‘Miss Frost.’ The man with the warm eyes from yesterday explained that he was the estate manager and he would, he said, escort her to Luiz’s private apartments.
Nell, feeling awkward, nodded and said, ‘Call me Nell, please.’
‘It is this way.’ He stood to one side to allow her to join him on the path that went in the opposite direction to the one that Luiz had taken. ‘The castillo can be confusing until you get your bearings.’
Following him through the maze of corridors, Nell doubted that the day would ever come that she got her bearings even if she spent the rest of her life here, which she very obviously wouldn’t.
This wasn’t really happening; it was a dream. A defiant light entered her eyes. It was a dream she wanted to cram as much fantasy as possible into before she woke up. It wasn’t that she was actively seeking a replay of last night’s wild passion, it was just, if it happened—well, she wasn’t going to actively resist it. She was going to go with the flow.
Do you want uncomplicated sex? Can you even do uncomplicated sex? asked the doubtful, disapproving voice in her head.
Nell accepted Ramon’s invitation to step through the door into Luiz’s private apartment. When the choice was uncomplicated sex or no sex at all the decision was easy to make because the truth was where Luiz Santoro was concerned she had no pride and even less common sense.
Bringing the internal debate to a halt, she said the necessary polite things to Ramon before he left her alone.
Alone meant the doubts really started creeping in; after a couple of nervous circuits of the sitting room she searched out a bathroom.
A couple of minutes later she was in the shower allowing the needles of hot water to wash away the dirt and soothe her bruises. She emerged feeling a lot fresher. The bruises remained, though, and a couple of spectacular scratches. She overcame her reluctance to put back on her creased clothes, but what choice did she have? He had to have something to take off, reasoned the voice in her head.
‘Optimist,’ she accused her image in the steamy mirror. Her grin faltered. ‘You’re taking a lot for granted, Nell Frost. A few smouldering looks do not make a date. This is not the middle of the wilderness. A man has more options. There are other ways to spend an evening or an afternoon—there might be a good film on the TV,’ she observed, only half joking.
The longer she was alone with her thoughts, the less realistic her rather shocking plans for a day of wild passion seemed.
She left the bathroom trying not to allow her thoughts or her eyes to stray to the quite incredibly large bed that dominated Luiz’s bedroom.
Nell’s rather tense expression relaxed into a smile when in the sitting room beyond she saw the tray of tea and sandwiches waiting for her—two cups, so obviously Luiz did plan to return some time soon.
After taking a sandwich and pouring herself a cup of tea she sat down on the leather sofa and waited.
She didn’t have long to wait. When he entered the room her heart started banging violently against her ribs.
Luiz stopped dead when he saw her, his eyes drifting from her freshly scrubbed face to the cup of tea in her hands and on to her hair hanging wetly around her shoulders.
Nell felt relieved when he finally broke the simmering silence.
‘You look so young.’
Nell wasn’t sure from the accusing note in his voice if she was meant to apologise. Instead she said stupidly, ‘Thanks for the tea.’
He nodded his head in acknowledgement. ‘You’re welcome.’
‘I hope you don’t mind—I used your shower.’
The only thing Luiz minded was that he had not been there to share the shower with her.
‘Then you will smell better than me.’
In Nell’s opinion there was nothing wrong with the way he smelt—nothing at all. She did not share this opinion but instead asked, ‘Is your grandmother worse?’
He angled a brow. ‘She is in good spirits. It was a call from my office that kept me.’
‘You have an office?’
‘Several.’
‘You’re rich?’
Luiz dug his hand into his pocket and shrugged; someone had clearly been talking. ‘I am not poor.’
‘The odd billion doesn’t count, then,’ she suggested in a quivering voice. When Luiz didn’t correct her Nell swallowed and said, ‘I thought Francesco was exaggerating.’ Her eyes slid to the ring on her finger. ‘So it wasn’t about your grandmother’s money? You were telling the truth all along.’
