In a Storm of Scandal

by Kim Lawrence

  ‘No, never.’

  He was free and by his own admission he was into casual sex these days … though probably not virgins …

  ‘Aunt Isabel said you work for Bateman and Latimer … that’s impressive.’

  ‘Gran said?’ Poppy’s brow pleated into a perplexed frown. Her gran never told her anything about Luca; presumably she knew about what had happened to Aurelia and she hadn’t said a word. ‘Well, yes, I did, but I handed in my notice recently. Phil is setting up on his own and he’s asked me to join him.’

  ‘Phil …?’

  ‘Someone I met on my gap year.’

  A look of shock passed across his lean face. ‘You had a gap year.’ He stopped and lowered his eyes.

  Of course she had a gap year—her life had gone on after him … Poppy had met people, seen things … slept with boys.

  ‘And you kept in touch. That’s … nice,’ he observed through a clenched smile. Poppy did not appear to notice the insincerity in his comment.

  ‘Actually we ended up at the same university.’

  In Luca’s head the words translated as ‘we slept together at university’.

  ‘He’s an accountant too.’

  ‘Interesting.’ Everyone knew that accountants were boring—the male ones, at least.

  ‘The firm he was working for kept his job open while he took time off last year to join an expedition to the arctic. He could have had a partnership if he stayed on but he finds the atmosphere restrictive.’

  ‘A strange thing to do in this job market—he sounds reckless.’ Luca found himself disliking this unknown accountant with a sideline in exploring more by the second.

  Poppy gave a vague nod, not totally committed to this conversation; her thoughts were elsewhere. ‘That’s the reason, according to Phil, that we’d make a good partnership. My more sensible approach will balance his recklessness.’

  ‘And will you?’

  Exactly what she was asking herself.

  Would she sleep with Luca?

  Luca found the veiled look she gave him annoying.

  Ruthlessly suppressing her instinct to blurt out her great idea, Poppy carried her mug to the sink and began to scrub it hard enough to wash the painted roses on the china.

  Previous experience with Luca had taught her the necessity of schooling her desire to rush in without thinking, all enthusiasm and no planning. And then there was the question of her motivation … did motivation matter?

  She was after all totally over Luca—on an emotional level at least. Physically she still wanted to rip off his clothes, but that hardly made her unique—Luca was an incredibly sexy man—and it was positive plus when you were talking about going to bed with someone.

  Not anyone—Luca. You couldn’t ignore the history and could she run the risk of dredging up old feelings? The feelings were stone dead.

  He might not want to have sex with her …? She thought of the kiss and her mouth went dry … He did.

  She closed her eyes, not noticing that the water she was holding the mug under was ice cold. Her fingers were numb when she eventually switched off the flow.

  Pity there was not a similar switch in her head, she mused, to turn off her thoughts that continued to go round and round in never-decreasing circles.

  ‘No hot water?’

  She turned around and found Luca was standing right behind her. Expecting him to move back, she paused; he didn’t.

  ‘Your fingers are blue, Poppy.’

  ‘They’re fine.’ Evading his touch, Poppy tucked her hands across her chest. She could have backed up and made a detour but that would have been admitting something; instead she lifted her chin and sucked in a breath in an effort to avoid contact. She squeezed between him and the table.

  ‘Hot water! Actually there’s plenty of hot water—the wonders of an old-fashioned immersion tank.’ She gave a bright smile. ‘And a hot bath is just what you need to warm you up.’

  It would also give her a cooling-off period, to weigh her options or at least breathe freely without his disturbing presence. ‘I’ll let you have first dibs at the bathroom.’

  Luca’s brows lifted in response to her enthusiasm. ‘Very generous,’ he said drily. ‘A man might almost be forgiven for thinking you want to get rid of him …?’

  Poppy didn’t respond to the silky innuendo in his drawl. Instead she went into practical mode.

  ‘You know where the bathroom is. I left some candles burning while I was up there—oh, and I ran a bath. It’ll be cold now …’ The fire had been meant to take a few minutes to light and then Gianluca had arrived and she had totally forgotten about her plans to take a hot bath.

