“You can change all that now.”
He looked at her as if attempting to chart her brainwaves. She felt he must have succeeded by the time he looked back at the preparations. Then his expression changed back to scorching flirtation. “Let me feed you. A tour through my paradise is hard work.”
She scampered behind him to the table his people had conjured up, a dream in crisp white, luscious cream and deep emerald. Silver and crystal flashed and sparkled in the sunlight that hurtled through the canopy’s sighing folds. He dismissed everyone, then sat down in one of the fer forgé chairs. She moved to her own chair, only to be pulled down onto his lap.
She settled on the hardness she was molten for. She gasped, wriggled, wrenching a growl from him as one hand pressed her down harder to meet what felt like an involuntary thrust.
She gulped around the need to crash her lips to his, to straddle him and take him all the way in, to her heart. “So this is what they mean by the lap of plenty? Or is it luxury?”
“Don’t move, or it will be the lap of injury,” he groaned.
“Let me up and no one needs to get hurt.”
“Just don’t move, and I’ll still get to feed you and walk out of this with intact equipment.”
She wriggled more until he thrust back with a long rumble, his hands circling her waist, raising her as he once had during exhausting rides to extremes of ecstasy. She made use of the boost to stagger up to her feet and whirled around to flop down in her chair. “I’ve been feeding myself for some time now, thanks.”
He mock-scowled. “Who’ll lick my fingers for me?”
“So that’s what you wanted? No free rides, huh?”
He tossed his head back with a guffaw. “If I didn’t dread another lecture about criminal excess, I’d tell you what I’m willing to pay for one finger lick right now.”
She leaned over, picked up his hand. Then, holding his eyes, she sucked his middle finger into her mouth. She almost fainted with the spike of arousal. Was turnabout supposed to turn on its perpetrator? But at least she was causing him equal distress.
When he snatched his finger away with another string of language-blending curses, she murmured demurely, “Write the checks. I’ll give you a list of my favorite charities.”
He grunted a laugh. “You’d better stand over my shoulder when I’m writing the checks, or I’m liable to sign my fortune away.”
“For just one lick?”
“But what a lick. So that’s what ‘getting licked’ means, eh? We keep finding out the real meaning behind common expressions.”
He lifted a silver cover bearing a repoussé cartouche. The sight of dewy chicken and vivid vegetables and the scent of spices she couldn’t guess at knotted her stomach with hunger.
She exchanged unabashed smiles with him as he served her, feeling like an eagle that had just discovered she could fly.
Then she breathed, “Tell me.”
He didn’t ask what. He just raised his eyes to hers without raising his face, his expression almost…loving?
As she backpedaled from that interpretation as if she’d landed in shark-infested waters, he lowered his gaze, started to eat. He swallowed his first bite, then began.
“I’ve never stayed here, or on Castaldini, longer than a few months at a time since I was seven. After my mother died, my father was inconsolable. My maternal aunt, who lives in Venice, took me to live with her for two years. I came back for a few months when my father fell sick. Then he died. I was passed between my immediate family members—who happen to live all over the globe—with Ernesto in tow until I was seventeen. Then I struck out on my own. No wonder I’m not much of a Castaldinian.”
She’d been finding it harder to swallow as she imagined him, an only child, being orphaned at an even younger age than she’d been. That last remark had her almost coughing out her food.
“You’re the best sort,” she cried. “You have an uncanny ability to analyze problems and tailor solutions. All you need to do is fit your powers to Castaldini’s needs.”
“You really think so?”
“I’m providing uncensored thoughts, remember?”
“You’re providing a life-saving service. And your uncensored thoughts are a blessing to me and to Castaldini.”
“Which makes me a blessed angel, not a wicked devil, as you always claim,” she quipped, escaping his intensity. “Tell me about this place. It’s…amazing.”
He pushed away a clean plate. When had he finished it? “It is. Castello del Jamida—yes, an Italian/Moorish name—is what its name proclaims, an enduring castle. It was completed by King Antonio himself, but there is no record of when it was started. Its walls enclose an area reaching down from the Indara up there—” she followed his pointing finger “—the highest place in the El Juela mountains, down to the sea. A lot of the palace was rebuilt during the second Moorish period of occupation of Spain in the early fourteenth century, after its near destruction during a re-conquest of Gibraltar.”
She digested the sweeping historical details. “It’s mindboggling. I can’t begin to imagine how big the central castle is.”
“The castle rests on a plateau that measures about three thousand by one thousand feet.”
“That’s as big as the royal palace!”
“It was the royal palace for four centuries, before King Arturo moved the capital to Jawara in the seventeenth century.”
“So you’re the direct descendant of King Antonio?”
“I inherited this place. It’s an indication I am related.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re on shaky ground here, mister.”
“Not ‘mister.’ You may call me Your Royal Highness again now.”
“You may not live long enough to be called anything.”
“You’re right. Overexposure to toxic levels of beauty and sensuality is making my survival chances iffy.”
She turned up her nose at him. “Flattery won’t get you anywhere. Since there are no more places left for you to go.”
“I bet I can show you places you didn’t dream existed.” He stood up, came around, pulled her up. “And I’m starting now.”
She giggled and exchanged quips with him as he took her at a run to the ground floor of the castle and outside to begin the tour, all the time pointing out details with the thoroughness of someone who truly loved and cared about a place.
“This palace was built in the Mudéjar-Romanesque style, a symbiosis of architectural syles from cultures living side by side, which on this side of the island were Roman, Andalusian and Moorish with some North African influences. It’s characterized by geometric patterns in which accessorizing is everything,
