Harlequin Presents February 2013 - Bundle 2 of 2: Dealing Her Final CardUncovering the Silveri SecretBartering Her InnocenceLiving the Charade

by Jennie Lucas

  Almost.

  Instead he spun her around and cradled her jaw in his hands, lifting her face towards his. Her lips were parted, her breathing shallow and fast and her amber eyes swirled with confusion. There was resentment there and heated anger, but there was a flicker of vulnerability too in those amber depths, a flicker that was almost endearing.

  ‘Where is your caveman now, Valentina?’ he asked, searching her face, watching her mouth and those lips, parted and panting and just begging to be kissed. He wasn’t about to disappoint them. He dipped his head and brushed her lips with his and sighed with the simple, exquisite pleasure.

  Just sex, she told herself. It was just sex. His kisses meant nothing, the tenderness meant nothing.

  It was just sex.

  It meant nothing.

  So why did it feel so very good?

  His lips moved over hers like a piece of music, a symphony that built and grew and slowed to tender lows and soared to great heights and everywhere in between.

  His hands traced a path down her throat. She felt the brush of silken straps over her shoulders and the slip of her dress as it fell to the floor. She felt air that cooled and caressed her naked breasts and turned her nipples even harder.

  She felt his hands slide down her bare back and pull her against him.

  She felt him, long and hard against her belly. Felt the aching need for him between her thighs and her hand moved of its own volition, unable to resist the temptation to curl her fingers over that rigid column.

  Breath hissed through his teeth. He lifted her from the circle of her dress and into his arms, took three long strides and tossed her into the centre of the waiting bed. Chest heaving as if he’d run a marathon, he looked down at her on the bed, eyes raking down over a body clad in nothing but gossamer-thin shreds of silken underwear, a pair of killer heels and a pair of earrings, while his hands were busy pulling off his shirt, his shoes, his trousers.

  She could not take her eyes from him, from the lean and sculpted perfection of his body, from the heart-stopping size of his erection as it sprang free. Looking at him made her blood fizz and her flesh ache.

  And then he kneeled alongside her on the bed and slipped off first one shoe and then the other, kissing the soles of her feet, sliding his hands up her legs to catch the scrap of silk that was her underwear, sliding it down and tossing it over his shoulder.

  ‘Did anyone ever tell you,’ he said, his voice thick with need as he gazed down upon her naked form, ‘that you look amazing in sapphires?’

  She was sure she would have remembered if someone had, but right now there was no space for raking up memories, no room for anything that might have happened in the past. This moment was all about what was happening now.

  He lowered his head and put his mouth to her breast, drawing it in, rolling his tongue around her nipple while one hand swept down her body from neck to breast to thigh to knee, his long fingers spread wide, missing nothing, leaving no part of her untouched, leaving no part of her to his imagination. Through his scorching touch, he drank her in until she felt more liquid than solid, her senses flowing, eddying.

  She shuddered under the heated assault, her senses alive, her need building like a whirlpool; spinning as he rained hot kisses down her belly; spinning as he spread her legs wide and dipped his head between her aching thighs.

  The first touch of his tongue was electric, sending her arching against the mattress. She cried out, something incomprehensible—meaningless—other than as a reflection of the exquisite agony of his hot tongue circling her pulsing core, and his clever lips toying with that screamingly tight bud of nerve endings. And all the while the whirlpool built inside her, sucking her deeper, rendering her senseless, her world ever shrinking, until it consisted of nothing more than a spinning sea of sensation.

  She was lost in that sea. Cast adrift. And still it wasn’t enough. Still she needed more.

  ‘Tell me that you want me,’ he murmured, sensing her distress, and she felt his words on her secret flesh.

  Her head thrashed on the pillow. ‘I hate you.’

  He caught her between his lips, suckled harder.

  ‘Tell me that you want me.’

  ‘I want you,’ she half cried, half sobbed, the confession wrenched bodily from her as he continued to work magic with his mouth, as the circling storm inside her wound tighter and inexorably tighter like a coiled spring until she would die with it.

  ‘I want you now!’

  And his mouth was gone and she had one moment of relief, one moment of loss, before she felt him nudge at her core and drive himself home.

  It was the trigger she needed, the trigger that released that achingly tight coiling spring and sent her soaring. She exploded around him as he held her and filled her and completed her.

  ‘You should hate me more often,’ he joked as she came down from the high, her body slick and hot and humming in secret places.

  ‘I do,’ she said, panting, hating him right now for his ability to do that to her, to turn her incendiary with his clever hands and clever mouth.

  ‘Good,’ he said, moving inside her, making her gasp as she realised he was still hard. ‘Keep on hating me.’

  She could do that. But there was no time to tell him, no time to get her breath back. He leaned back, lifted a lifeless leg and flipped her neatly onto her front before she knew what was happening, all the time still buried deep inside her.

  Shock rendered her speechless, not only at his sudden manoeuvre, but at the tightening and dance of muscles she’d thought wasted, muscles that welcomed another chance to play.

  Large hands anchored her hips as he drew back and she hated his leaving almost as much as she hated him.

  Maybe more.

