He rubbed a hand over his face as if he were about to make a choice he didn’t want. “Sí, fine, we will go.”
“We?” She wanted to be alone, not shadowed by this hulking shell of a man, not reminded at every turn that he’d betrayed her trust more than once.
His mouth twisted. “You think I will allow you to go alone? No, this is not possible. What if you were to have another attack?”
“I won’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because it rarely happens. I can’t even remember the last time.” A lie. She remembered very well the last time she’d had an attack so bad she couldn’t breathe. It was the moment she’d climbed into the taxi after leaving his suite five years ago. She had mild attacks from time to time, but it took exceptionally powerful emotion to make it difficult for her to breathe. “I just want some time to myself, out in the open, without you stalking after me.”
“This is not an option, Rebecca. We go together, or we return to the car.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I can’t talk you out of it, can I?”
“No.” His expression was unreadable.
“Fine,” she sighed. “Let’s go.”
He tipped his head toward the jacket. “If you will permit me to get my phone? I must tell Mateo where to pick us up.”
Rebecca nodded, and he parted the material. His fingers brushed the swell of her breast as he reached into an inner pocket. She didn’t think he did it on purpose, but that didn’t stop the involuntary shiver that raced through her.
When he finished, they walked in silence to the archway and passed beneath, emerging into a huge square lined on all four sides by a portico. Painted figures adorned the portion of the façade stretching between two clock towers. All around the square, tables and chairs were set out in front of the restaurants that lined the perimeter. At this hour, patrons were eating dinner. It always struck her as odd that Spaniards ate so late. At least there were tapas for people like her.
“Which café did we drink the sherry at?”
Alejandro pointed to one of the arched openings that was both entry and exit from the square. “There, near the Arco de Cuchilleros. Do you want to go?”
“No.” She almost said yes, but decided it was too much to revisit the memory in the exact spot. She was already tempting fate simply walking through this plaza with him. She moved out into the square and turned slowly around, gazing at the buildings and balconies. Anything to take her mind off the man before her.
Alejandro stood casually, his hands in his pockets. His white shirt stood out against the darkened square. He was still wearing his bow tie, which she found immensely sexy for some reason.
“There are two hundred and thirty-seven balconies and nine entrances,” he said.
“It’s very beautiful.” He was beautiful, damn him. Beautiful and lethal.
He shrugged. “The inquisition once put heretics to death here.”
“Yes, well we have nothing like it in New York. Central Park, maybe, but that’s a park and not a town square.”
Violin music began to drift from the portico. It was soft, haunting. A street musician playing for tips most likely. Rebecca closed her eyes, blocking out Alejandro, and swayed to the music. So pretty, so peaceful. Inevitably, she remembered making love with him beneath a moon-drenched sky while violin music drifted from the radio in the rooftop suite. Did he remember it too?
“I know what you are thinking,” he said, his voice soft and sensual—and closer than she expected.
Her eyes popped open to find him hovering over her. She stopped swaying and gazed up at him. How could any one man be so attractive? He was like a fallen angel with his dark hair and mesmerizing stare.
“No, you don’t,” she replied, her heart thrumming in her breast.
He slipped an arm around her, hauled her closer. “Oh, sí, I do. I am thinking of it too.”
Her brain sent the signal to back away, but too late. His other hand grasped one of hers, placed it on the hard muscle of his bicep. Another pull and she was flush against his body.
Breast to belly to hip. His arousal came as a surprise and her breath broke on a gasp.
“Yes, I want you,” he said.
“But you hate me.”
His easy grin had the power to light the dark corners of her soul. He was so much like the old Alejandro in that moment that it made her ache.
“And you hate me. This does not stop our bodies from desiring one another, sí?”
She realized he was swaying them in time to the music, guiding her in a slow and sensual dance. And she suddenly didn’t want to be anywhere else. Her body recognized his, answered with the sweet ache of desire. Her sex grew damp and her breasts felt heavy, needy.
She closed her eyes, gave in to the temptation to press her cheek to his chest. His heart beat loud and strong beneath her touch. Quick, but not racing like hers. Whatever this was, he was affected too.
They moved slowly, silently. His hand slid down her back, over her buttock, and she shivered, her senses on full alert. She was like a finely tuned instrument awaiting the right hands. His hands. It’d been so, so long.
“Madre de Dios,” he said a moment later, pulling away from her. He didn’t stop the dance, didn’t break the contact, but he put space between them.
“What’s wrong?”
He gave her a meaningful look. “Nothing… if we were alone.” His fingers skimmed her jaw, her throat, the material at her collarbone. Sparks of sensation trailed in their wake, shivered across her heated skin.
She was frozen as he tilted her chin up, dipped his head toward hers. His lips brushed across her mouth so lightly, like the touch of a butterfly wing. She wanted more, parted her lips in anticipation, but he pulled back. His breath whispered over her moistened lips.
“I want to strip you slowly, kiss every centimeter of your skin, and make love to you for the rest of the night.”
Rebecca gulped. Oh God, she wanted it too.