‘Am I meant to apologise for not lying?’ Was he lying to himself when he told himself yet again that this was just about sex? Luiz wasn’t sure he was ready for that much truth yet, so he turned a deaf ear to the intrusive thought.
Nell put her teacup onto the tray and unfolded her legs. ‘You could have told me,’ she added angrily. ‘You knew what I thought and you could have put me right at any point, but you enjoyed feeling superior.’
Nell saw the flash of surprised recognition in his eyes before he acknowledged the accusation with a shrug. ‘You started off calling me a snake and your opinion went down from there. I suppose I was wondering just how low your opinion could go before it reached rock-bottom.’
She watched over the rim of her teacup as he perched on the edge of the window seat and, stretching his long legs out in front of him, crossed one ankle over the other.
‘I still slept with you when I thought you were a snake.’ Nell realised now that her determination to believe the worst of him had been in part a protective thing—she had wanted him to have a flaw, an ugly side that stopped him being perfect and irresistible.
This was not a discovery Nell planned on sharing with him. Not now he had no flaws or ugly side and she had no protection. Because while not quite perfect—that would be boring—Luiz was, to her at least, totally irresistible.
His glittering gaze swivelled her way. ‘So you did,’ he drawled. ‘And now that your opinion is perhaps not so low…?’
Nell’s eyes slid from the dark glitter of sexual challenge in his bold stare. ‘You look exhausted.’
‘Someone kept me awake last night.’ He was hoping she would do the same tonight. He had felt in need of her brand of comfort all day and it was driving him quietly out of his mind.
Nell cast him a look of reproach before she turned her attention to the original subject. ‘When you said there was no money were you telling the truth then too?’
He looked startled. ‘I said that?’
Nell, who recalled every word he had ever said to her, nodded.
‘You really do have the uncanny ability to make me say things that should stay unsaid. Well, it’s true. There is no money. The estate has not moved with the times, and Doña Elena took some bad advice financially.’
‘The estate is in financial trouble?’ Nell did not hide her surprise—nothing she had seen suggested straitened circumstances or neglect.
‘There were problems and Ramon and I decided that it would be best not to trouble her with them. We arranged to have funds deposited in some accounts to cover the shortfalls and where necessary I made a few capital investments in renovation projects.’
It took a couple of seconds for her to process this casually delivered information. ‘You mean, not only did you not want her money, you’ve been giving her yours for months.’ Nell, who had thought she could not feel more stupid, discovered she could.
‘It has been more in the nature of a long-term project.’
‘Years!’
He acknowledged her startled suggestion with an inclination of his dark head before he dragged a hand across the dark shadow on his hair-roughened jaw.
‘I wanted to save my grandmother the humiliation and heartache of losing the estate that has been her life. It seemed like the least I could do for her considering she has been mother and father to me after my parents dumped me on her for the holiday one year and never got around to picking me up. Understandable really,’ he mused wryly. ‘A weedy, sickly
kid did quite frankly ruin their globetrotting social life.’
Nell struggled to get her head around Luiz as a sickly, unwanted child, and struggled even more to understand how any parent could just abdicate their responsibilities and their own child. She wondered how Luiz could recite the history without even a trace of visible bitterness.
‘Though to be fair it was work for them—they make travel documentaries.’
Ah, there was the bitterness—he was human after all, and he was obviously totally devoted to his grandmother.
‘I don’t know how anyone could leave their own child.’ Her jaw tightened as she found herself hating two people she had never met.
An expression she couldn’t read flickered at the back of his hooded gaze, but it was not echoed in his flat tone as he said, ‘I’m sure you can’t, but not everyone has your sense of duty.’
Nell sprang to her feet, her expression passionately intense as she pressed a hand to her breast and cried, ‘It’s not about duty, it’s about love.’ Then, suddenly feeling painfully self-conscious, she sank back down muttering, ‘People who don’t know that shouldn’t have children.’
He shrugged. ‘They were and are very wrapped up in one another.’
