This wasn’t just desire. It felt deeper. Almost elemental.
He pushed the thought away. What the hell was wrong with him? It’s just sex, he told himself fiercely. He wanted her. Nothing more. If he had her in his bed, he would see that she was a woman like any other. Not magical in any way.
Maybe he had a good reason to seduce her after all …
He raised her chin, forcing her to look at him.
“I won’t tell you a thing,” she whispered. He watched the way her full lips moved, brushing against each other as she spoke.
“You will.” He stroked her cheek. “You will tell me everything I want to know and beg to tell me more.”
Slowly, deliberately, he lowered his mouth to hers. He kissed her until he heard a soft moan rise from deep in her throat. He stopped, looking down at her.
Her eyes were dazed.
“How do you do that?” She looked confused, almost frightened. “I’ve never been kissed like that before. Not by anyone. It scares me.”
“Good.” He was relieved to be in control again. For a moment, he’d felt strangely off-kilter. Poetic images of soul-stealing fairies and hundred-year days were from fantasies spun by his Irish-American mother, stories from the happy childhood he tried not to remember because it hurt too damn much.
But now they were on safer ground. Sex, lust, desire—those he understood. Those could be solved.
So why not just seduce her? Taking her to his bed, he could prove once and for all that she had no power over him. And find out the secret she was keeping.
Besides, damn it, he’d warned her not to kiss him like that again. She could have gone cold in his embrace. She could have pushed away. Instead, she’d kissed him back passionately, moaning in his arms. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her.
So why hold himself back like a saint? It wasn’t as if the girl was a virgin, after all. Sleeping with her wouldn’t have to change his plans against her fiancé and her brother. He would still take his revenge in spades.
In fact, seducing her might make it even more sharp and sweet. He smiled to himself, picturing Aziz’s face when he realized that Marcos had taken full possession of his would-be bride …
A knock came at the door. Nelida entered with thick, luxurious white cotton towels, a box of matches and a bowl of rose petals. She went into the en suite bathroom and turned on the water. Two minutes later she left, closing the double doors behind her with an opinionated harrumph.
Marcos pulled the blanket off Tamsin’s shoulders, dropping it to the floor. Taking her hand, he pulled her to her feet.
She had been looking avidly around the room, as if examining the architecture, but as he started to untie the top of her black halter dress, she put her hand on his, her eyes full of entreaty and fear.
“Let me help you, querida,” he said softly.
“You want to help me take a bath?”
“I want you to be warm,” he coaxed, massaging her bare shoulders. “You are cold, wet, miserable. You’ve had a difficult day, and that is partly my fault. Let me make it up to you.”
“I’m not going to sleep with you, if that’s what you think,” she gasped, even while swaying like putty beneath his fingertips.
He paused. “Return to your room, then. I won’t stop you.”
She kept staring at the tiled walls and painted wood panels of his room. She must have been too nervous to meet his eyes, he thought. When she finally faced him, he understood why.
“No,” she said. “I want to stay with you tonight.”
Her honesty surprised him—and he gloried in her admission. Part of him wondered if she was hoping that spending the night with him would somehow help her escape. But, even knowing this, he found himself unable to resist. Taking her hands, he pulled her up from the chair. Her lips were moist, parted.
He’d warned her. Now, she would be completely his. He would learn all her secrets. Both of her body … and of her soul.
Brushing her wet hair to the side, he untied the halter and slowly unzipped the back of her dress. He could feel her shivering beneath his touch. Or were his own hands shaking? No, impossible. He wouldn’t be that affected by a sexual affair. He always enjoyed them thoroughly, but forgot them just as quickly.
Her dress dropped to the floor, leaving only her white lace panties.
He sucked in his breath. She was exquisite, shaped like a houri, with full, high breasts, perfectly curved hips and a waist that could be spanned with his hands. It was all he could do not to take her in his arms, rip off the virginal white lace and press her against the wall. To kiss every inch of her skin and warm her with his breath, his lips, his body. To fill her with his heat.
One glance at her troubled blue eyes told him that wouldn’t be the wisest move. She was still shivering, from cold or nerves or both.
He would take it slow.
First, he would calm her.
Then he would seduce her.
Taking it slow was the least he could do, he thought dryly, since he had no intention of giving her what she really wanted: her freedom. And, at this moment, looking at the pale curves of her body and beautiful, proud face, he couldn’t imagine ever wanting to let her go.
CHAPTER FOUR
A MOMENT ago, Tamsin had been freezing. Now she felt as if she were on fire.
Marcos slowly stroked her body, his eyes dark with lust. His hands ran down her waist to the curve of her hips. Gently, he pulled her white panties down to the floor. Still kneeling, he looked up at her.
“Qué belleza,” he breathed, and all she could think of was that she was naked in front of a man for the first time. She’d known that it would happen tonight, but she’d imagined Aziz taking her brutally in the dark, beneath a pile of blankets. This was totally different.
The fire caressed Marcos’s body in rosy warmth. The light starkly illuminated the chiseled outline of his well-muscled torso above his pants. He was beautiful, she thought—her dark angel. Murmuring endearments in Spanish, he rose from the floor, slowly kissing up her body.