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t lose her head over this man, not ever again. And after tonight—the pain in his eyes when he held his sobbing mother, the raw wound of losing his little girl, her realization that his desperate need for control stemmed from tragedy and heartbreak, and that her own family had contributed to his losses—how could she keep her heart hardened to him?
Desperately, she seized on the bad things she knew. He’d stolen her company, he’d had her watched, he thought the worst of her. He didn’t respect her as a person, didn’t think she was good or honorable. He was acting on pure male instinct. Animal attraction. He wanted her body, nothing more.
“I-I can’t,” she said, casting her eyes down, away from his burning gaze. She slipped out of his embrace and spun blindly toward the portico. They could never go back to where they’d been before. It’d been foolish of her to come here, to dance with him, to remember another, more innocent time. To open herself to the vortex of emotion that he caused inside her.
Life did not go backward. It ground relentlessly forward. If she’d endured the car, they might still be in the Puerta del Sol, but at least her heart would be intact.
Her fault. She’d allowed this to happen. What was she thinking when she’d wanted to come here?
She was almost under the portico when he caught her, spun her around and pulled her into the shaded area of an archway. His body was hard against hers, his hands framing her face. His warmth seared her skin. Her back hit a column and she realized he’d trapped her between him and the stone.
“You’re mine, Rebecca,” he said vehemently. “For as long and as often as I want you. I have bought and paid for you many times over. You will not deny me.”
Then his mouth crushed down on hers. It was the wildest, hottest, most devastating kiss she’d ever experienced. And when it was over, when he let her go and stepped back, breathing hard in an effort to regain his icy control, all she wanted was to wrap her arms around him and make him do it again.
17
They didn’t speak on the ride back to the villa. Rebecca huddled against the door and watched the night-lights of Madrid slide by. She had no idea what Alejandro was thinking. And she didn’t want to ask. That kiss. God in heaven, she’d have done anything he asked at that moment.
Thankfully, he hadn’t repeated it. He liked toying with her. He liked to get her teetering on the edge of her emotions before he flung her off the cliff and onto the rocks below. He had no intention of seducing her, only of proving to her again and again how vulnerable she was to him.
It was after midnight when they entered the darkened interior of the house. There was no sign of Señora Flores or any other servants. A light burned softly in the great room, spilling into the hall, but nothing stirred.
Though every instinct told her to flee, Rebecca paused in the foyer. Alejandro stood with hands in pockets, watching her closely.
Say goodnight and get away. “Thanks for, um, understanding when I didn’t want to get back into the car right away.”
“You said it wasn’t the first time someone had you investigated. Who did so before?”
Rebecca removed his jacket from her shoulders, folded it over her arm and held it out. “You better take this now before I forget.”
He tossed the jacket aside, caught her wrist and held her still when she would have fled. “Rebecca.”
Irrational tears clogged her throat. “Good night, Alejandro.” She didn’t want to talk about it, most especially not with him. To share her humiliation with the one man who’d ever meant anything to her, who’d rejected her so brutally? Impossible.
His grip tightened as she tried to pull away, preventing her from moving even a fraction. It was like playing tug-of-war with a tank.
“You don’t have to tell me. It’s not at all necessary for what happens now.”
She stopped trying to extract herself from his grip and stared up at him, her pulse beginning to hum erratically. “I want to go to bed.”
A predatory smile creased his face. “Sí, as do I.”
“Alone, Alejandro.”
He ignored her. His arms encircled her, his fingers stroking down the exposed skin of her back, trailing fire in their wake. “This is not possible, querida. I have told you what I intend.”
Her palms came up to press against his crisp shirtfront. “You can’t mean it. You can’t want to make me do this.”
One brow lifted. “Make you do this?” His fingers skimmed her spine, up and down, up and down, eliciting shivers along her nerve endings. “I think I will not need to make you do anything. You want me, Rebecca. You have wanted me since the moment you arrived.”
Rebecca’s throat closed. Damn him for throwing the truth in her face. Yes, she wanted him. But she also wanted chocolate after every meal. She didn’t indulge because it was bad for her. He was bad for her.
“You are mistaken.”
“I’m not,” he replied, his lips a fraction above hers, “and it doesn’t matter anyway. You are mine.”
This time when he slanted his mouth over hers, she held herself firm and refused to break. He ran his tongue along the seam of her lips, slid his hands down to grasp her buttocks. Then he pulled her into the cradle of his hips.
And, oh my, he was blessedly, hugely, gloriously hard. For her.
But she would not break. Her sanity depended on it. Depended on holding a part of herself separate from him. She knew more about him now than she ever had before, and that knowledge threatened to enslave her heart in spite of everything he’d done.
But why? Why did she feel this pull, this intense storm of emotion over this man? Why not David, her long-suffering and incredibly patient boyfriend who’d finally left her over a year ago because she couldn’t ever love him the way he’d wanted her to?
It wasn’t fair.
“Dios,” Alejandro said against her tightly closed mouth. “You are determined to fight me.” His lips moved along her jaw line, down her throat. Before she realized what he was doing, he slid his fingers beneath the shoulders of her dress and jerked it forward, down her arms, trapping her with her naked breasts exposed to his gaze.
