“I’m not trying to! I don’t—” Were they really talking this baldly? It felt as if she was stripped naked. “I don’t know why I keep kissing you. I don’t act like that. I swear I don’t.”
“If your father hadn’t damned near destroyed me, I would call it what it seems to be. Chemistry. Sexual compatibility.”
How romantic.
She looked out the window again, toward her first love—snowy slopes. Had it only been a few hours ago that they’d traced through powder, crossing paths to braid a scrolling line into the mountainside? It had felt divine. Like they were made for each other.
“I always thought that when I felt like this about someone it would be...” She swallowed, embarrassed. “You know,” she mumbled.
“A husband? That is not going to happen.” His voice turned so cold and hard it left bruises in her ears.
“Someone I knew well enough to care about them,” she corrected in a voice that frayed around the edges. “You honestly think I’d want to marry you? Yeah, that would work out, with this hanging over me. Talk about selling myself into sexual slavery.”
He didn’t like that. His expression grew even more stony. “Be careful, Cami. I’m trying to be patient, to hear you out.”
She bit back a snide, You started it.
“I don’t want to be attracted to you, either,” she admitted, feeling naked as she openly acknowledged this wild compulsion inside her. “You have been squeezing my life in an iron fist for years. You have wiped out what little I have managed to build here, in the first place that felt like home. I have no future, not unless you grant me one. You have all the power, Dante. All I have is a thread of self-respect, earned by trying to do the right thing all these years. But you’re taking even that, acting like my...my very natural reaction toward you is some kind of commercial product.” She stood and looked for her handbag. “I can’t keep doing this.”
“You’re not leaving.”
Her racing heart thudded to a halt in her chest. “Excuse me?”
His expression was remote. “I’m going to the bank with you tomorrow.”
“Fine. I’ll meet you there.”
“I’m not risking you taking off before morning.”
“You don’t even trust me to show up to one of the most important meetings of my life?”
“I do not.”
Her heart stumbled all over again. “So you’ll what? Lock me in here?” The thought of spending more time with him was terrifying. She had just admitted to attraction, and if she knew one thing about this man, it was that he didn’t let an opportunity to get the better of her slide.
“So melodramatic,” he drawled. “I’m extending my hospitality.” Folding his arms, he added dryly, “Which includes the private jet tub upstairs.”
Her muscles were so stiff, she very nearly whimpered at the lash of temptation that went through her. “That’s just mean.”
He moved to the house phone and said to a concierge, “I need a bag brought up.”
CHAPTER SIX
DANTE DISAPPEARED TO talk with his grandmother, so Cami felt safe enough in the moment to use the tub. She needed time to think all this through and might as well work out her kinks while she did.
He turned up as she was about to enter the tub, making her heart dip and roll.
The room was humid with the scent of cedar off the paneled walls. The darkness outside disappeared behind the gather of steam against the window and the jets hummed beneath the burble of the churning water.
“I didn’t realize you were joining me.” She self-consciously kept her loosened robe over the ridiculously functional one-piece bathing suit she wore. It was bargain store brand in a flat blue, not sexy in the least.
Which was a good thing. He was only keeping her here because he didn’t trust her, not because they had chemistry. Sexual compatibility.
She wished he hadn’t named it. She dearly wished that was all it was for her, but her reaction to him was as emotional as it was physical. He was arrogant, yes, but he also showed great love for his grandmother. He had an admirable sense of duty to family, and his odd moments of protectiveness were positively swoon-worthy.
Her wobbly defenses disintegrated further as she took in his broad shoulders and naked chest, flat abs and tiny red racer’s suit. Something sharp and hot struck deep in her intimate places. The scrap barely covered his bits, revealing more than it concealed of the bulge at the top of his muscled thighs, making her curious as to whether he’d stay contained if he became aroused.
She yanked her gaze to the water, hot all over. With a flustered move, she threw off her robe, leaving it on the hook as she slipped into the water as quickly as her protesting muscles allowed.
He lowered into the other side of the round tub, mouth quirked in amusement as he spread his arms along the edge.
“What?” she asked crossly, suspecting he was laughing at her.
“Maybe you are a virgin.”
She wasn’t about to have that argument again. It hurt too much to hear him sound so cynical about it.
“Thank you for this,” she made herself say, trying to steer toward a less intimate topic. She crooked her knee so the jet was aimed directly at her thigh. “A warm shower wouldn’t have been enough.”
“How did you start skiing?” His tone was lazily curious. He was relaxed, which should have put her at ease, but she was too sharply aware of him. Of herself and the swirling sensations in her middle and deeper that had nothing to do with the water.
“Mom raced.” She tried to gather her scattered thoughts. “But she started late and didn’t qualify for more than a few provincial games. She put my brother and me on skis from an early age, though.”
“She supported your aspirations.”
“A million percent.”
“It wasn’t you who drove the move to Italy, then. She wanted it for you.”
“They both did, but once my coach said I should go, I pressed them until they made it happen.” That was why the weight of guilt sat on her so indelibly. “What happened to your parents?”
“Boating accident. There was a storm.”
“I’m sorry.” Their gazes connected, and she felt that brief click that was more than sexual. Their stories were different, but they shared the same pain.
He broke the contact, slouching so he could rest his head back and look to the ceiling. As he sank down, something grazed her hip, making her start with a gasp. She realized belatedly it was his foot and glanced up in time to see his head come up. His mouth twitched.
His expression didn’t change, but she felt the side of his foot nudge her hip. He was trying to get another reaction out of her while keeping that innocent look on his face.
She stared right back at him, deadpan, ultraconscious that things were happening below the surface they were refusing to acknowledge.
“Are you Catholic?” she asked abruptly, talking so she wouldn’t think of the way a narrow line of hair had arrowed from his navel to the snug band of red drawn low on his hips. Damn. Now she was thinking about it.
“Not a very good one.”
“Because you believe in birth control? Sex before marriage?” Why had she gone there? Shut up, Cami.
“Those are sins I confess to,” he drawled. “Not something I ‘believe’ in.”
“What do you believe in?”
He grew more serious. “Taking care of family. Loyalty. Responsibility.”
She nodded agreement.
“Carpe diem, because you might not live to do the things you otherwise put off. Paying debts.”
“Of course.” She stiffened and lifted her leg out of the jet, setting her foot on the bench and massaging her thigh where her muscle felt itchy from the vibration of the forced water.
“Are you angry that you can’t ski the way you want to?”
“Yes.” She heard the rigidity in her voice. The resentment. “Are you angry you can’t design cars?”
“Yes.” For a long second, they shared another look of understanding, reflecting each other’s frustration, connected at a soul level.
“But you could pursue cars in the future. You have the resources. Even if you wait until your retirement, it’s always something you could go back to. I can’t even try for senior games. My best hope is the occasional day like today.”
He skimmed across to her, making her gasp at his sudden closeness.
His strong hands took possession of her thigh, so unabashed she instinctively tried to pull away, but he held on and dug his fingers into her tense muscles. “I didn’t expect it to cost you so much. You should have said.”
“Oh.” She almost cried at the intensity of his touch, but the relief that came behind the pain had her shuddering and melting.
A very long time ago, she had had professional massages. His firm thumbs dug into her aching muscle with just the right amount of pressure. His hands kneaded their way up her thigh and down to her knee, then began working upward again.
“That feels really good.”
She gave herself up to it, fingers gripping the edge of her seat, letting him find the tension and release it. Press and ease back, circle and stroke. Swirls of desire fluttered into her belly as his attentions went on. She tried not to reveal her reaction, even as secretive parts of her pulsed in yearning and her mind turned to thoughts she could no longer suppress.