She closed her eyes, helpless to protest, helpless to move. A few hours ago, this man had been a stranger to her. An enemy of her family. Now he seemed intent on worshipping her, and she was allowing him to do it. What was wrong with her?
I don’t have a choice, she told herself desperately. When she’d spoken with Aziz, he’d been so incensed at the blot on his honor that he’d wanted to bring his uncle’s mercenaries to kill her kidnappers. Tamsin couldn’t let that happen. It wasn’t that she cared anything about Marcos, she assured herself, but it would be wrong to let his innocent servants take punishment with him. Even that rude housekeeper didn’t deserve to be gunned down in cold blood.
So when Aziz had demanded to know the name of her kidnapper and her location, she’d said she didn’t know. It wasn’t entirely a lie, since the exact location of the castle was a mystery to her, but she’d arranged to meet him at El Puerto de las Estrellas at dawn.
All she had to do now was escape from the castle.
By some miracle, Marcos had brought her to his bedroom and, if the housekeeper had been right about the secret tunnel, it was a stroke of fate. She would distract him, find the tunnel and escape to the village.
She would even give Marcos her virginity if that was what it took. She had no choice. For Nicole’s sake, she’d sacrifice anything.
But, as Tamsin felt Marcos’s strong hands caress her body, she found herself wondering if it would even be a sacrifice …
She gasped as he touched her naked body. He took one breast in his hand, exposing her aching nipple, while his other hand traced like a whisper down her belly towards the tuft of hair between her legs.
Then his mouth came down on her breast, suckling her, and she lost all rational thought. His tongue swirled around her nipple, making her gasp and grip his shoulders. She threw her head back, closing her eyes as he devoured her with lips and tongue and teeth, bringing her to the edge between pleasure and pain. He moved to
the other breast as his hand lightly teased her hips and thighs, grazing the edge of hair. A groan came from deep within her throat as she finally felt his hand reach between her legs. She nearly cried aloud with the strange ache of want. She ran her hands along his naked back, wanting him to touch her core—willing him to touch inside her …
Cursing under his breath, he moved his hand away.
“You make me forget,” he said softly, looking up at her.
“Forget?” she gasped.
“Forget my plans for you.”
“Plans?” Suddenly frightened, she drew back, trying to read his handsome, inscrutable face.
Standing up, he bent his head to kiss the sensitive crook of her neck, running his hands along her lower back, her hips, her backside. And she knew that, no matter how little she trusted him, she could no more tell him to stop than she could stop breathing.
He picked her up as if she weighed nothing at all. She leaned her head against his shoulder. At last, she thought. At last he would toss her on his bed, remove his pants, cover her with his naked body. She closed her eyes, aching for him, wanting nothing more than to surrender.
But he didn’t take her to the bed. Instead, he carried her into an enormous bathroom of exquisite white tiles, lit by a dozen tall, tapered candles. He lowered her into the rose-covered bath and she sighed as the hot water enveloped her. She hadn’t realized until that moment how grimy she felt, covered with rain and sea salt and the dust of two continents. Muscles she hadn’t even realized were sore suddenly relaxed.
“Lean back,” Marcos ordered. Obediently, she plunged her head back in the water and her cold, wet hair was submerged into warmth and pleasure. She sat up and rested her head against the bathtub’s edge, feeling newly reborn. She was almost too relaxed to even care that he could see flashes of her naked breasts beneath the bobbing rose petals.
He sat on the floor behind her and poured a dollop of shampoo in his hands. He began to slowly massage it through her hair. She sighed again, more deeply. She closed her eyes, giving herself up to his ministrations.
“Rinse,” he said, and she obeyed. Using a sea sponge and lavender soap, he began to wash her body, rubbing in a circular motion against her warm, rosy skin. He started at her shoulders then gently moved down her arms, her breasts, her belly, her legs. He pulled her feet out of the water, one at a time, massaging them deeply, then did the same with her hands.
Her whole body felt warm and dazed with contentment. She raised her hands in front of her eyes. The beautiful geometric patterns of henna that had marked her as Aziz al-Maghrib’s bride were now so faded they’d almost disappeared entirely.
And it was as if shackles had fallen from her wrists.
If her plans went well, after tomorrow she’d be Aziz’s bride. She’d be at his beck and call, enduring his fetid breath, his flabby body and cruel-fisted hands for the rest of her life.
But tonight was a different story. Tonight she was her own woman, free to feel joy and make her own choices.
And Marcos was her choice.
Whatever else she was forced to surrender to Aziz, she didn’t want him to have her virginity as well. Before she was buried alive in the desert, she wanted one clear, pure memory of pleasure to sustain her for ever.
She wanted Marcos.
He made her feel things, want things, that she’d never known before. He went out of his way to make her feel warmth and comfort and pleasure.
Unlike Aziz, who would just expect her to pleasure him in bed and remain silent and cowed. He would beat her when he discovered she was no longer a virgin, but he would have beat her anyway on some flimsy pretext.
Making love to Marcos would be worth it. At that moment, she knew it would be worth any price.
“Ready?” Marcos asked, holding up a towel.
