by Teri Wilson
She cried into his mouth. Soft sounds of surrender. And he knew with tragic certainty that it would never be enough—this momentary taste of her. Impossibly exquisite, it was all too fleeting. Too temporary. The brutal truth was that he wanted to lose himself in her until he forgot he would one day be king.
This wasn’t simply a kiss. This was pleasure itself, a timeless embrace with enough passion to raise every dead Roman who’d once walked these halls.
With a groan of regret, he released her mouth before he reached the point of no return and gave into the urge to bury himself inside her, right here in plain view of every tourist in Italy.
He pressed his forehead against hers and concentrated on breathing in and out, praying for the swell of desire pulsing through his veins to somehow subside. A futile effort.
He took a slow, labored inhale and backed up a step.
“What was that?” Julia panted. “You can’t just . . . we can’t . . .”
“That was a kiss, Miss Costa.” He placed his palms against the cool stone wall behind her head, hemming her in.
Despite her words, she strained toward him, the soft swell of her breasts skimming his chest. Eyes wild, lips delectably swollen, she didn’t look at all like a woman on the verge of running away. But he had no intention of allowing it, should the thought cross her mind.
“I wholeheartedly doubt it’s something you haven’t experienced before, although I admit I find the idea of being the first man to taste you utterly intoxicating.”
“Rest assured, you’re not. I’ve been kissed before. Plenty of times.” She lifted her chin in what Niccolo could plainly see was a show of false bravado. She might have been kissed by other men, but not like this. Not in a place where history lived and breathed, where the stones cried and destiny danced. Where yesterday became today became tomorrow.
And not by a man who wanted her as much as he did.
He glanced at her fists, still clutching at his suit jacket. She had such a tight grip on him that her knuckles had gone white.
“Why don’t I believe you?” he asked with a wry smile.
Her divine face went instantly pink.
“This is not in any way appropriate,” she said, releasing her hold on his clothing.
He cast a bemused glance at his wrinkled suit. Evidence of just how much she’d enjoyed acting so inappropriately. “You may find this difficult to believe, Julia, but I’m the last person you need to lecture on proper behavior.”
“I highly doubt that,” she retorted, a flash of defiance in her eyes. “This needs to stop. I’m your guide, not your mistress.”
A fact he was too aware of. Even so, having her remind him in such a blunt manner mere seconds after his hands had been all over her rubbed him entirely the wrong way. Did she have any idea to whom she was speaking?
No, of course she doesn’t. “You’re angry with me.”
“Yes,” she said, dropping her gaze.
“Why?” He twirled a wayward lock of her hair around one of his fingers and noted with pleasure when she failed to protest. Standing this close and not touching her was killing him.
She narrowed her pretty eyes. “I think you know why.”
He froze.
She’d discovered his true identity somehow? But how? “Julia . . .”
“I wasn’t late. In fact, I was early.” Her eyes shimmered suddenly with unshed tears. Tears for which he was supposedly responsible.
Niccolo blinked. He had no clue what she was talking about, which could only mean one thing. The actual Mr. Romano was the culprit.
“Of course you were,” he said, wishing she would expand on whatever terrible thing his nom de guerre had done.
He was torn—torn between relief that his identity was still a secret and the need to pound Romano into the ground for making her cry.
“I think it’s best if we keep things strictly professional. My boss is upset with me enough as it is.” Storms gathered in her eyes. Niccolo could see how conflicted she was as clearly as if it were written across her lovely forehead. He might be capable of drawing a response from her body, but her mind was another matter entirely. “Besides, not every woman you meet wants to sleep with you.”
In fact, they typically did. With one notable exception—the woman standing before him. If he was to believe her, which he did not.
He saw the desire in her eyes, which were heavy-lidded and wild. She might be angry, but she was every bit as aroused as he was. She was intoxicated with it—the yearning, the ache. It was palpable. It shimmered in the air between them, hot and electric. She felt it, too. Just as keenly as he did. She was shivering and delicious, fighting for control when it absolutely should have been the other way around.
This is for the best.
It shouldn’t matter whether or not she wanted to sleep with him. In a matter of hours, he would return to his real life. They would never cross paths again. Her opinion of him shouldn’t matter at all.
It shouldn’t, but it did.
He never should have kissed her. What the hell was he doing? He didn’t behave this way. Ever.
After all, he was supposed to be the good prince.
CHAPTER
* * *
EIGHT
Julia wasn’t sure how much longer she could stand there and pretend she wasn’t coming apart. Everything within her wanted to arch toward Mano, to press closer and closer until the terrible ache inside her was satisfied.
What had he done to her?
She’d had to forcibly remind herself that not only was this man a complete and total stranger, but also a stranger who’d gotten her in deep trouble with her boss.
Yet she could still feel Mano’s hands on her, his mouth. She would feel it for days, if not weeks. If not forever. No one had ever touched her in such a way before. As if she were a treasure, as precious as one of the masterpieces that people flocked to Rome to admire. The Trevi Fountain, or Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne at Galleria Borghese.
