The Count's Prize

by Christina Hollis

  Josie stiffened. ‘Modern? What’s that supposed to mean? Are you making fun of me?’

  Dario turned his attention to a pile of fruit that stood between them. Selecting a perfect peach, he cupped it in one hand, feeling its mass and appreciating its weight.

  ‘The meaning I had in mind was intellectual,’ he said idly. ‘You’re used to using your mind instead of taking simple pleasure from your surroundings. You’ve come here from a place where learning is prized above emotion, and so that has coloured your attitude.’

  ‘I sometimes wish it hadn’t,’ she said wistfully.

  He smiled. It was a slow, seductive gesture that reached right out to her.

  ‘Good … because here at the Castello Sirena, emotions run deep; deeper even than the spring that feeds our ancient pool. It is a place made for pleasure, not for relentless work. Let me show you.’ His voice was a warm caress of desire. ‘In my world, even the simple acting of eating can be transformed into a beautiful experience.’

  Taking a silver fruit knife, he cut a neat segment from the fruit in his other hand. Reaching across their picnic, he held the slice out to her.

  Josie’s mind went to pieces completely.

  Work later, play now …

  The gentle sounds of nature receded as her head filled with clouds of cotton wool. She seemed to be looking at herself from outside. Instead of taking the piece of fruit from Dario’s fingers with her own, she watched herself lean forward to take it directly into her mouth. Through a warm mist of arousal, she heard herself gasp as the peach’s rich nectar ran down her chin.

  Dario had never expected her to do something so spontaneous. His shock and surprise seamlessly turned to raw lust, ready to overwhelm him. No one could expect a man like Count Dario di Sirena to refuse such an invitation. Swiftly and silently, he took Josie’s hands and moved in to taste her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  FOR endless moments Josie was powerless to resist Dario’s sudden onslaught. The tip of his tongue traced delicately over her skin until she willed him to pull her into his arms and make mad passionate love to her.

  … Then a sudden breeze rustling through the trees startled her out of her paralysis. Shrinking away from him, she stood up, but he followed. Josie had been so completely lost in the moment, she was still holding his hand. There was no point in trying to let go now—her body wouldn’t allow it. When he took a step forward to claim her again, she succumbed to the magic of his mouth a second time.

  Josie knew she should resist, but it was as though their kisses were always meant to be. As his arms enfolded her, she melted under their firm pressure. The touch of his fingers as they glided over her back pressed her wet T-shirt against her naked skin. When she shivered he held her closer, but she wasn’t cold. The heat of desire kept rising and building within her until she twined her arms around his neck. This was it—she was ready to be released from her long and painful sentence of self-denial. All the years of loneliness would slip away, forgotten, in this single supreme act. She pressed her body against his, feeling the scarily exciting kick of his manhood against her belly. When that happened he drew back, and for the first time in what felt like heady hours of excitement their lips parted.

  Dario’s chest rose and fell rapidly as he snatched at steadying breaths. Josie fought the urge to lean forward and kiss him again—and for one desperate moment she saw him struggle with that same primitive need. Then he closed his eyes and his head sank until his forehead rested against hers. For one heart-stopping moment she thought he was going to take her lips again.

  ‘Yes …’ she breathed in reply, not wanting him to stop. His response was a sigh almost absorbed by the silence. ‘Please, Dario …’

  After all, as he had said, there was no one about to see … and no one but Josie’s conscience to know what happened out here among the trees. Her mind had tortured her for too long already. Rising on tiptoe, she searched for his lips with her own and tasted his skin.

  All the time her hands roamed over his body, he stood as still as stone. It was only when her hands slid around his waist that he stirred and gave a wordless moan of longing and regret. Then he reached around and grasped her wrists. That one simple movement woke Josie from her trance. With a spasm of alarm, she realised how close she had come to total surrender. She stood back and stared at him, shocked.

  Dario’s expression was a mask of regret, his eyes squeezed shut as he whispered, ‘No … I can’t … I’m sorry … Arietta …’

  Josie’s longing drained away, replaced by the old, familiar mix of anger, shame and humiliation.

