An Invitation to Sin(4)

‘No glasses, I'm afraid.' With a wicked, sexy smile he released her hand and retrieved the bottle. ‘We'll have to slum it.'

Weak with relief that they'd avoided detection, Taylor shook her head in disbelief as she watched him. ‘How did you-?'

‘How did I get it here?' Those wide shoulders lifted in a careless  shrug. ‘I imported it here under cover of darkness in case of  emergencies. This definitely constitutes an emergency. Judging from the  look on your face earlier, your need is as great as mine. I'm always  willing to help out a fellow sinner in need. Sit down. Make yourself  comfortable. Take a dip in the cool water.'

Taylor looked wistfully at the fountain. ‘I wish I could. This dress is  the most uncomfortable thing I've ever worn but sadly it isn't designed  to allow sitting.'

‘So take it off.'

‘Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. They've sewn me into it.' She caught his look of astonishment and glared. ‘Don't ask.'

‘All right-' there was laughter in his eyes ‘-but if you want my opinion I'd say you've been stitched up, angelo mia.'

‘Very funny.'

‘I like the idea that you're sewn into your dress. It could be erotic.'  He prowled around her, his eyes on her body. ‘So what do they expect you  to do if you need to have wild, animal sex?'                       
       
           



       

‘I'm not going to need that.'

He scanned her dress. ‘This is your punishment for not picking something  from the House of Corretti. Our clothes would make you feel seductive  and feminine. We don't have to sew our women into their dresses for them  to look good. the dress becomes part of the woman.'

She'd forgotten that he ran the fashion house but it explained his  effortlessly stylish appearance. Even with his shirt collar open and  strands of dark hair falling over his forehead, he looked spectacular.

‘I didn't pick this dress.' Heat and hunger made her irritable. ‘I wore what your cousin told me to wear.'

‘He'd never pick anything from my company,' Luca drawled, ‘it might  signify approval and God forbid the rivalry between us should ever die.  That fabric isn't allowing your body to breathe. I could help you with  that.'

‘Nice try.'

‘I've got moves that would make you weep.'

‘I'm sure you make women weep a lot, but I'm not a crier.'

‘I like you more and more. You could bathe naked in the fountain.' He  reached for the chilled bottle of champagne. ‘Or I could roll this over  your skin.'

Her skin was prickling with the heat and she made a sound that was half  laugh, half groan. ‘Now you're torturing me. Talk about something else,  before I melt.' Taylor knew she should walk away but she decided it was  safer to wait a few minutes until the people they'd overheard were  safely back among the guests. Just five minutes, she promised herself.  Five minutes. ‘So who is this woman you're running from?'

‘I have no idea. Apparently her name is Portia but that was news to me.'

Taylor lifted her hair away from her neck to try and cool herself down. ‘You're terrible.'

‘Not terrible enough to induce her to dump me, sadly. She was alarmingly difficult to shift.'

‘Some women find bad boys attractive.'

‘And from what I've heard, you know a lot about that.'

‘Do you often listen to gossip?'

‘All the time. Gossip makes me laugh.' The cork flew out of the bottle  with a pop. ‘So tell me the truth, Taylor Carmichael? How do you like  your men? Welldone, medium or rare?'

‘Rare.' Sticky and uncomfortable from the heat and the conversation she  squirmed, wishing she could dip her toes in the water. ‘So rare I can't  remember when I last touched one.'

‘So I'm looking at a desperate woman.'

‘You're looking at a controlled woman. I'm no longer a slave to my impulses.'

‘That sounds like the tag line for a good bondage movie. Slave to Her  Impulses. The sequel could be Slave to His Impulses. I might be willing  to star in that for a price providing you were the leading lady.' That  mocking smile touched the corners of his mouth and he tipped champagne  into a glass and held it out to her. ‘Drink. It will help numb the  boredom of the wedding.'

