‘I hope you don’t snore.’
Nell started and turned over. Luiz lay on his back one arm curved above his head, looking at her.
‘You’re asleep,’ she heard herself say stupidly.
‘I was,’ he agreed. ‘But your perfume is very distinctive.’
‘I’m not wearing perfume.’ Not sure if he had heard her, she raised her voice as she added, ‘I changed my mind…about the car. It was stuffy.’
‘Ah.’
Nell’s relief that he hadn’t asked any awkward questions about her change of mind was short-lived. The breath snagged in her throat as he rose to his feet in one fluid motion. Her pulse raced in dizzy, dry-throated anticipation as he walked towards her. At her side he stopped and looked down; his liquid dark eyes made her tremble.
It was when he started to shrug off his jacket that she was able to reassert a little control over her lust-paralysed limbs.
‘What are you d…?’
He leaned down and placed his jacket over her. ‘Sleep well, querida.’
The mortified colour rushed to her cheeks. ‘I can’t take your jacket.’ The man wants sleep, not you, Nell.
‘And I suppose you are insulted if a man opens a door for you?’ he suggested tiredly. Nell, struggling to cope with the intense anticlimax, barely registered the strain in his voice. ‘It’s late, so allow me one courteous gesture without looking for an insult or ulterior motive.’
After a short strained silence Nell nodded her head and whispered, ‘Thank you,’ as she pulled the cloth still imprinted with the warmth of his body around her shoulders. ‘I am a bit cold.’
He smiled with his eyes—a neat trick and one that never failed to make Nell’s insides go mushy. ‘The clue was the shivering, querida.’
Nell let the casual endearment pass and watched as he walked, tall and effortlessly elegant, back to his side of the fire, pausing to drop a log on the fire on the way.
Despite everything Nell, utterly exhausted, fell asleep almost immediately, though on the point of drifting off she roused herself to ask in a sleepy voice, ‘Are there any wolves?’
She didn’t hear his reply.
Luiz lay there listening to the sound of her light, even breathing. He did not require a great deal of sleep but when he did he could sleep any place any time—normally. Tonight that ability appeared to have deserted him.
Tonight a lot of things seemed to have deserted him.
Eventually Luiz managed to empty his mind, but he had barely nodded off when the blood-curdling feral sounds of her screams split the night. He leapt to his feet, adrenaline coursing through his veins as he ran to her side, practically running through the glowing embers of the fire on the way.
Dropping to his knees beside her, he laid his hands on her shoulders.
‘What is it? What has happened?’
She looked at him blankly with no recognition. He had seen cornered animals look the way she did as she fought wildly to escape.
Luiz made no attempt to avoid the blows of her hands, or subdue her with his superior strength, he just took her face between his hands. ‘It’s all right…’ he soothed, his voice quiet and steady.
Nell’s wild, darting eyes meshed with his and gradually her breathing slowed as she relaxed against him, her face pressed into the angle of his chin.
As he cradled her body in his arms he felt her breath warm on his neck, and the tremors that ran through her slender frame at irregular intervals. Luiz stroked her hair gently, filled with a strong need to comfort her.
When Nell finally lifted her head and pulled away a little from him her face was tear-stained and pale from sleep deprivation.
‘I’m sorry.’ She angled an anguished look of mortification at his face.
‘There is no need to be sorry.’
She attempted a smile but it was a weak affair. ‘I should have stayed at the car. I’ve ruined your shirt.’ She loosened her grip on his shirt that now gaped.
‘I have more.’
‘Ones that have buttons,’ she said, smoothing down the fabric with a shaky hand.
He caught her hand and placed it palm flat on the warm skin of his chest. ‘It is fine. Are you all right?’ He had seen nightmares, had nightmares, but he had never seen such feral, visceral terror before.
Nell couldn’t take her eyes off her fingers spread out pale against his dark skin. Her brow puckered, her teeth were chattering hard as she struggled to sound matter-of-fact. ‘It was a night terror.’
‘Night terror…?’
