by Linda Conrad
“Did you know we were coming?”
“Sì. The nephew of my husband…the porter from your train…he calls to say you need refuge. Benvenuti al nostro albergo. Welcome to our inn.”
“Thanks,” Darin said gruffly as he slid a protective arm around Rylie’s waist and moved in closer. “Can you just show us to a room, please?”
Rylie knew exactly what he was feeling. This woman seemed too friendly. Too outgoing. Too glad to see them.
Relieved when they were finally alone and locked inside a Spartan room, Rylie collapsed on the one queen-size bed. “I didn’t think we would make it.”
“I didn’t, either. But I’m not sure I like the feel of this place. Something in my gut says it’s not right.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Have you checked the windows?”
Darin made a quick trip around the room to assess where they had found themselves. Then he went into the bathroom, came back and closed and locked windows, knocked on walls and looked behind the two paintings on display. Finally he spent a little time in the closet, checking out the walls in there in case of any false doors.
“Actually, this place is made like a fortress,” he said when he was back beside her. “The walls are thick. I’m guessing several feet thick and made from solid stone. See there?” He pointed to the wires dangling from the ceiling. “They’ve had to string cords around the room in order to bring in electricity and modernize the place. The two windows in here have interior wood shutters that I’ve shut and locked. We’re closed up enough now that we could be in a cave—or a fortress.”
Darin was the one who was closed up. They had to stay put for the next few hours, and if he kept this nervous tension up he could have a meltdown or a heart attack by the time it was safe to leave. He had taken on the entire responsibility for keeping them from harm, and it wasn’t fair. Rylie wanted to say something, do something that would help him relax.
“We’ve managed to get rather filthy in the last couple of days, don’t you think?” She took a few steps toward the bathroom. “How’re the facilities? Can we catch a couple of quick showers while we wait for the police to finish?”
Darin stared at her as though she’d lost her mind.
“Yeah, I know our lives are at stake. Believe me, I know. But we’re stuck here for the next few hours at least. What else can we do? Besides, I feel sticky.”
She stuck her head in the small room off the bedroom. A tiny sink with an even tinier mirror above it hung at an awkward angle against one wall. A small claw-footed tub had been squeezed against the other wall. And a miniature toilet with hardly enough room to sit down was wedged into a corner and was the only other thing in the small space.
She’d hoped for an oversize tub made for two. But no such luck. Well, she wasn’t sure she could’ve talked Darin into the tub with her anyway. Though after the two of them were cleaned up, she fully intended to wrangle him into that nice big bed. This was as good a time as any to test her theory about the tension between them dissolving as soon as their raging lust was satiated.
“We could talk.” Darin gazed at her with a sober, bruised look. Those dark-as-midnight eyes still held in deep, dark secrets. “You mean you could talk and I could listen? No thanks. Not while we both stink. The showers come first.”
And after that—the sex. Talking could wait.
“Go right ahead and hop in,” he told her. “I want to call my brother. And maybe I’ll speak to the innkeeper about breakfast while I’m at it. Are you hungry?”
Not for food. “Coffee and a roll might be nice.”
“Okay, I’ll take care of it. Don’t rush. I’ll clean up, myself, after you’re done.”
Yes, you will, Darin Kadir, she thought. Today is the day when we’ll clean up our lives, both physically and emotionally. We’ll push away all the secrets so at last we can figure out where we stand.
You can count on that.
Chapter 10
“No need to drive to Bellinzona,” Darin assured his brother over the phone. “We’ve met a train porter who will be sure we reach the Milan station safely.”
“Of course he will.” Tarik’s skepticism came through in his voice, even over the sound of running water as Rylie took her shower not ten feet away. “You will hand over the coded document the minute you reach the Milan station. Right? One of our men will fly it and Rylie to headquarters.” Tarik didn’t sound too crazy about the idea, but it was a plan.
