Ravensdale's Defiant Captive

He didn’t want to move. He wanted to stand there on his still shaking legs and hold her against him.

She turned in his arms, looking up at him with a face glowing with the aftermath of pleasure. ‘Ever done it in the pool before?’

‘No.’

‘Lucky me to be your first pool—’

Julius put his fingertip over her mouth to stop her saying the crude word he suspected she was going to say. ‘Don’t.’

She pushed his hand away. ‘Don’t be so squeamish, Julius. It’s just sex.’

Just sex.

Was it? Was it just sex for him? Maybe for her it was but for him it didn’t feel anything like the sex he’d had in the past. His whole body felt different with her. He felt different. Not just in his flesh but in his mind. Sex had gone from being a purely physical experience to a more cerebral—dared he admit it?—emotional one. He liked having Holly around. She was funny and playful, exciting and daring in a way that made him shift out of his comfort zone. But he had helped her out of her comfort zone, too. She had even allowed the balcony doors to be open in his suite when they made love the past few nights.

Made love.

The words jolted him. Maybe it wasn’t ‘just sex’ after all. He made love to her. His body worshipped hers, pleasured hers and delighted in giving as well as receiving it. He had never wanted a woman more than her. She made him feel aroused by just looking at him. The scent of her was enough to make him hard. He only had to walk into a room she had been in earlier and his blood would be pumping. Her touch made his flesh tingle all over. The dancing tiptoe movements of her fingers made his pulse thunder and his heart race. Everything about her turned him on. He couldn’t imagine another woman being as thrilling and satisfying as her.

But she was leaving in four days...

Which was fine. Just fine. She had her plans. He had his. He wasn’t after anything serious. They’d had their fun. And it had been fun, much more fun than he’d realised a fling could be. She had taught him to loosen up. He had helped her confront her fears. She had revealed her past to him, which he hoped meant she was ready to move on from it. He wanted her to succeed. She had so much going for her. Her energy, passion and drive were wonderful qualities if channelled in the right direction.

Holly linked her arms around his neck. ‘What’s that big, old sober frown for?’

Julius forced a smile. ‘Was I frowning?’

She put her fingertip between his brows. ‘You get this deep ridge right here when you’re thinking.’

He captured her finger and trailed his tongue the length of it. ‘I’m thinking it might be good to go inside before we both get burned to a crisp.’

‘Good point,’ she said and walked up the steps of the pool.

Julius stood spellbound as she emerged from the water like a nymph. She draped her wet hair over one shoulder as she squeezed the water out, reminding him of a mermaid. Her creamy skin was lightly tanned in spite of the sunscreen he’d seen her using. Her body was fit and toned yet utterly, irresistibly feminine.

She stepped into her bikini bottoms and tied the strings before she went in search of her top. Her smooth brow suddenly creased. ‘Is that a car?’ she asked, hurriedly covering herself.

Julius had been too focussed on her delectable body even to register anything but how gorgeous she looked. But now he could hear the scrabble of tyres over the gravel of the driveway.

‘Are you expecting anyone?’ Holly asked.

He vaulted out of the pool and reached for his trousers, not even stopping to dry himself. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No one can get through the gates without the security code, unless it’s one of the gardeners coming back in after mowing out front.’

‘That doesn’t sound like a ride-on mower,’ she said, speaking Julius’s thoughts out loud.

He shrugged on his shirt and quickly buttoned it. Under normal circumstances he would have got Sophia to answer the door. But with his housekeeper still away with her sister he could hardly send Holly dressed in nothing but a bikini. ‘I’ll see who it is,’ he said. ‘You stay here.’

Julius’s heart sank when he saw the chauffeur-driven black limousine pull up in front of the villa. His mother. Dressed to the nines. There was no press entourage that he could see but he knew it wouldn’t be long. His mother didn’t go anywhere without the press documenting her every move.

‘I’m coming to stay, Julius,’ she said as her driver helped her alight from the car as if she were stepping out on the red carpet. ‘I had to get away. The press haven’t left me alone for a minute.’