Nell moved her fingertips slightly and froze, scared but excited, as her fingers skated across his satiny hair-roughened skin. ‘I never r…remember…I used to have them when I was a girl. It’s more scary for other people than me. I always used to curl up and go back to sleep. I’m sorry if I disturbed you.’
‘Disturbed me?’ he echoed.
She frowned, puzzling over the strange sardonic inflection in his husky voice as he hooked a finger under her chin and, tilting her face up to his, rasped, ‘I wasn’t asleep.’
‘This has been the oddest day of my life,’ Nell confided in a breathless rush.
His expressive lips curled into a sardonic smile. ‘It is not over yet. You’re not safe back in your library. Madre de Dios,’ he added, raking her face with a raw intensity that made her tremble, ‘I wish you had never left it!’
She flinched at the passionate angry declaration.
‘You do know you scared me witless?’
‘I scared you?’ Nell felt pretty witless herself as he trailed his finger up from her chin and over the curve of her cheek. His actions had all the hallmarks of compulsion as his square fingertip moved across her skin, barely grazing the downy hair on her cheek, his eyes following the track.
It was the tactile equivalent of a whisper but it caused a disproportionate degree of damage to Nell’s nervous system. The little shiver of excitement in the pit of her belly expanded and grew into a butterfly tremor of anticipation as the air around them grew dense with sexual tension.
Somewhere above their heads came the eerie predatory sound of a hunting owl.
CHAPTER NINE
THERE was a smoky, unfocused expression in Luiz’s dark eyes as he placed one hand behind Nell’s head, his splayed fingers sinking deep into her hair as he supported its weight. The bands of colour along the sharp angle of his cheekbones deepened as his eyes moved across the soft contours of her face.
‘Yes, you still are scaring me.’ He curved his hand around her face and brought his mouth down on hers. The touch was brief, hard and angry.
Nell forced her eyelids open. They felt hot and heavy—as heavy as the strange lethargy that had invaded her limbs. She looked at him and shook her head slowly in a mute plea.
‘Don’t look at me that way!’ he groaned.
He didn’t want to feel this way, but there was no element of choice involved. He had been taken over by a force that was stronger than intellect. The feeling this woman awoke in him was primal. It filled every cell of his body, consumed him, and roared in his veins, wiping away his ability to think about anything but sinking into her, possessing her.
He couldn’t think around it or past it.
In the glow of the fire she could see the sheen of moisture on the bronzed skin of his face and neck. Her eyes slid lower to where his shirt hung open. His ribcage rose and fell in tune with his laboured inhalations. She could see the clear delineation of the slabs of ridged muscle on his flat belly.
Things moved deep inside her as emotions she could not name thickened in her throat—he was beautiful, the essence of primitive masculinity.
His hand continued its compulsive journey as he angled it slowly from side to side; the other moved across her ribcage before tracing a slow path down her spine until it rested in the small of her back. His fingers were warm through the fine fabric of her dress.
She felt the tremor that lifted his chest and drew a deep sibilant sigh from between his clenched teeth.
‘You’re still cold.’
Nell gave an inarticulate grunt. She didn’t feel cold; she felt strangely disconnected from her body. ‘You aren’t.’ She could feel the heat from his body—it penetrated the thin fabric of her dress.
She spread her fingers and trailed them down his chest over the hair-roughened skin, pushing aside the fabric of his shirt until she reached his flat belly.
Luiz grabbed her hand and pulled it off his body. ‘Madre de Dios!’ he ejaculated harshly. ‘Do you know what you’re doing to me?’ he growled as the desire he had held in stern check all day roared in his veins.
‘You’re perfect. I just want to touch you.’ Nell’s eyelids fluttered closed as he bent his head and covered her mouth with his. His lips on hers were warm and firm, the texture, the taste, the sensory overload drew a whimpery little sigh that was immediately lost in his mouth as he deepened the exploratory pressure.
The kiss ended and, breathing hard like two people who had just run a marathon, they stared at each other. Nell let her head flop forward against his chest. Her arms slid around his middle as she stayed there listening to his heartbeat until he pulled away, kneeling over her.
