Red Hot Romeo (The Royal Romeos, #1) Read online

  He dragged his eyes away from her breasts long enough to notice a luscious stretch of exposed skin beneath the hem of her shirt. His eyes moved south to take in the view, which was then rudely and abruptly cut off by the strip of elastic that held in place a pair of low-cut white bikini briefs, and he thought he might pass out. Thank goodness his hands had worked their magic a few hours ago or he’d be screwed. At least figuratively, although preferably literally, as long as he was doing the screwing at least. Though he knew that was a big fat no-no. Who was he kidding? He was still screwed.

  “You came to rescue me?” she said.

  How to answer that question? “Well, sure, originally,” he could say while hauling her by the soft tendrils of her hair into a nearby cave. “But then when I saw you looking like this, I mean, are you kidding me? Now I’m only here to fuck some sense into you, woman.”

  Somehow he suspected that would not be the ideal response.

  His mind was still bleary with sleep, but his body had by now awoken quite readily and was quickly working its way toward full attention. Thank God the room was still dark, so maybe she wouldn’t notice what he knew would soon become painfully obvious. But how could he not get a rock-hard erection with this superhot—as in molto caldissimo hot—woman in front of him wearing next to nothing?

  Of course she would shut him down when he insisted she tell him what was wrong. Clearly whatever prompted that outburst had subsided, or she wouldn’t be standing in front of the window silhouetted by the barest of moonlight, acting as if nothing had happened. But he was nothing if not stubborn, even when she pressed her hands to his shoulders, trying to force him to leave the room. But he had to know what had happened. And he had to have another chance to feel her skin on his.

  “So?” he said, arching an eyebrow at her, hoping like hell she wouldn’t look down at him. “What gives?”

  He’d turned around so that he was facing her, and as he did so, her hands slipped off his shoulders, silently sliding down his arms as he moved his body. It sent chills up his spine and arousal to his other brain, the one over which he had little to no control.

  She glanced down at the floor, obviously not wanting to say anything more.

  “Really, can’t you just let it be?” she said as she began to pace in front of him.

  “You screamed loud enough to rouse me from a deep sleep,” he said. “The least you can do is let me know what had you so terrified.”

  “It’s nothing. Really, it’s no big deal.”

  He lowered his chin to his chest, looking up at her as if to say he knew that wasn’t true.

  “It’s embarrassing.”

  He stopped her in her tracks and reached for her chin, staring into her blue eyes. “I know we don’t really know each other. And we got off to a bad start, so you’ve got no reason to tell me much of anything. But I want you to know your secret’s safe with me.”

  She squinted at him as if she was trying to figure out if she could trust him. “How can I be sure of that?”

  He shrugged. “I guess I could sign it in blood, but that could get messy. Would you settle for a pinky-swear?”

  She laughed. “You have pinky-swears in Italy?”

  “You can’t imagine the depths to which Italian culture sinks,” he said. “Only here we call it a promessa.”

  “Promessa,” she said, trying out the word. “A promise. I like that. It’s more poetic.”

  “There are plenty more Italian, uh, things I can share with you if you’re interested.” Italian things? What the hell was that all about? Although right about now there was one very specific Italian “thing” he’d like to introduce her to.

  “I’m afraid to ask.” She wrinkled her nose.

  “I guess that came out wrong,” he said. “I just mean culturally, and the language.”

  “It is a very beautiful language,” she said. “One of my favorites.”

  “You know much Italian?”

  “A bit,” she said. “I’d say I’m serviceable.”

  “And you speak other languages?”

  “Un peu de français,” she said. “Y un poco de español.”

  He arched a brow. “So you’re gifted lingually?”

  She laughed. “Not sure where you’re going with that, but to keep it sanitized I’ll say yes, I can speak enough of a few languages to get by.”

  “I’ve been told I’m gifted lingually as well.”

  “Oh yeah?” she said. “If by that you mean linguistically, then what languages do you speak?”

  “Italian and English.”

  “In which case I wouldn’t exactly accuse you of being a polyglot.”

  “Polyglot?”

  “Someone who speaks multiple languages.”

  “I never said I speak a lot of languages,” he said. “I merely suggested I was good with my tongue.” He smiled and winked at her. “You do know I’m teasing you though.”

  She rolled her eyes. “For a second there I was worried you were coming on to me.”

  He stepped back from her for a minute and gave her a long, hard look from head to toe. “I’d have to be dead from the waist down to not at least want to do that. Which I’m afraid you can tell is not the case.”

  His gaze met hers as they looked down at the same time. And then she laughed. She freaking laughed.

  “Not quite the response a man is looking for under the circumstances.”

  She frowned. “I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. Though I know enough about men to know that I could be standing here in a down parka and ski pants and still you’d look like that.”

  He nodded his head. “I’m not going to argue with you there. But then you do this,” he said, sweeping his hand from her head to her feet, “and how else could I react? A beautiful woman in a skimpy shirt and panties... Well, I’d have to be less than a man to not react this way.” He tried to remember the last time he had a sort of metaphysical discussion about his hard-on with a woman he wasn’t about to use it on. He couldn’t come up with a single example.

