The Ice Prince (8 page)

Of course, that wouldn’t be news to him. The full-day-tomorrow part. He knew it, because he was going to be part of that day.

Great sex or not, they hadn’t settled anything. He still owned land she’d come here to claim.

Anna nearly groaned.

How could she have forgotten that? Since when did she let emotion get in the way of logic?

What she’d told Draco was true. She’d been attracted to him from the start, even though she’d denied it until tonight. Seeing him at her door had forced her to face the truth, that even while she’d said she despised him, she’d wanted to go to bed with him.

Okay. Desire was one thing, but violating her ethical role in this situation was very much another issue.

She was an attorney, and attorneys didn’t get involved with the respondents in their cases. Assuming there would be a case to be involved in.

Okay. She’d made a mistake, a big one, but there was no sense in dwelling on it. What mattered was that it would not happen again.

The sex had been good, but she’d had good sex before …

“Hey.”

Startled, Anna raised her head and looked at Draco, who gave her a slow, sexy smile.

“You’re up,” she said brightly. “Good. I mean, I was just going to wake you.”

He shifted his weight, rolled her onto her back and framed her face with his hands.

“And just how were you planning on doing that?”

The sound of his voice sent a tremor dancing along her spine.

“Draco,” she said, “listen to me.”

“This was a mistake.”

“Yes. Yes, it was. I’m glad you understand—”

He kissed her, his lips moving against hers with slow, heart-stopping deliberation. She wanted to return the kiss, wrap herself in his heat, but she knew better than to give in.

“Please listen, Draco. I’m trying to tell you that—”

“We’re on opposite sides of what might become a lawsuit.”

“Exactly. And—”

“That makes us enemies.”

Anna sighed with relief. “Yes. This was … it was nice, but—”

“Nice?” he said, his voice a low growl.

“More than nice. It was—”

He kissed her again, deeper, more intensely. She felt him harden against her, felt that hot, electric jolt racing from her belly to her breasts.

Oh no, she thought, no, this wasn’t just good sex, it was something much more. She’d never felt this way before, as if she were standing at the edge of forever.

Draco slid into her. Her breath caught. Helpless, drowning in pleasure, she cried out as she rose toward him.

“Tell me to stop,” he said thickly, “and I will.”

She stared up into his dark eyes.

“All you have to do is say the words, Anna.”

“All right.” She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. “I want—I want—”

Anna moaned, tunneled her fingers into his hair and brought Draco’s mouth to hers.

A long time later she stirred, rolled to her side and nestled back against him.

“I meant to tell you,” she said drowsily, “you don’t have to worry. I’m on the pill.”

“Bene.”
He curved his arm around her, his hand cupping her breast. “Otherwise, I would have to leave you and go in search of a pharmacy.” He nipped the nape of her neck. “And that would be a pitiful sight,
bellissima,
a grown man crawling on his hands and knees through the nighttime streets of Rome.”

Anna laughed.

And tumbled into the dark cavern of sleep.

R
EALITY
came back in the blurred rush of gray morning light seeping through the sheer drapes, the soft patter of rain …

And the pressure of a man’s muscular arm curved around Anna’s waist.

Disoriented, she closed her eyes, concentrated ….

And remembered everything.

Draco. The thrill of opening her door and finding him there. The shimmering flash of excitement at what she saw in his face, the realization that she had wanted him all along, that half her anger at him was really anger at herself for wanting a man like him.

The night had been … What word could possibly sum it up? Incredible. Fantastic. Electric with passion so powerful it had turned her brain to jelly.

How else to explain why he was still in her bed?

She could make sense of having fallen asleep in his arms that first time. Combine exhaustion with the out-of-body feeling she always got from jet lag, and anything was possible.

She’d gone through that list of explanations hours ago.

But she’d done it again. Gone to sleep in his arms so soundly that she couldn’t even recall it happening.

Surprise number one, for sure.

And added to that, surprise number two.

Why had he stayed? He could have left any time during
the night. From what she knew of men, given a choice, that was the way they preferred it.

No man wanted the morning-after thing, that series of dance steps that could be far more complicated than the dance a man and woman had just performed in bed a couple of hours before.

Stilted chitchat. The “after you, no, that’s fine, after you” shower routine. A guy’s unattractive early-morning stubble, a woman’s totally unappealing bed-head hairstyle.

Hers was, for sure. Lots of curls, no sleek smoothness, just unruly locks that were wild and, without question, awful looking.

The entire morning-after scenario was enough to ruin romance as a concept, for lack of a better phrase. The truth was, good sex didn’t have anything much to do with romance. It had to do with physical attraction. And hormones. A certain look in a man’s eyes, a certain way he touched you.

If he was right and the time was right, that was all you needed. Given those basics, a woman was ready.

Anna shifted her weight just a little.

Draco felt so good spooned against her.

And she’d been ready. Hell, ready and waiting even when she hadn’t known what she’d been ready and waiting for.

Draco Valenti was one gorgeous hunk.

