Leave, he had told himself while he’d sat there on the ledge of the pool, back burning under the rays of the sun and the trace of her gaze down his spine.Don’t get involved.
His own curiosity had got the better of him. He’d rationalized that Silvio would want to know she was well. Silvio was a devoted father to the children he’d made with his wife. His regret over his affair did not mean he regretted conceiving Mira, only that he couldn’t have a relationship with her.
Rocco had had the sense to knock the ball into her court, asking if she’d rather be left alone. He liked women, loved sex and never played silly games to get either.
Maybe there’d been a part of him that had thought he could learn something about Otto and find a way to neutralize the man’s antagonism toward him, but he’d really only meant to buy her a glass of wine and talk.
She was charming. Shy yet animated, earnest and wry. She was pretty in an understated way, shoulders and breasts delicate, hips wide, bottom and thighs lush.
When he had invited her to dinner, he had only wanted to spend more time with her.
Instead, he’d kissed her.
Now, his heartbeat was throbbing in the tip of the erection crushed by the molten heat of her center. Her soft body was spilling across him like warm honey, her lips brushing his Adam’s apple.
“I don’t have a room here,” she said in a velvety voice that made him want to groan. “Do you?”
“I do.” He needed to tell her who he was, though. Not the part about Silvio. He could never betray his friend’s secret, but he needed to be frank about the fact that Otto hated him and would see this interlude as an attack or retaliation.
Damn it, he shouldn’t have let this get this far.
“Mira—”
The door lock hummed and a pair of excited children’s voices sounded across the pool area, along with a woman who insisted,“Wait.”
Mira sat up, eyes popping wide with horror.
“It’s fine,” Rocco murmured, helping her rise before her scrambling limbs unmanned him.
While she hurried to rearrange and retie her robe, he did the only thing he could do to hide the state he was in. He took three strides and leaped into the water. The plunge of cold hit his groin like a kick. His abdomen contracted in protest, but it did the trick.
He levered out of the pool a moment later, brain clear enough to think, body acceptable for family viewing.
He felt the woman with the children eyeing him as he snapped a towel around his waist, but he only pulled the dripping bottle of wine from the bucket and asked Mira, “Ready?”
She nodded, gaze on her sandals.
Was she upset by their nearly getting caught in a compromising position? By what they’d done?
He kicked into his own slides, where he’d left them with his phone, and tried to work out how to tell her that Otto was his worst enemy.
As the door to the pool area clunked closed behind them, she covered her mouth and sputtered with laughter.
“I can’t believe you had to jump in the pool like that.” Her hazel eyes were dancing with amusement.
He couldn’t help chuckling along with her. “It was worth it.”
The elevator was waiting for them. Inside, he pressed the button for the VIP level, then let himself admire the flush on her cheeks and the play of possibilities behind her eyes. She had a fleck of brown in one iris. Where else did she have beauty marks he could discover?
“I’d kiss you again, but we might get arrested,” he teased.
“It could be worth it,” she retorted with the most sensually inviting smile he’d ever seen in his life.
The world stopped moving and a ping sounded. He reluctantly pushed off the wall, but snagged her fingers as he drew her out. His mind seesawed with the knowledge that he had to clarify things as soon as they were alone, but Dio. He wanted herso badly.
“Mira?” The male voice was a bucket of ice water, especially when Rocco turned and recognized the man walking up the corridor toward them.
“Axel.” Shock rooted Mira’s feet to the floor.
