It was the last thing that Caitlyn had expected to hear thousands of miles away from home on a piazza in Italy, but there was no mistaking the familiar tune and the lyrics of the sultry songstress singing Ella Fitzgerald. Grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary, Duke dragged her with him through the loose crowd, to an empty spot beneath the illuminated fountain of Neptune. There, he pivoted, his open palm sliding around her waist to her lower back to press her against him while his free hand lifted hers. “Let’s dance.” “There’s no one dancing!” she sputtered in a near-panic. He merely grinned, politely refusing to accept her refusal. “There will be.” “I—no! Duke—I—can’t!” Stumbling over the cobblestones, she clung to him, tripping over her own feet and his. “Sure, you can,” he encouraged, reluctantly allowing some space between their bodies and directing her attention to his feet. “It’s a two-step. Easy-peasy for a woman with your IQ.
“You sure about this?” Duke demanded again, waving the key card in front of the sensor lock beside the knob and gritting his teeth in frustration when the little red light didn’t waver. Wedging her soft, sweet body between him and the door, Caitlyn knotted her fingers in his shirt at his waist. “I’m sure,” she replied firmly, then her voice dropped to a soft whisper. “Take me to bed with you, Duke.” Utterly vexed, he groaned, banging the card against the sensor several times. Forcing himself to be calm, he rested it gently against it and waited a three-count. An ear-blistering string of obscenities hissed from his mouth. Hell with it. He’d just break the damned thing down. Then a flash of brilliance struck him. Stuffing his hand back in his pocket, he pulled out the second key card he’d been carrying, then waved it in front of the sensor. Immediately, the light blinked from red to green. Brainless idiot—he’d been waving her room key in front of his door. He c
The words were simple enough. The concept too. In theory. But Caitlyn found herself at a loss to actually accomplish what he’d asked. How could she ask him for something she’d never experienced? Something she’d only read about in foolish stories and didn’t even know whether it was true? In truth, he already knew her body better than she did. Uncertain what else to do, she nodded mutely. “Good,” Duke purred, smiling that lady-killer smile of his. Then he dipped his head again and layered a sizzling trail of kisses from her ear to her collarbones. Walking backwards on his hands, he positioned himself over her breasts, then leaned down to tease first one tip with his tongue, then the other. She gasped softly as he lowered himself to his forearms, the hot steely length of him brushing along her thighs. Yielding to his unconscious suggestion, she opened them and Duke settled his hips between her knees and pressed a kiss to her soft belly. “Ooh!” sh
Beneath him, Caitlyn slumped, her exhausted body flattening on the bed, limp as a rag doll. Releasing her wrists, Duke lowered his body with hers. Careful not to separate their merged flesh, he rolled her with him to his side so her slender form wasn’t suffering his weight. She sighed, pillowing her neck on his muscled bicep as he wrapped an arm around her middle and pulled her back against his chest. For several long moments, the only sound in the room was the mingled song of their heaving breath. Under his arm, he could feel her pounding heart, slowly settling into its resting rhythm along with his. “Caitlyn?” A drowsy little hum was all he got in return. “Darlin’, did I hurt you?” “Mmm, no.” For a moment, she said nothing more and Duke nuzzled into her hair, believing she’d fallen asleep. He pressed a light kiss at her temple, snuggling her tight against him. “Duke?” “Did you say something, darlin’?” He wasn’t certai
Caitlyn’s eyes flew open wide as a warm mouth closed over the puckered tip of her breast, sending her body rocketing into the stratosphere. She arched, trying to focus, driving away the bewilderment. Her confusion retreated as she concentrated. Not Alex. Alex had never touched her breasts with his lips, never teased the tip with his hot mouth. And the fingers inside her were longer, surer and so so much more skilled. The forearm clutched by her desperate palm was thicker, stronger and more powerful. An outdoorsman, not an academic. Beneath her seeking, trembling hand, the hair she stroked was thick and curling, not straight and short and bristly. She felt like a cheat. Like some shameless, adulterous whore, imagining how devastated Alex would have been to know she’d been with another man, pretending to herself that it was him. How crestfallen would Duke be to know she was dreaming of herself with her long-lost husband? “Duke, I—.” she gasped, then arc
The low sounds of breaths drawn harshly into heaving lungs loomed into the long silence that followed their lovemaking, peppered with the nearly inaudible pop of the tender kisses Duke layered along Caitlyn’s jaw, the side of her neck and across her shoulder. He released her knees in part to make her more comfortable, but mostly so he could have every supple inch of her making physical contact with his skin. Beneath him, she quivered still with each tiny aftershock that passed between them. Her slender arms twined about his neck, but instead of clinging to him for dear life, she held him gently now. The clean floral of her hair and skin was overlaid with his scent, like an invisible brand upon her, soothing to the possessive beast inside him who’d claimed her as his own. “I didn’t mean to be so rough.” His regret suffused his whispered voice in the semi-darkness. “But when you woke me up, touching me and with the things you said,” he shook his head, “my self-control
<Do you actually intend on showing up? Are you even in Italy?> Tapping an impatient foot, Rachel let her arm fall to her side and took another drag off the slender Italian cigarette—her third in the last fifteen minutes. The nicotine rush temporarily soothed her fury. Three days. Three damn days she’d been in this God-forsaken country, trying to get from point A to point B to rescue a stupid client. And she’d barely made it out of the airport. She’d slept in the goddamn bus terminal last night, just to ensure she got out of Venice today, for Chrissakes, and she didn’t need lip from Dex about it! Glancing over her shoulder, she flashed a tight smile at another couple on her bus, returning from the truck stop with their purchases, then paced a few steps away to stand in the shade and reply to her mouthy duke. <Of course I’m in Italy.> Trying to reign in her temper, she lifted the phone and snapped a quick photo of the parking lot with the po
“I’m not going to lie,” Duke drawled as they emerged from the Accademia Gallery into the shady plaza between the wings. “I don’t see what all the hullabaloo is about David. He’s not even entirely Michaelangelo’s work. And his eyeballs are off.” Beside him, Caitlyn rolled her eyes, but refused to be drawn into his mischief. “I liked that Ninfa Arnina much better.” The Ninfa Arnina, translated as the Nymph of the Arno, was one of the first full-body figures sculpted by Bartolini after his return to Florence from Paris. The river nymph was so lovely that before the sculpture was even complete, it had already inspired a poem by Benedetti. Not that Duke knew who either of them were. She knew he didn’t care either. What he’d liked was that the statue, like so many Renaissance pieces, was fully nude. And female. “Now that was a spectacular piece of work,” he continued, deliberately egging her as they wandered towards the exit. “The way her hair’s pul