And as it turned out, he was spectacular in bed. He knew what to touch and how to touch it; he knew when to whisper and when to keep silent; he knew when to take charge—yes, he certainly did—and when to let a woman take the lead.

And she was turning herself on.

Ridiculous, because one of the other reasons she didn’t like sleeping with a man all night was that men always wanted morning sex as part of The Morning Thing, and Anna had never been a morning-sex fan.

Bottom line? Good sex was, well, it was good sex. Yes,
she had to like a guy to have sex with him. Had to enjoy his company, but sex was sex. Women who didn’t understand that were in for trouble.

They fell in love.

They got married.

And, surprise surprise, they ended up hurt.

Anna, fortunately, was not, would never be, one of those women.

She and Isabella had talked about it just a few months ago.

They’d met for lunch at a place they both liked in midtown, poking at salads and drinking Diet Cokes, playing catch-up because they hadn’t seen each other in a couple of weeks. Izzy had asked about a guy Anna had been seeing, if maybe she was serious about him, and Anna had rolled her eyes and said what was there to be serious about?

He was fun, he was interesting, he was good in bed.

“End of story,” she’d told Iz. “Why would I want to spoil things?”

Izzy had put down her fork and heaved one of her Izzy sighs, the kind you could imagine a fairy princess giving while she waited for her Prince Charming to appear.

“That’s such a sad attitude, Anna. What about love?”

“What about it?” Anna had replied, spearing a grape tomato and popping it into her mouth. “You have to stop reading all those women’s magazines stuffed with that June, moon, forever-after bull.”

Izzy had sighed again. “Honestly, Anna, I don’t know what you’re trying to prove.”

“Nothing. Women don’t need to prove anything. Well, maybe only that we’re women, not idiots. You don’t really think only men are entitled to be realistic about these things? About sex?”

Iz had shaken her head and Anna had smiled benignly, and
they’d gone on to safer ground—Anna’s defense of a woman who’d shoplifted a winter jacket for her little boy because she didn’t have the money to buy one, and Izzy’s plans for the garden she was designing for a friend.

The thing was, Izzy’s lovely head was in the clouds.

Anna’s was right here, squarely on her shoulders.

She liked her space the same way men liked theirs, which brought her straight back to the fact that Draco was still in her bed and she was still in his arms and—

“Buon giorno, bellissima.”

She tried to think of some clever reply, but she couldn’t come up with anything. “Good morning” was deliciously sexy in his husky Italian, but it was only “good morning” in American English.

“How did you sleep?”

Deeply. Soundly. Who wouldn’t sleep that way after what had happened that last time they’d made—that last time they’d had sex?

All she remembered were Draco’s kisses, his caresses, his hard length deep, deep inside her and a rush of exquisite sensation, a breathless moment when the world spun out of control—and then the feel of him drawing her back into the warm, secure cradle of his body …

“Anna.”

Draco’s voice was low and rough. Just the sound of it made her skin tingle. And when he slid his hand up her side and cupped her breast …

Physiology, she told herself, that was what it was. He was a wonderful lover. Any woman would react to his touch even when she knew it was time to put the night in perspective.

“Anna,” he said again, and turned her toward him.

Her heartbeat stuttered. He was gorgeous. Why had she ever thought early-morning stubble unattractive? It was perfect,
the absolutely proper accent note to his square jaw, that magnificent Roman nose, the dark, dark eyes.

He smiled.

Anna almost flinched.

Why wouldn’t he smile? She probably looked like a wild woman.

“Beautiful Anna,” he said softly, and he threaded his fingers through her awful, scrunched-up hair and brought his mouth to hers.

The kiss was long. And tender.

It wasn’t at all what she expected.

Her couple of experiences of The Morning Thing involved one kind of kiss.

A kiss that was a prelude to morning sex.

Which, as she had already established, was not her thing at all.

But this kiss was.

It was soft. Undemanding. A sweet meeting of lips, of tongues …

“Stop analyzing,” Draco whispered.

Anna jerked back.

“What do you mean? I am not analy—”

“
Sì, Signorina Avocato.
You are.” He drew her to him, his lips curved in a smile. “You’re being an attorney, trying to decide what to say. What to do. And you’re struggling for answers to questions. Why did we make love? Why did he spend the night? Why did I permit it?” He kissed her again. “This is not a courtroom, Anna.”

Anna couldn’t help smiling. “And a good thing it isn’t.”

“I agree, for if it were a courtroom …” Draco rolled her onto her back. “If it were, I could not do this.”

“Oh. Oh …”

“Or this.”

Her lashes drooped to her cheeks. “Draco,” she whispered, “Draco, wait …”

He kissed her, and this kiss was not tender or soft—it was hot and urgent. So was the play of his fingers on her breast. And when he parted her thighs, brought his mouth to her core, Anna cried out, reached for her lover, rose to him and impaled herself on his rigid flesh.

It turned out that there was no problem with bed-head hair.

“Don’t look at me,” Anna said a long time later when Draco wanted to do exactly that. “I’m a mess.”

