Bartering Her Innocence (7 page)

‘What kind of property? Lily said something about wool?’

She buried the spike of resentment that rose at the mention of Lily and the farm in the same sentence. ‘Yes. Sheep and some cropping. Lucerne mainly.’ She looked around at their watery world, lined with buildings that went back at least five centuries. Some years the farm didn’t see rain, the dams dried up and the sheep turned red with dust. The last drought had lasted so long, some local kids had grown up thinking sheep were supposed to be red. ‘It’s different from here,’ she said, making a massive understatement, ‘that’s for sure.’

‘So you’re close to him, then. Your father.’

She shrugged. ‘Of course. He was the one who brought me up after Lily walked out.’ Whereas Lily, she thought, had been a some time holiday destination—her visit usually coinciding with a wedding. There’d been two more of those before her marriage to Eduardo. One to a Swiss ski school owner. Another to an Argentinian polo player. Neither of them had lasted either.

Funny, she thought, how life ran in circles sometimes.

She’d met Luca at her mother’s wedding to Eduardo. By then, aged seventeen, she’d well and truly realised that her mother’s life was as empty and pointless as they came. And by then she was hardly going to fall into bed with someone who happened to be Eduardo’s nephew, even if he was the most perfect male specimen she had ever laid eyes upon and even if he made no bones about his attraction to her...

Luca snapped a breadstick, jolting her back to the present. ‘I have trouble picturing Lily on a farm.’

‘They should never have married. I’m sure she imagined she was going to end up some rich farmer’s wife and play tennis and drink tea all day.’

‘But it didn’t turn out that way?’

She shook her head. ‘She hated it, apparently—the flies, the heat—she left when I was six months old. Just packed up and left Mitch with a baby and a hole where his heart had been.’

‘It seems—’ he hesitated a moment, as if searching for the words ‘—an
unlikely
match. Someone like Lily with someone who works on the land.’

‘I think their differences were what attracted them to each other. She was the original English flower, on holidays to visit an old maiden aunt. He was the rugged Australian right down to his leather workman boots and as exotic to her as she was to him. When they met at some charity event in Sydney, it was lust at first sight.’ She sighed. ‘In normal circumstances it would have run its course and they would have both gone back to their separate worlds but Lily ended up pregnant with me and before you know it they were married. Pointlessly as it turned out.’

‘You don’t approve?’

‘I don’t think an unplanned pregnancy is any reason for a marriage! Do you?’

Maybe she’d sounded too strident. Maybe her question had sounded too much like a demand because she needed him to agree with her. But across the table from her, Luca merely shrugged instead of agreeing. ‘I am Italian. Family is important to us. Who’s to say if it’s the right or wrong thing to do?’

‘Me,’ she said, knowing that if he knew—
if he had only known
—he would think differently. ‘I’ve lived my life knowing their marriage was futile, a disaster from start to finish. I would never do that to a child of mine. I might be Lily’s daughter, but I am not Lily!’

‘And yet here you are, still picking up after her.’

‘I’m not doing this for Lily,’ she hissed, with rods of steel underpinning her words, ‘but you threatened to bring my father into this and there is no way on this earth I am going to let you suck him into Lily’s nightmare. He’s worked hard for every cent he has and I won’t let him lose any of it on her account!’

She was breathless after her outburst. Breathless and breathing fire, but she was glad too, that he had reminded her of all the reasons she hated him, that he thought he could manufacture the result he wanted by manipulating people and using them for his own ends.

‘Do you realise,’ Luca asked, leaning forward and cradling his wine glass in his hands, ‘how your eyes glow when you are angry? Did you know they burned like flames in a fire?’

She sucked in air, blindsided by the change in topic, but more so because she had expected anger back in return. She had been prepared for Luca to fight, expecting him to fight, if only to defend his low actions. Whereas his calm deliberations and an analysis of her eye colour had knocked the wind from her sails.

‘I was angry,’ she said, uncomfortable and unnerved that he could find things about her that nobody else had ever told her. Things that she herself didn’t know. ‘I still am.’

