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An instant later his imagination ran wild when he heard the gliding whisper of a zipper. The sound was followed by the rustle of material.
“You will tell me when I can look, won’t you?” The want was strong in him, but he was willing to play along with her game for the time being.
Her answer was a laugh, alluringly low and rich with amusement, the kind of laugh that said she knew the things that were in his mind.
With the fading of her laughter, only faint sounds came from behind him, too indistinct to tell him what she was doing. His impatience grew in direct proportion to his curiosity.
A loud splash came from the reflecting pool. Sebastian spun in its general direction. His eyes fell immediately on the nude female wading through the water away from him. He let his gaze travel over her bare shoulders and follow the ribbon of her spine down to the rounded curves of her bare cheeks. With her tawny blond hair tumbling about her shoulders in artfully wild disarray, she looked like some goddess, with a shape as flawless as her smooth skin.
Desire surged through him. He struggled to find his voice. Needing her to turn around, he called out, “You could be arrested.”
She threw him a laughing glance over her shoulder and kept wading closer to the statuary. “Don’t tell me it’s illegal to retrieve a coin?”
“Not necessary for retrieving a coin, but for your attire—or lack thereof.”
“Don’t be silly.” She crouched down into the water and began feeling around the bottom. “Any Italian gendarme who might happen along would be as delighted to see me as you are.”
Amused by her logic, Sebastian could only smile. This woman not only aroused him, she completely intrigued him. The Laura Calder he met at the dinner party had been all elegance and class, a master of the social repartee required at such gatherings, always careful to be no more than discreetly flirtatious, never overly assertive in seeking center stage. In short, she had seemed no different than dozens of other society types he knew.
The woman in the Porsche had come across as the ultimate party girl, out for a good time and wanting nothing more than to dance the hours away. Sebastian knew more than a few of those.
And the naked woman playing about in the reflecting pool had all the earmarks of some madca
p heiress, always out to do the outrageous and unexpected. An heiress, she definitely was. According to Bianca, Laura was not only the daughter of a wealthy ranching dynasty, she also had a sizable trust fund of her own.
Yet the madcap heiress didn’t quite ring true, either. The ones he knew would have been cavorting about the pool, splashing and squealing in their invariably desperate bid for attention. But there was Laura Calder, naked as the day she was born, calmly and systematically searching the pool bottom for that coin.
And there was the matter of the clothes. Laura hadn’t left hers puddled on the sidewalk in careless disregard. Her chocolate silk gown, its Armani label partially visible, was carefully and neatly draped across the fountain wall, along with her stockings, a skimpy lace bra and undies.
No, Laura Calder was unlike any other woman in his experience. Certainly he knew of none who possessed that curious blend of elegance and earthiness.
In the reflecting pool, Laura stood up and turned to hold a coin to the light, showing him the classic purity of her profile. After a close examination of the coin, she looked his way.
“This must be it,” she declared and lifted one bare shoulder in a vague shrug. “It’s the only British coin I could find.”
The search over, she started back, and Sebastian was treated to his first frontal view, softly lit by the glow from the statuary lighting. Her breasts were round and firm, perfectly shaped, her waist slenderly concave, and there was a suitable roundness to her hips. With the sheen of moisture on her skin giving it the look of marble, Sebastian was reminded of Botticelli’s famous painting of Venus. His gaze drifted downward to the vee of her pelvic area and the curly mat of pubic hair that proved Laura Calder was a natural blonde.
Stunning, that’s what she was, so incredibly beautiful that she took his breath away and ignited an ache in his loins. Sebastian clamped his teeth together to shut off the groan that threatened to rise in his throat.
“I’m going to need your help getting out of here,” she informed him with an air of absolute unconcern. “Over there would be easiest, I think.” She gestured to a section of the pool near the massive statue some distance from him.
Her words were full of common sense that sliced easily through his lusty thoughts. Sebastian muttered under his breath, strictly for his own hearing, “Better get a grip on yourself, old boy.” Louder, he replied, “Be right there.”
With more reluctance that he cared to acknowledge, he turned away from the fountain and loped back to the Porsche. Trying to be as levelheaded as she appeared, he popped open the trunk and removed a blanket robe that was always stashed in the boot.
She was waiting for him when he arrived at the designated spot.
“Here.” She stretched out a hand to him, the coin held between two fingers. “Better take this before I accidentally drop it.”
He took the coin from her and slipped it in his pocket, then reached down and caught hold of her hand. Her skin was wet and icy cool to the touch. Sebastian waited while she found a toehold. At a signaling nod from her, he hauled her out of the pool. She stumbled and fell against him.
Automatically his arms went around her to catch and steady her. A dozen impressions registered at once: the slippery wetness of her skin and the roundness of her breasts pressed against his chest; the clean scent of her hair and the faint smell of chlorine; and the look of almost rapturous relief in her upturned face.
“Lord, but you feel warm.” Her voice had a slight quiver to it that seemed to echo the first shivers that trembled through her.
“And you are cold and wet,” Sebastian declared.
She laughed in her throat. “I know. They really should heat that pool.”
