‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ His mocking grin and supreme arrogance made her grit her teeth. ‘I’m not blind, querida, I have visible evidence that I turn you on.’ His eyes settled on the hard peaks of her nipples straining against the bodice of her wedding dress. ‘You are as hungry for me as I am for you—what’s the point in denying the passion your body so clearly craves?’
‘My body may react to your undoubted expertise, but my heart and mind reject you—and they’re what count,’ she told him so fiercely that his eyes narrowed.
‘But you’re my wife.’ Before she had time to think, he spun her round and continued to unfasten her dress until he lost patience and wrenched the material apart so that the little pearls pinged in all directions.
‘Don’t!’ With a sharp cry Grace held the bodice against her breasts. ‘My beautiful dress—you’ve ruined it,’ she flung at him, appalled by his casual desecration of the fairy-tale gown that she had fallen in love with the moment she’d seen it. ‘You’re a … barbarian! Is it any wonder that I can’t bear you anywhere near me?’
His jaw tightened but when he spoke his voice was calm, almost bored. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. What’s the real issue here, Grace? Have you decided to cash in on my obvious hunger for you? I’ve already paid a fortune for you, but that went to clear your father’s debts. I take it you now want an additional financial incentive in return for sex?’
The crack of her palm against his cheek ricocheted around the room. There followed a moment of stunned silence, and then Grace cried out when he lifted his hands and ripped her dress from her shoulders, leaving her small, pale breasts exposed to his gaze. ‘Javier—no—I won’t do this.’ She tried to cover herself with her hands, but when he snatched her into his arms she beat her fists on his shoulders, her breath leaving her body when he dropped her onto the bed and immediately came down on top of her, trapping her beneath his hard and fiercely aroused body.
‘The time for games is over, querida,’ he told her as he pinned her wrists above her head. The heat in his gaze seemed to scorch her flesh, and she shuddered in an agony of rejection mixed with shocking desire when he lowered his head and drew one throbbing peak into his mouth. The stroke of his tongue back and forth across her nipple was exquisite torture, and Grace twisted her hips restlessly. She was overwhelmed by the new and wickedly delicious sensations he was arousing within her and she couldn’t prevent a sob of relief when he transferred his mouth to her other breast and proceeded to use his tongue with devastating effect.
She was breathing hard when he finally released her, and she stared up at him with glazed eyes when he rolled off her and stood by the side of the bed.
‘Today in the chapel you promised to be my wife, Grace,’ he told her harshly. ‘And now it’s time to honour that promise.’
‘What would you know of honour?’ she demanded thickly as her sanity returned. She watched, transfixed, as he swiftly removed his shirt and trousers. In the lamplight his skin gleamed like copper, and her eyes moved of their own accord over the mass of wiry black hair that covered his chest and arrowed lower beneath the waistband of his boxer shorts.
With slow deliberation he hooked his fingers into the black silk and tugged them over his hips to reveal the jutting proof of his arousal.
‘Oh God!’ In sheer panic, Grace jerked upright and backed away from him until she was straining against the headboard. ‘Javier, I can’t do this. Please don’t make me.’ Her eyes were like twin orbs in her pale face. She’d seen the naked male form before, of course—in magazines, and even in a rather risqué television advert. But this was the first time she had ever been confronted with real flesh and blood, and the awesome sight of Javier’s fully erect penis made her close her eyes weakly.
‘This is growing a little boring, querida,’ he drawled. ‘Why do you insist on acting like a terrified virgin?’
‘Because I am a terrified virgin,’ she whispered urgently.
‘Of course you are.’ His sardonic comment masked his simmering impatience, and Grace gasped when he gripped her ankles and dragged her down the bed. The mattress dipped as he stretched out next to her. ‘Madre de Dios!’ At least have the decency to look at me while you spin your lies,’ he growled savagely, and then tensed when she lifted her lashes and he saw the expression in her fearful gaze. For long, excruciating moments he said nothing, and then he exploded with the force of Krakatoa.