“Yes,” she said, and it was true. She was ready. Ready for one night of freedom and joy before she destroyed her own life to keep her sister safe.
She stood up and rose-scented water sluiced down her body. Holding her hand, he helped her out of the tub. He brought her close in front of the fire, toweling off her body. Her heart beat erratically as he wrapped the enormous white towel around her. She could feel the warmth of his hands through the thick cotton towel.
He looked down at her. “Much better,” he said softly.
“Much,” she whispered, looking up at his sensual mouth.
He ran a finger lightly along her bottom lip. “Tamsin, I make you no promises. To the contrary. We will have this one night together, a few weeks at most. After that, there can be no future relationship between us.”
“Good.” It would be too awful to see him again after her marriage to Aziz. Too awful to remember everything sensual and wonderful that she’d never feel again.
He raised a dark eyebrow. “Good?”
She couldn’t explain, even if she’d wanted to. Hours felt short. She had such a limited, precious time to enjoy herself, to be wild, to be free. “Marcos, has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?”
He blinked at her. “You are the first woman to ever tell me that.”
And you’re the first man who will ever make love to me, she thought, but she didn’t say the words for fear that they’d make him hesitate or hold back. He’d already tried enough to dissuade her. This was her night. Her decision.
Holding her arms out straight to her sides, she deliberately dropped her towel to the floor.
She heard his intake of breath. For a moment, he just looked at her and she could feel his eyes move over her body. Then he lifted her chin, lowering his mouth to hers in a warm, gentle kiss. Her breasts tingled, feeling heavy as they pressed against the hair of his muscled chest. She returned the kiss with fervor. His kiss became harder, more demanding.
The firelit room seemed to sparkle and swirl around her, like the night before her twenty-first birthday, when she and her friends Bianca and Daisy had drunk a bottle of champagne and spun around under the leaves falling from the bright October sky. Kissing Marcos was like that times ten. He tasted of champagne and passion and freedom. He made her dizzy, tipsy, drunk.
He lifted her in his arms and, still kissing her, gently set her on the bed. He stepped back and removed the last of his clothing. For a moment, he stood naked in the firelight, gazing down at her.
She stared back, blushing furiously but unable to look away. She’d never seen a naked man before. He was beautiful, rugged and hard and everything that she was not. And so big! What if she was clumsy? What if he laughed at her? Nervousness coursed through her.
But, when he came to her on the bed, his skin felt so warm against hers that her nervousness melted away. His muscled chest moved against her breasts. She felt him between her legs, pressing against her. He kissed her, swaying down her body, and she arched up towards him.
“Please,” she whispered, not even sure what exactly she was begging him to do. She’d seen movies, of course, and read books, but experiencing it herself was overwhelming and strange. Nothing like she’d imagined …
“Wait,” he said firmly. She felt his breath on her belly, then her thighs, and she nearly arched off the bed. He couldn’t intend to—no, surely—
She felt his tongue between her legs. Delicately at first, then more greedily, he tasted her. He pushed her thighs apart and spread her wide. Her whole body felt tense, so tense, driving her forward as the first waves crashed around her and she cried out.
He lifted himself above her with his strong arms and, sheathing himself with a condom, he thrust inside her.
He was huge. The pain was immediate.
He stopped, staring down at her in shock. She looked up at him and, even while she was pummeled beneath conflicting waves of pleasure and pain, she knew she didn’t want him to stop. She arched herself against him, raking her fingernails down his back.
“You’re a virgin,” he gasped.
She moved her body against his, teasing him with her breasts. “Not any more,” she whispered shyly.
A tremor rippled through his hard body.
“I don’t understand.” His forehead creased. He looked younger, almost bewildered. “Everything I’d heard about you …”
“I tried to tell you.” She couldn’t let him stop now, didn’t want him to pull away. She took one of his hands and slowly sucked the long length of his finger. “I was waiting. For you.”
He sucked in his breath. As if unable to resist, he pushed into her again, slowly at first. She moaned as the pleasure began to overtake the pain. He thrust into her again, harder. He took her breasts in his hands, suckling her, biting her nipple. Tension coiled low in her belly. She threw her arms back, wrapping her legs around his hard-muscled buttocks as he thrust into her again and again, riding her hard and deep.
He gasped, his body slick with sweat, and cried out. Hearing him lose control sent her over the edge, and her scream joined with his as a second orgasm shook her body, even deeper and more shattering than the first.
Afterwards, she held him in a daze. His arms were tight around her, his skin warm against hers. She could hear the crackling of the fire.
At last she understood why he’d warned her there could be no relationship between them. Because, at this moment, she felt so warm and dazed and protected and loved, all she wanted to do was to stay in his arms for ever.
But she had an appointment at dawn. Not with a firing squad, but close.
“I was wrong about you,” he said softly, holding her close.
“Yes.”
He took a deep breath. “I accused you of horrible things, and the whole time you were a virgin.”
“It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not. I kidnapped you, blamed you for crimes that were not your own, then insulted you.” Still stretched out on the bed, he stared up at the ceiling. “I was wrong.”
He looked so angry with himself that she wanted to soften the blow. “I was careless with my reputation,” she pointed out.
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