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He kissed her, and then he kissed her again, until finally she softened in his arms. ‘We can’t!’ Jen protested in a voice trembling with excitement.
‘Why not?’ Luca murmured, caressing her tenderly as he spoke.
‘Because we’re in public?’
‘And the beach is different?’
‘The beach was deserted,’ she reminded him.
‘And so is this passageway. Where’s your sense of adventure, Jen?’
Luca’s smile was irresistible. His touch was too. And he was right in that ancient buildings rose high on either side of them, throwing the narrow cut-through into deep shadow. Reaching up, she wound her arms around his neck.
He kept on kissing her as he pressed her against the wall. His body blocked out all the light, leaving nothing but him and sensation, and as his hands began to work their magic she knew there was no more talking to be done. There was only touching and feeling, and whispering to each other as they exchanged increasingly heated kisses. She ached for him, and when he reached beneath her dress to strip off her thong, she let him lift her so she could wrap her legs around his waist.
The touch of Jen’s tiny hand gripping him, nursing him, was an incendiary device to his senses. ‘Now,’ she begged him, thrusting her hips fiercely towards his.
They both needed this. She cried out with relief when he thrust deep. He took her in one firm stroke while she grasped his biceps with fingers that had turned to steel as she worked her hips strongly with his. They both felt the same urgency, and it didn’t allow for finesse. Jen’s control soon shattered, as did his shortly after. The noise of the crowd drowned out her release.
‘No one can hear you,’ he reassured her, stroking her to soothe her as she slowly came down. Her eyes were still black with arousal as she stared into his face. He couldn’t let that pass, and started to move again.
‘I love that you’re so intuitive,’ she gasped against his neck, groaning in time with each thrust as he took her firmly.
‘Relax,’ he whispered. ‘Do nothing, Concentrate.’
‘Do nothing. Concentrate... On?’
‘Sensation,’ he suggested, moving steadily to please her.
She laughed softly in between appreciative groans. ‘Is there anything else?’
When Jen was finally able to express her approval with a deep satisfied sigh, he kissed her. ‘I think you’re going to be taking up quite a lot of my time;’
‘I hope so,’ she said as he carefully lowered her to her feet. Her eyes cleared and just for a moment she seemed so innocent. He wanted to forget that there could be any doubt about that. But he couldn’t. Not yet. It frustrated him to think that he knew her so intimately, and yet he didn’t really know Jen at all.
‘Beads,’ she reminded him.
‘Whatever you wish.’ As they smiled into each other’s eyes, there was just a moment when he believed they could be like any other couple.
He led her out of the alley, back into the heat and glaring light of the main event. He waved to one of the passing floats and was rewarded with an armful of gaudy necklaces.
‘Are these all for me?’ Jen demanded as he draped them around her neck. ‘You have to wear one too,’ she insisted.
‘What do you think?’ she asked, standing back to check him out, once she had looped the necklace over his head.
‘I think it’s a great look,’ he joked, wondering when he’d enjoyed himself more.
‘I agree. Day-Glo pink is definitely your colour,’ she said as he made her a mock bow.
His heart banged in his chest. This was getting really complicated, and it was only day one.
Jen hadn’t realised that Luca was due to crown the Queen of the festival. But, of course, it made perfect sense. As the uncrowned king of the island, who better for the task?
‘I’ll stay in the crowd and watch, if you don’t mind?’ she said when Luca wanted her to join him on the stage. ‘I can feel the atmosphere better down here,’ she explained.
‘Being jostled by the crowd?’ he asked, frowning.
‘I’m sure I’ll survive it.’
‘Be sure you do,’ Luca said as he leaned in to kiss her lingeringly on the mouth.
She had to be realistic about this, Jen’s sensible side warned as she watched Luca mount the stage. This thing between them had happened quickly, and it could fade just as quickly. But her sensible side didn’t stand a chance, because her heart was fully committed to the dangerous path she was taking.
She wasn’t alone in her admiration for Luca. The excitement in the crowd was almost hysterical when he appeared on stage. Even dressed casually, he was magnificent. Just like a king, she thought, though he had the popular touch too. Luca had a quiet confidence that said he could deal with any problem and would do so efficiently and permanently. It was to be hoped she never became a problem for him, Jen thought, growing tense. She had more sense, she told herself firmly. She’d know when it was time to pull back. Unfortunately, all her body was interested in, was when they would make love again.
She’d never met anyone like Luca Tebaldi before, Jen reasoned as Luca addressed the crowd.
Was this love at first sight?
More like being swept up in a whirlwind, she concluded.
Was that how it felt to be in love?
