Riptide (25 page)

He intended to sleep the whole way. Or pretend to sleep. It wasn’t a stretch; they had barely slept the night before. Not that he was tired, and God only knew the princess looked bright-eyed and delectable despite the lack of sleep.

“Have you ever been to Marrezo?” she asked, curling her legs up on the seat, and resting her jaw on her palm. The sun shone through the window beside her, spotlighting her dark hair, and the stubborn line of her jaw.

Nick laced his hands on his belt and closed his eyes. “No.”

“Would you like me to t—”

“I’m sleeping.”

“You’re an ass,” she muttered under her breath, quietly and without heat.

Nick bit back a smile as she rustled around in her tote, pulling out a pencil and pad.

*   *   *

She didn’t talk, but that didn’t mean she didn’t bother him. Her pencil scratched across paper. She talked softly to the flight attendant, and exchanged entire life stories over a soda. Bria’s PR background obviously kicked in as her story was drastically edited, and she merely offered that she was just friends with him. No mention of being a princess. She sketched for a while, got up to use the head, came back. Nick felt those big brown eyes scanning his face, but he didn’t open his eyes. Not even when he felt the whisper-light brush of her fingers over his hair.

She returned to her seat across the aisle. Leather creaked as she settled in, and after a couple of minutes, he heard her breathing change as she fell asleep.

He rolled his head and opened his eyes. Curled up comfortable as a cat on the wide, plush leather seat, she looked exactly what she was. A sleeping princess. Her dark hair a wild gypsy tangle around her shoulders, her soft red lips parted, and her long, dark lashes cast intriguing shadows on her flushed cheeks.

He wasn’t sure about his fairy-tale lore. Was she the one who’d had to be kissed to waken her? Or the one who’d kissed the frog?

Amusement warred with intense arousal. Every minute that he wasn’t buried inside her was merely foreplay. He’d been in various stages of erect from the second he’d first seen her in Tarfaya.

Watching Gabriella sleep hurt Nick’s chest. A hard, unfamiliar achy sensation. He pressed his fist to his sternum. Probably heartburn from eating a large breakfast and then tumbling back into bed with her for another manic bout of lovemaking this morning.

Ache aside, he watched her sleep for another hour before he succumbed himself.

*   *   *

Bria’s lashes fluttered, and she stretched before opening her eyes to find Nick watching her. She knew what she looked like first thing in the morning; waking after a too-short nap couldn’t be much different. She’d have crazy bed-head, sleepy eyes, and an urgent need to pee.

She stretched luxuriously, arms over her head. Unselfconscious, she combed her fingers through her hair as she sat up and swung her bare feet to the plushly carpeted floor. “Was I snoring?” She felt around under the seat in front of her for her shoes.

The stern lines around his mouth eased. “Like a buzz saw.”

She shot him a horrified look.
“Seriously?”

He shook his head. “You sleep like a well-fed cat. You were practically purring.”

She cast a quick look to the door behind which the flight crew were seated. Then gave him a sultry come-hither glance. “I could purr more.”

“We’ll be landing in twenty minutes,” he told her dampeningly. Too bad, because his eyes told another story. Blazing,
scorching
blue. Bria was lucky his look didn’t cause her to burst into flame.

With a wicked smile, she rose and crossed the narrow aisle between their seats, then curled up on his lap. The hard length of his erection under her was impossible to miss. “Oh, you
are
happy to see me,” she said, delighted with her discovery. He couldn’t be that eager to ditch her, after all.

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Only twenty minutes?” She nuzzled her lips to the underside of his jaw. He needed a shave. She liked the rough stubble, she like the way it softened the hard line of his jaw and accented his mouth, which was delectable in ninety-seven ways. “Then we shouldn’t waste a second.” She touched his cheek, encouraging his mouth down to hers.

He tangled his fingers in her hair, his face so close she could see the hundreds of colors that made up the extraordinary blue of his eyes. Turquoise, indigo, cobalt—

“You like to live dangerously, don’t you?” he whispered against her mouth.

