He didn’t even flinch. Just caught both her hands between one of his, holding her at arm’s length. He looked, she thought wildly, as if he’d been used to women slapping his face every day of the week. And that made no sense at all because no woman in her right mind would want to slap this handsome devil. Except this one, of course, she reminded herself, tugging, trying to release her hands, feeling her face go crimson with embarrassment. But he simply held them tighter, his mouth curling softly, his velvet-soft voice shiveringly sensual as he asked her unforgivably, ‘Why the virginal reaction? I’ve seen it all before, remember? You showed me.’
‘I did no such thing!’ she spluttered, outraged, but she might just as well have held her tongue because he went on, the light in the incandescent depths of his eyes kindling alarmingly, ‘Seen every delectable inch, and held it all, cuddled up against me, me and those edible curves sinking together into a feathery mattress—’
‘Just shut up, will you?’ If her hands had been free she would have clamped them over her ears to block out that hatefully sensual voice. The things he was saying were sending her into a state of frantic confusion, and the way he was looking at her, his heavy-lidded eyes wandering lazily all over her body, had set up a heated internal quivering that was relentlessly taking her over. ‘And let go of me!’ she squawked through the breath that was sobbing in her lungs. ‘I asked you to turn your back!’
‘So you did,’ he answered blandly, and she wondered hectically how he could look so innocent and yet be so wicked. ‘And I did. But you didn’t tell me for how long.’ A twist of his hands diminished the distance between them to nothing.
Sarah groaned feebly as the pale globes of her breasts came into burning contact with the soft white fabric that covered his chest. Their shameful hardness would seem like an open invitation and her legs had gone, and any moment now she would have to cling on to him for support. And then where would she be? Back in that bed before she could say ‘chastity belt’!
‘Time to get dressed.’ He took her by surprise; getting dressed was the last thing she’d expected him to want her to do. ‘Or Rosalia will wonder what’s keeping us from breakfast. Though she will probably make an educated guess, given the information I fed her.’
The cool slice of his voice cut through the hot muddle that had once been her mind and, disorientated, she felt him release her and only grabbed herself together when she realised he was holding her fresh lacy bra in one hand, the matching panties in the other.
‘Give those to me!’ She held out an imperious hand, desperately trying to tough it out, red flags of rage and deep humiliation flying on her face. Her eyes flashed blue fire. God, how she hated him! He embarrassed and humiliated her at every turn and when she thought of how he made her feel when he allowed his eyes to wander so explicitly over every inch of her nakedness she wanted to crawl into a deep dark hole and hide.
He advanced. Two languid paces. Her heart was pounding so fast and heavily that she was sure it was about to burst out of her body. His lean, beautifully crafted hands were still holding the lacy scraps and he said, with a honeyed smoothness that aggravated her beyond endurance, ‘Now don’t get so agitated. It’s bad for your nerves. I’ll help you dress and then we’ll have breakfast. Won’t that be nice?’
Nice! Nothing about the brute was nice! He was wicked, wicked! Dress her indeed! Did he think she was incapable? Stupid?
She twisted out of his path like an eel and made a dive for her clothes. Underwear she could do without. She rammed herself into yesterday’s crumpled and travel-stained trousers and shirt, fastening buttons with frantic fingers, glaring up at him at the end of the undignified scramble, her gleaming blonde hair all over the place.
‘There! Convinced I can get dressed all by myself now?’ Her full lower lip jutted pugnaciously and she pushed her hair off her face with the back of her hand, wishing she hadn’t lost all the pins, and saw him dip his head to one side consideringly as he moved towards her, dropping her undies on a stool as he came.
She backed in a panicky hurry, only realising when it was too late to do anything about it that she was against one of the walls, her retreat to the bedroom cut off by his predatory body. And then he was right on top of her, the hard thrust of his lean hips pinning her to the cool marble wall, his upper body angled slightly away as his long fingers lifted to the high neckline of her shirt.
‘Leave me alone!’ She tried to slap his hands away but he was too quick for her, too tricky, and the gilded patience in his voice made her grit her teeth with unadulterated exasperation.
