Postcards At Christmas

When they started walking again, he kept his arm around her and she leaned her head on his shoulder. “Thank you, Dami. For giving me this beautiful, perfect Thanksgiving. It’s turning out to be everything I could have hoped for.”

He pressed his lips to her fragrant hair. “No thanks are needed. Ever. You know that.”

She looked up at him then. Her eyes were so solemn. “You are the most generous person I know.”

He wasn’t, and she really ought to remember that. “Not really.”

She elbowed him in the ribs. “Yeah. Really.”

“If you keep making me sound so exemplary, I’ll decide it wouldn’t be right to seduce you this evening.”

She widened her eyes in pretended terror. “Omigod, no! I take it all back. You’re a horrible man, a scoundrel, a total dog.”

He flattened his lips and arched an eyebrow, going for an evil leer. “Wonderful. You’ve convinced me. I’ll be taking complete advantage of you after all.”

* * *

They returned to the palace a short time later. By then it was a little after six. There was a light buffet laid out on a sideboard in the main dining room. They filled plates and sat together to eat.

After that he walked her to her room. He kissed her, a kiss he let go on a little too long. A kiss that tempted him to push the door open behind her, to carry her in there and finish what they’d started the night before.

But no. Once he had her naked in his arms, he wasn’t going to want to let her go until the morning, when they would say goodbye. And tonight was the annual Prince’s Thanksgiving Ball. She couldn’t miss that. It was a memorable part of a Montedoran Thanksgiving.

Reluctantly, he broke the kiss and promised to return for her at nine.

In his apartment, Damien got out his phone, turned on the ringer again and checked his messages and calls. He discovered that V had called only those two times. And left one voice mail.

He sat for a while actually considering calling her, trying one more time to speak reasonably with her, to convince her that she had to leave it alone, move on. And then he went ahead and played back her message even though he never played her messages anymore, because he’d grown weary of listening to her call him bad names in Italian.

Surprisingly, her voice was calm. She spoke English, which surprised him almost as much as her even tone. V was fluent in English, but she considered it a barbaric language, unmusical and crass.

“Dami. I can guess where you are. With that skinny, plain little American nobody, the one with hardly any hair.” A laugh, soft, knowing. The bitch. “You’re all over the internet with her, the two of you at the bazaar on Thursday and the museum last night. Really, Dami, what am I going to do with you?” A long sigh. “I know, I know. You have to follow every cheap flirtation to its logical conclusion and I’m going to have to leave you alone to pursue this new and incomprehensible infatuation. And guess what—I believe I will do just that. Enjoy yourself. I’ve had enough. When you finally see what a fool you’ve been, you’ll be sorry. But of course, there won’t be anything you can do about it. Because I am finished. You hear me? It’s over, finito. Ciao.”

Damien got up from the sofa and paced to the window. He wasn’t angry, exactly, just annoyed at her spiteful remarks about Lucy, who never hurt anyone, who only brought joy.

And there was a bright side to this. Or there could be. V had sounded as though she’d finally accepted the inevitable.

He put the phone to his ear again and played the message through a second time.

Yes. Very possibly a real goodbye.

He went back to the sofa, kicked off his shoes and stretched out. A certain buoyancy had come over him. He felt distinctly optimistic.

It didn’t hurt his new, improved mood that for now, anyway, there was no need to consider calling V after all. If she’d meant what she’d said, he wouldn’t be talking to her again.

And if she hadn’t meant it...

Well, he’d walk that plank when he came to it.

* * *

“I work as a nanny,” said Lani Vasquez, leaning closer to Lucy in order to be heard over the din in the crowded ballroom. The musicians had taken a break and now everyone seemed to be talking at once. Lani went on, “I came from Texas with Sydney when she married Rule.” Rule, Lucy reminded herself. Second-born after Maximilian. “And now I take care of their kids, Trevor and Ellie. It’s such a great job. I love the kids and Sydney is very hands-on, so I get a lot of time to myself. Tonight she and Rule are at their villa with the children, so here I am enjoying the Thanksgiving Ball.” Lani flashed a bright smile. “I love it here in Montedoro. I never want to leave.”