“I’d prefer it if you would use one of our own jets to fly Rylie home to Texas. And make her as comfortable as possible.”
“You’re sure she’ll be willing to leave?” Tarik’s tone mocked him. “Shakir tells me she seemed pretty determined to stay until she has all the facts concerning that explosion in Houston.”
Darin lowered his voice, though he was positive no one could hear him. “She already knows the Taj Zabbar were responsible. And I intend to make sure she’s ready to go by the time we reach Milan. Leave her to me.”
Tarik’s low chuckle was loud enough to be heard even through his sat phone. “Yeah, and you’ve always been so great at convincing the ladies to do anything. Listen, maybe I should…”
“No thanks, baby brother.” Darin worked to release his tight jaw as he reached over for his coffee cup. “You take care of getting your men ready for an assault on that Milan address I found. I’ll be in time to join you at the takedown. I want to be there when we learn what they’re planning—and their identities. Wait for me to arrive before you move in, will you?”
“As you wish. You deserve to be in on this first skirmish, Darin. But I won’t be a bit surprised if your lady friend shows up there, too. Make sure she stays out of our way.”
It was all Darin could do not to hurl his cup at a wall. “Shut up, bro. You do your job and I’ll see to it she makes it on that plane.”
Without waiting for another snide remark, Darin closed his phone and set it on the bedside table. Except for that annoying conversation with his brother, Darin was feeling a lot more relaxed about being stuck at this inn for the next few hours. The signora had delivered up strong coffee and fresh pastries without any complaints. She’d brought warm bath towels and a replacement travel kit, containing shampoo, toothpaste, a brush and razor, to replace the one Rylie was using in the bathroom. Cheerful, much like her cousin the porter, the innkeeper had even volunteered to launder their clothes while they caught a couple hours of sleep.
She’d come by to collect Rylie’s things along with his pullover shirt and zip-up jacket, leaving him naked to the waist. But he’d decided Rylie had been right. It would be a real pleasure to arrive in Milan clean and pressed.
While he’d waited for Rylie to finish in the shower, Darin had come up with another plan to get rid of her. As smart as she was, the woman seemed to have some kind of death wish. And he would be damned if Rylie was going to kill herself while he was standing nearby.
This time around, he’d decided the plan needed to use friendship and loyalty as a hook for pleading his case with her about doing the right thing. She was certain to understand what was honorable. He knew they at least had that much in common. In fact, Darin himself felt somewhat desperate, for once in his life, to do the right thing by a woman he cared about.
Sure that he understood Rylie rather well by this point in their relationship, Darin knew she would value friendship above any small matters of pride. And that was but one way they were alike in their thinking.
He thought back to what she’d done in the name of honor, for instance. Maybe she’d gone about it wrong, but Rylie had been trying to honor her family’s name by selling off their assets and taking care of the victims of the explosion. Darin was also empathetic to her compulsion to honor her father’s memory by proving that Red Hunt had not been the cause of the explosion. Rylie now understood that truth the same way that Darin knew the truth of the Taj Zabbar’s covert war against his family.
Yes, the two of them had similar views and opinions on several su
bjects. This was no small matter in the big scheme of things. They shared views about right and honor and putting family first. Her safety seemed to be their one big sticking point.
The bathroom door opened and Rylie stepped into the bedroom, halfway disappearing in the cloud of steam that accompanied her. Darin nearly swallowed his tongue. Her hair was wrapped in one towel and her body was wrapped in another. He knew she didn’t have on a single thing underneath.
Waiting a beat for his pulse to settle, he pointed at the coffee and rolls because he couldn’t utter a word.
“Where are all my clothes?”
He cleared his throat. “The signora is laundering them. She just brought in the coffee.”
“I don’t even have any underwear to put on?”
Shaking his head, he tried for a look of chagrin. But he couldn’t pretend to be overwrought about her problem. Not when his veins were sizzling and his libido was taking too much notice.