‘You’ve fastened the buttons all wrongly.’ Warm fingers brushed the quivering hollow at the base of her throat. ‘Allow me to straighten you out.’ Gentle fingers, for all their steely strength, grazed down between her suddenly aching breasts as he released buttons, refastened them, his black eyes lowered intently to his task, those fingers moving, stroking, caressing, making her body betray her, putting her mind on hold, totally incapable of issuing the clipped instructions which would tell her how to combat this sensation of drowning in warm liquid honey…
‘There. All done.’ His eyes gleamed warmly into hers. ‘You looked like a bag lady.’ He ran his hand down the front of her shirt, almost impersonally, as if to satisfy himself that she was indeed tidier than before. but for Sarah there was nothing impersonal about it. The touch of his hands, the thrust of his hips against hers were threatening to send her spinning off into orbit. She hated herself for that mindless response but for once in her life couldn’t imagine how to deal with the problem.
She almost sobbed with relief when he stepped back and took her arm, leading her out through the bedroom, telling her, ‘Time for breakfast, unless you intend to spend half an hour fixing your face.’
She shook her head, too disturbed by what had happened back there to speak. She was grateful for his support as he led her back the way they had come yesterday, refusing to let herself care that he thought her face needed thirty minutes of fixing before it could be remotely fit to be seen, that in his opinion she looked like a bag lady.
It really couldn’t matter less what he thought of her. But when he asked conversationally, ‘Do you always dress in things that look like Chairman Mao’s cast-offs?’ her temper, gratifyingly spiked with righteous indignation, came fizzing back to her rescue.
She shook his hand away from her elbow, and her voice was good and controlled and decidedly icy as she countered, ‘And whose fault is that? These are the clothes I chose to travel in. Comfortable and practical. It was not my intention to go haring over half of Spain in the blistering heat, or to stay longer than one night. Had I known I would be kidnapped and forced to stay for the duration I would have packed accordingly. Not,’ she ended witheringly, ‘that the clothes I choose to wear, or the way I look, has anything whatsoever to do with you.’
‘Oh, but it does,’ he responded equably, those fathomless black eyes appraising her slowly. ‘When I shall have to look at you for an unspecified length of time, it becomes my business, I think. Don’t you agree?’
She didn’t. She most definitely didn’t. But she wasn’t going to bother to tell him so. Why waste her breath? She stalked ahead, down the length of the arcaded terrace to where she could see a table laid for breakfast on the far side where the morning sun angled in.
His opinion of the way she looked didn’t hurt her; of course it didn’t, she assured herself sharply. She was feeling all wound up inside and deeply miserable because of his passing reference to ‘an unspecified length of time’. Which meant that although the events of last night had worried him, forcing him to keep watch over her at all times, he wasn’t concerned enough about her mental and physical well-being to put her on the first flight back to England and rid himself of the responsibility.
But that was only a set-back. She would simply have to work at it, push home the advantage she’d so unexpectedly gained last night. Starting right now.
So she gave him a wan, die-away look as he lowered himself into the chair opposite hers and kept her eyes fixed on the snowy white tablecloth after that until, seconds later, as if someone had rung an inaudible bell, a plump lady appeared from nowhere, carrying a tray, her round face all smiles, her iron-grey hair pulled back in an elaborate twist. Puffing a little, she relieved herself of her burden, setting down cold orange juice, a steaming coffeepot, hot toasted rolls wrapped in a linen napkin, her happy eyes giving Sarah a myriad sideways glances as if she was trying to see beneath her employer’s new woman’s dowdy exterior to find something exciting enough to explain the attraction.
Sarah was mortified. She coloured right up to the tips of her ears and had to fight to stop herself squirming with embarrassment as Francisco said mockingly, ‘This is Rosalia. She speaks no English, but no tortuous incomprehensible introductions are necessary because she knows who you are.’
‘Your latest woman—how disgusting you are!’
The moment the words were spat out she regretted them. She was supposed to be all weak and feeble—if her plan was to work—not fighting her corner, antagonising him. But he overlooked the outburst, pouring juice for them both, his voice silky smooth as he explained, ‘Her son, Marcos, is busily learning your language. He plans to visit the States, where they have relatives who settled there a decade ago. But don’t get any ideas about appealing to him, telling him of your plight, and asking him to smu
ggle you out in a laundry basket. It wouldn’t work. Above all else, my staff are loyal.’ He leaned back in his chair, turning the coffee-pot with the tip of one finger so that the handle faced her. ‘Will you be mother?’
Her hopes were right down on the floor now. Clearly, he had no intention of releasing his prisoner on compassionate grounds, and she complied with his request to pour with ill grace, muttering sulkily, ‘They must be loyal—or round the twist—to keep a great barracks of a place like this going on their own.’