Prince Maximilian, the heir apparent, who’d been standing a few feet away chatting with a beefy older guy, stepped closer. He and the black-haired nanny from Texas shared a warm glance. “Lani’s a writer,” he said. “She’s writing a series of historical novels set in Montedoro.”

“Someday I intend to be a published writer,” Lani added. “Someday soon, I keep hoping.”

“Lani has an agent in America,” said the prince. The man was clearly a booster of the pretty nanny. “She’s right on the brink of that first big sale.”

“The brink.” Lani gave a small uncomfortable chuckle. “As I said, we can hope.”

“It can’t be long now.” Max seemed to have no doubts about Lani’s inevitable success.

“His Highness has two children, Nicholas and Constance,” Lani told Lucy.

“I remember seeing them at Thanksgiving dinner.” Lucy pictured them: a dark-eyed boy of seven or eight, a little blonde girl a year or two younger.

Lani went on, “Their nanny, Gerta, and I have become good friends.”

Max said, “Gerta’s like a second mother to them. They’re very attached to her.”

“Gerta. I’ve heard that name before— Wait, I know. Dami told me that he had a nanny named Gerta.”

“That’s right,” Max replied. “Gerta was our nanny, too. She looked after all nine of us when we were small. Gerta’s part of the family, really.”

Lani said, “We all hang out together. The four children, Gerta and I. That’s how Max and I have gotten to know each other a little. His Highness is the world’s foremost expert on the history of Montedoro.” She said it proudly, with real admiration, apparently as much a booster of the prince as he was of her. “And he’s arranged it so that I have unlimited access to the amazing original materials in the palace library.”

“Wow.” Lucy was impressed. “Talk about an invaluable research resource....”

Lani and the prince shared another lingering glance. “Exactly,” Lani said. “The library contains the correspondence of the Calabretti princes over hundreds of years. There are historical documents going back to the Middle Ages. I could never find such a treasure trove anywhere else.”

Right then Dami, who’d gone off to chat up some business associate, appeared at Lucy’s side. He greeted his brother and Lani. The music began to play again. Max offered Lani his hand. She took it and they went out on the floor to dance.

Lucy watched them go. “The prince and the nanny. I’m lovin’ it.”

“What are you talking about?” Dami sounded surprised.

Lucy chuckled. “Oh, come on.” She watched the two dancing. They had eyes only for each other. “It’s obvious those two have a thing going on.”

“No. Never.” His tone was flat, unequivocal. She glanced at him. He was frowning. And then he said grudgingly, “Yes, all right. It’s a little odd.”

“Excuse me? Odd?”

“Max only dances with his sisters and our mother.”

“Well, yeah. That is kind of odd.”

“That’s not what I meant. You don’t understand.” He watched Max and Lani until they danced out of sight. Then he shook his head. “Never mind.”

She moved in a fraction closer to him and brushed her bare arm against the superfine wool of his sleeve, loving the heat in her belly, the shiver of anticipation for the night to come, when it would be just the two of them at last and they would finally finish what they’d started the night before. “Don’t blow me off, Dami. There’s something going on between the two of them. They’re a mutual admiration society, I kid you not. And when they look at each other... Bam.” She lifted her fisted hands and then popped all her fingers wide to illustrate.

Dami eased an arm around her waist and drew her in front of him. She felt him at her back and longed to lean into his heat and hardness. However, if she did that, she’d probably start rubbing on him next. And it wouldn’t be appropriate to go all X-rated at the Prince’s Thanksgiving Ball.

He said in her ear, “Max loved his wife, Sophia. He loved her and only her from the time they were children. When he lost her, we all worried that he wouldn’t be able to go on.”

She craned her head back to him. He dipped his closer. She said, “And that’s all so romantic, I know. But hey. The guy’s still alive. He has a right to a little happiness with someone who’s still breathing, don’t you think?”

“Luce.” He spoke into her ear again and his warm breath stirred her hair. “I’m only telling you that you’ve got it all wrong.”

She craned her head back once more. “No. Sorry. You’re the one who doesn’t get it. I know what I saw.”

He caught her hand. Heat shimmered up her arm from the point of contact as he whirled her to face him. His dark eyes glittered, inviting her. “Dance with me.”