  ‘You could at least call me by the right name!’ she spat.

  That broke the spell.

  ‘I should never have done anything at all,’ he said grimly, dropping her hands and striding away across the glade towards his horse.

  Josie watched him go in silent horror. If only she had trusted her instincts. For years, she had been careful to stay out of harm’s way. On that principle, she should have kept right away from Dario. She had suspected there must be a girl in his life, and now she knew—and no wonder, she added, he’s irresistible!

  Instantly, she regretted the terrible thought. It catapulted her straight back to the dark, awful moment when she’d discovered Andy had been cheating on her. Back then, she hadn’t been able to understand how any woman could inflict such agony on another and here she was, guilty of almost exactly the same thing.

  I’ve always said I couldn’t bear to put anyone through what I’ve suffered, she thought. Not even for a man with kisses like that …

  She had to get away. Snatching up her bag and camera, she plunged out of the glade and into the sunshine. The thought of investigating that fountainhead now made her feel sick with guilt. It would always be linked in her mind with the first time Dario had touched her, and where that wonderful sensation had led.

  If I hadn’t succumbed to him, hadn’t encouraged him, if he hadn’t moved in on me …

  Desperate for distraction, she scrambled back up the slope, away from that seductively shady woodland glade. The sun beat down mercilessly and she had left the sun hat behind. Tough, dry grasses scratched at her hands and the dusty hot air kept catching in her throat. By the time she reached the crest of the hill, her breath was tearing holes in her chest but she still couldn’t forget the feel of Dario’s hands and the exciting insistence of his lips.

  Dropping to the ground in the meagre shade of a juniper, she looked down on the scene she had left behind. Dario had returned to the woodland edge. He was half in shadow, half in sunlight. Shielding her eyes against the sun, she studied him. His hands were on his hips and he was staring up the hill towards her. As she watched, waiting for him to jeer at her, he did something quite unexpected. His head dropped, he rubbed his hands over his face as if trying to scrub off something dirty—and then he turned away.

  It was an indignity too far.

  Josie was only too aware that she used work as an excuse to retreat from real life. And this is why! she thought furiously. Is it any wonder I keep myself to myself when there are men like Dario about?

  She took out her notebook and looked around for something new to study, determined to try to carry on as normal. It was hopeless. She could only think of one thing, and it wasn’t work.

  It seemed to Josie that whenever she tried to taste life as other people lived it, she came unstuck. She had started off her adult life by using hard work as the measure of her success. By the time she had realised her fiancé was more interested in his own prospects than their future together, he was already having an affair with one of her colleagues. That betrayal had been awful, and public. But there was another, darker side to her disappointment. The idea that sex with Andy had never set her on fire had been a private worry, which made today ten times more painful. In a few seconds Dario had blown away all her fears of being frigid, and released the animal inside her. Now she found herself wanting more. A man who could surely have any woman he wanted had
managed to unravel all her self-control simply by holding her in his arms. In the seductive shadows, that scared her. Out here in the brutal light of day, it stoked her anger. It took the sight of Dario’s reaction to provoke an emotion in her more powerful than the fear of her own needs.

  No one turns their back on me any more! she thought, getting to her feet and brushing her hands free from dust in a gesture dramatic enough for him to see. Shaking out the folds of her damp T-shirt and jabbing all the escaped strands of soggy hair behind her ears, she took a deep breath. Then she marched down the slope again. In a few frantic moments she had learned a little about Dario di Sirena—but a whole lot more about herself.

  It was time to start being ruthlessly honest. He had kissed her only after she had first accepted his offer of a picnic in a secluded spot.

  So what else did I expect to happen, after that clinch in the pool?

  The man had acted completely in character. In contrast, she had sent her common sense back home to England!

  A simple ‘no thank you’ to the picnic would probably have done the trick. I should have tried that first, she told herself, but knew it would have been impossible. Well, now she had to face up to the consequences of her actions.

  The sun pounded down on her head almost as fiercely as the blood pulsed in her ears. Josie now realised she had been secretly wondering what it would be like to be kissed by Dario since first setting eyes on his sensuous mouth and those wonderfully dark, expressive eyes.

