He could be uttering something else for the way he spoke so intimately. Inside, a rope of wanting stretched taut around her stomach and she thought she would faint. The proximity of his broad, unyielding hardness sent a flood of warmth across her body, and the muscles of her tummy clenched with yearning. His body wasn’t touching hers; there was just the threat of the touch, the presence that created a wanting of it.
In the darkness of her bedroom, very late at night, she’d wondered if Marcos was as ruthless when he loved as when he did business. And if his kiss…was as dark and devastating as his eyes had promised it would be.
It was. Oh, God, it was.
The air seemed to scream at her to turn to him and kiss.
The close contours of his chest against her back, the scent of him, were an assault to her senses. He laid his hand on her shoulder, and the touch was fire on his fingertips. “This is a safe neighborhood—I won’t lose sight of you, Virginia.”
But outside the danger didn’t lurk. It was in her. It was him. She locked her muscles in place, afraid of leaning, moving, afraid of
the magnetic force of him, how it felt impossible not to turn, touch. “What was it like for you when you were young,” she said, softly.
His hand stroked. Fire streaked across her skin as he drew lazy figures along the back of her arm. “It wasn’t as dangerous back then. I grew up in the streets—I kept running away with my father’s workers, looking for adventure.”
Did he move? She thought he’d grown bigger, harder, nearer. She sensed his arousal, the thundering in his chest almost touching her back. Or was it her heart she heard?
He lowered his lips and briefly, only a whisper, set his mouth on her neck. A sharp shudder rushed through her. “Now even bodyguards aren’t safe to hire,” he whispered on her skin. “Wealthy people have armored cars and weapons instead.”
She closed her eyes, the sensations pouring through her. “No-man’s-land?” Just a croak. A peep from a little bird who couldn’t fly, would willingly be lured in by the feline.
He made a pained sound and stilled his movements on her. “Were you pretending just now when you kissed me?”
Oh. My. God. They were actually discussing it.
Her nod was jerky.
Marcos hesitated, then huskily murmured, “Do you want to…?”
She sank her teeth into her lower lip to keep from saying something stupid, like yes. “To what?”
His whisper tumbled down her ear. “You know what.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” But she did. Oh, dear, she did.
“Kiss…” Thick and terse, his voice brimmed with passion. “Touch…”
Shaking like a leaf in a storm, she wiggled free and walked around him, her insides wrenching. “I told you I could pretend just fine.”
Heading for the couch and plopping down, she surveyed the food once more, but her eyes didn’t see anything.
Was she supposed to stay strong and resist what her body and heart wanted when she had a chance to have it? Was she supposed to say no and no and no?
Marcos plunged his hand into his hair. “That was pretense?”
“Of course.” He sounded so shocked and looked so annoyed she might have even laughed. Instead, her voice grew businesslike. “So you left. And your father stayed here? In this city?”
For a moment, he released a cynical laugh, and when he gradually recovered, he roughly scraped the back of his hand across his mouth as if he couldn’t stand remembering their kiss. Reluctantly, he nodded. “You’re good, Miss Hollis, I’ll give you that.”
“What made you leave here?” she asked, blinking.
One lone eyebrow rose and this time when he laughed, she knew it was at her attempt at conversation.
“Well.” Propping a shoulder against the wall and crossing his arms over his chest in a seemingly relaxed pose, Marcos exuded a raw, primal power that seemed to take command of the entire room. “Allende Transport was taken. By my father’s…woman. It was either her or me—and he chose her. But I promised myself when I came back…the transport company would be mine.”
His voice. Sometimes she’d hear it, not the words, just the bass, the accent. Marcos was larger than life, large in every single way, and Virginia could pretend all she wanted but the fact was, she’d be stupid to forget her position. And she had to make sure the car incident would never again be repeated.
“Marcos, what happened here and in the car was—”