She became sharply aware once again that she had no panties on. Her belly hollowed out and her breath caught. And she felt very naughty and wonderful and wild. “I was wondering if you were ever going to ask.”

He pulled her out on the floor and took her in his arms.

Dancing with Dami. It was as easy and natural as breathing, though Lucy had never been that good of a dancer. She hadn’t had a whole lot of opportunities to practice. Dami, on the other hand, was a great dancer. He could make any woman look good on the dance floor.

He had danced with her on the night that she’d met him. Noah had thrown one of his parties that night. There’d been a six-piece combo and dancing outside on the loggia. Prince Damien had asked her to dance and she’d felt like a princess. A very skinny, rather pale princess, it was true. At the time, she’d still been recovering from that final surgery. But that night, being too skinny with dark circles under her eyes didn’t matter. She’d felt like a princess dancing with Dami, knowing already that he would be her friend.

Now he held her so lightly, guided her so effortlessly. Her gown, strapless navy-and-black organza and guipure, seemed to float around her peep-toe high heels, unhampered by boring gravity. They danced two dances.

And then Noah cut in. “Mind if I dance with my beautiful sister?”

With a graceful nod, Dami surrendered her to her brother.

She went into Noah’s arms and watched Dami’s broad back as he wove his way through the other dancers, moving toward the full bar set up between a pair of marble pillars in a far corner.

“Your dress is beautiful,” Noah said. She thanked him. “What time’s your flight tomorrow?”

She suppressed a sigh. After all, she’d told him more than once before. “Eleven-thirty.”

“We haven’t seen enough of you over the weekend.”

“I know, it was a short visit. But I’ve had a wonderful time.”

A hesitation, then, “With Damien.”

She returned his gaze, unwavering. “Yes, Noah. With Damien.”

They danced for several seconds without speaking, which was fine with her. Then he said, “Dami’s a good man.”

“He’s the best.”

“If he hurts you, I might have to kill him.”

“Oh, stop it. Dami would never hurt me. And no matter what happens, you don’t get to kill him. Murder is a bad thing— Plus, Alice would never forgive you if you killed her brother.”

He scowled. “You’ve become so...stubborn and determined the past few years.”

“I was always stubborn and determined, but when I was sick all the time, I didn’t have the energy to be my real self.”

After a moment, he slanted her a sideways look. “How about Christmas?”

She couldn’t help laughing. “Do you ever give up?”

A wry smile curved his lips. “Never. I’m a lot like my baby sister that way.”

“Noah, I’m serious. I keep thinking we’re clear that I run my own life at last. And then you come at me again.”

He did look contrite. “Sorry.”

“Are you really?”

He nodded. “I get that you’re feeling good, doing what you want to do and loving every minute of it. And that’s great. I just... I still want to protect you. I can’t turn that off overnight.”

“Keep working on it, will you?”

“I am, Lucy. Honestly.”

“Work faster, then.” She said it gently. With all the love in her heart. “Please.”

Lani Vasquez and Prince Maximilian whirled by them, eyes only for each other. And Lucy thought of Dami’s surprise and disbelief when she’d said that there was something going on between them. Was it always like that in families? People got locked into roles—the sickly one, the grieving widower—and other family members just refused to see that the ones they love can change and grow.

But then Noah said, “Just remember that I’m proud of you. You were right to strike out on your own, not to let my fears for you hold you back. I wish you were coming home for the holidays, but if you insist on staying in New York, I’ll get over it. Have a beautiful Christmas, Lucy.”

So, then. Maybe her brother’s view of her wasn’t so locked in after all. She wished him the best Christmas ever and when that dance ended, he walked her over to the bar, where Dami and Alice were sipping champagne.

Alice set down her glass and held out her hand to Noah. He led her out on the floor. They gazed at each other the same way Prince Max had looked at Lani Vasquez.

Dami handed Lucy a crystal flute of champagne. They raised their glasses to the season. And when their glasses were empty, he asked her to dance again. It was an old standard that time, a slow holiday song: “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”

She felt a little sad to think that on New Year’s Eve she would be in New York and Dami would be somewhere else. But not that sad.

