Page 16 of Captive in His Castle (The Martinelli Wedding #1)
Oh, silly Callie, finding yourself? the treacherous voice in her head said, laughing scathingly at her. You were drawn to him before he’d even driven you out of the airport.
“Do you know much about wine?” he asked in that voice she reacted so strongly to as they set off.
Was there anything about him that she didn’t react to?
“Only that I like drinking it,” she replied as steadily as she could manage when her insides were still liquidised from what had happened between them over breakfast in the library.
The entirety of her skin buzzed with awareness for him, the entirety of her mouth still tingled from where his lips had caressed her and his tongue had made that sensuous sweep into its confines.
He laughed lightly. “Are your parents’ connoisseurs?”
How could he be so unaffected and able to speak so naturally when she was on the verge of turning into the quivering wreck she’d promised herself she would never be for him?
Callie knew what she should do. She should tell him in no uncertain terms to never lay a finger…
mouth… on her again. She should have had the wits to say it earlier, to push him away, slap him, do whatever it took to make it clear she didn’t want his touch and never would.
But that ship had sailed. Dante had drugged her with his mouth and was becoming increasingly adept at drugging her with his words too, so to make those demands now, when he knew exactly the effect he had on her. ..
Breathing deeply to scramble some control of herself, she replied, “They’ve always drunk wine with their dinner, but I don’t know about them being connoisseurs. Why do you ask?”
“Curiosity. Provence is the oldest wine-producing region in France.”
“I didn’t know that – I always associate it with lavender.
” She had no idea how she was able to hold a conversation with him.
God help her, she was so bloody aware of him.
Hopelessly, helplessly aware of him, of those long, tapered fingers steering the wheel so masterfully, the movements of his thigh whenever he changed gear.
She was even aware of the dark hair poking out at the wrists of his shirt cuffs, and she wasn’t even looking at him!
“Do you go out there much?”
“Only at Christmas.”
“How come? I thought teachers got lots of holidays.”
“We do, but my parents have such busy social lives that fitting us into their schedules is as difficult as formulating term timetables for two thousand students.”
“That must be tough.”
“It is what it is,” she said, trying to sound philosophical.
In the silence that followed, she had the feeling Dante was holding himself back from commenting further, and prayed he continued holding it back.
She didn’t want his pity. Having emotionally remote parents was a fact of her life, and crying over it didn’t change anything.
She should know; could clearly remember Georgia sobbing on the school stage when, despite promises to be there, she saw their au pair instead of their mother in the audience for her star turn as Mary in the Nativity.
Callie had broken ranks from her minor role as a shepherd and rushed the stage to comfort her. They’d been six.
He stopped the car in a sprawling courtyard filled with vehicles of varying sizes at the front of a large L-shaped stone outbuilding.
“Can I trust you to behave yourself while we meet the buyer?”
“Nope.”
He laughed lightly. “I assumed that would be the answer. In that case, you can wait in the car.”
“So much for not leaving me alone for a moment,” she muttered, even as relief at respite from him opened her lungs a little.
“See those two men?”
Callie followed his pointed hand. Recognising the two man-mountains as his heavies from the helicopter, she finally looked at him so she could scowl.
Big, big mistake.
Completely unperturbed, he gave that sexy, sexy smile. “They have been tasked with keeping an eye on you. Try and pull any kind of stunt, and they have my permission to lock you in here until my return.”
“You’ve not given them permission to bury me under the grapes?”
“Not yet.” He brought his face close to hers and, a glimmer in his eyes, added, “I prefer to inflict any punishment myself.”
Oh, God, that should not make her have to swallow a surge of moisture in her mouth before she could say, “How does that work when you’ve given me your word not to hurt me or leave a mark on me?”
He put his mouth to her ear. “I can promise that any punishment given will be one you’ll be begging for more of.
” Pulling back, he let his dark eyes bore into her for one long, lingering moment that liquidised her bones.
“I won’t be long – I’m just going to show my face and make the buyer feel important for a short while. ”
Her heart racing so hard it had become a burr, the hot, sticky sensation between her legs as strong as it had ever been, Callie fisted her hands, not to stop herself from lashing out at him but to stop them from doing what they were itching to do and reaching for him.
“Take all the time you need. Take the rest of the week.”
“And deprive you of my company for longer than is necessary?”
“Being buried under the grapes would be preferable to being stuck in your company.”
“Trust me, carina , the only thing you’re going to be buried under during your time here is me.” And then he gave another of those horrid stomach-meltingly sexy smiles and climbed out of the car.
Callie watched him walk away, trying desperately to draw air into her lungs.