by Janet Dailey
“As you wish.” Sebastian inclined his head in acceptance of her decision and guided her out of the club into the refreshing coolness of a Roman night.
With his tie still belted around her waist, Laura climbed into the low-slung sports car, her movements unhampered by the gown’s slim skirt
As they pulled away from the club area, Laura felt exactly like a cat, alive to the night and purring with the possibilities. She lifted the weight of her hair off her sweaty neck and let the cooling wind dry it.
“Back to the hotel, is it?” Sebastian asked with a side glance.
“Not yet.” She kicked off her shoes and wiggled her stockinged toes. “That fountain. The one you throw coins in. Let’s go there. I definitely don’t want this to be my last visit to Rome.”
“One Trevi Fountain coming up.” Leaning forward, Sebastian peered at an upcoming street sign, slowed the Porsche, and turned the corner. “Feet hurt after all our dancing?” he asked, noting her shoeless feet.
Staring down, Laura wiggled her toes some more. “They don’t hurt at all. They just want some freedom. To borrow that corny phrase from My Fair Lady, I could have danced all night.”
With the Latin music still playing in her head, Laura raised her hands and snapped her fingers to the imaginary tune, moving her shoulders and torso to its rhythm while she da-da-dahed out a mambo beat. Halfway through the song, she remembered.
“Your tie. I forgot to give it back.” Her arms came down, and she worked to loosen the double knot.
She had the first one undone when they arrived at the plaza. She finished the second as Sebastian opened the passenger door for her. Without bothering to put her heels on, Laura swung her legs out of the car and caught hold of Sebastian’s outstretched hand.
He glanced at the sheer stockings covering her feet. “You’ll ruin your stockings.”
“I have more,” she replied with unconcern and stepped out of the car, the hem of her long gown falling to brush the tops of her feet. “Your tie, sir.”
Rising on her tiptoes, she draped it around his neck and hung on to the two ends, giving them a pull to bring his head down, needing to taste the heat of his kiss again. Obliging her, he arched her into him and claimed her lips with bold sensuality. The invasion of his tongue brought with it the taste of gin and the essence of something else. Everything quickened and rose, her pulse rocketing, sending her blood running sweet and fast.
Laura was conscious of hands shaping her more fully against him, increasing the intimacy of his kiss. She strained closer to him, pushed by the building pressure inside. Passion was something she had always known she possessed, but the feeling had never been this intense.
Momentarily unnerved by it, Laura pulled away and ducked under his arm. At a half-run and half-walk, she crossed to the fountain’s perimeter wall, secretly glad that only she knew how shaky her legs felt. Several seconds passed before she heard the scuff of Sebastian’s shoes on the concrete, signaling his approach. He halted on her left and faced the massive fountain. Her whole body tingled with an awareness of him.
“If that’s the way you thank someone for the loan of an item, remind me to loan you something else.” His voice had a disturbed huskiness about it.
She laughed, mostly because she didn’t completely trust her voice yet, and focused on the artfully lit statue of a sea god aboard his shell-shaped chariot being pulled by spirited horses.
“Is he Neptune or Poseidon?” Laura asked in a deliberate change of subject. “I can never remember which is Greek and which is Roman.”
“Neptune.”
“Neptune,” she repeated as if that would somehow help her to remember, and slipped her evening bag’s gold chain off her shoulder, then opened the beaded purse to search its contents. “Will paper money do, or does it have to be a coin?”
“The legend has always referred to a coin.”
“In that case . . .” Laura snapped her purse shut and held out a hand, palm up. “I’ll have to borrow something else from you. One coin, please.”
His mouth slanted in amusement as he dug in a pants pocket and came out with a coin. “Here you go.” He dropped it in her palm.
Her fingers curled over it as Laura turned toward the semicircular expanse of water. “Here’s to my return visit to Rome.” Leaning across the wall, she pitched the coin far into the pool. It hit the water with a faint plop. Small concentric waves radiated out from its landing point. Satisfied, Laura straightened away from the wall. “Now my return is guaranteed.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Sebastian cautioned on a teasing note.
