Darcy came over, mouth watering. When she took a bite the al dente pasta and its flavours exploded on her tongue. It all felt incredibly decadent-as if this were some kind of illicit midnight feast.
After finishing her pasta, Darcy took a long luxurious sip of wine and asked idly, 'So what was the other part of the surprise that we missed today?'
Max sat back, cradling his own glass of wine, and smirked at her. 'I don't think you deserve to know.'
Darcy dipped her fingers in her water glass and flicked some at him. 'That's so unfair.' She mock pouted. 'I put out before you even had to go through with it.'
Max gave her a considering look full of mischief. 'That's true. If I'd known how easy it would be-'
Now Darcy scooped up a much larger handful of water and threw it at him. An incredible lightness infused her as Max put down his glass and smiled devilishly at her. He still managed to look gorgeous, even as water dripped down his face and onto his chest.
He picked up his own glass of water and looked at her explicitly.
She gasped and got up from her chair, inching away from him. 'You wouldn't dare...'
But he would. Of course he would.
Max stood up and advanced on her as Darcy fled behind the kitchen island.
'Max, stop-we're adults, and this isn't our kitchen.' She was attempting to sound reasonable, but the breathiness in her voice gave her away.
He raised a brow. 'It's only water, Darcy. Now, come here like a good girl. You can't tease me and expect to get away with it.'
Darcy crept around the island as Max followed her and eyed where the door was. When she made her move, feinting left before going towards the door, Max caught her with pathetic ease, grabbing her robe and pulling her into him.
He captured her hands with one of his and pulled her up against him. She caught fire. He was walking her backwards towards the huge table, and illicit excitement leapt in Darcy's blood. She didn't play like this. And she suspected Max didn't either. It was heady.
The back of the table hit her buttocks and Max nudged her until she was sitting on it. He still held the full glass of water over her and he said in a rough voice, 'Open your robe.'
A sliver of self-consciousness pricked her. 'Max...' she said weakly.
'Open it, Darcy, or I'll open it for you.'
With far less reluctance than she should have been feeling Darcy undid the tie on her robe and it fell open, exposing her upper body. Max smiled, and it was wicked. His eyes had turned dark and golden.
Darcy felt so hot she feared bursting into flames there and then. It was hard to breathe.
Very slowly and deliberately he tipped the glass over her, until a small stream of icy water trickled down over her chest and breasts. She gasped and tensed, and was almost surprised when the water didn't hiss on contact with her hot skin.
Her nipples pebbled into tight peaks under Max's torturously slow administration, and when she was thoroughly drenched, with water running down over her belly and between her legs to where she was hottest of all, he put down the glass and pushed her robe back further, baring her completely.
He braced himself with his hands either side of her body, holding the robe back, keeping her captive. His gaze devoured her and he bent and dipped his head, his hot tongue a startling contrast to the cold water on her skin as he teased and tormented her breasts, tasting them and sucking each hard tip into his mouth until Darcy cried out and begged him to stop.
He lifted his head and smiled the smile of a master sorceror. 'We haven't even started, dolcezza... Lie back on the table.'
Unable to stay upright anyway, Darcy sank back and felt Max's big body push her legs wide, coming between them, baring her to him utterly.
He pressed kisses down her body, over the soft swell of her belly, and his big hands kept her open to him as his mouth descended between her legs and he found the scorching centre of her being. He stroked and licked her with sinful precision, until her hands were clasped in his hair and she was bucking uncontrollably into his mouth...
Later, when they'd made it back to the bedroom, they made love again. And again.
Darcy lifted her head from Max's chest and asked sleepily, 'So, will you tell me now?'
Max huffed a small chuckle. 'I should have known you wouldn't forget.'
Darcy rested her chin on her hand and said, 'Well...?'
Max shifted then, and she could tell he was mildly uncomfortable. But he said, 'I had arranged to take you to Venice... We were going to do a gondola ride and stay the night in a hotel on the Grand Canal.'