  ‘There are some matches on the table at the bottom of the stairs if you need them, and candles.’ Poppy had discovered a store of candles that would see them through to the next decade! ‘Just leave me some hot water.’

  A wicked gleam appeared in his eyes. ‘We could always share?’ He had intended to make her laugh, but when her eyes darkened with the desire she could not hide his half-smile faded.

  A pulse of lust slammed through his body.

  Poppy forced a stiff smile. ‘Were you always this predictable?’

  Almost as predictable as the reaction of her body that seemed to have been programmed to react to him on a sexual level … She’d always thought that happened because she loved him; now she realised that it was actually a chemical thing.

  ‘The offer stands,’ he drawled, directing one last knee-trembling, smouldering stare at her face before exiting the room.

  ‘The bathroom is free!’

  It was half an hour later when the call echoed down the stairs. Poppy had now decided the idea of sleeping with Luca was a crazy one—maybe the craziest she had ever had.

  It was a relief to have made a decision.

  As tempting as the thought of sinking into a hot bath and washing off the accumulated grime was at that moment, the possibility of bumping into Luca in any state of undress caused Poppy to delay responding immediately to the invitation.

  After a few minutes she took a candle, and went up the stone steps. The candles she had lit in the stone-wall embrasures still flickered as she made her way to the bathroom, a barn of a room containing an enormous old claw-footed cast-iron bathtub that took centre stage.

  Tapping first on the half-open door to ensure it was empty, she went in. The room was empty but filled with steam from its recent occupation.

  ‘I could do with a hand here!’

  The request for assistance came from one of the numerous bedrooms off the hallway.

  ‘I presume you know how a kilt works.’

  ‘It’s not rocket science!’ she yelled back, her voice echoing off the stone walls as she directed her reply in the general direction of his voice before stepping quickly into the bathroom.

  Once inside she leaned against the door and, spotting a spare chair, wedged it under the handle before carefully putting her candle on the window sill beside the others burning there.

  The first thing her glance lighted on as she checked out the room was the wet towels in the hamper and the dry ones folded neatly on the wooden towel rail. She was forming a grudging approval of the fact that, despite the hundreds of flunkies he had to have, Luca did not expect others to pick up after him when her glance lighted on the clothes she had taken from her holdall earlier and laid out ready to change into.

  They were there exactly where she had left them, still neatly laid out on a stool: clean jeans, dry socks, a sweater and there, right on top, the pair of shocking-pink pants and tartan silk bra—just because nobody saw her underclothes had never seemed a reason to Poppy not to have some fun with them.

  She closed her eyes and groaned. She had totally forgotten she had put them there when she had offered him the first bath! The thought of Luca seeing those items, touching them even, sent a rush of heat through her body—they weren’t even matching!

  He might not even have noticed.

  Sure he didn�
��t!

  Trying not to think about Luca or knickers and definitely not the two together, she turned on the hot water tap and, after tipping in a healthy slug of the herby scented bath oil her grandmother mixed herself, began to strip off.

  Sinking into the warm fragrant water, she gave a sigh of pleasure as the tension drifted out of her body. She could have stayed there all night and might have had it not been for the draught blowing in through the rattling window.

  As she topped up the cooling water again she realised why Luca had not lingered. Poppy had more staying power, though that staying power had more to do with a strong reluctance to rejoin Luca than a desire to linger in the lukewarm water.

  She was trying to summon sufficient enthusiasm to leave the water, watching under heavy eyelids as the candles began to gutter one by one. There was just one left—the one she had carried into the room with her—when she noticed the writing scrawled in the steam on the mirror.

  I feel very differently about tartan now!

  It was underlined.

  To add insult to injury he had initialled it!

  Rising in an angry rush from the water, she stepped out of the bath, her cheeks flushed as pink as her wet skin, and stalked across the room, her wet feet leaving puddles on the oak boards. Standing by the mirror, she wiped a hand angrily back and forth across the words written in the steam.