She closed her eyes and imagined his hands on her breasts, her thighs, tangled in her hair. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Her body trembled with need.
This cannot be happening.
She didn’t want to feel this way. It didn’t make sense. Why him, of all people? She didn’t even know him. And here she was, wishing, hoping, and wanting . . . wanting him inside her.
She would not do this. She couldn’t. He was far more dangerous than Elio. Elio had left her brokenhearted. This man would leave her broken. Period. Kissing him alone had almost been the death of her.
Besides, how many times could she possibly jeopardize her job in the span of a few short hours?
Heart thudding, she opened her eyes to find he’d backed away. They now stood several chaste feet apart, and Niccolo was staring down at her with a look in his eyes that she couldn’t quite decipher.
Anger? No, not quite. He appraised her with a single, raised brow. Mortified, she recognized his expression as cool detachment. He simply stood there watching her as she burned for him.
Her breasts ached. The throbbing between her legs was excruciating, like nothing she’d experienced before. Desire so intense it was a living, breathing entity. Surely he could see it.
She felt every bit as naked as if he’d undressed her. Exposed. Vulnerable.
She wanted to die.
“As you wish. I apologize,” he said, straightening his tie and drawing her gaze to his hands. Those magic fingertips that had felt as if they held a world of forbidden promises.
She wished the hallowed ground of the Colosseum would open up and swallow her whole.
“Apologize? Whatever for?” She squared her shoulders and prayed he didn’t hear the slight tremor in her voice. His effect on her was devastating. It terrified her.
“For kissing you when it was so clearly not something
you wanted.” His dark gaze lingered on her mouth for a long, heated moment. “It won’t happen again.”
Every cell in her rebellious body wept.
“Good,” she lied.
“Good,” he echoed, an angry knot forming in his jaw.
She peeled herself off the wall and straightened her blouse. Her head spun a little. Was it her imagination, or did the world look different somehow? Brighter, more colorful.
Don’t be ridiculous. It was just a kiss.
Just a kiss. She’d never heard a more massive understatement in her life. It was like calling the Colosseum just a building. Rome, just a city.
“Shall we resume the tour now?” She crossed her arms and did her best to ignore the sensations that were still running rampant through her body.
“The tour,” he said flatly. “Yes, of course.”
His enthusiasm was underwhelming.
So was hers. She’d never been less excited to show someone priceless treasures from centuries ago, something she ordinarily delighted in. They weren’t just pieces of marble or stone. They were memories. Memories from real people who lived real lives. They deserved to be remembered, to be seen. Isn’t that what everyone deserved? To be seen? To be appreciated?
A lump lodged in her throat. This was ridiculous. Why was she getting so emotional all of a sudden?
As much as she hated to admit it, she knew why. Because in those few cherished moments when Mano had kissed her, when he’d touched her, she’d felt seen. Seen like she’d never been seen before. Not just visible. Adored.
Which was impossible, if not downright crazy. She was imagining things. Everything she’d been through—the disaster with Elio, losing her father . . . losing everything . . . had left her vulnerable, that’s all. Apparently more vulnerable than she’d realized.
She’d only been eighteen when the Securities and Exchange Commission began its investigation into her father’s business. He hadn’t even warned her. She’d learned about it along with the rest of the world when his face appeared on CNN. Everything afterward had been a terrible blur—the trial, the foreclosure of her family home, her father’s imprisonment. Julia tried her best to move on and lose herself in her undergraduate course work, but when it had all become too much—when she couldn’t walk across campus without being hounded by photographers—she’d run.
She’d run straight to Rome.
There wasn’t a better place in the world to study archaeology, but more importantly, Julia felt at home here. She’d spent summers in Italy as a girl, back when her family still owned its villa in the Tuscan hills. The only happy memories of her childhood were buried here, among the Roman ruins.
Julia took a steadying inhale. This tour wasn’t about her. It was about her client. And as awkward as things might feel between them at the moment, that client was Mano. In the next few days, he would receive an email from Giuseppe asking him to rate her performance as a tour guide. All the clients did. During her entire tenure at the company, she’d never gotten anything less than a stellar review. She certainly couldn’t let an insignificant kiss ruin an otherwise perfect reputation.
Insignificant. Maybe if she kept telling herself it didn’t matter, it would be true.
She cleared her throat. “I think we’ve seen about enough of the Colosseum.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Mano said. There were shadows in his gray eyes—hints of a dark, predatory beauty that did nothing to stop the chaos she still felt inside.
It doesn’t matter how you feel. The only thing that matters is how you behave.
She forced a smile. “Then let’s proceed to the Forum. It’s nearby, just a short walk. I want to show you something that I think you might find interesting.”
For the first time since she’d ended the kiss, his expression softened. His chiseled face bore the barest hint of a smile, nothing more than a subtle curve of his wicked mouth.
She would take it. She would pretty much take any sign of delight, no matter how small. Because she didn’t have much longer to turn Mano Romano into a satisfied customer. This day wouldn’t last forever.