‘It’s not just when you’re angry though,’ he continued as their meals arrived, the waiter placing their plates with a flourish before disappearing on a bow. ‘They glowed like that last night when you came. I look forward to seeing them burn that way for me again tonight.’

She wasn’t sure which way was up after that. The meal passed in a blur, she ate and the beef melted in her mouth, but five minutes after her plate was whisked efficiently away, she couldn’t have described how it tasted. Five minutes after he said something, she couldn’t have remembered his words. Not when her whole being seemed focused not on the meal, but on the senses he stirred and by the knowledge of what would come afterwards.

Every word he spoke stroked her senses. Every heated look stoked the fire burning deep inside her belly. Every single smile had the ability to worm its way under her skin.

God, but he looked so good when he smiled. Generous lips swept open to reveal white teeth. Not perfect teeth, she noted with some satisfaction, for one eye tooth angled and hugged too close to one of his front teeth to be absolutely perfect. And yet somehow that made him more real than make believe. Somehow that only worked to make him more perfect. And still he looked so good that logic got spun on its head and she might even imagine for one infinitesimal moment that...

But no.

She brought herself up with a thump. Took a drink of
frizzante
water to cool her heated senses. There could be no imagining. Not where Luca Barbarigo was concerned.

But there could be tonight.

An entire month of tonights.

Her body hummed as dessert was short-circuited for coffee.

Anticipation built to fever pitch in her veins, as lingering to enjoy the view was short-circuited for the promise of pleasure.

The boats were still darting across the basin like fireflies; most of the tables around them were still full, when Luca had clearly had enough. ‘It’s time,’ he said throatily, and there seemed nothing left to say when the hunger in his eyes told her all she needed to hear.

He guided her through the restaurant, the touch of his hand at her lower back no more than the graze of his fingertips, and yet every part of her body seemed focused on that spot, as if he’d tied a ribbon between them that kept her close.

And this time Luca all but ignored the greetings that were called out to him. He ignored the eye contact that would ensure recognition and guarantee acknowledgement. He stopped not once in his quest to get her out of the restaurant and down the stairs and into the waiting water taxi.

For me
, she told herself. He is avoiding them for me, and that knowledge was as empowering as it was intoxicating.

All the more empowering given he had forgiven a debt—a massive debt—for the pleasure of her company.

And a question that had been niggling away at her wanted answering.

What was this all about?

Why her? Sure, her mother owed him a fortune, but surely there were plenty of women who would be prepared to grace Luca’s arm and his bed for however long it took without sacrificing a cent of her mother’s debt. Why did he want her? What was his game?

On the taxi he suggested they stand outside and watch the moving light show along the canal, and he took her hand and led her through to the rear deck. ‘You’re frowning,’ he noticed, wrapping his arms around her as she held onto the rail as the taxi moved away from the dock.

She stiffened a little. ‘Maybe because I don’t understand you.’

She felt him shrug against her back. ‘What’s so hard to understand?’

‘Why you want me.’

‘I’m a man who likes women,’ he said, peeling her away to spin her around to face him. ‘And you are—’ his eyes lowered, raking over her, and they might just as well have been raking hot coals over her skin ‘—unmistakably all woman. Why wouldn’t I want you?’ He leant down closer, his lips drawing closer, and fear the size of a football kicked off in her gut. She turned her head away.

‘Don’t do that. Don’t kiss me.’ People who liked each other kissed. People who were in love.

‘Why not?’

Because kisses were dangerous.
You could lose yourself in a kiss, and she didn’t want to be lost with Luca Barbarigo.

‘Because I hate you and I don’t think you particularly like me that much. It just seems false.’

‘And sex doesn’t?’

‘Not when it’s just sex.’

‘Just sex. Is that what you thought we were having last night—just sex?’

‘What would you call it?’

‘Mind-blowing. Earth-shattering. Maybe even some of the best I’ve ever had.’

She gasped, her eyes searching his face for laughter, finding no trace. It had been like that for her...but for him? And whether it was the sudden acceleration of the taxi as it joined the main canal, or because she didn’t want to prevent it, but this time when his mouth came closer—so close that his lips brushed hers—all the air disappeared from her lungs in a rush of heat, leaving a vacuum that could be filled only by him.