  She finished dressing very quickly in the chilly room, pulling on the clean pair of jeans and a pale pink sweater that you could probably see her darker bra through, but as she wouldn’t be showing him anything he hadn’t already seen it was a wardrobe malfunction that didn’t seem worth worrying about.

  Poppy opened the door and let out a startled yelp. A tall, imposing, kilt-wearing Luca was blocking her path. ‘What are you doing lurking like some … some …?’ Incredibly sexy man, she silently completed—wow, her dad had never ever looked like that in a kilt! ‘S-some lurker!’

  She watched his sexy lips tremble and so did the sensitive nerves lining her pelvis.

  ‘Is that actually a word?’

  She found she didn’t mind that he was laughing at her but she minded quite a lot that she sounded like a heavy breather. Her heart was vibrating so hard against her ribs she almost expected to hear a loud cracking sound as it broke its way out.

  ‘It should be.’ There should be a whole dictionary of new words specifically to describe him, she decided as she made a further covert study of what he was wearing.

  He wore the sweater she had also supplied with the sleeves rolled up to reveal his sinewy, strong forearms lightly dusted with dark hair. The fine navy wool was pulled tighter across his well-developed chest than it had ever been intended to and was short enough to reveal a tantalising sliver of flat brown belly between the hem and the waistband of the kilt.

  As he levered himself casually off the wall he’d been leaning up against and took a step towards her the kilt swung out at the knees, revealing a few extra inches of deeply muscled brown thigh.

  ‘I was waiting for you.’ He intercepted her stare, and added, ‘You like the look?’

  Her cheeks turned a guilty pink as she tightened her jaw and refused to rethink her earlier decision, well aware that any decision made when she was standing in the direct line of fire of his massive sexual magnetism could not be trusted.

  There was very little point in liberating herself from her virgin status if she spent the next seven years recovering from the experience. She needed to move on, not jump backwards.

  ‘You look more Braveheart than Brigadoon, and you found some socks … that’s good … excellent …’ Babbling, Poppy, you’re babbling.

  ‘Accessories are so important I always think,’ he replied, straight-faced. ‘Did you enjoy your bath? I was about to send in a search party.’

  His eyes moved in a slow appreciative sweep down over her slim figure. The snug-fitting faded jeans she wore were topped with a pale candyfloss-pink sweater that drew attention to the swell of her breasts—actually his attention would have been drawn there no matter what she was wearing.

  Smiling to himself as he recognised the faint outline of tartan visible through the pink, he let his eyes slide lower to the row of rib that cinched the sweater at waist level. The curves above were balanced by the feminine curves below. By the time his scrutiny had reached her tight, firm behind his breathing was all over the place.

  His life did not bring him into contact with women who possessed Poppy’s brand of sexy wholesomeness. It was easy to see men being bewitched by the combination of freshness and feistiness.

  ‘I don’t need an escort. I do know my way around.’ Though probably not as well as Luca knew his way around the female body, she thought, and felt her nipples pinch into tight, painful awareness.

  ‘I’ve lit the fire in my room. I thought I’d light one in yours and I wasn’t sure—where are you going to sleep? And that wasn’t an invitation …’ His glance lingered thoughtfully on her flushed face as he added, ‘Unless you want it to be?’

  The sensual suggestion delivered in his inimitable deep throaty voice made her shiver.

  Think very carefully about what you’re passing on, said the voice in her head.

  ‘I … I’m in the tower room, thanks, Luca, but the chimney there smokes like crazy.’ She bit her lip and thought—Forward, Poppy. ‘I’ll put on an extra blanket.’ As she began to turn jerkily away her elbow caught a vase holding a bunch of dusty dried flowers.

  With a cry Poppy moved to catch it before it toppled, Luca had moved with a similar intention. Her fingers were just closing over the vase when her body collided into a hard male body and with a gasp she opened her fingers.