She was running out of time.
* * *
AS NICCOLO TRUDGED BEHIND Julia through the ankle-deep mud, he couldn’t help but be impressed with her remarkable restraint. She hadn’t uttered a word about the ruination of his shoes. Or his trousers, the hems of which were wet and clinging to his ankles.
Three-plus hours in the swirling mist, surrounded by the crumbling ruins of the Roman Forum, and not a single I-told-you-so. In fact, they’d hardly said two words to each other. She hadn’t even asked him what had become of his rain poncho, which he’d accidentally forgotten at the barbershop in his haste to return to her.
So here he stood, in dampened cashmere and muddy wing tips, admiring the delicate web of raindrops in Julia Costa’s hair and wondering what was going on in that pretty head of hers.
If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought they’d never kissed at all, that he’d only imagined the way she’d tasted of art and literature and silver stars and golden moon.
But he did know better. In his wildest dreams he couldn’t have conjured a feeling so impossibly enchanting. A feeling so wrong.
His gaze flitted to the swollen full moon, hanging low over the Palatine Hill, a luminous, aching reminder that his time here was drawing to a close.
It was for the best. This—the entire day—had been a mistake. He should have never followed her out the door of the Hotel de Russie. And he most certainly should never have kissed her. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around what he’d done. He’d walked away from his responsibilities. When he boarded his flight to Helsinki in less than an hour, he would be leaving behind dozens of disappointed auto workers, orphans, foreign ministers, members of the press . . . and one angry woman.
The angry woman in question stopped as they reached a rectangular area on the edge of the ruins flanked by two neat rows of statues. Marble goddesses clothed in diaphanous white.
“Beautiful,” he murmured. “Where are we?”
At his question, Julia’s sudden smile appeared lit from the inside. Had he really been so quiet for the better part of the afternoon that five words could prompt such a reaction?
Yes, apparently he had.
“The House of the Vestals.” She waved a hand at the closest sculpted figure. “The Vestal Virgins lived in the ninth and tenth centuries. They were priestesses of Vesta. The Romans were awestruck by them and believed the Vestal Virgins to be magic.”
Niccolo tried to wrap his mind around the fact that he was looking at art and stones that had been standing in this sacred grove for over two thousand years. “And this is where they lived? Right here?”
“Yes.” She nodded, and her voice went soft. He had to strain to hear it above the pitter-patter of the rain. “This was once a fifty-room palace with an atrium and a reflecting pool. It’s also where the Vestals kept the sacred fire.”
Priestesses. Sacred fires. No wonder he was out of sorts. These ruins, this hill, the entirety of Rome was enchanted ground. He would feel better once he boarded his plane and left this Eternal City and all its magic behind.
Deep down, somewhere beneath the lingering effects of that unprecedented first kiss and the roar of arousal still making itself known in every inch of his body, he knew that wasn’t the case. How he wished the explanation was as simple as removing himself from the situation. He had a feeling he would remember the heat of Julia Costa’s curves in his hands for quite some time.
Sacred fire.
He arched a roguish brow. “Tell me something else—were they really virgins?”
Her cheeks grew three shades of pink, which confirmed his earlier suspicions. He wasn’t fool enough to believe that she was an actual virgin. A woman as smart and captivating as she, in one of the most romantic cities in the world? Doub
tful. But she was heartbreakingly inexperienced. Of that he was certain.
Oh, the things he wanted to teach her.
Not wanted. Craved. Needed.
She cleared her throat, and he found her obvious embarrassment utterly enthralling. “Absolutely, they were chaste. A Vestal’s penalty for breaking her vow of chastity was to be buried alive.”
He took a step closer, just to see how deeply he could make her flush. He wanted her to tumble. Hard and fast. “Buried alive? For allowing a man to take her to bed?”
She swallowed, and his eyes traced the movement up and down the elegant column of her throat.
“That seems awfully harsh. Don’t you think?” He reached out and touched the shallow dip between her collarbones. It wasn’t so much a conscious decision to touch her as it was an instinct. An irrepressible drive. She’d shed her poncho when she’d realized his had vanished. Her clothes now clung to her body, dampened and heavy. He simply could not stand beside her and keep his hands off her. Not for another godforsaken minute.
He blamed the ghostly spirits that surrounded them. All those aching, unsatisfied virgins.
She shuddered beneath his fingertips. “The punishment was far worse for the man who defiled her.”
“Worse than being buried alive?” His fingertips, now moving of their own volition, made a lazy, downward trail, pausing just between her breasts.
Julia inhaled sharply, but made no move to back away. “Flogging,” she said on a whispery breath. “Followed by a public and gruesome execution.”
Desire throbbed between them. Again.
He considered her words then shrugged, feigning nonchalance the best he could before forcing himself to remove his hands from her. There were tourists everywhere, and if he didn’t stop now, he would cup her breasts through her thin polka-dot blouse in plain view of everyone. “I have no doubt that man considered it a most fair and equitable exchange.”