And she would have to return, wouldn’t she? All her things were there. Even her purse, with her driver’s license and credit cards. Oh, for the love of God. She ground to a stop while the foot traffic flowed around her. She had no money. She didn’t even have a cell phone.
A hand settled on her shoulder and she whirled around, a little scream escaping as she stumbled backward.
Alejandro caught her to his big warm body, squeezed her before setting her away carefully. He loomed over her, so handsome and imposing in his tuxedo. She thought he looked concerned, but she must have imagined it because the next second his face was set in a harsh mask.
“Madre de Dios,” he swore, shrugging out of his tuxedo jacket and placing it around her shoulders. “What were you thinking, taking off like that? I thought you were ill!”
“I’m not,” she said. “Or I won’t be if you leave me alone.”
The jacket was still warm from his body. His scent surrounded her. She wanted to shrug the garment off, but she realized she was shivering. From adrenaline or cold she wasn’t certain, but she clasped the jacket around her and held it tight like a shield.
“We will return to the car,” he said.
Rebecca shook her head like a recalcitrant child, but she didn’t care. “No, I’m not getting back in that car with you. You spied on me, Alejandro. I hate you for that.”
One eyebrow quirked. “More than you hate me for taking Layton International away?”
She ground her teeth together and turned her head. “It’s different.”
“Tell me why.”
Rebecca pulled in a deep breath, tilted her head up to look at him. His expression didn’t mock her like she’d expected. He looked truly curious, as if he didn’t understand why she would be so upset about him prying into her life. Why would he? Why would anyone?
“It’s not the first time it’s happened,” she said, unwilling to share more than that. “I don’t like it. It makes me feel … violated.”
“It was an investigation, not a robbery. This is common enough in business, yes?”
Too common in her life. He couldn’t understand. No one could. “It doesn’t make it right.”
“It was business.”
“Everything with you is business. But I don’t believe it, Alejandro. You brought me here because you wanted to hurt me, pay me back for what you think I did to you. Well, you’ve succeeded. Are you happy now? Can I go back to New York and forget I ever met you?”
“You would give up so easily? Leave Layton International?”
“Do I have a choice?” Why was she pushing him? This wasn’t part of her plan. She needed to stay, needed to keep involved in the day-to-day operations, or she would lose the insider track to all that happened with her company and would never get it back.
“Perhaps you do,” he said softly.
She sucked in a shaky breath. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Come back to the car,” he said. “We will go home.”
Home? How could one word evoke so many feelings? But it was his home, not hers. She had no home. Her apartment was a place to sleep and store clothes. The family home had been sold when her father had died. Her mother had moved back to Paris. The only place that felt like home was La Belle Amelie, and that was because of her connection to the place, the fact she’d been born there when her mother’s water had broken a month early.
Where was home now? She honestly didn’t know.
“I’m not getting back into that car right now,” she said. “If you try to force me, I’ll scream.”
Alejandro’s expression went from sober to amused. “Did you not see the protest, amor? The policía are very busy at the moment. I could drag you back by your hair, like a good caveman should, and no one would notice.”
She turned her head toward the archway, ignoring him. Why was it when he gave her that little half-smile she melted into a puddle? Though she was angry with him, his humor threatened her heart in a way nothing else could. She had to focus on something else, something other than the man in front of her. “Is that like the place you took me?”
“Sí. It is the same—the Plaza Mayor. There are several entryways.”
She loved the way his voice caressed the sound: Plaza MAY-orrr. She remembered a beautiful square, similar to Venice’s Piazza San Marco, though much more colorful and uniquely Spanish. There were restaurants, tapas bars, and shops beneath the portico that ran around the perimeter.
It was also the place where Alejandro had first kissed her. Sitting at a sidewalk café, sipping sherry, he’d leaned over and kissed her sweetly on the lips that first time. It had been everything she could do to accept the chaste kiss, not to curl her hand around his neck and demand more of him. He’d set her on fire with one touch of his lips.
In truth, she should want to run screaming from a memory such as that. But the prospect of getting back into the car with him right now was even more frightening. “I want to go see it.”
He studied her for a long moment. Was he remembering the kiss too? Or, more likely, wondering if she planned to bolt again. “Explain to me what happened in the car.”
She fiddled with the edge of his jacket. “It was a panic attack, Alejandro. Nothing more. I’m not sick. But if I get back in the car right now I might be. I just need space.”
Space without him in it—without him invading her senses and making her question everything she thought and said.
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: 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. “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 Garcia 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 and she shivered involuntarily.
When he’d 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 facade stretching between two clock towers. All around the square, tables and chairs were set out from the restaurants. 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 sherry at?” she asked.
Alejandro pointed to one of the arched openings leading into and out of the square. “There, near the Arco de Cuchilleros. Do you want to go?”
“No.” She almost said yes, but decided it would be too much to revisit the memory in the exact spot. She was already tempting fate simply by 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’d 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 feminine core 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 had 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 as he had held his sobbing mother, the raw wound of losing his baby, 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 had 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 forward relentlessly. 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 had she been 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 her, 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.
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. She realized that now. 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 of the other servants. A light burned softly in the Great Room, spilling out 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—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. “Goodnight, Alejandro.” She didn’t want to talk about this, 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,” he said. “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.”
His smile was predatory. “Sí, as do I.”
“Alone, Alejandro.”
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.”
Damn him for throwing the truth in her face. Yes, she wanted him, but she also wanted chocolate a
fter every meal. She didn’t indulge because it was bad for her. He was bad for her.
“No,” she said firmly. “You are mistaken.”
“I’m not,” he replied, his lips a fraction above hers now. “And it doesn’t matter anyway. You are mine.”
This time when he slanted his mouth over hers she held herself firm, refused to break. He ran his tongue along the seam of her lips, slid his hands down to grasp her buttocks and pull 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, on holding 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 to her.
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 jawline, 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. “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 peaking 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.
Hot Nights with a Spaniard (Mills & Boon M&B) (Mills & Boon Special Releases) Page 42