Jamie stifled a gasp.
La Rondinaia
.
The Swallow’s Nest. It was a gazillion-star hotel she’d read about but never even thought of booking. She looked around. The surroundings were certainly beautiful, but the place was deserted. Now that her eyes had adjusted to the dim light, she could see that the back of the arcade was polished plate glass, the lobby behind it splendid beyond words and utterly empty. Not even anyone behind the carved limestone front desk.
“Mr. Torraca—”
“Paolo, please.” He tucked her hand in his elbow, gesturing with his head. A bellhop sprang out of nowhere and picked up her bag. They walked through the back archway into the lobby itself, cool and perfumed from the many lemon trees in huge enameled vases everywhere. The enormous lobby was divided into conversational areas, but it looked more like a super luxurious home than a public space. Eighteenth-century artwork filled the space; an antique painted bookcase filled with old books covered one long wall. An elaborately carved marble hearth large enough to roast oxen covered another.
Paolo let her look her fill. When she turned back to him, smiling, he smiled back.
“Now, you and Stefano have the entire place at your disposal. Fortuitously we are closed for repairs. We have opened up the royal suite for you. It has its own swimming pool. And we are keeping the kitchen open for you. But there will be no one else save security.” His dark eyes met hers, the humor and goodwill disappearing, leaving the hard gaze of a man who had known hard times. “You will be perfectly safe here. I guarantee it.”
She understood what he was saying. And she understood that great efforts had been made for Stefano and, by extension, for herself. “Thank you,” she said.
He bowed his head, once more the suave hotelier. “It is our pleasure,
signora
. Now,” he placed a magnetic card in her hand as he walked her to a bank of elevators, “take this elevator to the third floor, then turn to the right and take the elevator at the end of the corridor. You will need that card to access the elevator. It will take you directly to your suite, where you will find your bag.” He bent to kiss her hand again. “Believe me when I say it is a privilege for
La Rondinaia
to welcome you and Judge Leone, and we hope we can welcome you again soon. I will see to it personally that your suite remains always available.”
He walked away, and it was almost magical being alone in such a space. Like exploring an enchanted castle.
The private elevator was lined with polished brass. There were no buttons, but a swipe of the card and the elevator rose three floors all by itself, like a magic chariot.
It was taking her to Stefano.
The helicopter ride, the gorgeous landscapes, the arrival at this sumptuous hotel—they’d distracted her. But now she felt it with full force—she was going to see Stefano again.
Her heart began thumping, something totally outside her control. She wasn’t an anxious person by nature and had certainly never been anxious over a man, but now she found herself in a perfect frenzy of anxiety. Well, not anxiety, more like…excitement. Anticipation. Even a little fear.
She didn’t
know
him, after all. He was a man her beloved grandfather admired, he was a man other men admired, that was true. And what she’d seen of him…wow. But surely that was hormones talking? Surely it was because her body simply lit up when he was around that—
Her anxious internal dialogue stopped dead because the elevator doors whooshed open and…there he was. Walking toward her from some immense living room area that looked like a modern Versailles. He was dressed casually in jeans and a tee shirt and he looked better than any man had a right to look. Not just handsome—there were plenty of handsome men around. He looked regal, a king in jeans, somehow a serious man even when dressed like a teenager and with a wide smile on his face. His gaze locked with hers as he walked toward her and she simply opened up.
Opened her arms, opened her body, opened her heart.
When he kissed her, it felt like relief. It felt like she’d been in a desert, parched for something, and there that something was. Stefano, kissing her.
He was so tall she had to stand on her toes. He put his arm around her bottom and simply lifted her up and into him. She twined her arms tightly around his neck, mouths at the same level, eating at his lips, trying to get as close to him as possible. He held her so tightly she could feel his erection through the jeans as she moved her hips restlessly against his.
Stefano lifted his head on a gasp, letting her slide down his body. Even if she hadn’t felt the smooth, hard column against her stomach she’d have known he was aroused by his swollen, wet mouth and the deep red under the olive skin of his cheekbones.
