jack smiled at Fiona. “Want to fly somewhere?”
Fiona didn’t understand Italian, but Rafe’s sharp, staccato delivery had been clear. “One stupid question first, and it really doesn’t matter, but are you really a prince?”
Jack grinned. “I’d better be or I’m going to have to send back all the monogrammed towels.”
“Perfect,” Fiona said cheerfully. Turning to Nicole, Fiona raised her voice enough to be heard across the large salon. “Hey, babe, are you going to be okay if I leave for a few days?”
“She’ll be fine,” Rafe answered crisply.
Fiona touched Jack’s hand. “Be right back.”
As Fiona walked toward them, Rafe turned back to Nicole. “Don’t fucking move,” he murmured and pressed both thumbs down on her swollen clit with flawless dexterity.
Stifling a gasp, reality momentarily eclipsed by a wild, scorching delirium, Nicole suddenly wondered if the awesome pleasure Rafe offered was worth forfeiting her independence. Quintessentially willful, however, the answer was only briefly in doubt, and drawing in a small breath, she said, “Maybe I’ll leave with Fiona.”
His expression held a hint of triumph. “No you won’t, because you want me to put my big, stiff dick in your wet pussy and get you off.” Swiftly rolling his wrist, he slid his index and middle finger palm-deep into her sleek, pulsing warmth and at her shocked surprise, whispered, “Just. Like. That.” Then smoothly withdrawing his fingers, he sat back and casually wiped them on his shorts.
With Fiona drawing near, Nicole suppressed her shudder and tried not to think about how desperately she wanted to screw the egotistical prick. That Rafe was watching her, clear-eyed and brilliantly relaxed, made her unspeakably pissed and shamelessly horny. Damn, his quiet arrogance was hot.
Fiona stopped at Nicole’s chair and not entirely sure she wasn’t in the midst of a war zone, asked cautiously, “Are you going to stay or come with us?”
“I haven’t decided,” Nicole said, when, of course, she had, with her libido full speed ahead in its not-to-be-missed rendezvous with destiny.
Rafe couldn’t recall a woman ever challenging him—acquiescence the rule when it came to the females in his life—and he briefly wondered if he’d be picking up the tab for a holiday that didn’t include him. Probably not—actually no way in hell—because he wasn’t going to let her leave without him. Nicole Parrish intrigued him, made him curious to discover what made her different. Although it might just be her prickly defiance that made him hard.
Whatever the reason, a swift adjustment to the personal dynamic was required. Lowering his voice, Rafe said softly, “I’m really sorry.” Reaching out, he touched Nicole’s fingers where they lay on the chair arm. “I’ll apologize any way you wish. I had no right to take offense. Forgive me?” His golden gaze was warm, his smile innocent as a child’s. “Two weeks is perfect.”
Nicole stared at him for a second, then a small smile twitched at the corners of her mouth, then broadened a moment later to light up her eyes. “Goddamn, you’re smooth, Contini. Even better than my younger brother when he wants to drive my car.”
Rafe returned her appealing smile. “You can drive my car—cars, yachts, planes, choppers. Anytime. Anywhere.”
Then he left the silence undisturbed.
He was entirely too good-looking. Too familiar with a revolving door of women making asses over themselves to please him. She could choose not to join that vast legion. But then her rendezvous with destiny was beckoning like a mirage in the desert. And like mirages everywhere, the lure was irresistible. Perhaps not completely irresistible, because a little voice inside her head reprimanded, sharply: I’m disowning you if you cave completely. I need a quid pro quo. “Just so everything’s clear,” Nicole said, hardwired not to cave with or without a niggling voice. “We’re agreed on two weeks?”
He recognized her challenge, said as much with a look.
She laughed. “They always just say yes, don’t they?”
“Of course not,” he lied.
Nicole looked up at Fiona, who was failing to follow the subtext of the conversation. “I’m going to stay,” she explained. “You and Jack have a good time.”
“You’re sure now?” There was a note of uncertainty in Fiona’s voice.
; “Rafe said he was sorry.” Nicole gave him a smug smile. “So everything’s good. What about you? Are you fine with”—she wiggled her fingers—“wherever you’re going?”
“Are you kidding?” Fiona let out a throaty giggle. “I feel like I won the lottery!”
Nicole laughed. “Have fun then. Oh, hell,” she said. “Do you know where my phone is?”
“With mine. I’ll go get it.”
“I’ll go with you.” Jack set down the two whiskeys he held, intent on giving Rafe the privacy he wanted.
Rafe glanced up. “Carlos is in the wheelhouse. I told him you’d be up.”
Nicole waited until they were alone before offering her own apology. “I’m sorry too. I have a short fuse.” Whether her mother’s admonitions about common courtesy were prompting her or she was trying to semi-manage the uncharted craziness, she wanted to clear the air. “Can you deal with the fireworks? We’ll probably fight like a couple of cats.”
He offered her a lazy grin. “Cats?”
“Not you I suppose—unless it’s some huge jungle animal.” Her gaze flicked up, a playful glitter in the blue depths. “Points to you on weight class.”
“Why don’t I promise not to use my size to my advantage?” His smile could have melted the last of the Arctic ice. “Deal?”
She nibbled her bottom lip. “Deal, but still… last warning—I can be difficult. You might be better off with someone else.”
“In what way?”
“Less angst. More compliance.” She smiled. “All those yeses you like.”
His brows rose. “Tut, tut. You want compliments? You want me to tell you how special you are? How I can’t live without you?”
“Screw you,” she muttered, taking offense at his silky sarcasm, chafing at her flagrant attraction to a man who only knew adoring women.
“Oh you will,” he said softly, “a hundred different ways. And,” he added with a smile, “if I’d wanted someone else, I wouldn’t have sent Silvie away.”
His deep voice was like a caress, his smile sensual, the subliminal message so overt, she felt the pleasure ripple through her body, particularly where his fingers had so recently rested. But he was watching her, so ignoring his lazy smile and her fevered senses, she spoke with deliberate coolness. “You forget, her husband came for her.”