He filled that vacuum with the more solid press of his lips upon hers. He filled it with the taste of him in her mouth.

Coffee and wine and heat combined in a knee-trembling cocktail that threatened to bring her undone, and only his arms around her kept her standing. And as his lips made magic against her mouth, it occurred to her that she’d been right to worry, because a girl could not only get lost, but drown in a kiss like that.

She was already drowning—in sensation. There was nothing between them but silk and cloth and the knowledge that when they came together it would be explosive.

His hands moved over her like both a caress and a demand. His kiss promised her his soul while it wrenched free her own.

She could not afford to let go of her soul.

She turned her head away and pushed against his chest, determined to show him she was unmoved while she still could, before she got lost for ever in his kiss. Before she believed its promise.

He let her go and she spun away, grabbing hold of the railing like a lifeline. ‘I wish you hadn’t done that,’ she hissed.

‘Do you?’

‘Yes! Because this whole thing still makes no sense, when you could have your pick of any woman in Venice. Any woman anywhere for that matter and without having to blackmail them into the deal.’

‘But I didn’t want any other woman,’ he said, peeling her away from the railing and back in his arms. ‘I wanted you and you alone.’

‘Lucky me.’

He laughed. ‘And would you have come to me if I hadn’t blackmailed you into my bed?’

‘No,’ she said breathlessly, still trying to grapple with the sense of it all. ‘I wouldn’t have come to you if you were the last man left on earth.’

‘Then there you have it,’ he said with another of those deadly smiles, his lips pressing to her forehead. ‘You gave me no choice. Your not wanting it makes having you all the more satisfying.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

A
NGER
was good. Anger she could harness and mould and shape into something to sling right back at him. And it would not be simpering submission, but forged in hatred, and it would be slung back at him on her terms.

Anger coloured desire and turned it into a weapon. Anger shaped passion and turned it into something much more dangerous, much more lethal.

So that by the time the water taxi arrived back at the palazzo she didn’t feel fearful or afraid or vulnerable.

Instead she felt stronger than she had ever done. She had survived his kiss, she had suffered his taunts, and if he thought he was going to take and take freely of her, he was very much mistaken.

Because she’d make damn sure she would take more than she would give. No, there was nothing to fear from Luca Barbarigo.

Aldo greeted them discreetly at the water door, just as discreetly evaporating as Luca ushered her upstairs, every slight caress of the hand at her back a siren’s call to her senses while ratcheting up her simmering resentment; every silken whisper of his presence both a caress and a curse.

And it didn’t matter any more that she didn’t understand whatever game Luca was playing. Because she knew what was expected of her as they climbed the stairs.

And what was expected of her was the easy bit.

It was just sex, after all, whatever he wanted her to believe. It wasn’t as if she needed to put on a special performance. All she had to do was take off her clothes and get into bed with him. Nothing to it.

* * *

Dinner had been interminable. He’d wanted to be seen. He’d planned to give time for his dinner companion to have been photographed and image searched and found to be someone with links to him. But still it had taken too long—far too long when what he most wanted was to have her in his bed. But it had been necessary.

It shouldn’t take anyone curious too long to work out.

His uncle’s widowed wife’s daughter.

She wouldn’t be hard to trace, not with today’s search technology. Soon there would be articles in newspapers and magazines. Soon the world would know she was living in his palazzo and that they were an item.

A few more outings and the papers would blow it out of all proportion and wedding bells would be predicted and gambled upon.

And she would start believing it herself.

That was when she would be the most vulnerable.

That was when she would be starting to believe the fairy tale. And she would. Even now, for all her protests of hating him, she melted in his arms like wax.

She was his.

She’d made that plain last night with her impromptu striptease, when she’d offered herself to him on his desk. She’d made that plain the way she’d stunned herself with the force of her orgasm.

Soon she would forget all about hating him and start believing in dreams.

And that was when he would unceremoniously dump her.

But that was later.

First there were more carnal pleasures to be enjoyed.

Starting now.