“Why not?” She tilted her chin in challenge while a smile played with the corners of her mouth.
“I’m not sure it works with a borrowed coin.”
“Now you tell me!” In a mock huff, she turned her back on the fountain and began gathering up her long skirt.
“What are you doing?” A curious frown flickered over his smooth forehead.
“I’m going to go get it, of course,” Laura replied, then paused to cock her head at him, holding her skirt almost up to her hips. “You surely don’t think that I throw away money for nothing, do you?”
“No. I . . .” Sebastian faltered at the sight of the shapely length of leg she had exposed.
“Good, because I don’t.” The material went higher, revealing the lower curve of a cheek. Abruptly she let go of it. “Oh no, you don’t. Turn around.” She waggled a finger in a turning motion. After a second’s hesitation, Sebastian pivoted so his back faced her, his mind still replaying that tantalizing image of womanly flesh. “No peeking, either.”
“So you expect me to cover my eyes as well?”
“If you want.” There was laughter in her voice.
An instant later his imagination ran wild when he heard the gliding whisper of a zipper. The sound was followed by the rustle of material.
“You will tell me when I can look, won’t you?” The want was strong in him, but he was willing to play along with her game for the time being.
Her answer was a laugh, alluringly low and rich with amusement, the kind of laugh that said she knew the things that were in his mind.
With the fading of her laughter, only faint sounds came from behind him, too indistinct to tell him what she was doing. His impatience grew in direct proportion to his curiosity.
A loud splash came from the reflecting pool. Sebastian spun in its general direction. His eyes fell immediately on the nude female wading through the water away from him. He let his gaze travel over her bare shoulders and follow the ribbon of her spine down to the rounded curves of her bare cheeks. With her tawny blond hair tumbling about her shoulders in artfully wild disarray, she looked like some goddess, with a shape as flawless as her smooth skin.
Desire surged through him. He struggled to find his voice. Needing her to turn around, he called out, “You could be arrested.”
She threw him a laughing glance over her shoulder and kept wading closer to the statuary. “Don’t tell me it’s illegal to retrieve a coin?”
“Not necessary for retrieving a coin, but for your attire—or lack thereof.”
“Don’t be silly.” She crouched down into the water and began feeling around the bottom. “Any Italian gendarme who might happen along would be as delighted to see me as you are.”
Amused by her logic, Sebastian could only smile. This woman not only aroused him, she completely intrigued him. The Laura Calder he met at the dinner party had been all elegance and class, a master of the social repartee required at such gatherings, always careful to be no more than discreetly flirtatious, never overly assertive in seeking center stage. In short, she had seemed no different than dozens of other society types he knew.
The woman in the Porsche had come across as the ultimate party girl, out for a good time and wanting nothing more than to dance the hours away. Sebastian knew more than a few of those.
And the naked woman playing about in the reflecting pool had all the earmarks of some madca
p heiress, always out to do the outrageous and unexpected. An heiress, she definitely was. According to Bianca, Laura was not only the daughter of a wealthy ranching dynasty, she also had a sizable trust fund of her own.
Yet the madcap heiress didn’t quite ring true, either. The ones he knew would have been cavorting about the pool, splashing and squealing in their invariably desperate bid for attention. But there was Laura Calder, naked as the day she was born, calmly and systematically searching the pool bottom for that coin.
And there was the matter of the clothes. Laura hadn’t left hers puddled on the sidewalk in careless disregard. Her chocolate silk gown, its Armani label partially visible, was carefully and neatly draped across the fountain wall, along with her stockings, a skimpy lace bra and undies.
No, Laura Calder was unlike any other woman in his experience. Certainly he knew of none who possessed that curious blend of elegance and earthiness.