  He took his own sweet time coming back, inch by excruciating inch until she thought she would go mad with want, until he was seated deep inside her, his thighs pressed hard against hers.

  She sighed with the exquisite fullness of it. Oh God, he felt so good this way, so deep.

  And when he moved it was even better. He started slowly, inviting her into the rhythm of his dance, taking her with him. His hands grew hungrier, sliding down her spine, curling around a breast, slipping around a thigh to stroke her sensitive nub. He was everywhere around her. He was inside her. He possessed her.

  The rhythm built, the pace increased, the slide of flesh against flesh set to the sound of the slap of skin against skin and the feverish need for air as he wound her need around him, tighter and tighter than it had been before and left her teetering on the edge of a precipice.

  He paused, leaving her on the brink. She heard a sound like a whimper, needy and desperate, before she realised it had come from her own throat.

  And then it was his turn to cry out—a cry of triumph borne of pain—as he thrust one last desperate time and sent her to that place where hate and want coalesced in a fireball that consumed her.

  He followed her over the edge, pumping his release and catching her to ride the wave together.

  I hate you, she thought, as he collapsed alongside and gathered her close.

  I hate you, she thought, as a single tear rolled down her cheek. I need to be able to hate you.

  But after what they had just shared, the sentiment rang hollow and empty.

  CHAPTER NINE

  LUCA couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept late. Not that he hadn’t woken earlier. But this morning she’d stirred too and she’d been warm and malleable in his arms and it had been inevitable that they’d made love again.

  But then instead of rising like he’d planned, he’d fallen back to sleep. If Aldo hadn’t woken him with a subtle knock at the door, he’d still be sleeping.

  ‘What time is it?’ he asked as Aldo placed a tray of coffee and rolls on a table. Beside him Valent
ina stirred, still sprawled on her stomach, her hair in disarray around her head, testament to the riotous night they’d spent rediscovering each other’s bodies. How many times had they made love? Was it four? Or five? He’d lost count along with his sleep.

  ‘Ten o’clock,’ the valet said in response to a question Luca had forgotten he’d asked. ‘I wouldn’t have disturbed you but Signore Cressini called and said he needed to talk to you.’

  ‘Matteo called?’ he asked, lashing a gown around himself while Aldo opened the curtains.

  Aldo nodded. ‘He said it was important.’

  He left the room as Valentina lifted her head from the pillow and sniffed. ‘Mmm, coffee,’ she muttered before dropping her head back on the pillow and Luca smiled and reached for the pot, filling them both a cup while he wondered what Matteo wanted.

  Mind you, he owed his cousin a call—he had, after all, put paid to the spending habits of his best customer. Matteo, no doubt, wanted an update.

  He reached for his phone and immediately thought better of it. He was already late for the office and it wasn’t as if there was anything pressing or that there weren’t any number of bright young things who wouldn’t be happy to cover for him for the day. Besides, right now bright autumn sunshine was flooding the room with light. Late September and the weather was still holding. Any time now the storm clouds of a European winter would come sweeping down from the north, and the heavens would turn grey and dark and open up and turn Venice from a watery wonderland into a rain-lashed water world.

  Maybe he should to take a little time out while his guest was here before that happened. A run out to the island of Murano wouldn’t take that long. It would make for more photo opportunities of them together for a start. And then afterwards there’d be time for a late lunch and a long afternoon siesta. He might not be Spanish, but there were plenty of reasons to like the practice. Making love in the middle of the day was one of them. Thirty nights could stretch a little that way.

  But not if she was going to spend it all sleeping. He pulled off the covers and slapped her bare rump, almost tempted to linger at the sight of her creamy flesh. ‘Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. I’ve got plans for you.’

  * * *

  She didn’t exactly jump at his suggestion of visiting Murano and his cousin’s glass factory. The glass that formed her mother’s addiction was not something that held her fascination—she’d seen enough of it at Lily’s palazzo to last a lifetime. And it wasn’t as if she needed a reminder of how her mother had been manoeuvred into debt—yes, because she was feeding a compulsion of her own making—but also by probably two of the best in the business.

  After all, who else to feed a glass-infatuated woman’s habit but a financier who wanted to steal her house out from under her and his cousin, the man who owned the factory and who supplied her fix?

  What worried her more, she reflected as she tied back her hair and swiped gloss over her lips, was spending time with Luca—time when they were not making love. It was one thing to share his bed and his nights—that had been the deal she’d made. She just wasn’t sure she wanted to share his days. Because she needed time alone. Time to think. Time to regroup.

  Time to put into perspective their love-making, to bundle it up in a box marked meaningless and shove it under the bed until the next night.

  It was harder to do than she’d thought. Harder to separate the passionate Luca from the hated. Harder to hold herself together, even when she was coming apart.

  No, she didn’t need to be reminded in the daylight hours of the tender caress as he’d stroked her skin or the way he’d turned her molten with one flick of his clever tongue. She needed the lid put on that box and put on firmly and for it to be all tied up tight.

  But he’d insisted. Why? To rub her nose deeper in her mother’s mess by taking her to the scene of the crime? Surely he knew better now than to think that she cared enough about Lily’s foolishness for that.