The bedroom lighting was low, the air body temperature, the wide bed turned down on both sides. He smiled as he closed the door to the suite behind him, watching the seductive sway of her hips as she headed across the room, liking the way the dress clung to her curves. He liked her in that dress. It would be such a shame to tear it off.

Then again...

‘Where are you going?’

She stopped, looked over her shoulder at him. ‘My dressing room. I’m guessing you expect me naked for tonight’s performance.’

‘What? No impromptu striptease tonight?’ he asked, flicking open the top button of his shirt, tugging at his tie. ‘No office antics?’

She blinked, golden eyes glinting and hard, watching him remove the cufflinks from his shirtsleeves. She made a move to walk away.

‘Come here.’

‘I don’t take orders from you.’

‘Come here,’ he repeated, his voice velvet over steel.

‘Why? So you can rip this dress off like you would...like the caveman you like to keep dressed up under those fancy Italian suits of yours? Nobody’s fooled, Luca, least of all me.’

‘Maybe you should come here and find out.’

Fire flared in her eyes, shooting flames straight to his groin.

‘I like this dress, I don’t want it ruined.’

‘I like it too, as it happens. Maybe I just want the pleasure of peeling it from your body.’

‘Fine,’ she snapped, ‘have it your way.’ But there was a husky edge to her grudging agreement that signalled she wasn’t as in control as she made out, even as she crossed the room and spun around in front of him, presenting her back.

Not so fast, he thought. Instead of reaching for the zip, he put his hands on her shoulders and dipped his mouth to the place where her throat met her shoulder. Her gasp was his reward, her tremor was his vindication.

‘You see,’ he murmured against her throat, ‘even the caveman can play nice.’ And she trembled again.

He ran his hands down her arms, taking his time to drink in the feel of her smooth, toned limbs, curling his fingers possessively around hers before starting the long road up. There was plenty to enjoy. There was plenty of time. Last night’s lovemaking had been so rushed, he’d missed a lot.

And there was so much more to explore. His fingers found the catch of her zip and he slid it slowly down, letting just one fingertip trail a line down the skin beneath. Another involuntary gasp from his reluctant playmate and the temptation to slide his hands underneath the fabric and ease it over her shoulders and be done with it was almost too much.

Almost.

Instead he spun her around and cradled her jaw in his hands, lifting her face towards his. Her lips were parted, her breathing shallow and fast and her amber eyes swirled with confusion. There was resentment there and heated anger, but there was a flicker of vulnerability too in those amber depths, a flicker that was almost endearing.

‘Where is your caveman now, Valentina?’ he asked, searching her face, watching her mouth and those lips, parted and panting and just begging to be kissed. He wasn’t about to disappoint them. He dipped his head and brushed her lips with his and sighed with the simple, exquisite pleasure.

Just sex, she told herself. It was just sex. His kisses meant nothing, the tenderness meant nothing.

It was just sex.

It meant nothing.

So why did it feel so very good?

His lips moved over hers like a piece of music, a symphony that built and grew and slowed to tender lows and soared to great heights and everywhere in between.

His hands traced a path down her throat. She felt the brush of silken straps over her shoulders and the slip of her dress as it fell to the floor. She felt air that cooled and caressed her naked breasts and turned her nipples even harder.

She felt his hands slide down her bare back and pull her against him.

She felt him, long and hard against her belly. Felt the aching need for him between her thighs and her hand moved of its own volition, unable to resist the temptation to curl her fingers over that rigid column.

Breath hissed through his teeth. He lifted her from the circle of her dress and into his arms, took three long strides and tossed her into the centre of the waiting bed. Chest heaving as if he’d run a marathon, he looked down at her on the bed, eyes raking down over a body clad in nothing but gossamer-thin shreds of silken underwear, a pair of killer heels and a pair of earrings, while his hands were busy pulling off his shirt, his shoes, his trousers.

She could not take her eyes from him, from the lean and sculpted perfection of his body, from the heart-stopping size of his erection as it sprang free. Looking at him made her blood fizz and her flesh ache.

And then he kneeled alongside her on the bed and slipped off first one shoe and then the other, kissing the soles of her feet, sliding his hands up her legs to catch the scrap of silk that was her underwear, sliding it down and tossing it over his shoulder.