Really, how could she be sad? She was getting exactly what she’d dreamed of: a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend and tender lessons in lovemaking from a man she trusted absolutely.

When that dance was over, she whispered, “It’s long past midnight. I don’t want to wait anymore, Dami.”

He gave her a look that was totally hot. And then he took her hand and led her out of the crowded ballroom.

Chapter Eight

His sheets were gold that night. Gold satin.

They stood beside the beautiful carved bed with the finials shaped like crowns, the gold sheets turned back, lustrous and inviting in the soft low light. He kissed her for the longest time, an endless, tender, ever-deepening kiss.

As he kissed her, he touched her, caressing her bare shoulders, her back, the curve of her waist and lower. When he stroked his hands over her hips, she moaned a little, sharply aware of her nakedness beneath the long skirt of her dress.

Really, a woman’s panties didn’t cover all that much to make her feel so bare without them. But she did feel bare under her gown. Bare and revealed, somehow, though no one could see.

He lifted his mouth from hers. “Luce.”

“Um?”

“Take off your dress.”

“Yes.” She turned around and showed him her back. He pulled her zipper down. The dress fell away. She caught it, stepped out of it, tossed it toward the nearest chair.

“No panties,” he said approvingly.

She turned to face him. “I’m very obedient. When I want to be.”

His eyes burned into hers. “The rest. Take it off.”

So she did. Everything. There wasn’t that much. Her strapless bra. Her peep-toe shoes. Her vintage earrings and antique bracelet.

He took the jewelry from her, set it on the table by the bed. And then, still fully clothed except for the jacket he’d taken off when they first entered the apartment, he started touching her again. He bent and kissed her breasts as his hands went roaming.

Time fell away and her knees went all wobbly. But Dami didn’t let her fall. He scooped her up against his broad chest and then sat on the edge of the bed with her in his lap.

His skilled, knowing hands moved over her. She looked down at his long fingers against the pale flesh of her belly. Those fingers stroked lower.

And lower. He parted her. She didn’t have to be told. She eased her thighs apart.

“Wider,” he whispered, the word hot and a little bit rough. He scraped the side of her throat with his teeth.

She moaned. And she obeyed. It was only what she wanted after all. His fingers found her, delving in, moving in a rhythm her body already knew and welcomed.

“Dami,” she cried. “Yes...more...” She tipped her head back and gave him her mouth for a slow, wet, hungry kiss.

He whispered things, naughty things. Each whisper took her higher, closer to the sky, to the darkness and the wonder.

To that moment when it all burst wide open into a midnight universe scattered with a million exploding stars.

It happened so quickly: her body contracting, pulsing, a fast, hard, beautiful climax. And then he was lifting her, laying her down across the gold sheets, pushing her thighs wide again as he knelt on the rug by the bed.

She felt his breath first, there, at the core of her. Then the skilled, tender stroking of his tongue.

And then, just like that, she was going over again, falling from one peak into the next one. Rising, rising and shattering again, stronger, deeper, better than the first time, as she clutched his dark head and moaned how she wanted him, how right it was, how perfect, exactly what she’d been dreaming of.

When he pulled away and stood over her, she didn’t have the strength to hold him. She let out a little moan of satisfaction, a sigh of pleasured fulfillment. Still crosswise on the bed, her legs limp and dangling over the side, she closed her eyes and drifted on a sea of delicious afterglow.

Until he touched her again, the lightest brush of a touch, one finger tracking down from her hip bone to her thigh, to her knee, along her shin....

“Dami?” She opened her eyes to find him naked and so very fine, all broad, hard, muscled manliness, kneeling on the rug again. “Dami...” She reached for him.

He rose and leaned over her, bending close and kissing her, a quick, hard kiss. And then he lifted her, rearranging her so that she was full-length on the bed with her head on the pillows. He stretched out beside her. She buried her face against his chest, breathed in his scent of sea foam and musk and man.

And the wonder began all over again. He kissed her—arousing, hungry, lingering kisses. First on her lips and then along her throat, across her chest, her breasts, her belly. He opened his mouth on her, using his tongue and, so carefully and deliberately, his strong white teeth.