  “I’ll bear some of the responsibility,” she said, “considering you’d not be standing here were it not for my middle-of-the-night outburst.”

  “About that explanation...”

  “Must I?” She frowned.

  He motioned to the nearby love seat. “I’m all ears.”

  “By the way,” she said, her eyebrow cocked out of curiosity. “Mint?”

  “Mint?”

  “Those,” she said, nodding her head toward his crotch. “Did you go for mint green because it was a subliminal favorite flavor? I mean, who doesn’t love mint?”

  “Yes, that’s why I purchased the mint-green underwear,” he said. “So that women would look at me and think of dessert.”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  “I like that you looked at me and thought about something delicious however.” He gave her a wink.

  “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “I know you’re just trying to distract me from your story. The longer we discuss me, the longer you can avoid you. Unless,” he said, drumming his fingers, “you’d like us to discuss your underwear.”

  She shook her head vigorously and raised her hands in surrender. “I give up. I’ll spill it.”

  “I knew I’d get you to capitulate.”

  She put her fingers to her mouth. “Now be quiet and let me tell you about it.”

  Chapter Eight

  “I guess I should start from the beginning.”

  “Begin the beguine, as it were.”

  She smiled dreamily. “I love that song. So romantic, from a bygone era.”

  “Fred Astaire, Broadway Melody of 1940.”

  Her eyes opened wide. “You know that film?”

  He nodded. “My mother was a big fan of anything and everything to do with Fred Astaire. She wanted my father to be as light on his feet as he was. My father was a pretty good dancer, but let’s just say he wasn’t Fred Astaire.”

  Th
ey both laughed.

  “My mother loved old movies as well,” she said. “That is, when we were somewhere with a television where she could watch them.”

  “But you’re American,” he said. “Surely you grew up with a television in every room of your house.”

  She shook her head. “I know that’s the impression everyone has of us, but it’s not the way it is for many people in our country.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Not at all,” she said. “My mother raised me on her own. My father left before I was born, and I never knew him. And Mom was left trying to sustain us both with no education and no steady income.”

  He leaned forward, intent. “I’m so sorry.”

  She pursed her lips. “I wish I could say it wasn’t a big deal, but it was. Life was a struggle more often than not. There were times when we didn’t even have a roof over our heads.”

  His eyes widened. “In America?”

  She nodded. “Of course. I know everyone thinks it is purely the land of opportunity, but for some it’s not always that. Unfortunately that was the case when I was a child. My mother often worked several jobs trying to bring in enough money. But she didn’t even have a high school diploma, let alone a college degree. She could only get menial jobs that paid very little. She could barely keep up the payments on our old clunker of a car. And finally we ended up out on the streets, with no place to turn, so we had to live in the car.”

  “You lived in a car? On the streets? How old were you?”

  “Oh, on and off from when I was about five until I was about nine,” she said. “Sometimes we would be able to move into a shelter, but those were dangerous. Other times she was able to scrape enough money together to find a cheap apartment. But the most steady place of residence I had was in the backseat of my mother’s car.”

  “Were you scared?”

  “Uh, yeah,” she said. “You can’t just park a car any old place and sleep. My mother had to find places where you could hide in the shadows. But lurking in the shadows were usually bad people as well. I was terrified.”

  “Did anyone ever break into the car?”

  “Not when we were sleeping, thank goodness,” she said. “But there were nights when I tried to sleep and we could hear men yelling nearby and swearing and shooting off guns. It was a scary place to be for a little girl.”

  He moved closer to Taylor and reached out to hug her. “I’m so sorry you had to live like that. It makes me feel all the worse for having so much while others have so little.”

  She shrugged. “It’s the way of the world. Some have plenty, some don’t. It’s too bad that there is that imbalance, but one thing I resolved when I became famous was that I would work hard to ensure that others who were in my position have an opportunity to get past it.”

  “So what does this have to do with your screaming out in your sleep?”

  “Oh... that,” she said with a deep sigh. “It’s a recurring nightmare for me. One I’ve had practically my whole life. It’s why I always close my curtains at night: I never had a way to shut out the scary world when I was asleep in a car. And so now I try to protect myself from that when I can.

  “Last night I challenged myself to keep the curtains open. You mentioned about the beautiful sunrise, and I didn’t want to be that person who was so afraid of the dark that she’d miss a once-in-a-lifetime sunrise in a beautiful part of the world. I was happy with myself that I was able to drift off to sleep fine, but as happens far too often, I had the nightmare again.”

  “The nightmare?”

  She nodded. “It begins the same every time. I’m trying to fall asleep. I’m scared because everyone can see in and I feel so vulnerable drifting off to sleep when they can see me. And I start to nod off, and then scary men gather around the car, all in that frightening face paint from the Mexican Day of the Dead: these cadaverous faces. It’s so terrifying, and they’re closing in on me. Honestly, I had no idea that I screamed in my sleep until you came running. I thought I just always woke up scared.”