‘I swear, I’ve never … been to bed with a man before,’ Grace assured him hastily.
‘But you were engaged! To a man who had a reputation around London as a serial sex addict,’ he added furiously.
‘I knew nothing of Richard’s reputation when I met him,’ Grace told him stiffly, her cheeks scarlet with embarrassment. ‘I thought he was charming and a true gentleman when he didn’t try and hurry me into bed.’
‘But you eventually learned otherwise,’ Javier guessed, his keen gaze noting the misery in hers. ‘What happened?’
Grace swallowed. Javier was lying on one hip, leaning over her slightly, but he made no attempt to touch her as he waited for her reply. ‘We met soon after I’d moved to London, and I fell for him in a big way,’ she admitted huskily. ‘It was fairly soon after my mother had died. I was feeling low, and I suppose I was lonely and vulnerable. Richard made me laugh and it was a long time since I’d done that. I was over the moon when he asked me to marry him, and I believed that his insistence that he was happy to wait until our wedding before we had a sexual relationship proved that he really loved me.’
She sighed heavily as she remembered the time in her life she would much rather forget. ‘A few weeks before the wedding I went to his flat—it was a surprise visit, and I was going to tell him that I loved him too much to wait any longer. I knew we were going to spend the rest of our lives together and I wanted us to become lovers. Instead, the surprise was on me,’ she said bitterly. ‘I had my own key and I let myself in—to find him in bed with his housekeeper.’
‘And so you broke off your engagement?’ Javier queried.
‘Of course I did. I believe marriage should be a lifelong commitment, as my parents’ marriage was.’ She thought of the vows she had made to Javier earlier in the day and bit her lip. ‘I thought that the love I shared with Richard would last for ever, but it was all a sham, just like our marriage is a sham. Richard only wanted to marry me because my pathetic infatuation with him boosted his ego. I must have been the answer to his prayers, so stupidly in love with him with him that I never questioned the times he had to work late or suddenly disappeared for several days on a business conference.’
She took a deep breath and stared at Javier, her heart in her eyes. ‘Despite all the pain Richard caused me, I still believe in love—the kind of deep, enduring love that my parents shared. One day I hope I’ll meet a man who I will love for ever and who will love me, and he’s the man I want to honour with my body.’
Javier stared back at her, his amber eyes glittering with frustration. ‘Dios!’ He spat savagely as he suddenly rolled off the bed and dragged on his underwear. ‘It’s just my luck to find myself saddled with a wife who has the tongue of a viper, the face and body of a siren and the innocence of a vestal virgin.’ He flung the pink nightdress at her, his temper sizzling. ‘You’d better put this on before I come back.’
‘Where are you going?’ Grace mumbled as she clutched the negligee to her breasts.
‘To take a long, cold shower.’
‘I’ll sleep in my old room,’ she said quickly. ‘If you could just unlock your bedroom door.’
‘This is our bedroom, and from now on we will both sleep in it,’ Javier snapped imperiously. ‘I told you, I don’t want anyone, even the staff, to suspect that our marriage is anything other than a love match.’
‘But I can’t stay here. I’ll never get to sleep.’
‘Well I suggest you try very hard, querida, because if you’re still awake when I climb in next to you I can’t promise to spare you from
my primitive male urges that you say you find so offensive.’ And with that he strode into the bathroom and slammed the door with such force that it groaned on its hinges.
CHAPTER EIGHT
GRACE stirred sleepily and rolled over in bed, her eyelids flying open when a familiar voice catapulted her into wakefulness.
‘You’re finally awake. I’ve never known a woman sleep as deeply as you,’ Javier greeted her dourly.
‘It’s because I have a clear conscience,’ she told him sweetly, feeling her pulse rate accelerate as she absorbed the sight of him, lean and dark and toe-curlingly sexy in black jeans and a matching fine-knit jumper. ‘I take it you didn’t enjoy such a restful night?’
