The Tuscan's Revenge Wedding Read online

  “We are stopping,” he said, while the blood surged through his veins with a force he’d never known, “because I have an uncontrollable urge to have you in my lap, after all.”

  Her lips parted and the gray of her irises disappeared into the dark pools of her pupils. Before she could move, he leaned to slide an arm around her waist to draw her close. The console was in the way, but he hardly noticed. Spreading his free hand on the back of her head, he zeroed in on her mouth and took it with his.

  Warm, fragrant, flavored with wine, she completed him like key into lock, plug into receptacle. She made a soft sound and he captured it, swallowed it, groaned in his turn. Her softness enticed him with the need to have her curves molded to him, her depths his to command. He swirled into her mouth, twining his tongue around hers, urging her response.

  The trembling that ran over her caused his body to stiffen until his eyes burned with it. Shifting his hand upward, he placed his palm between her breasts where her heart throbbed, and felt its pounding echoed in his blood.

  The crisp cloth layer of her blouse was an intolerable barrier. He shifted yet again, tugged it from her skirt and slid his hand underneath. Her bra was smooth, unpadded and plain except for its simple lace edging, yet an enticement beyond bearing. He unfastened the front catch, pushed it aside and captured the tender resilience and sweet weight of her breast.

  It was perfect, filling his hand, budding against his palm even before he brushed the nipple with his thumb. Her swift inhalation of startled pleasure threatened his control. The need to taste her raged in his head, tearing at his sanity. He wanted her naked and spread for his pleasure, wanted to feast on her at his leisure, leaving no single inch of her unexplored. He wanted her under him while she held him to her with urgent, grasping hands and thighs. Or above him while he captured her curves in his spread fingers. The need to sink into her heated depths twisted inside him, a ravenous, mind-stealing hunger.

  She seemed as lost as he was, almost boneless as she shivered in his grasp. His heart tripped into a faster beat as she caught a handful of his shirt, twisting it in her grasp. He wanted more of her, longed to feel her along the entire length of his body, to revel in her heat against his hot strutted flesh.

  The console between them was the epitome of frustration. With a growl low in his throat, he lifted her over it, holding her against him while he fumbled for the lever that would send his seat backward. With more space between them and the steering wheel, he shoved his hand under the pencil slim hem of her skirt, skimming upward like a heat-seeking missile. Her thighs were so firm, her skin as fine as silk. The need to see it was like an ache, though he would not release her mouth to look. She was so sweet, so sweet.

  She was also hot and damp, so ready for him that his heart threatened to explode. He cupped her, soothing her even as he added friction to increase her heat. Unerringly, he found the sweet small nub of her desire and gave it his attention while wishing he could lave it with his tongue until she unraveled in his arms.

  He wanted her, had to have her, but this was so cramped and awkward he cursed himself for bad planning. More than that, he heard the purr of an engine drawing near.

  That sound was followed by the slamming of car doors and shouts of children. Amanda pushed at him, suddenly breathless as she dragged her lips from his. All he could do was release her, slide down her skirt, settle her once more where she belonged.

  Where she belonged, yes, which was out of his arms, far away from him and his virulent ideas. Vengeance was a poor reason to make love to a woman like Amanda. He must have been insane to think he could have her once and walk away. That would never be enough.

  His hands were not quite steady as he started the car, put it in gear and drove away. It was several kilometers down the road before the wind whipping into his face cooled his blood and untangled mind. Before he realized he was driving in the opposite direction from the villa.

  8

  What a sensual person she had turned out to be, after all, Amanda thought as she watched, bemused, while Nico swung the car in a tire-squealing half-circle in the middle of the road and accelerated back the way they had come. A suggestion, a touch, a kiss and she went up in flames. Why was it she had not recognized her true nature before?

  How could she have been so disdainful of other women who succumbed to the too potent allure of desire? She had never really felt it until now, that was all.

  If not for this trip to Italy she might never have known. If not for Nico de Frenza she might have missed this wild elation that still simmered in her blood.

  She could not believe she had come close, so close, to following wherever he led, to allowing him to make love to her in a parked car like some hormonal teenager. And she could not blame it on the wine. She had wanted the pleasure he could give her with a bone deep need that was embarrassing now to remember.

  She must be on her guard against it from now on. Not that she thought Nico would want to pick up where they had left off. It was simply best if nothing similar ever happened again.

  Or was it? What if no man ever again made her feel the same way? What if this was the only opportunity she might ever have to taste complete fulfillment?

  She glanced at the man beside her, at the stern planes of his face and dark eyes narrowed against the wind that ruffled the waves of his hair. He drove with single-minded concentration yet an expansive air, as if the road had been made for his use alone. The blood of Caesars and Frankish kings ran in his veins, was displayed in his classic profile. He was self-assured to the point of arrogance; infuriatingly certain he knew what was best for her and everyone else around him.

  And no man had ever made her feel as he did. No man had ever come so close to making her forget everything except being in his arms with his mouth upon hers.

  Would it be so terrible to go to bed with him? It need only be once to satisfy this painful longing, to see what it was like to be the focus of so much passion and power.