  Sandro pulled her toward him, holding her tight to his chest. “Cara mia. It’s okay. You’re safe here.” He rubbed her back as he cooed gentle words in Italian to soothe her. Taylor’s tension loosened till she was a limp noodle while he comforted her. And as she settled into his arms, she felt the warmth of his skin against hers, and his heart pressed to hers, beating a soft tattoo next to her own. He smelled amazing. He must have taken a shower before bed because he smelled of sandalwood and earthy, masculine scents that made her feel safe and warm.

  As he softly pressed his hand to the back of her head, she turned hers, and before she knew it, she found herself face-to-face with him as his eyes fixed on hers.

  “Cara mia,” he said, his lips gently pressed against hers. “I’m so sorry.”

  It wasn’t her intention to follow his lead, but for some reason it was impossible not to as she opened her mouth to his, their tongues entwining while he continued to stroke her back and her hair. It was all so soothing. And erotic. And unexpected. Next thing she knew, he was easing her down against the love seat, pressing himself to her, his hands now skirting along her sides, pushing her top up a little more with each pass.

  Chapter Nine

  How did I go from wanting to slap this man to getting downright horizontal with him in about ten seconds flat?

  There were unanswered mysteries in the world, and for now this appeared to be one of them. But... while it might not be a solvable one, it would have to be a resolvable one because she could not do this. Not with this man. Not right now. Not here.

  She’d seen what he was like a few short hours ago. He was not a man she wanted to get down and dirty with. Probably not even down and clean with. He had issues with women; she could tell that just by his reaction to Luca’s announcement. And she just really wasn’t in a place in her life where she wanted to deal with that sort of thing. Besides, she was here to have a nice, relaxing weekend and attend the big launch of the winery, not get to third and a half base—because it seemed they were fast approaching there unless the pitcher could strike him out—somewhere between going to sleep for the night and the dawn’s crowing of roosters, which she was pretty sure she was hearing faintly beyond the sound of their heavy breathing.

  Must. Put. Stop. To. This. Now.

  But shoot. She was kind of having fun. And, well, wow. He was a really good kisser. Which she was surprised she’d even participated in with morning breath and all—or middle-of-the-night breath at least. Maybe that mint underwear of his somehow enhanced the breath at four in the morning or whatever time it was. For that matter, she’d barely slept; she was tired! She needed to get to bed in order to get up and not miss breakfast. Which all sounded like ridiculous excuse-making when in fact she just knew she needed to put a halt to this before she became inextricably tangled up with a man who had woman problems. So not on her agenda.

  She had already washed her hands of the love-’em-and-leave-’em type she’d grown weary of. The men who thought it was some sort of trophy they needed to win, to get in the pants of a famous supermodel. No, thank you. First of all, she might be a model, but she knew she wasn’t any more super than anyone else. She just happened to have good genes and knew how to play the game well so that she landed modeling jobs. Nothing about that should be part of the decision-making when anyone was planning to hook up with her. Even though by hooking up she didn’t mean that sort of hooking up but rather getting together in a more clothes-off manner. Because really, she was not a fan of the one-nighter anyhow. Not her scene.

  All this mental rambling meant Sandro had that much more time to get his hands up her wifebeater tank and oh God, that felt so good, she thought as he toyed with her nipple at the same time he nuzzled her ear: her Kryptonite combo. Meanwhile, his other hand had mysteriously slipped around her, and his fingers quickly slid beneath her bikini panties and wow, his warm hands on her behind were really quite nice.

  Taylor wrestled back and forth in
her head with how to end this and when to end it and whether or not to end it, but she knew she had to even as his tongue trailed down her neck, and then before she knew what was happening, his mouth settled over that nipple and oh God, please don’t stop please don’t stop please don’t stop. But she had to put an end to this madness. Even while that other sneaky hand was insinuating its way below the waistband of the front of her panties and oh, right there, oh yes.

  Oh no.

  Oh maybe?

  His fingers slid into that very spot, and she let out a moan and he let out a groan and he bit down on her nipple. He bit her! But it felt so good, how could she make him stop when it was exactly what the doctor ordered? Not that there was a doctor ordering this for her, but if there were, this was precisely what his prescription would call for: Sandro’s fingers moving through her slick center, circling feverishly around that swollen flesh, just where no man had been in about a thousand years, give or take a millennia. And the more he worked his magical fingers on her, and the more his mouth nipped and licked and sucked on her breast, the more she became mute, incapable of speaking and instead only feeling, and if she was to be honest, she was feeling pretty darned good, thanks.

  She pressed her pelvis toward his enthusiastic fingers, encouraging him to slide a couple inside her while his thumb continued to play her like an instrument. Her breathing became fraught as she thrust toward his hands even more insistently until finally she went over the top, electricity ripping through her body, her synapses on overload as she shouted his name so loudly it crashed through her sensual trance long enough to break the spell altogether.

  She pushed her hands against Sandro’s shoulders, and even as he resisted she insisted.

  “Cara,” he said. “What is it?”

  “I’m sorry, Sandro. I’m afraid I got carried away. This should not have happened.”

  “But carissima. You don’t really mean that. We’ve been having so much fun. Why would you want to end things now?”