‘True, but it was not my conscience, or lack of it, that prevented me from sleeping, querida,’ he said silkily as he strolled over to the bed. ‘My disturbed night had more to do with your delectable body curled so temptingly against mine, which fuelled my fantasies.’
‘I did not curl up against you,’ Grace protested, unable to meet his mocking gaze. Having stated that she wouldn’t sleep a wink, she was startled to realise that she didn’t remember a thing about the previous night, other than feeling warm and relaxed and strangely secure in Javier’s huge bed. She hadn’t really spent the night snuggled up to him, had she? She glanced at him warily, her suspicions aroused by his bland expression. ‘Is it too much to hope that you were a gentleman?’
‘I behaved impeccably,’ he assured her with a grin. ‘Trust me, you would remember if I had given in to the urge to explore your tantalising curves that your nightgown does little to hide.’
Before she could move, he leaned over her and took her mouth in a brief, hard kiss that left her lips tingling and wanting more. Her cheeks grew pink when he straightened and glanced down at her, his eyes focused on her dusky pink nipples clearly visible beneath the sheer lace of her negligee. ‘When I make love to you, you will be wide awake and fully aware of the numerous ways I pleasure you, querida.’
Grace forced air into her lungs and tore her eyes from him, her fingers shaking slightly as she pleated the bed covers. It was impossible to control her quivering awareness of him when he said things like that. ‘Didn’t you listen to a thing I said last night?’ she snapped. ‘I won’t have sex with a man I don’t love.’
He gave a low chuckle and moved towards the door. ‘I’ll just have to make you fall in love with me, then, won’t I?’
He couldn’t, of course, she reassured herself as her heart lurched in her chest. It was impossible. ‘I thought you don’t believe in love.’
‘I don’t—but I do believe in lust. To be honest, I don’t care what you call this chemistry between us, but we both know how fiercely it burns. I shall enjoy wearing down your resistance,’ he told her with his usual arrogance. ‘But right now it’s time you got up. Consuela will be here in a minute with your breakfast, and then we’ve got a plane to catch.’
‘Why … where are we going?’
‘I’ve arranged for us to spend a week in the Seychelles.’ He opened the door and was about to step through it when Grace spoke.
‘Do you mean you have business there?’ she asked, her confusion evident in her sapphire blue gaze.
‘No, it’s purely a pleasure trip,’ he replied, a wicked gleam in his eyes. But before Grace could question him further Consuela arrived with her breakfast and he disappeared.
‘You must be so excited,’ the young maid said, smiling broadly as she set the tray on Grace’s lap. ‘A honeymoon in the Seychelles—it’s so romantic. El Duque, he has a stern face but a warm heart, I think,’ she continued cheerfully, unaware that Grace was struggling to express her opinion of her new husband.
‘It’s a pity that your roses will die before you return,’ Consuela went on as she collected up the few petals that had already fallen onto the dresser. ‘Señor Herrera was determined to pick them for you from the gardens of the castillo, but the thorns scratched his hands until they bled.’ She smiled at Grace. ‘Is there anything else you need, Señora?’
Just a key to the Duque de Herrera’s mind, Grace thought silently. She shook her head and stared down at her breakfast, suddenly finding that her appetite had deserted her. Who was he, this man she had married? She had believed him to be cold-hearted and ruthless, but he had taken great trouble to pick her favourite flowers for her wedding bouquet, and now he was whisking her off to one of the most romantic destinations in the world for their honeymoon—when she had assumed that he would be impatient to take his place as head of El Banco de Herrera. The bank was the only reason he had married her, after all.
Five days later Grace still had no clear understanding of what made her husband tick. Since their arrival at their luxurious beachfront villa in the Seychelles, he had been faultlessly attentive and so charming that she could barely believe he was the same man who had set his dog on her when he’d caught her trespassing in the grounds of his castle.
What game was he playing? she brooded. Because a game it surely was, and it was entirely her own fault that she was slipping deeper and deeper under his spell. Although she tried to steel herself against his potent brand of masculinity, she couldn’t control her body’s traitorous reaction whenever he was near.