  So he’d insisted and she’d relented. Besides, the weather was sunny, the skies clear blue, and she’d found a gorgeous floral print sundress that was just begging to be worn. Why shouldn’t she see something of Venice while she was here?

  And if Luca could put up with her daylight company for a few hours, she could hardly confess that she was afraid to do the same. She would just have to work harder to keep a lid on that box.

  And when all was said and done, what was she afraid of, anyway? Actually liking the man? There was no chance of that, not after all the things he’d done.

  Luca was in his study making calls when she emerged, so she pulled out her laptop and curled into a chair to try to finish the email to her father. He would be wondering what was happening over here and when she was planning on coming home. She was wondering how best to tell him without having him launch himself halfway around the world brandishing a shotgun to save his daughter from the clutches of the evil Luca.

  She smiled at the thought as she pounded on the space bar, trying to imagine him in Venice, surrounded by water, practically living on top of the water. He’d taken her to the beach for a holiday once, when she was ten. A wide, sandy beach framed by rocky cliffs and wild waves and an endless, endless sea. He hadn’t stopped staring at the sea for days, and when she asked what he was looking for, he’d just shaken his head and muttered, ‘All that water.’

  A bubble of sadness rose up unbidden to sully the memory and she felt a familiar pang of loss. And then the space bar stuck again and she wrote a line of jibberish and she cursed, distracted. The damn key was getting worse. No question about it.

  ‘You look good enough to eat.’

  Her mouth went dry. She swallowed, suddenly reminded of another time, another feast, the lid well and truly ripped from the box.

  Was he thinking about last night too?

  She took her time closing her laptop, wishing away the burning in her cheeks. She didn’t dare meet his eyes. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. Is that a computer or a brick you’re banging away on?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, putting it down, happy to talk about anything other than the reason for her blushing. ‘It does the job. Most of the time. It’s just seen better days, that’s all.’

  He came closer, picked it up and tested its weight with one hand before discovering he needed two. ‘It’s seen better centuries.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ she said, even though it weighed a ton and was so slow it was good for little more than the occasional email.

  He grunted and put it down. ‘The driver’s here, if you’re ready.’

  Beyond the crowded canals of Venice, the driver opened up the engines. The sleek timber craft’s nose leapt clear of the water, the boat skipping over the surface of the lagoon in a rush of power.

  Luca asked her if she wanted to go inside, but it was exhilarating standing at the back of the vessel, the wind tugging at her hair, and she shook her head. Besides, the view outside was just too good. There was something about seeing Venice from the water, buildings standing where by rights there should be none, rising vertically from the lagoon like a mirage.

  But the city was real. Just as the man standing at her side was real. Heart-stoppingly, devastatingly real, when she thought about their love-making last night; ruthlessly, unscrupulously real when she remembered why she was here, and if there was a mirage anywhere, it was this game they were playing, pretending to be lovers.

  He’d told her last night he wanted her so badly that he would use her mother’s debts to blackmail her into his bed. Then, with the wick of anticipation already lit and burning down towards their inevitable coupling, it had almost seemed reasonable. Today logic demanded a better explanation. Because she wasn’t that special. What was really going on?

  He put a lazy arm around her shoulders and she looked up at him. ‘Why am I here?’ she asked, her
words tugged away by the wind. ‘The real reason this time.’

  His eyes were masked by dark glasses. ‘Don’t you want to see Murano?’

  ‘No,’ she said, not knowing if he had deliberately chosen to misunderstand her question, ‘I don’t mean that.’ But, before she could clarify, he squeezed her shoulders and pointed ahead. ‘Look, we’re almost there.’

  They slowed and landed at a small dock where a man stood waiting for them. He waved as they pulled alongside and she had no doubt who he was. Cousins could be brothers, both lean and long-limbed and good-looking enough for a dozen men. ‘Matteo,’ called Luca as he bounded onto the dock. The pair embraced before he turned to offer Tina his hand.

  ‘And this,’ he said as she joined him on the deck, ‘is Valentina Henderson, Lily’s daughter.’

  Matteo smiled and greeted her like a traditional Italian, a kiss to each cheek before standing back, a wide smile on his handsome face. ‘Lily’s daughter, yes, I see it, but much more beautiful too. Do you share your mother’s passion for our local glass, Valentina?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ignoring the compliment and hoping to knock on the head any hope he might hold that he had gained himself a new client. ‘It holds no interest for me at all.’

  ‘Valentina has—’ Luca looked at her and smiled

  ‘—other passions, don’t you, Valentina?’

  One day she would grow out of blushing, she swore, as she tried to look anywhere but at the two men standing opposite. Maybe just not today.

  ‘Come,’ said Matteo, clearly enjoying the joke as he clapped his cousin on the shoulder, ‘let’s see if we can change that.’

  She wasn’t about to have her mind changed. Not when she was led into the large warehouse room, warm from the heat of at least four fiery kilns. Men worked there, doing whatever it was they did, but it was the chandeliers she noticed hanging from the warehouse ceiling, magnificently ornate and totally incongruous examples of the glassmakers’ craft in the yawning airspace above her, that made up her mind.