He lifted his head then, and looked at her with an endearingly rueful expression-very unMax-like.
'It would have been the worst kind of cliché, wouldn't it?'
Darcy's heart twisted painfully. 'Yes,' she whispered, 'but it would have been lovely.'
And then she ducked her head and feigned falling asleep, because she was terrified to admit to herself just how completely Max had seduced her.
CHAPTER NINE
THE FOLLOWING MORNING Darcy woke to an insistent prodding that was becoming more and more intimate as a hand smoothed down over her bare backside and squeezed firmly. She smiled and wriggled, hoping to entice the hand into further exploration, but instead it delivered a short, sharp thwack.
She raised her head from the pillow, blinking in the daylight. Max. Looking thoroughly gorgeous and disreputable with a growth of stubble. And he was dressed.
'What was that for?'
His hand smoothed where he'd slapped her so playfully. 'That was to get you up and out of bed... I want to take you out on the lake.'
At the word lake Darcy went very still. That big body of water that she'd avoided looking at-probably the only person on the planet who didn't enjoy the splendour of Lake Como.
She flipped over and held the sheet to her breasts. Max was already leaning back, tugging it out of her hand, but she held on with a death grip and tried to say, as breezily as possible, 'I'm quite tired, actually... Why don't you go? You can tell me how it was when you get back.'
Max stopped and his gaze narrowed on her. Damn.
'Why don't you want to go on the lake, Darcy? I've noticed that you barely look at it.'
She avoided his eye and sat up, feeling at a disadvantage lying down, and plucked at the sheet. 'I have issues with water. I can't swim.'
Carefully, Max said, 'You know, some fishermen can't swim-because they believe that if the sea claims them it's meant to be. It doesn't stop them going out on the water.'
Sensing that Max had no intention of going anywhere until she explained herself, she sighed deeply and said, 'I nearly drowned as a child. We had a pool at our house and my father was teaching me how to swim. My mother appeared and they started having a row. He got out to argue with her, forgetting about me... I don't know what happened... One minute I was okay and the next I couldn't feel the bottom any more and I'd started to drop like a stone. I must have drifted from the shallow end. They were so busy arguing, and I couldn't get their attention. All I could see was their arms gesticulating and then everything went black, there was a pain in my chest-'
Darcy hadn't even realised that she was bordering on hyperventilation until Max put a hand over hers, his fingers twining around hers to make her loosen her grip on the sheet.
'Darcy, it's okay-just breathe...'
She took a deep breath and looked at Max. 'That's why I don't want to go on the lake.'
He looked as if he was considering something, and then he said, 'Do you trust me?'
'Of course not,' she said facetiously.
Max rolled his eyes. 'I mean, would you trust me not to let any harm come to you?'
Physically...yes. Emotionally...no.
Damn. Darcy realised it as the heavy weight of inevitability hit her. She was falling for him. She was a disgrace to womankind. One hot air balloon ride and even hotter sex and she was-
'Okay?'
She blinked at Max, not having heard a word he'd said over the revelation banging around in her head like a warning klaxon going off after the fire had started and the horse had bolted.
'What?'
He said, with extreme patience, 'I want to take you somewhere and I promise you won't have to do anything you don't want to-okay?'
Right now even a lake was preferable to sitting alone with this new knowledge. 'Okay...'
And that was how she found herself, a few hours later, in a swimsuit, shivering with fear by the side of a kiddies' pool at a local adventure centre that Max said was owned by Dante D'Aquanni. A child ran past her and cannonballed into the pool.
Max was standing waist-deep in the water and saying, 'Look, I promise you'll be able to touch the bottom. Come on.'
Not even his body was helping to distract her right now.
'Sit on the edge and come in bit by bit.'
More because she didn't want to look like a total fool in front of Max than anything else, she gingerly sat down on the edge and put her legs in the water. Immediately she started shaking, remembering how the water had sucked her down.