“It will take days to move the ice and rubble.”
“But we can get back to the village,” she pressed.
“Not today,” he said and pointed to the dark clouds roiling over the mountains. “Let’s get out of here.”
Darkness and perhaps a storm would descend on them soon. They could be stuck here at a remote rifugio for tonight. Maybe another day before the track could be cleared. Maybe more. And for once she had left her netbook and papers in her portfolio in her room.
She had nothing to occupy her time except the company of her host, and nobody to blame for being here except herself. She’d insisted on coming up here today because she’d been intent on getting this job done quickly. Her obstinacy had nearly cost them their lives.
They reached another shelf that was far smaller than the other one. “Welcome to my refuge from the world,” he shouted.
Her gaze landed on a red-roofed stone building perched on a rocky ledge she estimated was the length of a football field from them. “Finally,” she said, teeth chattering.
“Are you all right?” he asked, wrenching around to look at her, brows drawn, eyes dark.
She shook her head. “I’m cold.”
“We’ll be there soon. Can you hang on a while longer?”
She nodded and slid her arms around his lean waist, pressing close to his body and welcome heat, not caring if he liked it or not. He sighed. Or was it a groan?
Moments that seemed like hours passed before he parked the ATV on the cliff side of the building next to a small stone wall that snaked along the edge of the slope. He vaulted off and helped her dismount, then wrapped an arm around her shoulders and guided her through the gate.
It swung open soundlessly and she preceded him through it onto a paved stone walkway that led to a large wooden deck. Only one door was visible on the side and she headed toward the heavy wooden panel, her wet shoes pounding a weary beat on the deck that wrapped around the front V of the rifugio.
He unlocked and opened the door for her, his palm to her back as they hurried inside. “I’ll start a fire.”
“Okay,” she said, hugging herself. “Is there a shower?”
“Si, in the bedroom down the hall. Can you manage?”
“I think so.” But once she was there, her numb fingers couldn’t twist the knob.
Without a word, he opened the door wide, then swept her into his arms, slamming the door behind him. “You are chilled to the bone.”
She heard a gruff curse in Italian and felt herself pulled into the corner of the wet room.
Blessed warm water pelted her through her clothes as he slammed his back against the wall, still holding her tight in his arms. She gasped a breath and flung her head back, her fingers clasped behind his neck, glorying in the hot water washing away the grime and cold and fear from her.
He shifted and the hot spray plastered her hair to her head. She turned her head from the force, watching the streaks of brown mire from them both rush across the white tile floor toward the drain.
If only bad memories could be erased that easily.
Her face lifted to the hot spray, the jets washing over her body just like they had done seven years ago as she’d tried to scrub the taint of her attacker’s seed and smell from her body. She hadn’t thought it important to wash that beast from her soul as well.
She and Luciano had just escaped death. He’d done it at least once before, but this was her first close call. In all the years she’d skied in competition and for fun, she’d never experienced anything that threatened physical devastation or worse. Yet for the past couple of years she’d treated those who had. Dealt with men and women who’d lost the most basic vital functions of mobility.
All of these years she’d thought she understood how her patients must feel because she’d experienced her own demoralizing fear. She’d lost something precious, something she would never have back again. This time, she could have lost more—her life or Luciano’s.
Yet she had buried a vital part of her seven years ago.
Rape was death, whether bodily or mentally. It was the last rites of one’s innocence. The total stripping of will, power and control. That violation victimized and punished, leaving scars that ran soul deep for years, that haunted the survivor long into the nights to come. It remained the stain that couldn’t be washed away, couldn’t be removed, couldn’t be forgotten.
It victimized, sentencing the wronged to a living hell. It was the prisoners’ brand only invisible to the eye, but still she’d hidden the truth from the world out of fear and shame. And just like a devastating accident that sentenced the victims to wheelchairs for life, her rape had left her scarred emotionally.
She had tried then to scrub that stain from her body, but it remained. The mark she couldn’t wash away, couldn’t forget. It had clung to her for years, just like her sopping clothes did now.
Dirt was dirt and she’d wallowed in that particular filth long enough. She pulled at her T-shirt, at his, desperate to be free of constrictions, of phobias, of pain.
This was her call. Her choice. A beautiful, haunted man held her in his arms. Wanting her on a purely carnal level, judging by the strong hands that held her so tightly, by the hard, rigid length of his anatomy that prodded her hip through her sopping jeans.
She wanted to be rid of them. Wanted to feel the man naked and willing.
For seven years she’d pulled into a shell, refusing to date, refusing even to go out with the girls. She was sick and tired of hiding, of jumping at shadows. She wanted to confront life again. Wanted to be intimate with a man because it was her choice.
All she had to do was reach for what she wanted most. Right now.
She turned in his embrace and wiggled her legs free, slithering down his long legs like a serpent. “What if I said I’d changed my mind?” she said, straddling the edge of flippant.
“About?”
“Sex. Us. Now.”