  Poppy heard it smash to the floor but did not look. Her eyes were held captive by the dark gaze burning into her. Combined with the feel of all that solid muscle and heat burning through her clothes it made her dizzy.

  ‘I should get a dustpan.’ Her voice sounded breathless and unfamiliar even to her own ears.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because there’s glass on the floor.’

  He lifted a strand of hair from her eyes. ‘You’re a beautiful woman.’ His heavy lids dropped over his glittering stare as he inhaled deeply. ‘Dio, you smell good.’

  ‘So do you,’ Poppy breathed as he framed her face with his long fingers.

  ‘You know we could be stuck here for days …’ he stroked a long brown finger down her cheek ‘… and nights.’

  Poppy turned her head and caught the tip of one of his fingers between her teeth and bit softly, then sucked, tasting salt.

  She heard him gasp and thought, Not bad for a learner.

  ‘Your skin is so soft,’ he rasped running the finger she had just sucked damply up the curve of her pale throat towards her mouth and smiling when she shuddered in helpless reaction to his touch.

  ‘Luca …’ He stepped in closer and she could feel he was fully aroused and rock hard and she could feel it because he wanted her to.

  ‘I’ve always wanted you.’

  The throaty admission drew a choked little gasp from Poppy’s aching throat. The sound increased the level of Luca’s arousal another notch.

  He touched the corner of her mouth with his thumb, then replaced the light pressure with his mouth, running his tongue across the surface of the moist interior of her pouting upper lip. ‘I want to taste you …’ he slurred against her mouth.

  ‘Yes, please … that is, oh …’ Desire exploded inside her, silencing the arguments in her head. Freed from the internal conflict and no longer restrained by common sense or logic, she gave herself up willingly to the hot flow of desire coursing through her veins, not thinking just feeling … reacting … Everything felt so right. She was amazed how right, but then it always had felt right with Luca.

  ‘Good?’ he suggested throatily.

  She opened her heavy lids and looked at him with a kind of wonder in her eyes. ‘I’m not going to bolt.’

  ‘Good to know.’

&n
bsp; She pressed closer and moaned as he kissed her properly, a hard kiss that stopped her heart for a split second before a surge of adrenaline got dumped in her bloodstream and her pulses started pounding all over her body, everywhere, in places she didn’t know she had pulses.

  He lifted his head and, breathing hard, looked into her flushed face. ‘If we don’t make the bedroom in the next sixty seconds I might not make it at all. I wouldn’t want you to get carpet burn on my account.’

  Just looking at him made her weak with longing. ‘There’s no carpet.’

  His hands slid to her bottom and he pulled her in, breathing deep as he felt all that softness pressing against him. ‘And wanting you is driving me slightly insane.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  LUCA swung her into his arms as if she weighed nothing. Poppy, her arms looped around his neck, was nuzzling the warm brown salty skin of his throat when he kicked open the door of a bedroom.

  The room Luca had chosen was not as big as many in the castle, which made it only half the size of a football pitch, but the candles lined up along the window ledge and the logs crackling in the grate of the carved stone fireplace gave it an almost cosy feel.

  Poppy barely registered these touches as Luca strode towards the bed without breaking stride. He dragged aside the crewel-work drape on the canopied four-poster and, pulling back the quilt, laid her down, lowering her head onto a pillow before he straightened up.

  There was not a trace of the care of moments before in his actions as he began to tear off his clothes. As he fought his way out of them his eyes didn’t leave hers for a moment.

  He freed himself of the blue sweater and tossed it over his shoulder, still fumbling with the leather buckle at the waist of the kilt as he knelt beside her on the bed. The brass rings of the heavy drapes rattled as he pulled them closed behind him, leaving them cocooned inside the intimate velvet-lined tent.

  In the enclosed space the scent of the lavender her grandmother lined the chest with where she stored her linen was stronger. The smell would for ever be associated with this moment in her mind. Every time her skirt brushed against a lavender bush she would think of Luca, think of the sheer, mind-numbing joy of reckless abandon.