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Like some vampire of doom he had weakened her carefree spirit, her zest for life, first by throwing her, totally unprepared, into the role of Contessa di Monterrato and then with the death of their baby and his subsequent determination to get her pregnant again. It was a wonder she had any fun left in her at all.
Well, he would show her.
Walking round to the shadows at the far end of the pool, he stripped off his jeans, positioned himself on the edge and with one smooth dive plunged under the water, resurfacing several seconds later right in front of Lottie. And the look on her face was priceless.
Suddenly she was all arms and legs, swimming away from him, but still close enough that he could see her bare buttocks just under the surface of the water.
‘Catch me if you can!’ The words were sprayed over her shoulder.
She had to be joking. Watching her splash chaotically away, he counted to three before powering after her, beside her again in a couple of crawl strokes. He grabbed hold of her leg as it kicked to escape from him.
Her head went under the water then reappeared and she came up spluttering. ‘That’s cheating.’
‘Don’t issue a challenge you can’t win, Lottie.’ He was tall enough to stand in this part of the pool, but Lottie was still treading water to keep herself afloat, her arms paddling on either side of her. Reaching forward, Rafael placed his strong hands under her armpits to steady her. Suddenly the drag of the water moved them together and their naked bodies were only inches apart.
Rafael cursed silently. What the hell was he doing here? He knew he should move away—right now—before he did something...they both did something they would seriously regret. But Lottie was still looking at him, torturing him with her steady bold gaze. He felt his traitorous body immediately jerk into action beneath him, trying to rob him of any last self-control.
‘Sometimes a challenge isn’t there to be won or lost.’ Serious now, Lottie’s voice was seductively soft. Water was running in rivulets down her face as she tipped it up to meet his, her lips soft and full and maddeningly tempting.
Rafael lowered his head. ‘Nevertheless, if this is a challenge I had better warn you it is a very dangerous one.’
‘Let’s call it something else, then.’
She was so close now, Rafael could see the clumps of dark wet lashes framing her wide eyes.
‘More something that has to be confronted.’
Who made that final move? Rafael wasn’t sure, but suddenly all resistance gave way to inevitability and their lips were touching. Tentative at first, but with their softness rapidly turning from firm to bruising, from cold damp to searing heat as they plundered each other’s mouths without preamble, both taking and giving with equal lack of thought for anything except this one moment, caught up in the forbidden delirium of the kiss.
Their tongues tasted and tangled, their breath hot and gasping as the power of their desire overtook them, dousing all rational thought. With her hands threaded through Rafael’s wet curls Lottie pulled him even closer to her, their faces sealed by the damp and by the kiss that was juddering down the length of their seemingly weightless joined bodies beneath them.
Pulling away, Rafael took a gasp of air, peeled their bodies fractionally apart and dragged words from the tiny part of his brain that still had some rational thought.
‘Is this what you want, Lottie?’ His heart was thumping dangerously fast, and the sight of Lottie’s kiss-swollen lips was doing nothing to ease it. ‘Because if not you need to say so now—before it’s too late.’
Lottie gazed back at him, her eyes heavy with desire, her body aching with an all-consuming need. This was what she wanted—what she wanted so badly that she was physically trembling with the power of it, the realisation of it. It didn’t make it right, but it made it impossible to resist.
Unable to voice the words, she simply closed the watery gap between them until their bodies met again, moulded against one another in a perfect fit of sexual intimacy.
Rafael let out a guttural growl of raw sexual need and paused for a split second—all it took for that last bit of reason to vanish. Then, sweeping Lottie up in a slippery embrace, he waded towards the end of the pool with her, the water swirling hurriedly out of their way. Splashing up the shallow steps and across the marble tiles, he pushed open the door through to the gym, then strode over to the rubber mat in the middle of the dark room. He half slipped, half fell down on to it with Lottie still in his arms. Locking his elbows, he dug his slippery damp toes down into the mat and straddled Lottie, above her in a press-up position, staring down into her eyes.
This was madness—total madness. But there was something inescapable about it. Since that first second she had walked into his office at the palazzo this was all he had wanted to do. To take her, to consume her, to try and fill the yearning chasm that had gripped him ever since she had left.