“
Cara
, I’m going to have to call in my bodyguards to defend me against you. You’re lethal.”
However aroused and disheveled he looked, she must have looked worse. She could feel a blush down to her breasts. Her skin was much fairer than his, it would clearly show. Her nipples felt so hard she was sure they were visible right through her bra and silk tee.
One advantage she had was the one all women had over all men. Her sex was as aroused as Stefano’s, but her body held it secretly. She was already wet, a small sun of heat between her thighs, but he couldn’t know that.
She elbowed him, encountering only rock-hard muscle. “Cut that out. I’m not dangerous to anyone but myself.”
She stepped back, if only to distance herself from his touch. She hadn’t been kidding. This attraction, this fascination Stefano held over her felt dangerous. As if control over herself had been ceded to this man. As good as it felt, it was also immensely unsettling, like falling off a cliff, unable to see the bottom. Arms windmilling frantically as she fell down, down, down…
He bent and gave her a hard kiss, then grinned.
Oh God. He shed a good ten years when he grinned like that and for the first time, she wondered how old he was. She’d assumed he was much older than her—well into his forties. And yet now he looked young and frisky. Not much older than herself.
A vital, smart, good-looking man in his prime and he lived like a prisoner, captive to an iron mistress—duty.
“Come,” he said, and took her hand. “Let me show you around. I’ll save the best for last.”
She looked up at him and saw clearly how much he wanted this—a lighthearted moment. Wanted this mini-vacation away from that cold mistress of his. Jamie allowed herself to be pulled into the living area and looked around, her artist’s heart lifting.
“So beautiful,” she breathed, and it was. If someone had reached inside her head and pulled out a vision of the perfect villa by the Mediterranean, this would be it. Pale terracotta tiles, carved tufa stone wainscoting, more huge lemon trees in enameled vases, pale silk-covered sofas, a coffee table made out of a sixteenth-century door, an entire disassembled, painted wooden cart adorning one wall, brilliant landscapes adorning another…it was splendid. Elegant yet comfortable, a stunning mixture of antiques and modern design.
A particularly stunning white leather sofa and armchairs with slanting sides looked familiar. Her eyes widened. “That’s a Philippe Starck!” She touched the couch, ran her fingers over the sides. She’d been tempted by a cheap copy for her apartment, but it had been nothing like this.
“Yeah?” Stefano shook his head. “Cool.” And she understood he had no idea who Philippe Starck was. She laughed.
He echoed the laugh, pulling her toward the bedroom. “Come see the bed. It’s amazing.”
It was. The bed was enormous, a four-poster baldachin bed, the carved and gilded posts reaching nearly to the ceiling and hung with linen panels edged with hand-tatted lace. A fairytale bed for a fairytale room.
“There’s more.” He opened a carved wooden door and she could see blinding white tiles with terracotta finishing—the bathroom. Stefano entered and came out holding two enormous white terrycloth robes.
“Strip,” he ordered.
Jamie’s eyebrows rose. “I beg your pardon?”
He grinned again, a young boy’s grin. “I have plans for you naked, but right now I want you to strip and put this on.” He held out one of the robes and turned away, stripping fast, putting on the robe. She barely caught an enticing glimpse of hard naked butt and then it was covered in white terrycloth.
Well…stripping was easy. Silk tee, bra, capri pants, panties. The robe was enormous, almost brushing the ground, where it came to mid-calf on him. She had to turn the sleeves up three times.
She’d barely tied the belt before he grabbed her hand and powered out onto the terrace with her in tow.
What a day of surprises.
The terrace gave out on a view that would have been rejected as CGI in a movie. Too unbelievably beautiful. To the left, far, far below, two crescents of pristine white beach lazily looped along the bay of a bright-blue sea. Pines, cypresses, oleanders, prickly pears and bougainvillea covered the steep hillside down to the beaches.