Rylie gave him a most unusual glance. He had a feeling she was thinking of something else, something he should’ve been able to figure out. But he was having trouble thinking at all. His brain had fogged over at the first sight of her.
It was time to back away while he still could. “My turn in the shower?”
“Yes. But hurry back.”
He made a hasty retreat and eased the door shut behind him. How had he gotten himself into this situation?
Could he still do the right thing? Silently laughing at his own sudden uncertainty, Darin discovered he could barely even speak, let alone convince her to leave for her own safety and his piece of mind.
But he wasn’t some randy teenager stunned by his first sight of a naked woman. He was thirty-two, the vice CEO of a multinational business, and experienced in the sensual ways of womankind. Furthermore, he was strong-willed—and strong-minded. He could do anything if he concentrated hard enough.
Gathering his wits and promising to banish erotic thoughts and any hesitation, he stepped into the shower and flipped the water all the way to cold. Maybe if he stayed in here long enough, he could convince himself that even while talking to the naked woman in the next room he could still manage to do the right thing.
When the water from the faucet slowed to a trickle, Darin quickly shaved and dried off. After stepping back into his slacks, he stood with his hand on the doorknob, building up his nerve to face her again.
Taking a deep breath, he threw open the door with a flourish. While striding into the room like he knew what he was doing, Darin tried to think up some clever way to begin their conversation.
But he stopped midstride, astonished to find her sprawled across the bed with the black shawl covering all her important parts. Asleep.
He’d known she was exhausted. They hadn’t had any restful sleep in over thirty-six hours. But he had been all set for their talk. Grateful for a reprieve, he glanced down at her face. So peaceful and beautiful. She needed sleep more than she needed a conversation about hard truths. Perhaps he would be better off to slip on his shoes and go have a nice long, boring conversation with the innkeeper instead.
Good idea. Still, Darin couldn’t take his eyes off the figure in the bed. Noticing that her shawl had slipped, revealing the swell of one creamy breast, he leaned over to push it back in place. But when his fingers touched the warmth of her skin, she opened her eyes.
“Hi,” she murmured with a lazy drawl. “All done in the shower?”
“Mmm.” He coughed and then added, “Go back to sleep. I thought I’d go visiting, maybe make another telephone call.”
She reached out to him. “Stay. Come lie down with me.”
What his body urged him to do at that moment was as far from the right thing as he could imagine. “You don’t want this, Rylie.”
He sat at the very edge of the bed when she said nothing. “I’ve been thinking about your future. A lot. My family is about to embark on what has the potential to be a long, drawn-out mission. A mission fraught with danger at every turn. You, on the other hand, must go back to Texas and honor your family and their business. They need you to make things right.”
“Darin…”
He shook his head. “Just listen. You and I have found each other despite the most outrageous of circumstances. I’d like to think that in only a few days we’ve formed a bond…a friendship that can last a lifetime. But if we do this—”
It was all he could do not to beg to do exactly what she was suggesting.
Straightening his shoulders, he took her hand. “We can’t. It could ruin everything between us.”
She shook her head. “Not everything. Don’t you trust me? I trust you.”
“If you mean, do I trust that you have no illnesses and have taken care of yourself—of course I do. You may trust me on that account, too. But becoming intimate too soon destroys relationships. I don’t want that to happen to you and me. We shouldn’t.”
Rylie sat up, ignoring the shawl as it slid down to her waist. “We should. And maybe it will ruin things, or maybe it will provide us some interesting answers instead.”
Darin was dying a thousand deaths, wishing he could simply take her in his arms. The sight of her naked to the waist had left him panting.
“You…you’re so beautiful, Rylie. And I do want you, but…”
“What I want—” she pulled herself up on her knees, the shawl pooling on the bed, and then reached out to him “—is for you to touch me…hold me…make me forget about families and wars and death. Make love to me, Darin. Now. We only have a little while.”