‘Did anyone ever tell you,’ he said, his voice thick with need as he gazed down upon her naked form, ‘that you look amazing in sapphires?’

She was sure she would have remembered if someone had, but right now there was no space for raking up memories, no room for anything that might have happened in the past. This moment was all about what was happening now.

He lowered his head and put his mouth to her breast, drawing it in, rolling his tongue around her nipple while one hand swept down her body from neck to breast to thigh to knee, his long fingers spread wide, missing nothing, leaving no part of her untouched, leaving no part of her to his imagination. Through his scorching touch, he drank her in until she felt more liquid than solid, her senses flowing, eddying.

She shuddered under the heated assault, her senses alive, her need building like a whirlpool; spinning as he rained hot kisses down her belly; spinning as he spread her legs wide and dipped his head between her aching thighs.

The first touch of his tongue was electric, sending her arching against the mattress. She cried out, something incomprehensible—meaningless—other than as a reflection of the exquisite agony of his hot tongue circling her pulsing core, and his clever lips toying with that screamingly tight bud of nerve endings. And all the while the whirlpool built inside her, sucking her deeper, rendering her senseless, her world ever shrinking, until it consisted of nothing more than a spinning sea of sensation.

She was lost in that sea. Cast adrift. And still it wasn’t enough. Still she needed more.

‘Tell me that you want me,’ he murmured, sensing her distress, and she felt his words on her secret flesh.

Her head thrashed on the pillow. ‘I hate you.’

He caught her between his lips, suckled harder.

‘Tell me that you want me.’

‘I want you,’ she half cried, half sobbed, the confession wrenched bodily from her as he continued to work magic with his mouth, as the circling storm inside her wound tighter and inexorably tighter like a coiled spring until she would die with it.

‘I want you now!’

And his mouth was gone and she had one moment of relief, one moment of loss, before she felt him nudge at her core and drive himself home.

It was the trigger she needed, the trigger that released that achingly tight coiling spring and sent her soaring. She exploded around him as he held her and filled her and completed her.

‘You should hate me more often,’ he joked as she came down from the high, her body slick and hot and humming in secret places.

‘I do,’ she said, panting, hating him right now for his ability to do that to her, to turn her incendiary with his clever hands and clever mouth.

‘Good,’ he said, moving inside her, making her gasp as she realised he was still hard. ‘Keep on hating me.’

She could do that. But there was no time to tell him, no time to get her breath back. He leaned back, lifted a lifeless leg and flipped her neatly onto her front before she knew what was happening, all the time still buried deep inside her.

Shock rendered her speechless, not only at his sudden manoeuvre, but at the tightening and dance of muscles she’d thought wasted, muscles that welcomed another chance to play.

Large hands anchored her hips as he drew back and she hated his leaving almost as much as she hated him.

Maybe more.

He took his own sweet time coming back, inch by excruciating inch until she thought she would go mad with want, until he was seated deep inside her, his thighs pressed hard against hers.

She sighed with the exquisite fullness of it. Oh God, he felt so good this way, so deep.

And when he moved it was even better. He started slowly, inviting her into the rhythm of his dance, taking her with him. His hands grew hungrier, sliding down her spine, curling around a breast, slipping around a thigh to stroke her sensitive nub. He was everywhere around her. He was inside her. He possessed her.

The rhythm built, the pace increased, the slide of flesh against flesh set to the sound of the slap of skin against skin and the feverish need for air as he wound her need around him, tighter and tighter than it had been before and left her teetering on the edge of a precipice.

He paused, leaving her on the brink. She heard a sound like a whimper, needy and desperate, before she realised it had come from her own throat.

And then it was his turn to cry out—a cry of triumph borne of pain—as he thrust one last desperate time and sent her to that place where hate and want coalesced in a fireball that consumed her.

He followed her over the edge, pumping his release and catching her to ride the wave together.

I hate you
, she thought, as he collapsed alongside and gathered her close.

I hate you
, she thought, as a single tear rolled down her cheek.
I need to be able to hate you
.

But after what they had just shared, the sentiment rang hollow and empty.