In the reflecting pool, Laura stood up and turned to hold a coin to the light, showing him the classic purity of her profile. After a close examination of the coin, she looked his way.
“This must be it,” she declared and lifted one bare shoulder in a vague shrug. “It’s the only British coin I could find.”
The search over, she started back, and Sebastian was treated to his first frontal view, softly lit by the glow from the statuary lighting. Her breasts were round and firm, perfectly shaped, her waist slenderly concave, and there was a suitable roundness to her hips. With the sheen of moisture on her skin giving it the look of marble, Sebastian was reminded of Botticelli’s famous painting of Venus. His gaze drifted downward to the vee of her pelvic area and the curly mat of pubic hair that proved Laura Calder was a natural blonde.
Stunning, that’s what she was, so incredibly beautiful that she took his breath away and ignited an ache in his loins. Sebastian clamped his teeth together to shut off the groan that threatened to rise in his throat.
“I’m going to need your help getting out of here,” she informed him with an air of absolute unconcern. “Over there would be easiest, I think.” She gestured to a section of the pool near the massive statue some distance from him.
Her words were full of common sense that sliced easily through his lusty thoughts. Sebastian muttered under his breath, strictly for his own hearing, “Better get a grip on yourself, old boy.” Louder, he replied, “Be right there.”
With more reluctance that he cared to acknowledge, he turned away from the fountain and loped back to the Porsche. Trying to be as levelheaded as she appeared, he popped open the trunk and removed a blanket robe that was always stashed in the boot.
She was waiting for him when he arrived at the designated spot.
“Here.” She stretched out a hand to him, the coin held between two fingers. “Better take this before I accidentally drop it.”
He took the coin from her and slipped it in his pocket, then reached down and caught hold of her hand. Her skin was wet and icy cool to the touch. Sebastian waited while she found a toehold. At a signaling nod from her, he hauled her out of the pool. She stumbled and fell against him.
Automatically his arms went around her to catch and steady her. A dozen impressions registered at once: the slippery wetness of her skin and the roundness of her breasts pressed against his chest; the clean scent of her hair and the faint smell of chlorine; and the look of almost rapturous relief in her upturned face.
“Lord, but you feel warm.” Her voice had a slight quiver to it that seemed to echo the first shivers that trembled through her.
“And you are cold and wet,” Sebastian declared.
She laughed in her throat. “I know. They really should heat that pool.”
“I doubt if the Italians thought it would be used for a late-night dip,” Sebastian chided dryly.
“They should have.” Her reply was accompanied by an exaggerated shudder.
The temptation was there to use his body to thoroughly warm her. With more than a degree of regret, Sebastian lifted the folded blanket robe off the wall with one hand while continuing to hold Laura close.
“It’s a bloody shame to do this.” He shook out the folds and draped the blanket around her shoulders, drawing it together in front.
Laura caught hold of the edges and pulled them snugly across her front, overlapping the edges. “And here I thought you’d put your jacket around me. This is much better.” Even as she shivered, there was laughter dancing in her eyes when she glanced up at him. “I didn’t expect you to be so practical.”
“Bianca is the practical one. Truthfully, I have never understood why she keeps a blanket robe in the boot. And I am certainly not going to question it now. Come on.” He wrapped a steering arm around her and guided her toward the Porsche. “Let’s get you in the car.”
Halfway there Laura halted. “My clothes.” Careful not to loosen the blanket, she stuck out one finger and pointed in their direction.
When Sebastian went to fetch them, Laura continued to the car and waited by the passenger side.
“I feel like one of my uncle’s relatives,” she said as he opened the door for her.
“Beg pardon?”
Seeing his puzzled look, Laura explained, “Logan is part Sioux Indian and the local sheriff.”
An eyebrow arched in amusement. “You clearly have a colorful family tree.”
“And you haven’t even heard the stories about my sod-busting great-grandmother or the one about my father being born out of wedlock,” Laura teased, holding tight to the blanket as she climbed into the car.