That did it. He surrendered. Darin could never turn away from her while she begged, even if it was the right thing to do.
When he touched her—when he drew her into his arms—it felt less like a surrender and more like an awakening. This was good—right. Being here with this strong woman, who clearly wanted him, was turning into exactly what he needed to make things right.
Darin had never been with a woman before who wanted him quite as much. Nor with one who could turn him into a quivering mass of expectation as Rylie had done. Something about this whole spur-of-the-moment thing suddenly felt big—huge.
He experienced a moment of pure panic. Then Rylie leaned in close and kissed him.
Whispering against his mouth, she said, “You have too much on.” She rubbed her breasts against his bare chest, creating the most exquisite friction, while she reached for his zipper.
“Careful. Things are already tight down there, and becoming more dangerous by the moment.” He stood, disposing of the slacks himself.
The look on her face as he stood before her in all his glory was priceless. He would never forget it.
Her skin was flushed. Her eyes glazed. The budded tips of her breasts jutted up toward him. Smiling, she carefully took his erection in both her hands, gently caressing his swollen flesh. He couldn’t move—could barely speak.
She bent her head, but halted at the last moment and gazed up at him.
His knees buckled and he sucked in air. “Rylie,” he gasped. “Wait.”
She let her eyes do all the smiling as she flicked her tongue over his sensitive tip. “I’m done waiting.”
Lowering her chin, she closed in enough to plant a baby-soft kiss against the part of him pulsing in expectation. He called out her name—and then promptly forgot his own.
Rylie was on her knees before him in a submissive position, but she wasn’t fooled. Pleased with herself, she knew she held all the power. She took him hard into her mouth.
All the power. The idea was an aphrodisiac, spurring her on as he dug his fingers though her hair and moaned. His pleasure became her pleasure. She took him higher, closer to an edge, then backed away. Tasting. Licking. Controlling.
The more he trusted her to set the pace, the more intense was her gratification. She heard her own moans coming from someplace deep within her throat as they ramped up the friction. Wrapping her arms around his hips, she captured him in the most intimate of embraces. The idea of a tot
al possession, in both body and mind, flicked across her consciousness…right before she fully gave up to the insanity.
Crazed with dizzying power and need, as soon as Darin drew back she went with him and collapsed in a heap on the bed. But she cautioned herself to hold off. For one heartbeat she waited, intent on finding out if he would insist on controlling their new positions. To her amazement, he rolled on his back and pulled her up his body, inviting her to decide where to go from here—and giving her the freedom to do as she wanted.
And she wanted. Oh, how she wanted.
Straddling his hips, she pressed her palms to his shoulders and grinned down at him. “Gotcha. Right where I want you. You are my prisoner.”
“Do with me what you will,” he teased, but in a dazed voice. “I am at your command.”
Absolutely positive that there had never been a better sexual fantasy in the history of the world, Rylie leaned over and offered her breasts by brushing them across his lips. He licked and stroked each until he finally lifted his head off the bed enough to fully capture one in his mouth.
Even though she was on top, it soon became a question of who was tempting whom. Drawing the sensitive tip into his mouth with a greedy gulp, he alternately sucked and soothed. Tormenting her until she issued a sensual moan from somewhere deep inside her, he nipped at each nipple. And with each small pain came a resulting electric shock of pleasure.
Wet and slick, and so hungry to feel him inside her that she was wild with the desire for it, she lifted her hips and positioned herself over the head of his erection. Darin put his hands at the sides of her hips to help guide her, and she felt his whole body tense with anticipation.
Her heart pounded. Her muscles tightened along with his.
She had never been so sure of anything in her whole life.
Unbelievable heat. Wet. Hot. Tight.
As Rylie slowly lowered her body down to cover him, Darin’s last coherent thought was again of surrender. He had thought he’d given himself over to her hands. Yet now they were both giving and taking and rejoicing in each other’s needs. Neither one had given in. Both had succumbed.