Never Underestimate a Caffarelli (Those Scandalous Caffarellis 2)

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But then, if she told him the reason why she felt that way, she would have to confront her shame all over again. Stir up all those ghastly memories, set off a chain of nightmares that took months to go away.

Instead she snatched on the lifeline he’d inadvertently handed her. ‘Does that mean you can no longer...?’ She left the sentence hanging. It was devastating for anyone to lose sexual function but for a young man in his prime it was surely the most shattering blow of all.

‘I have yet to find out.’ He pulled himself up into a sitting position. ‘The doctors seem to think things will be OK in that department.’

Lily was completely tongue-tied. She felt a fool just standing there staring at him. She could feel her face glowing with heat as the silence stretched and stretched.

‘Don’t look so shocked, Miss Archer,’ he said dryly. ‘I’m not asking you to rehabilitate me.’

‘I wouldn’t agree to it if you did,’ she threw back quickly.

A glint of something indefinable entered his gaze as it tussled with hers. The massage room seemed suddenly smaller. The air thinner and tighter. Her breathing faster and more uneven. More audible.

She couldn’t stop her gaze from drifting to his mouth. It was quite possibly the most sensual-looking mouth she had ever laid eyes on. She hadn’t been kissed in years. She had almost forgotten what it felt like to have a man’s mouth moving on hers.

Raoul Caffarelli’s mouth looked like it knew how to kiss. A fuller lower lip hinted at the sensual power at his command; the slightly thinner top one spoke of a man who liked his own way and made no apologies for going out and getting it.

‘Find what you’re looking for?’ His deep voice jolted her out of her stasis.

Her eyes met his briefly before falling away. ‘I’ll just leave you to—’

Before Lily could bolt he caught her loosely by the wrist. The Taser-like shock of his touch sent tingles down her spine. She looked at his darkly tanned fingers overlapping the slender bones of her wrist. If he so much as pushed up her sleeve an inch he would see the crisscross map of her shame.

She brought her gaze back to his, her mouth dry, her heart hammering like a piston in a faulty engine. Time seemed to stand still as she looked into that green-and-brown gaze. His lashes were thick and plentiful; his pupils were wide and inky black.

A girl could get lost in those eyes if she wasn’t careful. ‘You have a towel crease.’ Could you not have thought of something a little more sophisticated to say?

His mouth slanted, making his eyes crinkle up at the corners in a staggeringly gorgeous way. ‘Where?’

‘On your forehead.’

* * *

His thumb moved slowly over the underside of her wrist as he kept her gaze tethered to his. It was the slightest, barely moving stroke, but it caused a tsunami of sensations to erupt like bubbling lava beneath her skin. She was acutely aware of how close she was to him. She was standing between his open thighs in an erotic enclosure that should have terrified her but somehow didn’t.

His eyes went to her mouth. Stayed there. Burned there. Tingled there.

Tempted there.

He brought his gaze back to mesh with hers. ‘Do you ever smile, Miss Archer?’

Lily moistened her parchment-dry lips. ‘Sometimes.’

His thumb located her pulse and measured it. ‘You’re not very relaxed, are you?’

‘I’m not the one who just had a massage.’

His smile tilted his mouth again. ‘It was a good massage. Very professional.’

‘Thank you.’

He slowly released her wrist. Lily could still feel where his fingers had been long after she had brought her arm back close to her side. It was like a hot brand that had somehow transferred its molten heat all the way to her core. She could feel it swirling there in a tide of longing. Needs she had ignored for years shifted, stirred, stretched. She felt the movement of it in her blood, the way her heart picked up its beat to keep pace with the heady rush of primal, earthy desire.

‘Can you push my chair a little closer?’

Lily took a skittering breath. ‘Of course.’ She brought the chair to him. The towel draped over his lap did little to hide the unmistakable evidence of his erection. Her gaze seemed to be drawn to it like a magnet. She gulped. Was it getting bigger?