“Alejandro, let me go! Someone could see.”
“I thought you could not be wearing a bra beneath this,” he said almost to himself, his eyes hot as they moved over her naked skin. “I have wondered about it for hours.”
The way he looked at her made her breath shorten. Like he wanted to worship her. She could almost forget she was standing in his foyer, bare to the waist, her nipples tightening into hard peaks beneath his scorching gaze.
“What else aren’t you wearing, Rebecca?” he asked, his voice a sensual purr.
She couldn’t speak as his hand slipped into the back of her dress.
Soon enough, he would know. His groan told her even before his hand settled on her bare bottom that he’d realized she wasn’t wearing any panties.
“The material is too clingy,” she babbled. “There would’ve been a line…”
“This comes off. Now.”
“No, Alejandro, wait—what if someone sees me?” she exclaimed as he started to tug the material down.
“They won’t.” He skimmed the expensive jersey from her body until she stood in nothing but high heels and a puddle of fabric. Then he took a step back, perusing her thoroughly. “You are exquisite, Rebecca. I have waited too long for this.”
Her brain kicked into gear as her skin prickled from the cool air of the foyer. Alejandro had servants and he’d undressed her in a public area of his house. And she just stood there like a museum exhibit while he ogled her. Anyone could come along at any minute. She would be humiliated.
Rebecca started to reach for her dress, but Alejandro was there first, scooping her into his arms.
“No,” he growled. “I want you in my bed. You will not need any clothing for many hours yet, bella.”
18
A different kind of panic gripped her by the throat as Alejandro carried her into his bedroom and kicked the door shut. She was naked in his arms. Though he’d brought her to his room, she still believed he somehow meant to shame her beyond her wildest imagination.
It was a ruse, she was certain of it, and she began to kick her legs, trying to force him to put her down.
“Be still,” he commanded. A moment later she was on the bed and he hovered over her, his fully clothed body pressing down on her naked one. The finely spun wool of his tuxedo scraped sensuously along her skin with every movement, heightening her senses. Heightening her traitorous need for him.
“Tell me,” he said, his lips on her jaw, her throat, her collarbone. “Tell me you do not want this, Rebecca, that your body does not ache for mine.”
His mouth fastened over one aching nipple and she arched her back, cried out at the unimaginable pleasure. He gave her absolutely no time to adjust to the feelings assailing her body as his fingers slid between her thighs and found the sensitive heart of her.
“Alejandro,” she gasped as he stroked her clit.
“Tell me you don’t want me,” he repeated, his breath hot against her body as he moved to her other nipple and sucked it between his lips.
Rebecca shuddered, her body alive with more sensation than she’d felt in a very long time. The other night in the pool she hadn’t quivered like this, hadn’t thought she would die with every slick pulse of his fingers against her, inside her.
She was on the edge so quickly it shocked her, ready to tumble into an orgasm just from the feel of his tongue on her nipples and his fingers inside her. But he stopped, said heated words in Spanish while he sat up and ripped at the studs on his shirt. She looked at him, her heart tumbling over in her chest, breaking for the millionth time because of him.
Because of the things he made her feel. Her heart was a bruise in her chest, her eyes ached with unshed tears, and yet she couldn’t stop herself from reaching for him. She lifted herself up until she could touch his jaw, press her hand to his skin, her fingertips sliding down to his lips,
over them. Feeling them for the first time in years.
Those beautiful lips that had given her more pleasure than she could have ever imagined. He’d been the first man to make love to her with his mouth. She’d never told him that.
He’d gone completely still as she touched him, his gaze hot and intense as he watched her. She slipped a finger into his mouth, over the front of his teeth, across the tip of his tongue. When she would have retreated, he gripped her hand gently, sucked her finger in and out, his heated stare never leaving hers.
“Alejandro,” she whispered, her blood pounding in her veins, her heart ready to burst from so much feeling.
She hated him. She loved him. She hated him.
Her heart ached and ached and ached until she thought she might die from it. What was this feeling? Why couldn’t she work it out?
“Sí, mi amor?” He kissed her palm, her wrist, the tip of each finger.
She’d said his name because of the maelstrom inside her, but he responded as if he expected a question.
She could think of only one. “Did…” She swallowed the knot clogging her throat. She had to know. “Did you love her?”
Until the moment she’d learned he was engaged, or supposedly engaged, her life had seemed so right with him. She wanted to understand how it went wrong. Why.
He lowered her hand to his chest, pressed it to the hot skin he’d exposed when he tore his shirt open. She could feel his heart, fast and strong, and her fingers trembled.
His eyes, hot as they were, somehow managed to be flat when he answered. “I have never loved any woman. I never will.”
She didn’t feel any relief to know he hadn’t loved his wife. And though Rebecca had known he hadn’t loved her, it still hurt to hear it so starkly stated. “Poor Alejandro,” she said softly. “You must get so lonely.”
The shock on his face might have been comical if she didn’t know what he’d suffered. He would never admit it, but there had to be times when he would have been relieved to share the burden of so much sorrow. To have someone understand. To love him.
Filthy Rich Revenge: A Filthy Rich Billionaires Book Page 11