Was it possible to fall in love with someone in such a short time?
Why not, if it was right? Jen concluded. Some friendships and love affairs took years to develop, while others sprang from the heart fully formed.
Her heart raced as Luca glanced down from the stage to smile at her. Even if he didn’t return her feelings, it wouldn’t change what she felt for him. It was thanks to him that she’d had the chance to experience the most wonderful feeling in the world, and she was in no hurry to let go of it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘YOU SEEM PREOCCUPIED,’ Luca commented as the crowd began to drift away from the stage. ‘Is there a problem?’
He was the problem. Her mixed-up feelings for Luca were the problem. Since the day Luca had arrived at the casino her world had been turned upside down, and it hadn’t stopped spinning since.
Perhaps they could talk—really talk and open up to each other if they left now. Her feelings for Luca were out of control—and not just because of the amazing sex. He was different in Sicily, more relaxed than in London, and now she knew why. This island was his home, his kingdom, his birthright, and she wasn’t sure what that entailed. She’d only experienced life within certain boundaries, and had taken a great leap over them. It would be sensible to get things back on a professional footing, Jen concluded. That would probably be a relief for Luca too.
‘Will I see the jewels tomorrow?’ she asked as they walked back to the house.
‘Why not tonight?’ Luca offered. ‘Why not now,?’
‘If you’re sure?’ Her heart started thumping for a very different reason.
Don Tebaldi’s secret hoard of priceless jewels was discussed with awe across the world of fine jewellery, but no one had ever seen the gems in one place before. Rumours abounded, as many were cursed, and all of them had a bloody history. Which brought Jen’s thinking back to the so-called curse on the Emperor’s Diamond, the precious gem that would be the centre of her exhibition. She didn’t believe an inanimate object could carry any sort of power. She wasn’t superstitious—or she hadn’t been, up to now.
You had to have something really big at risk before you could believe in things like that, she thought as a prescient shiver tracked down her spine.
Back at the big house, Luca took her straight upstairs. He opened a bedroom door and stood back. ‘After you,’ he said.
Jen hovered uncertainly on the threshold. The blinds were drawn, the room was dark, and the air smelled stale and musty. ‘Is your father’s collection in here?’ she asked, frowning.
He waited until Jen was inside the room before explaining that a new vault was under construction now he was in charge, but until that was re
ady his father’s hoard remained, quite literally, under the bed.
‘I’m fascinated,’ Jen admitted. ‘I can’t wait to see them.’
She had imagined some wonderful state-of-the-art cellar, with air-con and doors that slid silently closed, complete with complicated locking systems, but Luca simply put his shoulder to the mahogany frame, and moved the bed to reveal a trapdoor. Shooting the bolts, he opened the structure on its creaking hinges.
Jen guessed her face must have been a picture. ‘Down there?’ she exclaimed as he indicated a ladder.
‘I hope you don’t have a nervous disposition?’ he mocked lightly.
‘I’ve been alone with you,’ she said, clinging to humour. ‘I’m neither claustrophobic, nor afraid of the dark,’ she assured him when Luca gave her one of his ironic looks.
‘Good, because it’s deep and dark and dank, and there may be spiders,’ he countered, laughing when she shuddered. ‘I did warn you that my father is one of the world’s last true eccentrics, didn’t I?’
Jen shrugged. ‘Maybe. Do your worst,’ she challenged.
‘Take care as you come down the ladder,’ Luca warned, turning serious.
He was waiting to steady her at the bottom as she took in her surroundings. They were standing in a small box-like room, with a reinforced steel door at one end. Spinning the combination, Luca opened the door and switched on the light inside. She could see now that the walls were lined with stacks of jewellery boxes, large and small, and there were some hessian sacks resting against the wall.
‘This is it?’ she said with surprise.
‘This is it,’ Luca confirmed. ‘My father was a hoarder and nothing pleased him more than to dip his hand into one of those sacks and feel the priceless jewels running through his fingers.’
‘They’re just loose in there?’ She couldn’t believe it, especially when she remembered the neat displays in the vault at Smithers & Worseley.
‘And all jumbled up,’ Luca confirmed. ‘Now can you see why we need you to sort things out? I’ll bring them up,’ he offered.
Whatever she had expected, it wasn’t this, Jen thought as Luca upended the first sack on top of his father’s bed. ‘How many sacks are there down there?’ she managed in a voice that barely made it above a squeak.
‘Half a dozen or so.’
She stared down in amazement at his father’s haul. Even in the gloom of the bedroom they seemed to sparkle with a feverish light.
‘Are they all cursed?’ she asked faintly.
