struggled not to melt into the ground. “You’re pleading less-than-perfect English skills to explain the inappropriateness of barking ‘stay’ at me across the parking lot like that?”
“Barking? Still going with the dog motif, eh?”
“You did bark,” she mumbled in embarrassment. “You frightened me out of my skin. I think it’s still pooled on the ground.”
His eyes swept down her body, until she felt it was her dress that lay at her feet. “From where I’m standing, your skin is still enveloping you like a glove and, propriety notwithstanding, you can see what the sight does to me.”
More heat splashed through her as she fixed her gaze on his so it wouldn’t stray to “see” anything. “See? Perfect English skills.”
“I’m sure my English tutor would love to hear that the ulcer he swore I gave him has ultimately been validated.”
“You gave your teacher hell? You’re pulling my leg.”
“Again, do watch what you say to me, or I might succumb and tell you exactly how and where I want to pull both your legs.”
Images slammed into her. Vivid, tangible. Those large, perfectly formed hands dragging her by the thighs, opening her around his bulk as he bore down on her…
“I’ve changed my verdict,” she choked. “Your English skills are not perfect. They’re horrible. Evil. Sietto un uomo cattivo.”
Suddenly the sounds of the night were amplified in the stillness that echoed between them. Whoever had said one could drown in another’s eyes must have been describing Prince Durante’s endless azure seas and the submersion of their focus.
Just as she felt her lungs using up the last tendril of oxygen, he exhaled. “Mia bella misteriosa…parlate italiano?”
She realized she’d said he was a wicked man in Italian. It had once come to her as unconsciously as English did. She used to talk and think in an inextricable mix, a habit that had faded since she’d returned to the States. This was the first time in many years that she’d reverted to the second-nature practice. It felt as if a missing part of her had clicked back into place.
Then more registered. He’d called her his mysterious beauty, asked if she spoke Italian.
“I lived in Sardinia and Italy from age five until I returned to the States to enter college at seventeen.”
These revelations were way beyond the simple yes his question warranted. But he made her want to do unknown things. Flirt, tease. Confide. It had to be the premium royal testosterone overexposure.
After a long moment when he looked at her as if at a gem with a thousand facets, he breathed, “Dio Santo, what are you?”
“What…? Uh, yeah, I haven’t exactly introduced myself yet.”
“No, you haven’t. Exactly or otherwise.”
“Umm…yeah, there’s sort of a reason I haven’t. You see, I’m—”
“You are mia bella misteriosa, who’s done what no woman has ever done—offered money to spend time with me.”
“Now that I find impossible to believe. I bet women offer anything and everything for time with you. I bet most wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t even one-on-one.”
“You think so? Because of who I am?” Her gaze wavered with uncertainty. He elaborated. “Rich and royal?”
Her laugh morphed into a snort that would have made a sailor proud. “Are you kidding? Or are you fishing? Women would throw themselves at you if you were a penniless nobody.”
His eyes flared. “Coming from anybody else, I’d think that a worthless exaggeration, but from you, I know it’s how you see me. For it’s how I see you, too. As for the one-on-one basis, that is the only way I would accept to have time with you.”
A moan of stimulation stumbled over her croak of embarrassment.
Hell, the man was reducing her to a pubescent state. But he was doing something even worse.
He was obliterating the distance between them.
Mesmerized, she took in the control and power that permeated his every move, the breadth of shoulders and chest that owed nothing to padding, the sparseness of waist and hips, the hardness of thighs rippling beneath exquisite fabric as he prowled toward her, a majestic creature by birthright and by merit. Now this was a man to make her revise her stance on swearing off men forever, a pledge she’d made happily years ago.
Which was a crazy thing to think.
Crazier would be to act on such insanity.
She stood there waiting for him to reach her with the same fatalism she’d watch a collision in progress, could think only that no man had ever looked at her like this. As if she was something incredibly unexpected, and unexpectedly incredible. The wonder in his eyes drowned out the urgent voices that yelled that his damage potential would far surpass the devastation caused by any such collision.
Every step closer to his mystery woman solidified into fact what Durante had sensed from the first moment he saw her.
This was new. Surprising and stimulating. When he’d been certain nothing and no one would ever surprise or stimulate him. She did both, and far more, with every breath.
Her effect on him was so unprecedented that he’d done the unprecedented. He’d delegated running the rest of the charity function to his deputy. And he’d sent his bodyguards away, forbade them to follow him. He wanted to be alone with her at any price.
Her face tilted up as he approached. Beams from the nearest streetlight embraced it in a swathe of highlights and shadows. Her tresses billowed in the night breeze like undulating flames.
Contradictory compulsions wrenched at each other inside him. The need to capture, conquer, and the urge to savor, slow down.
The second impulse won out, forced his feet to stop before they took him all the way pressing her against her car.
He was close enough to reach out and run his fingers through that blazing cascade of hair. He didn’t. Somehow. He drew deep of her scent instead, let it permeate him, before he let it escape on a grudging exhalation. “So…you bid one million dollars for an hour with me.”
Her shoulders jerked on a dejected shrug. “Yeah. And for the record, I would have doubled the winning bid if I could have.”
He inhaled sharply. “You think I’m worth that much?”
“I think you’re worth every dollar of your billions.”
He bit into his lip. It was either that or drag her to him and bite into hers. As he would. Just not yet. What flowed between them deserved the reward of leisure and thoroughness. But holding back was a punishment, too. One her every word made harder to take. He was used to flattery, could sense falseness and self-interest even in trace quantities. He detected only sincerity from her. Alien urges swamped him, to punch the air, to thump his chest.
He