As he lowered himself down beside her Nell slid her hands across his shoulders and down the strong curve of his back.
Luiz’s dark eyes glittered as he kissed her with a hunger that was both overwhelming and intensely exciting. It was as if he would drain the essence of her. Nell arched her back and looped her arms tight around his neck, opening her mouth to increase the penetration of his tongue. Her fingers tightened into the dark hair on his nape as she felt his hand move under the skirt of her dress.
Luiz lifted his head and looked down into her face, watching her eyes dilate, the pupil swallowing up the cool grey.
When he looked at her the surging swell of primitive possessiveness in his chest expanded. He had never experienced anything this strong when he looked at a woman, never felt this primitive need to claim her as his own.
He heard the breath catch in her throat as he slowly moved his fingers in a series of lazy arabesques along the soft, silky, ultrasensitive skin of her inner thigh. He slid his fingers under the lacy edge of her pants and felt the heat radiating from the moisture at the juncture of her thighs.
‘Oh, God, that’s…’ Nell moaned, her eyelids squeezing closed, her splayed fingers sliding over the satiny skin of his powerful shoulders as the electric tingle spread over her entire body. Her head thrashed from side to side as her nails dug into the skin of his shoulders.
His hands slid under her bottom, pulling her up to him, arranging her knees either side of his thighs as Luiz kissed his way up the exposed curve of her pale throat before claiming her mouth once more.
A dry gasp left her throat as she felt the hard, pulsing impression of his erection grind into the soft flesh of her belly. It was more shocking and more exciting than anything she had ever dreamt; the hot liquid throbbing ache between her thighs intensified to a painful degree.
Nostrils flared, Luiz kissed the damp skin of her neck, breathing in the warm female scent of her before he drew himself up on his knees and pulled away from her, his eyes not leaving hers for a moment as he unfastened the belt of his jeans and kicked them away.
His shirt followed a second later. He was unselfconsciously naked and gloriously—shockingly to her mind—aroused, and the image of his gleaming naked body tightened the hard knot of desire that clutched low in Nell’s belly. Her hungry eyes moved greedily over the taut, rippling muscles of his chest and shoulders, then moved lower, skimming the flat, firmly delineated muscles of his belly and lower still.
The greedy glow in her eyes, combined with her awed whisper of, ‘You’re so beautiful,’ raised Luiz’s level of arousal several painful notches.
His voice was unrecognisable, his accent thick as he slid into his own language, the liquid words of Spanish spilling from him as he jerked her towards him and, holding her grey doe’s eyes in a hot liquid gaze, slid the zip on her dress.
Nell inhaled sharply and lowered her gaze, her lashes fanning across the smooth curve of her flushed cheek as she asked herself what she was doing.
Stupid question. It was blatantly obvious what she was doing, though she struggled even in the privacy of her thoughts to put it in words.
The question was—was it what she wanted?
She almost laughed at the question—wanted? She had never wanted anything so much in her life.
‘I want this, Luiz. I want you.’
His long fingers resting lightly on the smooth skin at the base of her spine flexed as the muscle in his lean cheek clenched. Por Dios, he was shaking with need; it consumed him from the inside out with the strength of a forest fire.
‘And I want you.’ Luiz, his voice barely recognisable, uneven and thickly accented, pulled the dress over her head. Nell shivered as her skin was exposed to the night air.
Heart thudding frantically against her ribcage, she felt his breath against her face as he slipped the catch on her bra and pressed her back onto the mossy surface.
His eyes were deep black pools and Nell felt herself slipping and falling into them, losing herself…wanting to lose herself in him, in all that hard, dark maleness.
Luiz leaned over her, one hand braced on the floor at her side, the other moulding each pink-tipped quivering breast in turn as words of liquid Spanish slipped from his lips.
‘I can’t bear…’ Nell thought she might die from the unbearable sweet, painful intimacy. Her body arched as his lips moved down across her soft belly, while his hands moved lower, sending sweet, sharp shocks of burning sensation through her entire electrified body.