Hating the fact that she was even tempted, Taylor reluctantly shook her  head. ‘No, thanks. Champagne is on my list of banned substances,  particularly on an empty stomach.'

‘Personally I have a taste for banned substances.' Shrugging, he tilted his head and drank, the sun glinting off his dark hair.

Just for a moment, because he wasn't looking at her, she looked at him. At those slanting cheekbones, that nose, the olive skin-

It was so long since she'd looked at a man and found him attractive, the spasm of sexual awareness shocked her.

She reminded herself that Luca Corretti was probably the most dangerous  man she could possibly have found herself with. ‘I thought you were  trying to behave yourself.'

‘This is me behaving myself.' He took another mouthful of champagne and  she laughed in spite of herself, sensing a kindred spirit. A part of her  long buried stirred to life.

‘So both of us are making a superhuman effort to behave. What's your excuse?'

‘I have to prove myself capable of taking charge of another chunk of the  family business.' Underneath the light, careless tone there was an edge  of steel and it surprised her because she didn't associate him with  responsibility.

That thought was followed instantaneously by guilt. She was judging him  as others judged her, based on nothing but gossip. She was better than  that.

‘But you already run a business. I read that you'd turned the House of Corretti around.'

‘I have a flare for figures.'

‘Especially when those figures belong to models?'

He laughed. ‘Something like that. Unfortunately trebling the profits of Corretti isn't enough for them.'                       
       
           



       

She had to stop herself reaching for the champagne in his hand. Because  she wasn't able to get out of her dress, she'd avoided drinking and now  her throat was parched from the heat. ‘But why do you want to meddle in  other parts of the business?'

‘Sibling rivalry.'

‘But you're all members of the same family. Surely that qualifies you for a seat on the board.'

‘The qualifications for a seat on the board seem to be old age and  sexual inactivity.' He suppressed a yawn. ‘I suppose that's why they  call it a "bored." Needless to say I'm bombing out big-time. I have a  feeling that whatever I do, I will always be in the wrong.'

Taylor felt a flicker of sympathy. ‘I know that feeling.'

‘I'm sure you do. You, Taylor Carmichael, are one, big walking wrong.'  His gaze lingered on her mouth. ‘So tell me what else is on your list of  banned substances.'

‘Men like you.'

‘Is that right?' His eyes on hers, he lowered the champagne bottle back  into the fountain. Somehow, without her even noticing how he'd done it,  he'd moved closer to her. His dark head was between her and the sun and  all she could see was those wicked eyes tempting her towards the dark  side.

‘What are you doing?'

‘Testing a theory.' His mouth moved closer to hers and suddenly she struggled to breathe.

‘What theory?'

‘I want to know whether two wrongs make a right.' His smile was the last thing she saw before he kissed her.





CHAPTER TWO


WHAT THE HELL was she doing?

Taylor opened her eyes and found herself staring into two dark, slumberous pools of molten male hunger.

As his mouth moved skilfully on hers, desire punched low in her belly  and then spread through her body with a speed that shocked her. One  minute she was thinking, the next minute she was kissing him back,  gripped by a deep, visceral emotion she couldn't even name.

He seduced her mouth with lazy expertise, his tongue teasing hers with a  delicious skill that weakened her legs with frightening speed.

Her stomach twisted. Her body melted. She wanted to stretch luxuriously  into the warmth of that hand resting high on her bare thigh.

Her bare thigh?

Horrified, she tried to pull back but her body was weakened by pleasure.  ‘My dress-' The words were swallowed by the heat of his mouth. ‘Luca-'

‘I agree. The dress has to come off.'

‘No.' She was laughing and appalled at the same time, her hand covering  his as she stopped him sliding the fabric upwards. ‘You've ripped the  stitches.'

‘No, you ripped the stitches,' he purred, ‘when you wrapped your leg around me.'

‘You pulled my leg round you-we shouldn't be doing this. I don't want to be doing this.'