They spent their days swimming in the villa’s private pool, or in the clear aquamarine sea. The island boasted miles of white sandy beaches, and as they walked they talked about every subject under the sun—bar her father and the reasons for their marriage.
Javier was fiercely intelligent and possessed a razor-sharp wit. She now knew that he enjoyed a number of sports, including fencing. They discussed films and the arts, and he told her fascinating details about the many Moorish treasures housed in his castillo and said that Grace would be welcome to look through the handwritten catalogues when they returned to Granada.
But she had discovered nothing about the real Javier Herrera or the secrets he kept locked away in his heart. He never spoke of his childhood again, but she guessed that he had been lonely, even when his grandfather had taken him to live at the castle and she had a feeling that Carlos had shown him as little affection as his parents had done.
Perhaps it was for the best that his barriers remained in place, she told herself one afternoon, when for the first time they were spending a few hours apart while he went water-skiing. She didn’t want to like him. It was bad enough that he made her feel like a gauche schoolgirl whenever he smiled at her. And when he kissed her …
With a groan of despair, she wriggled out of her sundress and left it on the sand before running down to the sea. The water was cool on her heated skin and she swam until her arms ached, trying to relieve the tension that gripped her muscles. She was not suffering from sexual frustration, she told herself firmly. But her body remained unconvinced. Until she’d met Javier, she had always assumed that she was one of those people who had a low sex drive—it was galling to discover that just one look from his slumberous amber eyes was enough to set her senses aflame.
‘You have no right to continually … manhandle me,’ she’d told him crossly on their first day at the villa when he had tugged her onto his lap and kissed her with a sensual expertise that had left her breathless. ‘You said yourself—our marriage is a business contract, and nowhere in the small print does it state that I have to share your bed.’
‘But it’s so much more fun to break the rules, don’t you think, querida?’ he had replied with one of his devastating smiles that had made her long to ignore common sense and follow the dictates of her body. Since then he had kissed her wherever and whenever he liked, which seemed to be most of the time, Grace thought ruefully. And she seemed incapable of resisting him when he claimed her mouth with a hungry passion he made no effort to disguise.
She flipped over onto her back and floated on the swell, lulled by the beauty of her surroundings. Eventually she splashed through the shallows and strolled along the beach away from the collection of private villas, stopping here and there to pick up
a shell. Caught up in her thoughts, she lost all concept of time, and it was only when a breeze sprang up and chilled her skin that she looked around and realised that dusk was falling.
‘Grace!’ Javier stared along the stretch of empty beach and called her name again even though he knew she wouldn’t answer. Where was she? Her dress and sun hat were still in a neat pile on the sand, and one of the villa’s staff had confirmed that he had seen Señora Herrera walk into the sea several hours ago. He had searched everywhere and now, as dusk fell, he was gripped with fear. She could not have drowned, he told himself sternly as he began to stride along the beach once more, re-tracing the path he’d already taken twice before. The tides around the island were not reported to be particularly dangerous, and if she’d got into trouble while swimming someone would have seen her and gone to help, surely?
But Grace was so small and so fiercely independent. Even if she’d been struggling in the water, she probably wouldn’t have made a fuss. It was possible she had simply sunk without trace. He quickened his pace and called her name again, over and over, until he was hoarse.
He should never have left her alone, he told himself furiously. In fact he’d only been gone for a couple of hours. The water-sports facilities were excellent, but without Grace he’d been bored—and although it irritated him to admit it he’d been impatient to get back to her. For some inexplicable reason she’d got under his skin. Beneath her shy reserve she was bright and funny, and he could talk to her for hours rather than five minutes, which was his usual attention span with women.
Their sexual awareness of each other smouldered beneath the surface and at times, when he pulled her into his arms and kissed her, it threatened to burst into flame. But he was rather enjoying the slow build-up of passion. Like a fine wine, it was better sipped slowly and each mouthful savoured. The anticipation of making love to Grace was a tantalising prelude made all the richer because, however much she tried to deny it, she wanted him too.
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