By then she was wild for him, tossing her head on the pillows, begging him, “Please, Dami, please,” as she clutched him with her hungry hands, pulling at him, yearning for the moment when she would have him within her.

He took his time about that. He drove her up to the brink again with his hands and his hot mouth—and then, just when she knew she was going over a third time that night without him inside her, he lifted up and eased his hard, hair-rough thigh between her two soft ones.

She opened her eyes and he was above her, gazing down at her, his eyes so dark, edged in deepest green.

He put one hand on either of her thighs and pushed them wide. She knew he could see everything. And that only made her hotter, made her want him more.

“Dami.” She was breathless. So hungry. Needing. Wanting. Everything. All of him, now. “Please...”

“Now, Luce?”

She looked down between them and saw that he was more than ready for her. And also that somehow he had already put on the protection she’d totally forgotten they were going to need.

“Luce.” He growled her name.

And she looked in his face again. “Um. I...”

“Now?” Softly that time. Patiently. Tenderly, too.

“Um, yes. Yes. Please. Now....”

He braced his forearms to either side of her, cradling her head between his two hands. “Look at me.”

She nodded, eager. A little bit scared, too, thinking again of the size of him.

Would there be pain? How much?

“Stay with me.” His eyes were on her. She met them, held them.

And then she felt him, nudging her where she was so wet and soft and sensitive now. The tip slid in. Wonderful. Perfect.

“More,” she said on a low moan.

He gave her exactly what she asked for, sliding in by slow degrees.

It was good. It was heaven.

And then it was too much. And then it was hurting. She gasped, “Oh! I... Wait.”

“Shh,” he said. “It’s all right.” He lowered his head, pressed his forehead to hers. “We’ll wait....”

They lay there half joined, still. Waiting. Her breath came swift and hungry; her body felt stretched, aching.

And then the ache was changing, easing into something electric and wonderful again.

She lifted her head and kissed his mouth, whispering, “Yes. Now,” against his parted lips.

“More?” It came out on a low groan.

She nodded. “More...”

And he went deeper—until she gasped again.

Instantly, he went still for her. There was only the sound of their breathing, the burning down low that once again eased and changed to a thrilling fullness.

She said it again. “More...”

He bent his head, captured her breast, drew on it in slow, deep pulls.

That did it. She moaned and clutched him close to her, lifting to meet him that time as he went deeper.

And deeper.

And then, with a low, hard groan, he was in all the way, filling her completely.

Finally. At last.

She laughed a little, then stopped on a moan. “Oh, Dami. Yes.”

He was still again, waiting for her untried body to accept his invasion.

“Yes,” she said, pushing against him.

“Sure?” It came out a rough, painful growl.

“Yes. Yes, yes, yes...”

And then, at last, he started to move.

He did it carefully at first, gently, with slow deliberation. Bracing up his hands to give himself better control, he kept his thrusts steady, even.

But she was more than ready by then, more than eager. She lifted her hands and clasped his big shoulders and held on good and tight as she moved in rhythm with him.

She tried to keep her eyes open to see his face above her, to imprint every burning, beautiful second of this wonder into her memory, to seal it in her heart.

But the pleasure was too overwhelming. It was raising her up, making her dizzy with the flood of sensation. There was nothing to do in the end but surrender to it.

She closed her eyes. And once again she was whirling up and up—and over the edge of the world into an explosion of light and sensation as she felt her body pulsing around him, felt him surge into her deeper, fuller, harder even than before.

And by then she could only hold on and keep sighing, “Yes, yes, yes,” as the pulsing faded down to a lovely glow of happy satisfaction.

* * *

At seven o’clock on Sunday morning, Dami gave her a robe to wear and led her to the kitchen, where he made her coffee and served her croissants from Justine’s café. She ate two. They were so good and she was hungry.

Then she returned to his bedroom and put on her clothes from the night before as he stood in the doorway, big arms across his broad chest, watching her, his expression unreadable.

Yeah, it was a little sad. A little strange. To be leaving him so soon after the complete fabulousness of last night.

But she remembered what she’d promised herself at his studio. Not to cling. Not to linger. She scooped up her evening clutch and went to him with a bright smile.