His dark eyebrows rose.

“You think so?” he said, and when she nodded, he scooped her into his arms, carried her to the bathroom and stood her before the full-length mirror. “Look,” he said, and when Anna groaned and tried to turn away, he wouldn’t let her. “Look,” he demanded in a tone she’d learned meant he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

So she looked—and saw herself, her hair a tousled mass of gold curls, her mouth pink and gently swollen, her breasts still rosy from her last orgasm.

She saw the faint blue bruises on her thighs where Draco had nipped her flesh, then soothed it with kisses; saw a matching mark on her throat …

Saw him standing behind her, his arms cradling her.

God, how beautiful he was. How incredibly masculine. How big and powerful and …

Her breath caught as he cupped her breasts, played with her nipples as his eyes grew dark as the night.

Watching him, watching herself, was the most erotic thing Anna had ever done.

He bent his head, nuzzled aside the curls from the nape of her neck and kissed her skin, then kissed the juncture of her neck and shoulder. She moaned, reached between them
and encircled as much as she could of his rigid, straining erection.

A growl rose in his throat; his teeth sank into her flesh and she cried out in passion.

“Hold on to the vanity,
bellissima,
” he said thickly, his hands clasping her hips. “
Sì.
Just like that …”

She sobbed his name, came apart the instant he entered her. She heard his cry, felt him shudder and the world shattered again.

Draco’s arms swept around her. She fell back against his hard body, trembling, her legs boneless. He held her as their heartbeats steadied, his face buried in her hair, and then he turned her to him, enfolded her in his embrace, held her close as his big hands stroked up and down her spine.

“Are you all right?” he whispered.

Anna nodded. He lifted her face to his, brushed his lips lightly over hers. Then he scooped her off her feet and carried her into the shower.

He washed her. She washed him. It was a game at first; how could it have been anything else after what had just happened?

But their hands moved more and more slowly, found more and more places to soap and gently, carefully wash until Draco groaned, leaned his forehead against Anna’s and said, “I hope the maid has a strong heart.”

Anna looked up at him. “Why?”

“When she finds us in here, waterlogged … Well, you and I will have died happy, but I doubt if she will.”

Anna laughed. Draco grinned, turned off the shower, grabbed a bath sheet and wrapped her in it.

“You think that’s funny, Orsini?” he said, trying his damnedest to sound stern. He didn’t feel stern, not even jokingly so. He felt … he felt happy, and though he’d felt a lot of
different things after sex,
happy
wasn’t a word he’d have used to describe any of them.

“You have to admit,” Anna said, “it’s an, um, an interesting image.”

“What is?” he said, and then he remembered what he’d said about the housekeeper and he laughed and tipped her chin up. “Where’s your compassion?”

“Where’s yours?” she said, teasing him right back. “A compassionate man would have phoned down for coffee by now.”

“You’re right,” he said solemnly as he spun her toward the door, then patted her lightly on the backside. “Get into your robe while I order breakfast.”

Anna looked at him. “Was that an order, Valenti? Because you need to know I don’t follow orders.”

Her tone was still teasing, but there was a quick flash of fire in her eyes.
Dio,
Draco thought, this was one hell of a woman.

“No?”

“No.”

“We’ll see about that,” he said huskily, and he took her mouth in another long, deep kiss.

Breakfast arrived.

And somewhere between the fresh fruit and the coffee, reality once again began its inevitable claim.

I don’t follow orders,
she’d said.

And Draco had answered,
We’ll see about that.

Meaningless banter … Or was it?

Those were not the words you wanted to hear from your adversary.

That was who Draco Valenti was. Her adversary. She’d come to Rome to deal with him. Instead, she’d slept with him.

She’d even told him to order breakfast.

It was such a silly mental segue that Anna almost laughed …. But she didn’t. This was her room. She should have phoned down for the meal. Why let a man do what she could and should do for herself?

She looked at Draco, sprawled back against the pillows in a matching hotel robe, his dark-as-midnight hair still damp, his skin tanned and golden against the white linens.

Was this what came of letting your lover spend the entire night in your bed?

Actually, he wasn’t her lover. They had no relationship apart from what had happened last night and this morning.

What she’d let happen.

Okay. So she’d broken a rule. Let him spend the night. Well, no. She’d broken two rules. She shouldn’t have had sex with him in the first place. This was no different than being in a courtroom.

Would she sleep with the prosecutor? And hadn’t she had the discussion with herself already? She had. Then how had this happened? How had she let this man make her forget such basic principles?

“A penny,” Draco said in that low, husky voice of his. Anna raised her eyebrows and played dumb. He smiled. “For your thoughts.”

He had an amazing smile.

Tender. Sexy. Masculine. She felt its effects straight down to her toes. Even looking at him looking at her made her feel … well, it made her feel strange.

As if she’d lost her equilibrium. Or something.

It was unsettling. She didn’t like it. Or maybe she liked it too much, and what in heck was that supposed to mean?

“Anna?” He put his coffee cup on the nightstand and sat up straight. “What is it?”