Nell gave a contemptuous snort. ‘They sound like selfish idiots to me.’
‘I seem to recall you expressing a similar view about me.’
Her flushed face lifted to his. There was still a sparkle of indignation in her grey eyes. ‘You are an idiot—sometimes,’ she admitted. ‘But you wouldn’t let someone else bring up your child.’
The humorous glint faded from his eyes. ‘No, Nell, I would not, but I would not give my wife the child she craved. I think that makes me worse than selfish.’
‘It makes you human, you stupid man!’ she exploded.
He raised his brows at the heat in her retort. ‘I am considered pretty smart by most people.’
Nell sniffed. ‘It just shows you how ridiculous people can be, then. Your wife died—it wasn’t your fault, was it?’ She watched the cold, closed look spread across his face and hated it.
‘A car crash—she was travelling alone back from Barcelona.’
‘Then not your fault,’ she repeated. ‘You’re alive, Luiz.’
He inhaled deeply and suddenly felt this statement was truer than it had been for years. ‘I am.’
Nell, her heart racing, watched him approach, her eyes fixed on the slow, deliberate tread of his polished shoes. He stopped about three feet away.
‘Let me be straight with you.’
Her eyes lifted to knee level; her breathing had gone haywire.
‘There are two ways this night could go.’
Her eyes reached chest level and stopped.
‘Firstly, if you wish I could arrange transport to the airport, book you into a hotel for the night. Secondly, and I have to tell you this is my preferred choice, you spend the rest of the day and night here with me.’
She sucked in a deep startled breath as her eyes flew to his face. The heat and unvarnished desire in his made her gasp.
Luiz’s eyes did not leave hers as he inclined his head towards the big bed visible through the open bedroom door and added in a throaty purr, ‘In that bed.’
Nell’s eyes slid towards the bed and back to Luiz, then back to the bed. She swallowed. Her heart was beating so hard he had to be able to hear it.
‘I will not lie and say I feel things I do not, do you understand, Nell?’
Nell tore her eyes from the bed. She tried to push her hair from her eyes, but her hand didn’t obey her command; a strange enervating weakness held her. She drew a fractured sigh. ‘I understand.’ She understood he didn’t love her.
‘And your choice?’ While his attitude and shrug had a take-it-or-leave-it quality, there was nothing casual about the tension twitching the fine muscles around his mouth, or the febrile shudders she could see running through his greyhound-lean frame.
‘I would like to spend the night here with you, in a bed.’
Nell, frustrated at not being able to see his expression because of the hand he lifted to his face, waited tensely for his response to her admission.
‘Thank God!’
Nell’s shoulders slumped in relief.
When his hand fell away the gleam of predatory male satisfaction in his eyes made her stomach muscles quiver violently. She watched her breath coming in uneven shallow gasps as he walked the remaining distance towards her looking big and dark and deliciously dangerous.
Nell was suddenly gripped by panic.
What have I done?
What am I doing?
He was standing so close now she could see the fine lines radiating from his incredible eyes. All she had to do was stretch out her hand to touch him, touch all that marvellous male hardness. Her fingers curled into a fist—God, but she wanted to touch him.
‘Our bargain—’
‘Having sex was not part of our bargain. Madre de Dios!’ he growled. ‘I am tired of the bargain. I suggest we throw the damned thing out of the window and start from scratch.’
‘Yes, please.’
He looked at the hands that Nell held out, then, with a strangled cry, folded his long brown fingers over them and hauled her towards him until their bodies collided.
‘You have not the faintest idea how glad I am you said yes to this option.’ His lips brushed her eyelids and cheeks, moved over the curve of her throat before claiming her mouth in a hard, hungry kiss that left Nell breathless, dizzy and craving more.
‘Show me?’ she whispered, sliding her hands around his neck and pressing her body to his. ‘Show me how glad you are, Luiz. Please…?’
