Chapter
Two
Without bothering to open the door, Sebastian
vaulted from the sports car and approached them with a
long-striding walk. All that edgy frustration that had darkened
Laura’s mood vanished under the warm regard of his hazel
eyes.
“Mr. Dunshill, this is a surprise,”
Tara greeted him, then tilted her head at a curious angle. “Are you
staying at the Hassler, too?”
“Not at all. I came to give you this.”
He held out a folded slip of paper to them. “When Bianca told me
you had left, I realized I had failed to let you know how to
contact me when you come to England.”
“We would have tracked you down
somehow,” Laura assured him, a knowing smile dimpling the corners
of her mouth as she took the paper from him and slipped it into her
evening bag. “But this makes it easier. You see, Tara and I just
decided to fly to London at the end of the week.”
“You have? Wonderful,” Sebastian
replied with an easy show of pleasure. “Give me a call after you
arrive, and we’ll settle on a time to view the
portrait.”
“We’ll do that,” Laura promised. “We’re
both curious to see it.”
“Indeed we are,” Tara agreed, but at
the moment her interest was on something else. “You must have known
the contessa for a long time to be on a
first-name basis with her.”
“I’ve known her most of my life,”
Sebastian replied. “She and my mother are third cousins.” Without
giving Tara a chance to question him further about his connection
to the countess, he changed the subject. “You two aren’t calling it
an evening already, are you? Rome is just coming alive at this
hour.”
“If that’s an invitation to show me
some of the nightlife, I accept,” Laura declared with unabashed
boldness and threw a brief look at Tara. “You don’t mind, do you,
Tara? I’ve been a dignified lady all evening. Now I’m ready to let
my hair down and do something improper.”
“Not too improper, I hope,” Tara
admonished lightly. “You two go and have fun. I’ll see you in the
morning.”
Laura turned expectantly to Sebastian,
an alluring sparkle in her brown eyes. “Well? Was it an invitation
or not?”
“It was.” An answering light danced in
his own eyes. “If I seem at a slight loss for words, you must
forgive me. I thought it would require a great deal more
persuasion.”
She laughed. “You thought
wrong.”
“To my everlasting delight,” he said
and ushered her to his car. After Laura was comfortably settled in
the front passenger seat, Sebastian made his way around the hood
and slid behind the wheel. Hands on the steering wheel, he asked,
“Which nightspots would you prefer—something secluded and romantic,
or loud and crowded?”
“Let’s start with loud and crowded,”
Laura stated.
“Loud and crowded it is.” The powerful
engine roared to life.
As the Porsche accelerated away from
the hotel, Laura threw Tara a parting wave and reached up to pull
the pins that secured her long blond hair in its confining style.
Sebastian darted her a sideways glance when she tossed her head to
shake her hair loose.
“You were serious about letting your
hair down, weren’t you?” An amused smile tugged at a corner of his
mouth.
“I’m a firm believer that when you ride
in a convertible, you have to let your hair down so the wind can
blow through it. It’s part of the experience.” Laura turned her
face into the motion-generated breeze. “A little faster, if you
please.”
Chuckling softly, Sebastian stepped on
the accelerator and the sports car increased its speed. At a
reckless pace, they zipped along the busy city streets, darting in
and around slower vehicles, careening around corners with tires
squealing.
“You’re going to get a ticket,” Laura
warned with laughter in her voice. “You didn’t even slow up at that
last light.”
“One of the first things you have to
learn about driving in Rome: motorists tend to regard traffic signs
as mere suggestions. So, when in Rome . . .” he reminded her of the
oft quoted phrase without bothering to finish it, an impish twinkle
in his eyes.
Her throaty laugh was hearty and full.
“I knew the moment I saw you behind the wheel of this Porsche, you
weren’t some stuffy Englishman.”
“I hope you haven’t made the erroneous
assumption that it’s mine,” he warned. “I merely borrowed it from
Bianca.”
“I’ll bet you had a choice,
though.”
“As a matter of fact, I did.” Sebastian
paused to glance her way. “Something told me you might favor a
sports car.”
“You have sound
instincts.”
The car picked up more speed along a
straight stretch, and Laura surrendered to the freshened wind,
enjoying the feel of it whipping through her hair. It reminded her
of the many times she had galloped her horse across the rolling
range of her Montana home just to feel that exhilarating rush of
air against her face.
“I take it you found Bianca’s dinner
party a bit dull,” Sebastian remarked.
Laura dragged a tendril of hair off her
cheek and hooked it behind her ear. “Only toward the last. It’s a
failing of mine,” she stated without a trace of repentance. “At
times, I’m easily bored.”
“It happens to all of us, especially
when we’ve had a surfeit of elegant soirees.”
She threw her head back and laughed.
“Is that ever the truth. It’s been almost nonstop since we arrived
in Europe. Which proves it is possible to have too much of a good
thing.”
But as her glance skimmed his leanly
chiseled profile, she became aware again of that little buzz of
excitement she felt in his presence, and doubted that it would be
possible to have too much of Sebastian Dunshill.
“It’s definitely possible to have too
much of formal affairs.” His voice was laced with
humor.
The smile drew her attention to the
manly construction of his lips. From there it was an easy step to
wonder what his kiss would be like. Laura was conscious of her
pulse quickening in anticipation of that moment. She had no doubt
at all that it would come, whether at his instigation or
hers.
She was almost sorry when they arrived
at a nightclub on the edges of Rome’s city center. A part of her
wanted to continue the car ride, just the two of them. Then the
loud, driving beat of a bass drum reached out from the club and
caught her up in its primitive spell.
