The process tickled, or so it seemed. His little sister kept giggling and ducking her head so Amanda, laughing as well, got the gloss on the end of Carisa’s small nose and had to wipe it away.
Nico’s chest felt tight as he listened to the mingled sounds. Carisa laughed so seldom, and almost never when he was present. It was good to hear her. He was also touched and gratified to see her interacting so naturally with Amanda. Yet it seemed near unbearable that Carisa should be carelessly happy while her twin still lay in a deep coma.
“What’s going on here?” he asked.
The laughter stopped, perhaps because his voice was gruffer than he’d intended. Carisa looked up at him, her eyes going round with surprise and something like alarm. With a small gasp, she clamped a hand over her lips as if to hide them from him.
“Having a lesson in makeup,” Amanda answered with an uncertain smile as she glanced from him to his sister. “Carisa has never used gloss or mascara. Can you believe it?”
“Why not, when she has no need for such things?” He strolled toward them while noting that Amanda still wore her prim navy blue skirt. She apparently had yet to explore the additions to her wardrobe that had been delivered while they were away the evening before.
“I like it, Nico,” Carisa protested, her gaze darting between him and Amanda as she gauged his displeasure. “My lips are very kissable now. Mandy said so.”
“Did she?” he asked in hard inquiry on the very heels of the translation Yolanda provided.
“It’s the name of the gloss, Nicholas,” Amanda told him, color rising in her face as she picked up a napkin to wipe the oily residue from her finger.
“Nico,” Carisa corrected, “you must call him Nico!”
“She suggests a name change for me,” he said, speaking above Yolanda’s literal translation as Amanda met his gaze with a question in her eyes. “It seems reasonable, under the circumstances.”
“The circumstances?”
He glanced at Yolanda, but the companion had begun clearing away the clutter of cosmetics now that he had taken her job. “Our engagement, if you will recall?”
“Oh. I suppose.” She hesitated. “And Carisa has been calling me Mandy, like my brother.”
“Charming,” he drawled, “but for myself I like Amanda.”
She glanced away, and he almost smiled at that small crack in her composure. It was momentary, however.
“About the lip gloss, I can show you the Kissable label on the pot.”
“Kissable, Kissable, Kissable,” Carisa sang to herself. Shoving away from the table, she slid off her chair. Running the few steps to where he stood, she held up her face and closed her eyes. “It tastes good, Nico. Want to see?”
It was his usual habit to brush a quick kiss of greeting on either cheek. He would not alter that affectionate ritual. Putting a knuckle under Carisa’s plump little chin, he turned her head, saluting her soft face on either side. Only then did he touch his forefinger to her lips and carry a smear of gloss to his tongue.
“Hmm, yes, sweet.” His voice sounded strained to his own ears, the effect of the desire that slammed into him as he thought of licking that same flavor from his guest’s mouth.
“It’s watermelon!” Carisa informed him, smacking her lips as she danced a small, happy jig in front of him.
“But I hope I am the only man with whom you intend to share this watermelon flavor.”
“Si, si!” Carisa gave a gurgle of laughter. “Other men, strange men, are yuck! Not at all kissable.”
“Yuck?” he repeated, a smile tugging at his mouth for the gusto with which his young sister brought out that idiomatic expression.
“That’s what Amanda said!”
“Ah.” He glanced at his guest to see how much of this exchange she had followed, suspecting she might understand something of it because of the word she must have taught Carisa. Speaking to his young sister while holding his guest’s gray gaze, he asked, “And am I yuck to Amanda?”
“No, silly, she is your fidanzata,” his sister crowed. “You can’t be yuck. And you must kiss her good morning, too.”
“I should do that, you think?”
Carisa nodded with great emphasis. “You will like it. Truly. Amanda tastes good, too, but different, like strawberries!”
Yes, he would most certainly like it. Strawberries were his favorite fruit, or might well be after this little episode. The gods were being kind that they provided such a fine excuse for carrying out his most fervent impulse.
