'Enough, Grace.' Romano's voice was soft. 'She is quite safe. But perhaps you can go ahead and organise baths and hot drinks for both of them and we will follow. Donato, you will take Lorenzo?'
Donato was clearly in shock, it showed in the whiteness of his face and the way he was clasping Lorenzo to him, but he nodded slowly, rising with Lorenzo in his arms as Romano helped Claire from the pool.
And it was only in that moment, when it was far too late, that she realised the worst had happened. Her concern for Lorenzo, her own fear and shock and the numbing effects of the water, had blinded her to the fact that her skirt was gone and her brief, bikini-style pants revealed most of her stomach.
She knew he must have seen the faint, thread-like lines that were pale and silvery on her skin, even though the hard, handsome face remained the same in the second before he lifted her up into his arms, but there was absolutely nothing she could do about it, she realised with sickening clarity.
'I can walk. There's no need—'
'Be still. You are not walking. You almost drowned out there,' he said tightly. 'Why the hell didn't you call me?'
She could feel his hair-roughened chest against her cold skin as he held her close to his heart, his shirt having come open in the rescue, and the touch and feel and texture of his maleness was causing her head to swim. Nevertheless, she rallied sufficiently to say, with some heat, 'Don't be so stupid—there wasn't time. I heard him call and I knew I had to get there at once
.'
'At risk to your own life?' he bit out grimly. 'If I hadn't heard you call the pair of you could be lying at the bottom of the pool by now, do you realise that?'
'It's not my fault.' She couldn't believe they were having this conversation, and the unfairness of it brought hot tears to the back of her eyes. 'Are you saying I should have let him drown? I couldn't… There just wasn't time…'
'Shh…shh.' As her voice wobbled he stopped and lowered his head, looking down at her with glittering black eyes, his face all planes and shadows in the dusky scented gloom. 'I really do not know whether to spank you or kiss you, do you know that?' he said surprisingly.
It was so unlike anything she had expected him to say that she could only stare at him with great liquid eyes, her body continuing to register the thrill of his taut male-ness, the slight muskiness of his skin, the raw sensuality in his face.
'Claire…' His voice was husky and low, and he paused for a moment before he continued, 'You were brave—very brave.'
He had been going to say something else, she knew it, and she also knew it would have come from the heart of him, the real man, which was why the drawbridge had suddenly been raised so swiftly. Something had stopped him. She remembered his eyes on her skin, and felt a disappointment and pain so acute it stopped her breath.
Damaged goods. The accusation was there, hot and sharp, before she fiercely denied it—and him. 'Let me down. I can walk—'
'You are not walking,' he interrupted tightly.
'You can't tell me what to do—'
'Well, it is about time someone did.' And then his mouth had claimed hers, possessing it hungrily and with something approaching fury. His breathing was ragged as he crushed her into him, their wet clothing accentuating the hard thrust of her nipples against his muscled chest and the damp heat of their bodies as desire rose.
Donato had disappeared by now, and in the last few minutes the shadows of night had encroached quickly, the sky a charcoal blanket overhead with the first stars already beginning to make their appearance. The birds were silent, and there was no sound to be heard from the house in the distance or from the world beyond Casa Pontina's boundaries. They could have been the only two people alive.
She was beginning to tremble in his arms, he could feel it as she was aware of the furious pounding of his heart, and as he slowly lowered her against him, so her feet were on the ground and she was held into the length of him, his hands began to touch her, stroke her, caressing the soft, smooth skin of her back under the light top.
She shivered as his warm lips moved over her neck, her throat, her ears, unable to stop him, to say and do all the things she knew it would be sensible to do and say. This was love, then, she thought helplessly, this longing to be one with him body and soul, to be utterly enveloped in him to the point of oblivion, to know that his needs were more important than hers, that she would do anything, anything for him.
She didn't know how her hands had come to be tangled in the strong, virile black hair, but as she pulled his mouth back to hers he groaned softly, exciting her senses and causing her to move against him in such a way that they both became bathed in sensation.
She brought her hands from his shoulders, where her fingertips had been digging into his skin in her excitement, and tentatively slid them inside his shirt, touching the hair-roughened muscled skin of his chest with delicate, exploring fingers. She had wanted to touch him like this for so long and now, as she felt the passionate heat of his skin and the arousal of his hard nipples in their lair of black silk, she couldn't believe what it was doing to the core of her.
He was kissing her mouth again, biting gently at her lower lip and letting his tongue-tip stroke against the contours of the full upper one before he penetrated the sweetness within, his thrust greedy. 'I want you. I'm burning up inside. You do not know what you do to me, little foal…'
His murmur was hot and desperate against her closed eyelids, his voice thick with desire, and everything in her rose to meet the need he was revealing. She wanted him. She wanted him so fiercely that her blood was pulsing and racing with it. She wanted to hold him, touch him, taste him, feel him inside her, draw him into the very kernel of her being.
The strong, predatory thrust of his arousal against her soft, silky flesh told her he was as helpless in this tide of passion that had taken them by storm as she was, and she knew she had to draw back, to stop, but she couldn't remember why. Every thought she had ever had was burnt up in this one moment, and then the next, and the next… There was no past, no future. Nothing existed outside the immediate present in all its erotic intimacy.
His hands were moving all over her, everywhere but the smooth, soft curve of her belly, and then his fingers splayed across that too, and she knew their tips would sense and feel the slight breaks in the silkiness. Instinctively she reached down and drew them to her waist as a tiny thread of sanity returned. This was madness, madness…
Even as the warning brushed her mind Donato called from the darkness, his tone anxious. 'Romano? Romano, you are coming to the house?' The intrusion into the bubble that had captured her senses was complete, and she jerked away violently, her face flaming as she took two steps backwards, away from him.
'Claire?' He reached out and pulled her against him before she could resist, holding her firmly but not making love to her now as he said, 'I did not plan for that to happen. You have to believe me.'
'Do I?' She stared up at him, her inner turmoil reflected in her eyes. How could he touch her like that, show such warmth, such passion, without it meaning something to him? But it didn't. Now that the spell was broken cold, harsh reality had taken its place. 'How did it happen, then?'