“As I said, colorful.” A small smile crooked his mouth. After she was comfortably ensconced in the seat, he deposited the bundle of clothes on her lap. “Shall I put the top up?”
Laura shook her head. “Don’t bother. The hotel isn’t very far from here.”
Chapter Three
To Laura’s amusement, the doorman’s expression didn’t so much as flicker when she stuck a high-heeled foot out of the Porsche and stood up, swaddled Indian-style in a blanket while clutching her evening clothes. She waited by the hotel steps for Sebastian to join her, head up and the slightest hint of a naughty smile touching the corners of her lips.
She tipped her head to him. “You are coming in with me, aren’t you? I may need your assistance with little things like doors and elevator buttons.”
“Of course.” His smile was quick and warm, his eyes echoing the sparkle of amusement in her own. Turning to the doorman, he handed him the car keys and some folded bills, then swung back to Laura and escorted her up the hotel steps.
“I hope you were generous with your tip.”
“I was,” Sebastian assured her.
“Good. The man was the absolute epitome of tact. For all the notice he took of my clothes, I could have been wearing a mink. I considered giving him a quick flash, but he didn’t seem to be interested.”
Sebastian reached ahead of her and opened the door. “Perhaps he’s gay.”
“A gay Italian.” Laura released a soft, incredulous laugh. “That sounds like an oxymoron.”
“It does, rather.” He guided her to the elevators and pushed the button to summon one. Almost instantly a set of doors glided open with a faint whoosh.
Laura entered the elevator car ahead of him and began the awkward task of searching through the folded clothes for her purse while still maintaining an adequate grip on the blanket. Giving up, she turned to Sebastian. “Find my evening bag, will you? It has my room key in it. And I certainly don’t want to wake up Tara.”
“Do you share a room with your aunt?” In quick order, Sebastian located her beaded bag and extracted the computerized room key from it.
“No. We have separate suites. And Tara isn’t actually my aunt,” Laura declared on a breezily offhand note. “I just call her that to avoid lengthy explanations. Technically we aren’t related at all.”
“How’s that?” He eyed her curiously.
“Tara was my father’s first wife. Several years
after their divorce, he married my mother. That’s when Trey and I entered the picture.”
“Trey is your brother,” Sebastian guessed.
“My twin. He favors the Calder side of the family—tall and big-shouldered, with dark hair and dark eyes; hard, angular features. While I—”
“Take after your great-great-grandmother,” he inserted.
“Who may or may not also be Lady Elaine,” Laura finished.
Sebastian smiled at that and returned to the original subject as the elevator doors opened on the designated floor. “So you are traveling with your father’s ex. That’s a bit unusual.”
Laura laughed at the understatement. “Over the years it has raised more than a few eyebrows.” She exited the elevator and added over her shoulder, “Tara definitely isn’t popular with the rest of my family or anyone else on the ranch, for that matter. My grandfather is convinced she is a horrible influence on me. My mother has never actually said so, but I know she agrees. I think she long ago reconciled herself to the fact that I am my own person.”
“That”—his mouth curved wryly—“is very obvious.” He inserted the room card into the slot, waited for the light, and opened the door, then stepped back to admit her.
Laura sailed past him into the suite, paused long enough to deposit her bundle of clothes on the sofa’s damask-covered cushion, then walked straight to the steps that led to a private terrace without ever once glancing back at him.
After an instant’s hesitation Sebastian returned the room card to her purse, entered the suite, and closed the door behind him. By the time he crossed the room, Laura had already disappeared onto the terrace. He left her evening bag with her clothes and followed her outside.
She stood at the outer wall, gazing into the night, indifferent to the terrace’s spectacular view of the Spanish Steps and the sprawl of Via Conditti.
He wandered over to the wall and briefly surveyed the view. A smattering of stars dusted the sky, their light dimmed by the city’s bright glow. The view of the city and its landmarks was a familiar one, though the same couldn’t be said about the woman beside him.