was to come. This was different in every possible way. She’d never responded to a man in her life the way she did to Stefano Leone, everything in her going into overdrive. With each step up to wherever the prince was taking her, and where Stefano awaited, her heart pounded harder and harder. Her skin felt so alive, so sensitive, she thought she could feel the notes fall on her skin, feathering over it. Her head felt so light it could float away, and yet parts of her—her breasts, her sex—felt heavy, suffused with blood, swollen.
She’d opted to go braless and the jersey top crisscrossing her breasts wasn’t much of a covering. She hadn’t counted on her nipples turning hard under the thin material. Thank God the folds of the top hid them.
Jamie was used to the rhythm of her heart being calm and regular. Now it was tripping three times as fast as normal, as if she were running. There wasn’t enough air and her breath was short, almost panting. It felt as if she were walking to her death, but of course she wasn’t. She was walking toward a man who awakened her senses like no other man on earth. It felt like doom though. Or if not doom, like something momentous and uncontrollable, something utterly life changing.
Every sense was on red alert. The shimmering notes of the music kept counterpoint to her heartbeats. She could smell the torches and the heavy wax of the huge candles placed along the balustrade and in the corners, mixing with the flowering night jasmine twining along the Doric columns on the ground floor to form a heady perfume. A warm, light breeze caressed her supersensitive skin, raising the hairs along her nape and forearms.
Diners in the courtyard and under the columned arcade on the ground floor were conversing, the silvery peal of cutlery on fine china forming a percussive music of its own.
At the top of the stairs, Francesco led her to the left, away from the musicians, away from the diners on the floor below, walking them by torchlight to the other side.
It was all so magical, like some dream of other times.
They stopped in front of huge, dark wood doors. Wrought iron brackets fixed the doors to the stone frame. There the magic ended, because the doors were flanked by police officers in uniform, guns holstered by their sides and short, ugly but terribly efficient-looking machine guns slung around their chests. One of the officers was the hard-eyed, hostile man who’d searched her the evening before. Buzzanca.
Francesco stopped at the door and murmured a few words to the soldiers. They snapped to attention, then the hard-eyed soldier responded to the prince with a few harsh words. Jamie couldn’t follow the exact exchange but she realized it had something to do with her.
Francesco was asking for something and Buzzanca was denying it. With a sigh, the prince turned to her.
“I am sorry, my dear, but the officers are going to have to search you. I tried to get them to make an exception but they take their duties very seriously. And much as I regret the inconvenience to you, the criminals after Stefano are clever and cruel, and his men take his safety to heart.”
If a prince wasn’t able to get them to make an exception, she certainly wasn’t going to. Jamie simply stepped forward, handed her purse to Buzzanca and held her arms out as if at the airport.
It was ridiculous. The dress was form-fitting. Her evening clutch was only large enough to contain some euros, the house keys, a tube of lipstick. He checked her clutch carefully though, going so far as to feel between the two layers of silk. He checked her carefully too, a pat-down as formal and impersonal as a cop’s.
Well, of course he was a cop.
Jamie was used to men reacting to her. Luckily, she came into her looks late so she didn’t expect a man’s desire automatically. For much of her youth and most of her teens, she’d been small, thin, with untamable red hair waving wildly around her head, eyes and mouth too large for her
She’d opted to go braless and the jersey top crisscrossing her breasts wasn’t much of a covering. She hadn’t counted on her nipples turning hard under the thin material. Thank God the folds of the top hid them.
Jamie was used to the rhythm of her heart being calm and regular. Now it was tripping three times as fast as normal, as if she were running. There wasn’t enough air and her breath was short, almost panting. It felt as if she were walking to her death, but of course she wasn’t. She was walking toward a man who awakened her senses like no other man on earth. It felt like doom though. Or if not doom, like something momentous and uncontrollable, something utterly life changing.
Every sense was on red alert. The shimmering notes of the music kept counterpoint to her heartbeats. She could smell the torches and the heavy wax of the huge candles placed along the balustrade and in the corners, mixing with the flowering night jasmine twining along the Doric columns on the ground floor to form a heady perfume. A warm, light breeze caressed her supersensitive skin, raising the hairs along her nape and forearms.
Diners in the courtyard and under the columned arcade on the ground floor were conversing, the silvery peal of cutlery on fine china forming a percussive music of its own.
At the top of the stairs, Francesco led her to the left, away from the musicians, away from the diners on the floor below, walking them by torchlight to the other side.
It was all so magical, like some dream of other times.
They stopped in front of huge, dark wood doors. Wrought iron brackets fixed the doors to the stone frame. There the magic ended, because the doors were flanked by police officers in uniform, guns holstered by their sides and short, ugly but terribly efficient-looking machine guns slung around their chests. One of the officers was the hard-eyed, hostile man who’d searched her the evening before. Buzzanca.
Francesco stopped at the door and murmured a few words to the soldiers. They snapped to attention, then the hard-eyed soldier responded to the prince with a few harsh words. Jamie couldn’t follow the exact exchange but she realized it had something to do with her.
Francesco was asking for something and Buzzanca was denying it. With a sigh, the prince turned to her.
“I am sorry, my dear, but the officers are going to have to search you. I tried to get them to make an exception but they take their duties very seriously. And much as I regret the inconvenience to you, the criminals after Stefano are clever and cruel, and his men take his safety to heart.”
If a prince wasn’t able to get them to make an exception, she certainly wasn’t going to. Jamie simply stepped forward, handed her purse to Buzzanca and held her arms out as if at the airport.
It was ridiculous. The dress was form-fitting. Her evening clutch was only large enough to contain some euros, the house keys, a tube of lipstick. He checked her clutch carefully though, going so far as to feel between the two layers of silk. He checked her carefully too, a pat-down as formal and impersonal as a cop’s.
Well, of course he was a cop.
Jamie was used to men reacting to her. Luckily, she came into her looks late so she didn’t expect a man’s desire automatically. For much of her youth and most of her teens, she’d been small, thin, with untamable red hair waving wildly around her head, eyes and mouth too large for her
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