“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