  It was time to put her willpower to the test. Officially she was here to work, and that would be so much easier with Dario’s goodwill rather than his contempt.

  I’m bigger than my shame, master of my anger, even stronger than the lust that’s still running through me—and this will prove it! she thought, stamping the seal on her determination with every step. The slope gave her a bit more momentum than she expected.

  Dario was adjusting the harness of his horse, ready to leave the scene of the disaster. When he heard a noise and turned back to see what was happening, Josie was half-jogging down the hill in order to keep her balance.

  ‘I hope you don’t think I’m running back to you,’ she said with all the dignity she could scrape together.

  ‘No. But I do hope you have come back to accept my apology,’ he said gravely, picking up her discarded sun hat and holding it out to her.

  Josie hesitated, unable to decide whether he was being sincere or simply laughing at her. Stiffening her resolve, she grabbed the hat. To show how mad she was at him, she jammed it firmly onto her head. It was only then she realised Antonia’s head must be bigger than her own. The sun hat came right down over her eyes, only stopping when it lodged on her ears.

  Before she could do anything about it, lean brown fingers intruded into her restricted field of vision. Dario tilted the brim so he could look straight down into her eyes.

  ‘That’s better. As I said, you should never go without a hat in this sun.’

  His tone was as cool as a mountain stream, in stark contrast to the liquid heat of his kisses only moments ago. There was no trace of emotion visible in him now, either good or bad. Angry though she was, Josie felt her knees turn to jelly again beneath his penetrating gaze.

  ‘I shouldn’t have behaved like that,’ she said, hotly conscious of his scrutiny.

  ‘Neither should I.’

  He took a couple of careful steps back, putting a discreet distance between them again, before continuing unevenly, ‘And then I made things worse by calling you by the wrong name. I apologise.’ He cleared his throat, then continued with obvious reluctance. ‘Arietta was my fiancée. She died some time ago. There was an accident—’

  He stopped. She saw him take a deep breath and steady himself.

  ‘I thought I had put the episode behind me, but apparently not.’

  Josie stared at him, making her face a mask. She had to—her whole body was alive with uncertainty again. She knew all about loss, but it seemed Dario had suffered a far worse disaster than her own.

  ‘I … I understand. I’m sorry, too. It was just as much my fault as yours. I shouldn’t have led you on, Dario. We both got carried away. That’s all.’

  He nodded his appreciation, then cleared his throat again. ‘It took a lot of courage to come back here after what happened, Josie.’

  He was right, but she had never expected him to acknowledge that.

  ‘I learned a long time ago that running away never solved anything, so now I just try to learn from my mistakes. I won’t make the same one twice,’ she said, trying to defuse the situation.

  ‘No, I can’t imagine you would,’ he said drily.

  From the far side of the glade came the sound of his horse, which had wandered off and was now fretting with its bit.

  I must be mad, she thought. Straight after kissing him like some sort of harlot, I’ve swung back to acting like a boring old maid!

  His kiss had made her feel like a woman again for the first time in years. She had forgotten how good that sensation could be, and she wanted to experience it again. Soon. She dithered, blushing, and not knowing what to say.

  If I told you what I was really thinking, it would be ‘goodbye research, hello disaster!’ she thought.

  ‘In which case, I’ll leave you to get on with your work and say arrivederci—for now.’

  As Dario turned to walk away, Josie felt a powerful urge to call him back. He anticipated her. Swinging himself up into his saddle, he turned his horse in a wide arc, passing very close to where she stood. He treated her to a long, lingering view of his tight breeches and enviable seat as he circled the glade.

  Lifting the corners of his mouth in a smile, he acknowledged their new intimacy. ‘But the next time your schedule allows you some room to do something scarily spontaneous again, Josie, be sure to let me know.’

  Nudging his horse into a canter, he headed out of the glade and off across the grassy hillside.

  Josie was left to stare after him. The way Dario had coaxed her into baring her soul to him was uncanny. She might have expected to feel angry that he found her so easy to read. Instead, she felt let down and strangely empty inside. The wonderful warmth of arousal he had coaxed into life deep within her body threatened to fade as she watched him ride away.