The request drew a long shuddering sigh from Luiz. He curled his fingers around her chin and tilted her face up to his. Nell could feel he was shaking; she could feel the erotic imprint of his rock-hard erection against her belly.
‘I will show you how it should be this time,’ he promised thickly as he stroked her hair. ‘Last time…’ A spasm of regret contorted his lean features.
Nell tugged at the corner of his mouth gently with her teeth, their breaths mingling as she raised herself on tiptoe and whispered back fiercely, ‘You have nothing to make up for, Luiz. You were perfect. It was perfect.’ She pressed her lips to his and kissed him hard.
With a groan Luiz scooped her up into his arms and carried her through to the bedroom. Together they fell onto the bed in a sprawl of tangled limbs. With soft grunts, desperate moans and whispered endearments they tugged at each other’s clothes with a clumsiness born of sheer desperation until they lay naked facing one another.
They both lay there breathing hard.
Nell’s eyes, dark with desire, glittered like jewels as she ran her fingers along the abrasive, hard, angular curve of his cheek towards his mouth. She luxuriated in everything that made him male and hard and so utterly perfect.
‘Your mouth is a sheer miracle.’ A shaky little laugh left her aching throat as she conceded, ‘The rest of you is not half bad either.’
Luiz didn’t laugh back. His eyes were hypnotically dark and so hot she could almost see the flames dancing deep in the velvety depths as he took her fingertips and drew them into his mouth and sucked.
The erotic thrill shot down to her toes as she squeezed her eyes tight shut. Nell heard the low, almost feral moan and didn’t actually connect it with herself, she wasn’t herself, she was floating, and everything below her waist had melted.
He took her fingers from his mouth, kissed the tip of each one slowly before fitting his mouth to hers, catching the soft flesh of her pink inner lip between his teeth.
‘I have been thinking about doing this all day,’ he confided thickly.
‘I’ve been thinking about this too.’
Her eyes squeezed tight as he slid his tongue inside, following the full curve of her lush lips before plunging in deeper. Luiz struggled to soften the bruising pressure; he wanted her so much that every nerve in his body ached.
‘Oh, my God, Luiz!’ she gasped when the kiss stopped.
He looked deep into her eyes and said thickly, ‘You trust me to make this good for you.’
She didn’t have to think about it. ‘Totally,’ she sighed.
The complete lack of reservation in her eyes touched Luiz in a place that no one had reached before. He raised himself over her, his dark eyes sliding over her slim, pale body, and his hand trembled as he brushed her hair back from her brow.
The tenderness brought tears to her eyes. Simultaneously the dark passion in his face sent a shiver of anticipation down her spine. Nell’s spine arched as he kissed his way slowly down her body, his tongue and lips sending her spinning out of control.
Her breath came in hoarse gasps as his attention shifted to more intimate areas. The skilful erotic caresses of his hands and lips sent her close to the fulfilment her body and soul craved, and then each time he drew back, until finally as she felt her throbbing body was on the brink of explosion he slid into her, shockingly, beautifully filling her, merging, becoming one with her.
She wrapped her hips across his and clung as he began to move. When he felt the first ripples of her climax Luiz closed his eyes, every muscle and sinew and nerve ending in his body screaming for release as he heard her hoarse cry and felt her come quick and hard, her soft wetness tightening rhythmically around him.
As he looked into her shocked, passion-glazed eyes he said thickly, ‘Once more with feeling, querida.’ And he began to move slowly, rocking his hips into her, touching her, lighting a slow-burning fuse with his body.
Luiz and the fuse exploded in unison and for a long, breathless moment Nell lost all sense of self; they were one.
‘That was…perfect.’
‘Perfect,’ Luiz echoed, sounding, she thought sleepily, as shaken as she felt.
After the second time they made love Luiz fell into a deep sleep of total exhaustion with Nell curled up in his arms.
Sleep eluded her. Her overactive mind just wouldn’t switch off and, anyway, who wanted to sleep when she could look at Luiz?
Sexy Billionaires Page 59