He pulled back, water pouring over his head and streaming down his face as his eyes searched, assessed. “That’s the shock of surviving danger talking.”
“You don’t feel it, too?” she asked, voice hoarse. “God, I feel it,” she said, breathless. “But what difference does that make? I want you. Need you now. What more can I say?”
“Nothing. In the end you will expect more than that. An affair, commitment.”
She shook her head. “Not anymore. No ties. No promises.”
His eyes narrowed, and his hopes and desires soared. “You want my financial backing and sex?”
“Yes. We are bound together by a contract, there’s no changing that. But when the job is finished, so are we.”
“Of course,” he replied, his eyes dark and unreadable.
Then his beautiful lips curled in a wolfish smile and he pulled her into his arms, his mouth brushing hers once, twice, before settling in for a lengthy melding of lips and tongue that poured live coals on her desire. The passion burning in his eyes melted her heart, and the heat curling off his body threatened to set hers on fire with raw need.
She moved against him with feline grace, her hands boldly stroking his broad shoulders, the long line of his spine and lean hips, before her fingers splayed over his firm buttocks. He jerked, his erection sliding between her thighs and gracing her core through her clothes. A moan tore from her as the friction of wet bodies moving together stoked the ache pulsing low in her belly.
God, how she wanted this man. Wanted to experience uninhibited sex with him. Wanted this moment to blot out the ugly memory that haunted her deep into the night.
This was her choice. No promises. No regrets. No shame.
The only way to escape the demons in her past was to plunge headlong into the future because she wanted this. She deserved it. She would take it.
CH
APTER FIVE
LUC HADN’T FELT this exhilarated, this alive in years, this impassioned to make love to a woman. And not just any woman.
He wanted Caprice. Wanted her without strings attached. Wanted her now without a thought to tomorrow.
In the course of a few hours she’d changed from businesswoman to an enchanting vixen hungry for sex, nothing more. All the passion she’d infused into her program now fueled her intent to satisfy her needs.
It was sexy as hell. Liberating.
How the hell could he turn his back on that proposition?
He couldn’t. He would be the man who satisfied her needs as well as his own.
Without ceremony, he grasped her slender shoulders and levered her away from him, peeling off her wet clothes to reveal a toned body rosy with passion. “You are beautiful. Perfect.”
She blinked, lips soft and dewy. Inviting lips. Lips that could pleasure a man, and God knew he selfishly wanted that from her now.
His body pressed her against the tiles, his palms slapping the cool marble while hot water pounded his head and shoulders and streamed over them creating an erotic steam bath of writhing bodies, dueling tongues and sizzling need.
Sweet and spicy. Hot. She was more provocative than any woman he’d kissed, enflaming his desire more than before, nudging deeper feelings in him that had screwed up his mind and his life once before. He shoved those dark thoughts of Isabella away and focused on Caprice, taking everything she would give him before he turned the tables on her and made her whimper and beg for more.
He removed his clothes and circled her slender shoulders in his arms, pulling her closer, tucking her against his rock-hard erection. Her gasp was proof she knew what would come next. That she was ready for his possession.
“Now,” he ground out as his erection probed between her legs, desperate to be inside her.
She shifted and his penis grazed her belly, away from the core he ached to explore. He sucked in a sharp breath, his blood fizzing with passion. Was she evading him?
The thought of seducing her quickly shorted and sparked as her hot lips pressed a trail down his chest and her fingernails raked over the taut abdomen, enflaming a blaze of passion that defied the water streaming over them.
“So good,” she murmured against his belly, sliding lower.
“Bella,” he breathed.
His hands tangled in her wet hair as her sensual fingers stroked him and her hungry mouth ravished and licked and sucked his entire hard length until he was certain he could hold back no longer. He tossed his head back and welcomed the punishing pings of cooler water on his shoulders and face, struggling to hold back his release that threatened to erupt any second, wanting this sensual torture to go on and on. It would be easier to hold the sea in his palms.
“Caprice,” he shouted, surrendering to the sweet sensual torture he’d hungered for, barely able to think beyond savoring the exquisite pleasure of her mouth settling over his engorged tip.
Her lips pressed a hot wet trail upward, her knowing hands gliding up his torso in a sultry caress that sparked embers to his semi-sated desire. He wouldn’t have guessed this depth of sensuality from her, yet why not?
She was passionate in her work, passionate in her sensuality.
Yes, she was using him for pleasure as much as he was using her, but she had been upfront with him from the start. She’d made clear what she wanted going into their contract as well as the changes she wanted in their arrangement now.
Her professional mind was brilliant, sharp, open. Sex with her would be incredible, addictive.
They could do this, have an affair and walk away without regret or reservations.
He flicked off the shower that had grown cool and sucked in great drafts of air, his body quivering with pleasure from that one taste that left him hungry for more. Since his divorce, he’d had women with little conscious thought, feeling nothing but carnal satisfaction when a fling was over because that’s all he’d wanted from them. He would feel the same when his “contract” with Caprice ended.