With one arm around Carisa, he moved toward the table where Amanda sat. She eyed his advance with close attention while pushing back her hair, tucking it behind one ear. She looked distinctly skittish, as well she might if she’d caught anything of Carisa’s suggestion.
He gave her no chance to retreat, but bore down upon her with a steady stride. As he halted beside her, he reached to circle her narrow waist with his arm. “Buon giorno, good morning,” he said in husky greeting, and set his mouth to hers.
~ ~ ~
Amanda had been almost sure Nicholas — Nico — meant to kiss her. She guessed it from the exchange with Carisa, but saw it too in the devilish glimmer, half amused, half daring, in his dark eyes. If she had been certain, she might have evaded him by retreating behind the table. As it was, she barely had time to draw breath before she was pulled up from her chair and against the hard length of his body.
She expected a quick, half humorous meeting of mouths. Instead, he brushed his lips over hers with slow purpose. The very edge of his tongue feathered their surfaces with wet heat as he tasted her. A low hum of pleasure sounded in his chest, its vibrato throbbing into her breasts as he held her close. Her lips throbbed, softening under his as a peculiar exhilaration swept through her. She pressed her hands to his wide shoulders, intending to push him away.
Through her mind, in that instant, ran the fragment of a dream that had jerked her awake in the night, one of being pursued, captured, drawn into his arms like this while her clothes mysteriously disintegrated. She had twisted, naked and exultant in his hold, and so awash in desperate desire that the mere memory of it left her flushed and breathless now.
“Nico?” Carisa said.
He made no answered, didn’t appear to notice when his young sister ceased pulling on his shirt, distracted by the sweet roll her companion offered her.
He shifted, thrusting his fingers through Amanda’s hair, cupping the back of her head while he slanted his mouth over hers. She remembered to breathe then, inhaling quickly through nose and mouth. He took instant advantage of that parting of her lips. Slipping inside, he twined his tongue with hers, abrading its tender underside, enticing it into his mouth the better to invade hers with his sweet, enticing flavor.
He was so solid against her, so muscled and hard in all the places where she was not, subtly dominating with his superior height and strength. His scent surrounded her, compounded of the soap from his morning shower, his elusive cologne and clean male. She breathed it deep inside while intoxicating heat seemed to melt her very bones, and her resolve along with them.
It was so unlike her, this abandon, so beyond anything she had ever experienced. Alarm surged through her as she realized it. That brought the strength and resolution she needed to break the kiss, turn her head aside.
Nico stiffened, and then released her with every sign of reluctance. Amanda lifted a hand to her lips that felt as moist and lush as ripe fruit. Glancing around, she saw she and Nico were alone, that Carisa and Yolanda had strolled away down into the garden.
“You may want to reapply your gloss,” he said in low suggestion. “It was too delicious, and you entirely too…kissable.”
“What happened to your hands-off rule as host?” she asked with the ghost of a tremor in her voice as she flicked him a glance from under her lashes.
“That you are supposed to be my fiancée changes things a bit,” he answered, though a trace of color seeped under his bronzed skin. “Besides, I never said I wouldn’t touch you at all.”
“Polite touches to aid or direct me, I believe you said.”
“It was a polite kiss, as Carisa was certain you would expect a greeting.”
The intention had been the only polite thing about it, Amanda thought, but had no time to say so. Erminia emerged from the house just then, bearing a coffee tray and fresh baskets of fruit and warm rolls for Nico’s breakfast. The housekeeper placed these on the table and cleared away what was left from the meal Amanda had shared with Carisa and her companion.
“Join me in a coffee?” Nico asked as the housekeeper went away again.
“I’ve had enough, thank you.” The words were abrupt, but she couldn’t help it. He had moved to pull out the chair she’d vacated with his help. Realizing he would not take his own at the table while she stood, she dropped down in it before she went on. “You called the hospital this morning?”
“No change in the night,” he replied, answering her fear rather than her question. “We will visit again in a short while, if that suits you.”
She was grateful for the offer, not least because it prevented her from having to ask. “We?”
“You and I. Is that a problem?”