‘You’re so hot and wet for me,’ he purred throatily as he kissed the curve of her neck.
Her thighs parted under the pressure of his knee and he settled himself between them. The touch of his silky hardness as his erection brushed against her thigh drew a primal cry of, ‘Please,’ from her parted lips as she struggled to breathe.
He took her hand and, holding her eyes, curled her fingers around his shaft. It was hard as steel, silky and hot.
‘That is what you do to me, querida,’ he slurred thickly before removing her fingers and pinning both her hands over her head.
He slid into her then, sheathing himself deep inside her with one thrust. The shocking sensual invasion drove the breath from her lungs as she struggled for air and cried his name.
Too involved with what was happening to her, the amazing sensation of being filled and stretched, she was only dimly conscious of Luiz’s rasping cry of disbelief.
‘I hurt…Madre de Dios, you…’
Nell bit his shoulder. ‘I’m not hurt, I’m…oh, God, please, Luiz, you’re…’ She felt some of the rigid tension in the muscles of his back loosen as he began to move slowly. She stroked his back, her fingers digging into the sweat-slick smoothness, and clung, wrapping her legs around him as he moved, slowly at first and then, in response to her desperate cries, harder.
He felt the first ripples of her contraction and, losing the tight, painful control, he buried himself deep in her and let go. The climax shattered him and left him gasping for breath as he collapsed onto her.
Nell opened her sleepy eyelids and blinked. As the leafy canopy above her head slid into focus the night’s events came rushing back.
‘Oh, God!’ She sat bolt upright, her wide eyes scanning the clearing.
There was no sign of Luiz. She was alone in the clearing, the smouldering embers evidence of the blazing fire, and the new aches in her body the evidence of the lovemaking.
‘Oh, God!’ she wailed again.
A one-night stand!
She had always wondered what mind-numbing sex would be like and had secretly feared she was too repressed to ever find out first hand, but she had—now she knew!
The learning curve had been steep, but she’d had a pretty good teacher. An image of Luiz’s face flashed into her head.
In h
er naivety she had always thought that for perfect sex you needed a meeting of minds, of hearts, but last night had disproved this theory totally. She was shocked and in equal measure fascinated by the instincts that had burst into life and taken her over—instincts that had been so dormant she hadn’t even suspected they existed, that she was capable of such unrestrained passion.
She ran her tongue across her lips. They still felt swollen and sensitive from his kisses. A thrill ran through her as she touched her mouth, her eyes clouding hazily as moments of the passionate coupling flashed across her vision.
It could have been worse, she told herself—she could have fallen for him.
It had been sheer insanity! But beautiful insanity. Before she could dwell on the details of that depravity she heard the sound of movement in the distance.
Hastily she pushed aside the jacket that was covering her and, dropping to her knees, scrabbled for the clothes that had been hastily discarded the previous night.
She slid her dress over her head, swearing softly when her zip snagged halfway up.
‘You’re awake.’
Standing there barefoot and poised for flight with her hair tangled, her big eyes wide and wary, she made him think of a woodland nymph.
‘You should have woken me. What time is it?’ He looked incredible in a sexy, rumpled way; she, on the other hand, must look like a bag lady. The world was not a fair place.
He raised a brow at her querulous tone. ‘Not a morning person?’
Nell dragged a hand through her hair and pushed it behind her ears and didn’t allow herself to think that he might be seriously interested in finding out. They were two ships that passed in the night, or in this case collided. ‘I prefer waking in a bed, curtains, sheets.’
His eyes darkened. ‘That could be arranged.’
She flushed, her eyes falling from his. ‘My bed.’
‘I have a bed.’ And he could see her in it, but she was not mistress material.
Nell angled a direct look at his lean face. ‘Is that an invitation, Luiz?’ Was that shock in his eyes or just alarm? Neither possibility would have surprised Nell considering the irony she had intended to inject into her words hadn’t materialised.
Sexy Billionaires Page 55