  It was unlikely to go further than that, she was sure. He had so many duties and responsibilities, too many for an affair of any duration.

  Soon Jonathan would be well enough to leave the hospital. She would return to the States, regardless of what happened between him and Carita. That would be the end of this Italian interlude.

  Marriage would never cross Nico’s mind. If he sought a wife, when he sought one, it would be someone who moved in his own exalted circles, a polished and sophisticated woman of equal lineage, equal wealth. She would be suitable, compliant and definitely Italian.

  To take advantage of a woman under his roof was against his personal code, and she didn’t believe he would go against it. Outside the villa was apparently a different matter. Or perhaps not, perhaps he had also been carried away by a sudden excess of feeling. Regardless, he had told her plainly that she would have to come to him.

  Come…

  A shudder gripped her, shaking her to her toes. Could she do that? Could she risk the possibility that today was a fluke, and he might no longer want her once they reached the villa? To cross that line in the ecstasy of the moment had seemed possible, even necessary, but to court it deliberately was something else again.

  She was not impulsive, seldom acted without good and sufficient reason. A vagrant desire was not going to be enough to make her fling off her clothes and throw herself at Nico de Frenza. She would have to be very sure before she took the final step.

  She was still thinking, still wondering, when the gates of the Villa de Frenza appeared.

  Carisa came running to meet them as they drew up on the gravel court. Her face was bright with joy, and she had a drawing she had done that she wanted to show them.

  It was a delicate sketch of fairies using a toadstool for an umbrella. A single glance at it showed Carisa’s lessons had included private drawing instruction at some point. As Amanda praised the sketch and handed it back, she met Nico’s black eyes over his sister’s head. Their expression was sardonic, and she flushed a lit
tle as she realized she might have misjudged him. He had apparently made some effort to engage his sister’s interests and encourage her talent.

  She was not wrong about everything, however. As they crossed the entrance hall, with Carisa skipping along beside Nico swinging his hand, she piped up with a sing-song string of questions. “Where is Carita? Why is she not with you? What have you done with her? When is she coming home?”

  His face took on a grim cast, and Amanda thought he sent a frown in her direction before he answered his sister. “Carita has had a small accident, cara mia. She will be home soon, so you must not fret.”

  “Is it … is it bad?” The girl’s eyes widened until they were huge while her face became pasty white, almost green. “I want Carita. I want her now.

  Amanda didn’t stay to listen. She was not a member of the family, and it would undoubtedly be best if she was not present while Nico explained. Let him handle the problem, she thought, since it was of his making and he had so much experience at calming Carisa.

  The day had turned sultry, with a heavy feeling in the air. The villa drowsed in the heat, the warm currents of air in its cavernous rooms scented with furniture polish and flowers. Nothing moved in this hour of midday rest. The maids who came for the morning were long gone. Nonna and Aunt Filomena, and even Erminia, were likely resting in their rooms. Carisa would soon be napping, as well, though without Yolanda nearby as it was her day off. None of them would reappear for hours.

  Sleep was the last thing on Amanda’s mind. Her nerves twanged with tension that needed to be released. She thought of the pool at the bottom of the garden. It had appeared so cool and inviting, but she had no bathing suit with her.

  There were two or three in the collection of clothing delivered to her room. None of them had a lot of fabric, but were mere triangles held together by ribbons and chains of beads. The least revealing was turquoise and lavender with mother-of-pearl accents and a matching sarong.

  The suit she used now and then in the gym pool after work was a two-piece, but nothing like these. Yet she longed for the coolness of a swim and its promise of mindless exercise.

  She could, just possibly, unbend enough to use a bikini. It was only a small thing, after all — literally. The change would certainly be welcome. She would not give her host the satisfaction of knowing it, but she was heartily sick of her navy skirt and white blouses.

  Reaching out almost against her will, she ran a hand over the other garments hanging in the wardrobe. They made a rainbow of color in natural fabrics suited to the climate. Their style was simple yet with a casual elegance that was infinitely appealing.

  As ridiculous as it might be, she almost wished Nico had chosen the clothing for her instead of merely giving orders to a personal shopper. It would have been interesting to see what he might have selected, mostly as an indication of how he saw her. Not that she cared, of course, but he had such a well-defined style of his own that it could have been instructive.

  Any hope of relaxation vanished as she neared the pool. Nico was already in the water. He was doing laps from the look of it, gliding up and down at such a swift pace it exhausted her to look at him.

  As she drew nearer he caught sight of her, for he swirled to a stop. Treading water, he raked his hair back with one hand. “I would have waited for you if I had known you would join me,” he called. “Come, dive in.”

  She wanted to accept his invitation but hesitated, horribly conscious of the inadequacy of the bikini under the sarong that she had tied around her like a strapless dress. He was probably used to women parading before him in even less, but she wasn’t that bold. She hoped he would return to his laps, but he seemed uninterested. And the longer she waited, the more obvious her reluctance to strip off to near nakedness in front of him must appear.

