Surely he didn’t mean to—?
But he was moving his hand, and she was writhing in response to the direction it was taking, her hips belying the words which she forced herself to say.
‘No, we can’t,’ she protested, her voice slurred with wanting. ‘We mustn’t. Not here.’
‘Why not? The thought of it turned you on. You know it did.’ He touched her above the stocking-top, where the bare flesh was a tantalising contrast of cool silk with warm blood pulsing beneath. ‘I could read it in your eyes.’
‘It may…Oh, God…’ Her eyes closed and her head fell back against the soft leather upholstery as his fingertips skated tantalisingly close to where heat seared at her so frustratingly. ‘It…it may have turned me on. It doesn’t mean it’s right.’
The hand stilled. ‘Shall I stop, then, cara mia?’
Frustration ripped through her. She shook her head helplessly.
He put his lips right up to her ear. He loved her like this. Compliant. His. Her coolness exploding into hot and urgent need. ‘I can’t hear you, Lucy.’
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.’
Triumph coursed through him and possessively he pushed aside the panel of her panties to feel the acutely sensitised flesh. But it was over almost before he had started. He could feel her body begin to tense as he pressed his fingertip against her, and she caught him by the neck and dragged his mouth back down on hers, just as her legs splayed and she made soft, moaning noises of pleasure, like a cat.
They stayed like that for a while, their mouths glued together, his finger still touching her intimately while she continued to spasm against him. When it was over, she drew away, her face sweat-sheened, still shuddering as she shook her head.
‘What did you do that for?’ She gulped breath into her lungs like a drowning woman.
He smiled as he tugged her uniform skirt back down. ‘Because you wanted me to.’
‘We should have waited.’
‘But you didn’t want to.’
No, she hadn’t. It had been a long time—too long—and she had missed him. Had he missed her? she wondered. Even a tiny bit? She turned her eyes up to his, but as usual their glittering ebony depths were impenetrable. She wanted to kiss him again, but kissing seemed almost too intimate. How crazy was that after what had just happened?
‘And what about you?’ she questioned huskily, cupping him quite suddenly. She saw him briefly close his eyes and groan, before snatching her hand away to hold it close to his mouth, letting his breathing grow steady before he spoke.
She could feel his warm breath on her fingertips.
‘But I can…wait, cara,’ he said huskily. ‘That is the difference between us.’
He was always so controlled—always—and in demonstrating his own self-discipline he had drawn attention to her own lack of it! But Lucy knew that there was more than his steely resolve at stake here. Physically, she might be able to change his mind, but mentally she didn’t stand a chance.
He might have shrugged off all the trappings which came with being a prince, but he never ignored the responsibility which came with the title. His mind would have raced and overtaken the demands of his body. He would have imagined all the worst-case scenarios—them being disturbed by the driver, or police, or photographers, and one of the Princes of Mardivino being discovered with an air-hostess bent busily over his lap.
Lucy flushed and moved away, suddenly feeling cheap as she imagined how it would look to an outsider. Woman gets off plane and lets man ravish her in car. A man, moreover, who had never made any promises of commitment to her and never would. Was she valuing herself too low—and, if so, for just how long was she going to let it continue?
‘Cara?’
His voice was soft, and in anyone else you might almost be fooled into thinking that it was tender—but tenderness was an alien concept to Guido.
He saw the way that her eyes clouded and some stubborn inner resistance suddenly melted away. He leaned forward so that their foreheads were touching and began to stroke her hair.
‘Forgive me, Lucy,’ he said softly.
Lucy closed her eyes. For what? For taking her to heaven in an indecently short space of time? Or for drumming home the fact that where sex was concerned he was very definitely the master and she the puppet?
She opened her eyes again. ‘You make me feel helpless,’ she admitted.
He shrugged. ‘Sometimes a woman should be helpless.’
‘But not a man?’ she questioned provocatively.
‘Of course not.’ His eyes sparked back in answering challenge. ‘It is why we were born the stronger sex—did you not know that? We’re conditioned to fight wars and to hunt—not to roll over on our backs like tame little pussycats.’
‘Like I’ve just done, you mean?’
He brushed his lips against hers. ‘Mmm. You were quite perfect. I like to see you like that.’
‘Oh, you’re just a power-freak,’ she said, half crossly.
A smile curved his mouth. ‘But you like that, too.’
‘Sometimes.’ Not always. Sometimes she would give a hundred erotic highs just to see him show even the briefest flicker of vulnerability—but that would be like wishing for the sky to suddenly start raining diamonds instead of hailstones. ‘Sometimes I wish you’d just relax a bit more.’
‘I’ll relax later,’ he promised silkily, and pulled her into the cradle of his arms. ‘I promise you.’
‘I don’t just mean in bed,’ said Lucy primly. ‘It may be an alien concept to you, Guido, but you are allowed to let your hair down at other times.’
‘Shh. Enough. That is enough, cara.’
Lucy rested her head against his shoulder and lapsed into a silence that was just the wrong side of contentment as she registered his unspoken reprimand. Was she nagging him? She stared out of the window just as the expensive car purred its way up Park Avenue and came to a halt in front of a rather beautiful old building.
She turned back to find his eyes watching her intently. ‘Why are we stopping here?’
‘Because we’ve arrived.’
Behind the Titian swing of her fringe, Lucy knitted her eyebrows together. ‘This doesn’t look like a hotel!’
‘That’s because it isn’t.’ He smiled, as if nothing was at stake. But something was, and they both knew it. ‘I thought you might like to see my apartment.’
LUCY could read nothing in the ebony glitter of Guido’s eyes, and somehow she kept her own expression casual—even though, deep down, she felt slightly shell-shocked. Guido wanted to take her home! Well, to one of his homes, that would be more accurate. At last. Now, why would that be?
‘Your apartment?’ she questioned slowly.
Not the kind of rapturous excitement he might have expected—which just went to show that in life you should expect nothing. ‘Wouldn’t you like to see it?’
She smiled at him. ‘Of course I would.’
Up until now they’d always stayed in hotels—a city-central room was one of the perks of her flying job and, as a fabulously successful