Not until I met you
. “Twenty minutes,” she repeated, a shaky breath. How long was he going to stay on Marrezo with her? A couple of hours? One night? “Do you want to waste them chat—”

He covered her mouth with his, his lips firm as he lazily explored her mouth, coaxing and languid. As if they had all the time in the world to explore each other. They didn’t. Bria’s eyes stung with unshed tears of frustration. She combed her fingers through his hair, and pressed her aching breasts against the rock-hard wall of his chest, wanting to climb inside him. Wanting to hold him to her and not let go.

His tongue flicked against hers as he deepened the kiss, which just made her ache more.

Sunlight streamed inside the cabin, changing direction as the small plane banked.
No. No. No.

She gasped, moaned in abject frustration deep in her throat, and his legendary cool disintegrated. She could feel how much he wanted her. Not any woman. Her. Gabriella Ilaria Elizabetta Visconti. No one else.

No one had ever wanted anyone as much as she wanted Nick.

With a guttural sound of passion, his fingers tightened in her hair as he slanted his mouth to devastating effect. Her head fell against his shoulder as she gave way under the onslaught, reveling in his sudden loss of control.

Her nipples ached for direct contact, and she pressed her breasts firmly against his hard chest. That didn’t ease anything. But then every part of Bria’s body hurt from wanting him so desperately. He couldn’t touch her, or hold her, or make love to her hard or fast enough to fill the throbbing emptiness engulfing her.

He tried. His tongue pushed into her mouth, slid against hers, not teasing so much as tasting. Tempting. His lips were warm and wet against her own, and she sucked in a surprised gasp as he dug his thumb into her cheek. Just by the corner of her lips, coaxing her head back. Her face up. He deepened an already carnal kiss until the world spun and she forgot about the flight attendant.

About the time they had left. Or didn’t have.

Until he cupped her cheeks to tug her gently away from his mouth. Her lips clung for a moment more. “We just landed.”

Dazed and breathless, she lifted her head to stare uncomprehendingly out of the window at the tiny stone building that served as Marrezo’s airport terminal. She hadn’t felt the plane touch down.

The terminal had originally been a centuries-old stone farmhouse. The modern flight control tower had been added to the back of the house some sixty years ago, making the terminal look oddly surreal. They deplaned with the flight crew and walked inside.

The waiting room sported two ancient sofas, a battered, yellow Formica-topped coffee table, and a 1970s Coke machine. Taking up a large portion of the back wall were a pair of elaborately framed, faded prints. Portraits of her parents in their royal robes.

Her gaze slid away. Seeing her parents made her heart ache. The originals used to hang over the fireplace at the Palazzo. They had not been destroyed by the fire, and Draven had exchanged them for portraits of himself and Dafne. She didn’t understand why he’d done it. She wished he’d left things as they’d once been. But he was the new, and he’d gotten rid of the old as fast as possible.

But since she wasn’t going to stay, it wasn’t her right to say anything. Now that he was king, she’d opted to keep her “temperamental opinion” to herself.

Two men ran from the office to greet them. The older gentleman’s face paled as he realized who she was. “
Principessa
Gabriella?”

The younger man’s eyes widened, and he took a nervous step back. “We didn’t know you were coming! We would have alerted the press, had refreshments waiting—”

Bria winced inwardly, but smiled with enough charm to ease the men’s apprehension. “No need to stand on ceremony,” she assured them quickly. “This is a quick visit to see my brother.”

The younger man blurted, “But,
Principessa,
the king, he has gone to Roma!”

She glanced at Nick, who said quietly, “The palace is still staffed I’m sure.”

“Probably.” Draven had so many bodyguards and servants it was no wonder the country was bankrupt.

The older man rubbed the back of his head. “
Principessa,
would you give me an autograph for my granddaughter? She dreams of being a princess someday.”

She’d had that dream, too, once. Bria waited, smiling gently as he fumbled to fish a pen and a sales receipt out of his pocket for her to sign. Then scrawled a quick note for the little would-be princess. “Would you please take the flight crew to the hotel in Pescarna?” she asked the younger man who was standing at attention beside his boss.

There was only one taxi on the island, and the owner was notoriously absent when anyone needed him.

The younger man glanced from Bria to Nick, who lifted a brow in inquiry. The kid flushed and turned back to her. “We would be honored. Will you require a ride,
Principessa
? We will, of course, take you to the palace first.”