  But it didn’t die completely—and, since tasting the temptation of his kiss, Josie knew it never would.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  DARIO didn’t look back. He rode fast, straight back to the stables. There he leapt off his horse and let the stallion find his own way to the nearest stable lad. Dario’s favourite refuge in times of crisis was his art. Striding straight for his studio in the castello grounds, he went in and slammed the door. Leaning back heavily against it, he tried to think. Since Arietta died, he had roamed from woman to woman, picking, choosing, but never staying with anyone for long. To do anything else was unthinkable. He always slipped away before emotion could coil him in its oily grasp. Other people might envy him, but they only saw his free and easy attitude. Casual charm was his mask of choice.

  Until now, he had never cared what other people thought. He had gone out each day with a smile on his face, and that was enough to reassure most people that he was happy. Now the sunlight had shone into more than that secluded glade. It had thrown back the shadows from the most private place inside him. It was somewhere so dark, not even Dario was aware of how deep its secrets went. All he knew was that this morning he had let his nonchalant shield slip. So what was different about today?

  Dr Josie Street, he thought.

  Their kisses had torn away everything; he’d been captured by the simple pleasure of that moment, of that woman, in a way he hadn’t experienced in years. Raw, naked lust had risen up, overwhelming all his finer feelings and making him almost lose control. Shame burnt through him—for a moment he’d forgotten Arietta.

  When Josie had stormed away after their spectacular kiss, Dario had found himself unable to follow her. Instead, he had let out a stream
of curses. He had enjoyed many women since losing Arietta, so what had happened today to make him say her name out loud?

  Maybe it was because Josie was so different from all those other women. She had something they lacked. For a start, she might appear composed and serious, but he sensed that deeper down there was a core of fire. The women who usually competed for his attention never hid their passion. They tried to use it as bait. Josie fought to hide hers every inch of the way.

  In that respect we’re alike, he thought with a jolt of recognition. Most of the time she coped by staying silent, but that would never work on him again—not after he had felt the heat of her response and the passion of her kisses. Those few incendiary moments had unleashed the tigress in her, but instinctively Dario knew that if he casually took advantage of her awakened passion then Josie would never forgive herself. Or him.

  There was another reason why he held back, too. Time had dimmed Arietta’s memory but, for some reason, it had burst back into life when he’d responded to Josie. She attracted him in a way that no other woman had since Arietta, but he had no desire to go through that much pain again. And he suspected that if he pursued Josie, that was exactly what would happen.

  For the rest of the day, Josie could think of nothing but Dario’s kiss and the feel of his body. As she worked her way around the grounds of the Castello Sirena, her senses were tuned to detect him. Every moment she spent practising her Italian with the farm workers and villagers, she was secretly wondering about Dario—where he was and what he was doing.

  Later, when she retreated to her room to write up her notes, she finally found out. As the shadows lengthened, the growl of a high-performance engine passed beneath her window. Looking out, she saw a beautiful royal-blue sports car accelerate away down the lime avenue.

  That told her Dario’s take on their encounter was very different from her own.

  He must have put her out of his mind already. He was going back out on the town.

  The next few days were a horrible mixture of routine and denial for Josie. Her mind kept telling her to forget about Dario. Her body had different ideas. Each time she thought of him, her pulse ran riot. She coped in the only way she knew how, by drawing up a punishing schedule of surveying and study for every day of her projected stay. She ticked tasks off that ‘to do’ list like a metronome. Every evening she fell into her dreamily comfortable bed, satisfied with what she had achieved. It was a routine that had got her top marks for as long as she could remember. It also shielded her bruised heart and kept a tight lid on her newly discovered libido. But soon her emotions fought against being confined any longer. The moment she closed her eyes, images of Dario filled her mind. The sound of his sports car roaring away as he set off on another night of pleasure made her pictures of him still more vivid. She could almost feel his hands around her waist, his cheek brushing her hair and his long, lingering kisses setting her senses on fire all over again …