  Turning away, she dropped the beach towel she carried and unfastened the knot between her breasts that held the sarong closed. She slid it from around her and tossed it at a nearby lounge chair. Moving swiftly to the pool’s edge, she launched into a fast, flat dive.

  ~ ~ ~

  Nico ceased treading water. He stopped so completely that he sank like a stone and had to kick his way back to the surface again.

  He had held Amanda Davies in his arms, had touched her as intimately as possible without completing the act of love, but still had no idea of the natural perfection of her body. She was not some anorexic sylph but a woman with curves in all the right places, as pale and wholesome as fresh milk and just as without artifice. She had not been enhanced and tucked to fit some cosmetic surgeon’s artificial idea of beauty, but was beauty incarnate.

  Nor had she strutted before him, displaying what she had for his inspection. It suited him, that lack of vanity, while a part of him recognized a fierce need to be the only man who ever gazed upon her. Primitive instinct, of course, and completely unreasonable in this modern age, but he could not deny it. And in that moment he wanted her with an ache that sliced so deep he thought it might be a mortal wound.

  Dio, but he was losing it. It had been far too long since he had been with a woman. If he wasn’t to fall upon his house guest like a raving fiend, he needed to call one of the socialites he knew then plan to spend a night away from the villa.

  The problem was that no other woman he could bring to mind had the least appeal.

  It would be best if he did a few laps, or maybe few hundred. The exercise should help return his unruly body to a decent state. That was, of course, if the water didn’t start boiling around him.

  His house guest was a competent swimmer, he saw as he put his plan into action, not showy but with good form and steady strength. He wondered how many hotel pools she had plowed up and down while traveling with her father from one international race track to another, how many summer camps she might have attended as she was shuttled out of the way.

  That she had joined him in the water was a point in her favor. Too many females of his acquaintance would have chosen to stretch out on one of the lounges in a seductive pose while working on their tans, or else avoided the sun under a protective umbrella.

  Amanda was not used to constant pool exercise, however. After only a few laps, she headed to the underwater steps and mounted them. Her chest rose and fell as if she was trying to catch her breath as she leaned to pick up the towel she had left on the paving. Seating herself on the pool’s edge, she slicked back her hair from her face and dried her face and arms.

  Watching her so minutely was precious little help in controlling his hot urges. Nico realized. Without conscious thought, he swam to where she sat and heaved himself up onto the pool curbing beside her.

  “Better?” He slanted a glance at her set face as he borrowed one end of her big beach towel to wipe his face.

  “Than what?”

  “Than before,” he said on a wry laugh for her stiff reply. “Cooler, perhaps.”

  “You should know.”

  The glance she gave him skimmed his neck to his knees, and seemed to scorch wherever it touched. How could she do this to him without the least sign of effort? Yes and when no one else had ever come close?

  “At least it persuaded you to make some use of the things provided you.”

  She busied herself drying the back of her neck under her hair. “I should thank whoever thought to add bathing suits.”

  He flicked a quick glance over her and could not prevent a smile. “What you have on looks just as I thought it would — and is exactly what I’d have expected you to choose from what was sent.”

  She paused, meeting his gaze with a lifted brow. “You chose this bikini?”

  “I told the buyer what I thought would be suitable, rather, and she described it.”

  “And the rest?”

  “Much the same.” He lifted a brow in near affront. “Is something wrong? Do you dislike what was selected?”

  “No, no,” she said at once. “I just didn’t realize you had gone to so much trouble, didn’t expect it when I’m no one, certainly no
t one of your—”

  The wild color that flooded her face was a secret delight. “One of my women, you meant to say?”

  “Your family, rather, your aunt, your grandmother, Carita or Carisa,” she said hastily.

  “Of course,” he took her up at once, his tone saying the exact opposite. That she knew it was plain from the sparks that went off like fireworks in her eyes. “But I assure you it was no trouble at all.”

  “You—”

  “Si?” he said in soft challenge as she paused.

  “Nothing.” She looked away. “Speaking of Carisa, I hope she wasn’t too upset.”

  “Not on the surface, but I fear she may be brooding about it.”

  “You can hardly blame her.”

  He lifted a shoulder as he frowned at the far side of the pool. “I thought to spare her the worry.”

  “At least she won’t feel left in the dark.”

  “No.”

  “If you brought her photos of Carita—”

  “That’s been arranged for some point in the next few days, when she finally wakes from her coma. Her doctors feel it’s only a matter of time.”

  Nico wondered briefly if Amanda had any idea what a concession it was, his bowing to her suggestion, her judgment. She seemed to have an affinity for Carisa, a better understanding than most. She was also female, and he trusted it might give her an edge in knowing what was best for his sister. He had no other reason. Certainly not.

  “Now that Carisa is aware of what’s going on, will you have Carita brought here?”

  “Here, to the villa?”

  “Not right away, of course, but later, for her convalescence, when they are positive she’s out of danger.”

  “She’s well looked after where she is.”

  Her gaze was troubled as she met his. “You could always bring in nurses and the special equipment she might need. Carisa could see her so be easy in her mind. And Carita may well do better in familiar surroundings, with people she knows and loves around her.”