The rooftops of Taormina shone in the bright sunlight down below, a toy village with miniature people crowding the streets.
The terrace was made of huge terracotta tiles of the faintest pink. The terrace outside the suite was almost entirely covered with a wrought iron frame from edge to edge, yellow linen curtains fluttering from the frame and creating a golden wall of privacy. To the left, a small gate opened onto an enormous communal terrace with an Olympic-sized pool. It was edged by thick laurel hedges with a spicy perfume, cutting them off from the world, open only to the sky.
“There are no other guests,” Stefano said, looking around. “It’s all ours.” He grinned. “Our own little playground.”
She looked around too. She usually saw things through her trained senses, automatically filtering for shape and color and balance and harmony. This place was aesthetically stunning, but for a moment she saw it through Buzzanca’s eyes. He wouldn’t notice how the color of the linen curtains of the sitting room matched the pale tiling or how the bright colors of the enameled vases offset the deep glossy green of the lemon tree leaves.
No, he would notice that there was no way for anyone to attack Stefano. If they stayed within the gazebo when they ate
,
they would be invisible to outsiders, and no one could see past the thick, perfumed hedges to the pool. They were safe from snipers and she had no doubt that policemen were stationed around the entrances to the hotel.
They were in a cocoon of luxury and safety.
“Are you afraid of water?” Stefano asked, directing her toward the glistening pool.
She was pulled from her consideration of how Stefano’s security detail had managed to provide him with the safest of breaks. “What? No.”
“Can you swim?”
Jamie kept her smile to herself. Oh yes, she could swim. She simply nodded.
“Good,” Stefano said. He shucked off his robe, stripped her quickly of hers, wrapped his arms around her and tumbled them both into the pool.
He made sure he fell in first and that her head stayed above water. He didn’t want to drown her and he didn’t want to hurt her in any way, but he did want to…play. Just a little.
Cristo,
how long had it been since he’d played with a beautiful woman? Since his life had been anything other than danger and duty?
It had been a long, long time. There’d been Francesca the year after his divorce. They’d gone scuba diving off Sardinia. He’d taken her a couple of times to La Scala. They’d had fun and she’d been very inventive in bed, but it had all come with a huge price. Francesca turned out to be shamelessly vain and pouted if he didn’t shower her constantly with compliments. If she had a new pair of shoes or had changed her makeup, he was expected to notice.
That wasn’t who he was. He didn’t give a shit how anyone was dressed. He barely noticed what
he
was wearing on any given day. Francesca had been exhausting, prickly and difficult. The relationship had fizzled out in a couple of months.
Jamie was even more beautiful than Francesca—naturally so, without cosmetic enhancement—but she didn’t seem to have a vain bone in her body. She was never coy, didn’t expect him to flatter her…actually, she didn’t seem to expect anything at all from him. She just enjoyed his company—and man, he enjoyed hers.
She sputtered in the water, smiling, and he smiled back, then tilted his head and laughed up into the sun. God, he felt like a gopher coming up for air after years in dark underground tunnels.
Playtime.
“Look.”
She watched, head tilted, as he slapped a huge button on the side of the pool. The owner of the hotel had told him about it when showing him around. Instantly, small fountains sprouted up at the deep end, culminating in a six-foot bronze spout with water cascading down. At the shallow end of the pool, underwater jets sprang into action. It looked as if they were in some hidden pool with a waterfall deep in the jungle.
“Race you to the other side,” she said, and he nodded, watching her move smoothly through the water. He set off slowly. He was a powerful swimmer and didn’t want to beat her by too much.
The water was cool, a delightful contrast to the heat of the day. He powered his way through the water, enjoying the pull of muscles he didn’t use during judo sessions. Judo was physical but it was also mental. He wasn’t using his head at all here, just his body, pulling himself through the sparkling water until he touched the red terracotta border of the shallow end. He shook his head, water drops scattering, and looked around for Jamie…