Theirs was the perfect situation. She was the saving grace for his brother, and for his own choking guilt. He was the means to an end for her. Rich means to finance her new venture. Something she wanted so badly that she’d agreed to share her intuitive knowledge, and now her bed with him. She’d been honest about it. And he would take great satisfaction in making it as pleasurable for them both in work and in play.
His palms skimmed down her spine, which was tight with muscle and tension. His ego swelled as she moaned and pressed closer. Needy. Trusting. Giving.
His lips captured hers and he drank the passion still wet on her lips, a drugging sensual brew that tossed hot embers on the emotions banked in his heart and soul. Whatever her reasons for pleasuring him first were, they were hers. He was grateful for the amazing rush, and he would repay the favor. In fact he looked forward it.
“I am the reflection of you at this moment,” he said, sliding his arm around her slender shoulders, tucking her close and relishing the feel of her in his arms.
Her hushed laugh was bells on the wind, soft and fleeting. “I don’t believe it.”
He smoothed her wet hair back and cupped her face in his palms, staring into eyes that never stayed locked with his for long, as if hiding something and afraid he’d discover her secrets. Like his wife?
“Why do you doubt me?” he asked, pushing thoughts of Isabella away, not wanting her dark memory to shadow this pleasure he felt now.
“You’re a man, operating on a different level than women. You take what you want when you want it without reservations or regrets.”
“As you just did with me.”
Her cheeks turned pink, an odd reaction for a woman who’d just taken the initiative to indulge in fellatio. But then Caprice was unlike any woman he’d ever known.
Her chin came up and her palm skimmed down his bare belly, stopping inches from where he throbbed for her touch. “I took what I wanted without regrets.”
“And now it is my turn, bella,” he said.
“What if I’ve had enough?” she asked.
He grabbed a soft bath sheet and wrapped it around her beautifully naked body, drawing her flush against him. Then he slipped his leg between hers and caught the quiver of need that shot through her. “You haven’t.”
A provocative look and a promising smile was all it took to enflame his desire to a fever pitch again. It had been a long time since he’d taken this much time and pleasure with a woman, despite what the tabloids boasted. His choice, just as this was his decision to make now. He wanted more from her. He’d have it.
She’d invaded his sanctuary. He’d never allowed another woman to do that and had sworn on the drive up that he wouldn’t tolerate it happening again.
This was a onetime shot. It was nothing beyond the duration of their contract.
His lips adored her closed eyelids, teased the curve of her ears and cooled cheeks, still charmingly rosy, before capturing her sweet lips in a long, drugging kiss that left his head spinning. His hunger for her consumed him, but he took care lowering her to the carpeted floor and following her down, lounging beside her when his body demanded he plunge into her hot depths and find his satiation now.
His palm took a meandering route up her torso to full creamy breasts bearing hard nipples with dark rose areolae that puckered from the change of temperature from hot shower to marginally cooler chamber. He lowered his head to nuzzle and kiss and adore the soft flesh under both breasts in turn, lifting them closer with cupped palms to the torment of his tongue and mouth.
Her lithe body twisted and arched; the soft sounds she was making were invitations to take her right now.
And he would, laying a wet trail of kisses down her tight torso and flat belly, his tongue circling her navel once, twice, before
settling down at the juncture of her thighs. A skim of his fingers over her bare folds told him she was still wet and ready. And his!
“Luciano!”
“Bella, amore mio.”
He dipped his head to taste her lightly, then treated her to a deep, sensual kiss. Her back arched off the floor, fingernails digging into his shoulders, a high keen coming from her softly parted lips. A guttural moan of satisfaction escaped him as he kissed her, stroked her, probed her depths to the limits, his own body tight and throbbing with the need to release.
Again he was struck by the rightness of being with her. Had he ever felt this intense before? Had it ever felt this perfect?
And once again his mind was blank of everything except the woman in his arms. He needed her. Needed to get his fill of her so he would be free of her memory.
He slid his palms under her soft bottom and held her to him, loving her deeply, her fingers grasping his shoulders, his hair, only fueling his rising passion to a crashing crescendo. She arched again, her body trembling with spasm after spasm. Her climax peaked not one second too late before his own need threatened to explode.
In one smooth push, he entered her, sliding up over her body, satisfied as her legs parted wide to welcome him home. And that was just what it felt like as he thrust into her again and again, struggling to hold back his release until she shattered into another climax. He held her tight and let go, his body violently jerking as he reached for his own summit.
Drained, sated, he collapsed on her, his head resting on her shoulder, numb with pleasure. A sense of completeness pulsed around them.
This was right. Perfect.
No! She was right. Perfect. He’d needed this. Needed her at this moment.
That was all. He could still walk away from her at any time without regrets.
* * *
Caprice ran her palms up his damp back, her fingers skimming the hard muscles that were now lax and felt boneless herself. Complete. She hadn’t expected this afterglow to hum through her softly, lulling her more deeply into relaxation like she’d never known before.
Bound by the Italian's Contract Page 8