“You asked for loud and crowded,”
Sebastian reminded her as they entered, greeted by blaring music
and a din of laughing, chattering voices.
“It’s wonderful.” Laura declared,
already feeling the need to move with the music’s contagious
beat.
After a discreet slipping of bills, a
waiter led them through the crush of people to a small table near
the dance floor. The waiter lingered long enough to take their
drink order: a glass of white wine for Laura and a gin and tonic
for Sebastian. One song had barely ended before the band struck up
another.
“So, do you samba?” Sebastian
asked.
“Absolutely.” Taking his hand, Laura
rose from her chair. The firm pressure of that hand on her waist,
guiding her to the dance floor, started her pulse racing. “I never
expected to hear Latin music in Rome,” she said when he turned her
into his arms.
“It’s currently riding another wave of
popularity here in Europe.”
“I’m glad.” The blatant sensuality of
it suited her mood perfectly.
But they hadn’t taken more than a dozen
steps before Laura found her movements restricted by her gown’s
long, pencil-slim skirt, making it difficult to throw herself into
the music as she wanted to do.
She stopped dancing. “Let me have your
tie.”
“My tie?” Sebastian drew his head back
in mild bewilderment.
“That’s right.” She proceeded to hitch
her skirt up until the hem was above her knees. “I need it for a
belt.”
Amused, he unknotted the tie and pulled
it from around his neck.
Holding her skirt at the desired
height, Laura instructed, “Tie it around my waist.”
When Sebastian bent to the task, he
brought his head closer to her, close enough that she could make
out the shape of some of the faint freckles on his face. With each
breath she inhaled the heady, masculine scent of his cologne. She
discovered that nearly everything about him stimulated
her.
When he tied the first knot to secure
the makeshift belt around her waist, Laura cautioned, “Make sure
it’s tight,” and she pressed a finger in the center of the first
knot, holding it in place while he made the second one. The
intimacy of having him fix her clothes brought its own brand of
stimulation to the moment, adding to her high awareness of
him.
Finishing the task, he straightened.
“That should do it.”
Laura placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Let’s try it again, shall we?”
In answer, he slid his fingers between
those of her free hand and fitted his other hand to the curve of
her hip bone directly below her newly belted waist. Without
hesitation, Sebastian guided her into the samba’s opening
steps.
The passionate music throbbed around
them. The samba’s emphasis on eye contact and impression of
isolation, along with its exaggerated hip movements, made it an
innately sensual dance, but in Sebastian’s arms, it took on an
added quality of sexiness that Laura hadn’t experienced before. And
she realized that in the past she had always danced to the music,
but not really with her partner. The
connection she felt with this man, something that was more than
merely physical, gave a new dimension to the moment. She felt alive
as a woman.
They stayed on the dance floor for song
after song, returning to their table only once to take a quick sip
of their drinks. As another song drew to a close, Laura leaned into
Sebastian’s chest, unwilling to break the closeness. She felt the
heaviness of his breathing and the hard beat of his pulse, matching
her own. The solidness of him made her feel deliciously
weak.
Tilting her head back, she looked up
into his downturned face and lifted a hand to touch the sheen of
perspiration across his upper lip. “It seems we’re both working up
a sweat,” Laura murmured, conscious of her own flushed skin and the
pounding of blood through her veins.
“It would be a shame to cool off now.”
His words were accompanied by a suggestive look that made
everything inside her leap. Just then the band struck up another
tune. Hearing it, Sebastian smiled. “I thought they were never
going to play something slow.”
Before Laura had a chance to register
the tempo of the music, he had molded her to his length, releasing
her hand to circle both arms around her to keep her close. Glorying
in the sensations of this new contact, Laura slid her hands behind
his neck and let her fingers slide into his light red-brown hair.
The scent and feel of him was all around her.
As they swayed together with the music,
their feet barely moving, her body felt liquid—and molten. He
nuzzled the side of her neck and the sensitive hollow behind her
ear, sending little shivers of excitement quivering through
her.
Passivity was something totally alien
to her nature, making it impossible for Laura to allow him to make
all the moves. She turned her head, seeking and finding those
masculine lips that were creating so much havoc.
It was no tentative first kiss they
shared, but one that was hot and tonguing in its demands. It shook
Laura to her toes. She felt herself being pulled into the heat of
it without first deciding if it was what she wanted. She was scared
and excited by the power of it.
Sebastian was the first to break it
off, dragging his mouth from hers in obvious reluctance. She saw
the quick delving of his gaze, and realized, with much
satisfaction, that he had been shaken by the kiss,
too.
“Do you always kiss strange men like
that?” he asked with a teasing lightness that gained her instant
approval.
“No, but I’ll bet that you kiss all
strange women that way,” she retorted, recovering some sense of
control while still thrilling to the disturbance
within.
“None have ever been quite like this,”
Sebastian assured her in a dry voice.
“That’s good to know,” she murmured and
stroked a hand along the strong cut of his jawline.
As the last note of the song faded
away, a voice came through the sound system, speaking in Italian.
At its conclusion, Sebastian glanced at Laura, regret twisting the
line of his mouth. “It’s closing time.”
She released a mock sigh. “And we were
just getting warmed up.”
“Shall we go back to the table and
finish our drinks?”
The prospect of spending the next
twenty minutes sitting and sipping sounded much too mundane for
Laura, especially now when she was on such a sensual high. “Why
bother?” she countered with an elegant little shrug of her
shoulders. “By now the wine’s flat. Let’s just leave.”
“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 madcap 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.”