“No, thank you. I’ll call and have them send the car.”

The terminal was locked up with all due haste, and the pilot, copilot, and flight attendant were whisked off, squeezed into a dilapidated pickup truck with strips of silver duct-tape holding the doors shut.

“From private jet to a 1980 pickup in the blink of an eye.” Bria smiled and waved as the old truck drove sedately across the tarmac, leaving the two of them locked outside the tiny terminal building.

“I’m impressed,” Nick told her, his dark hair ruffled by the wind’s fingers. He didn’t have his sunglasses on, and the sunlight on his face made his eyes look liquid and not in the least bit mysterious.

“With what?” she asked, dragging her gaze from his eyes to his mouth. She’d felt his mouth on every part of her body … Would she feel his lips again before he left?

A tendril of hair fluttered against her cheek in the warm, gentle Mediterranean breeze.

Nick was his usual inscrutable self as he studied her face for several seconds, then reached out and caught her hand as she was tucking her hair back up into her ponytail.

Her voice was husky as she repeated, “What are you impressed with?” A little shiver zinged through her as his fingers lingered for a few seconds on her ear before he dropped his hand. She had to keep her mind off sex before she jumped him out on the tarmac. “The efficiency of the Marrezo International airport staff?”

“You.” His voice was low and tinged with appreciation. “In your element.”

“I don’t belong here.”

“Coulda fooled me. You smiled and were gracious, you signed an autograph for a kid you don’t know, and you ensured the crew had a place to stay. You practically charmed the teeth out of everyone.
Principessa
.”

For the first time saying her title, Nick’s voice held a note of respect instead of mockery. She held the scent of the island inside her lungs. “It’s surprisingly good to be here again.”

Marrezo smelled different than anywhere else on Earth. There was a magical tinge of pine and ocean, and the earthy scent of freshly turned ground in the nearby vineyards. She imagined she smelled tomatoes bubbling for tonight’s dinner, and the robust red wine Marrezo used to be famous for and would be again with this return of Draven’s liquid assets.

“While I find the historical aspects of the tower and the old farmhouse absolutely riveting, do you have a well-formed plan for us too?” Nick stuck his hands in his front pockets, a twinkle in his eye. “No rush. Just checking.”

A plan? “Oh, damn,” she said suddenly. “With all the chaos, I forgot to borrow the phone.” But walking the couple of miles into Pavina, on such a beautiful day, with Nick by her side, was appealing. “It’s a short walk, do you mind?”

“Nope. How about you in those heels?”

“I can do a ten-minute mile in them if I have to.” Or take them off, as she’d done walking the streets and countryside of the island as a child. “There are two towns on the island. Pescarna—ten miles
that
way—is a fishing village. Pavina is that way, and is where the palace is located. May I borrow your phone? Mine won’t work here, I don’t have international calling on it. I’ll just let them know we’re here, and we can get going.”

Nick handed her his phone, and Bria dialed as they walked across the single runway toward the tree line.

He studied the quiet lone tower over his shoulder. “I’m presuming this place shuts down when those two go off like that?”

Bria laughed and nodded as the phone rang in her ear. “We— They get one flight a week.
Maybe
. Silvio, the older man, has the radio with him all the time. They come when they’re needed.”

“Cushy job. Is there dental with that?”

She shot him a curious look. “Marrezo takes care of its people—including health care. They get paid a stipend, really. And live comfortably enough through fishing.”

Nick nodded. “Now that’s something I understand. A rod, a reel, and a cooler of beer on a sunny day.”

“It’s a simple life. Not exactly diving for treasure.”

He arched a brow. “Or working in California?”

Bria turned away rather than say anything. She’d been surprised when Nick had told the pilot to return the next day. But even twenty-four hours wasn’t nearly long enough. Still, she was grateful he wasn’t getting on the plane to fly back to the
Scorpion
right away.

The phone continued to ring. Home. Bria felt an emotional tug in her chest. No matter where she was, no matter how long she’d been away, or how much she felt she shouldn’t intrude on Draven’s world, Marrezo would always be home. There was just too much of it wound into her earliest memories, memories of her parents, to think of it otherwise.