Taken by the Highest Bidder

Something in her gaze set fire to his heart. And he knew about fire. He knew what it was to be burned. “That’s a lot to tell a little girl,” he said.

She nodded, no longer smiling, and her sober expression reminded him of the night just days ago when she’d arrived at the casino to try to convince Johann to go home.

A woman on a mission. A golden haired Joan of Arc.

“Soon,” he said, shifting his weight, easing the pressure off his left leg, which had been the more severely damaged of the two. The cold weather was making all the scar tissue tight and itchy and he couldn’t seem to get comfortable. “As soon as the time seems right.”

“Tell me before you talk to her. Just let me know, okay?”

But he didn’t say yes, and he didn’t say no, he just looked at her. And as he stared into her blue eyes, his lashes drifted lower, and his gaze settled on her mouth, on the softness and fullness he’d finally kissed after waiting so long to touch, and taste. And the wait had been worth it. Her mouth was perfect. She tasted and felt divine.

Reaching out, he pushed back one of her long blond curls. “You don’t hate me as much as you used to.”

Even in the moonlight he could see her blush. “I never hated you,” she answered, but her cheeks were crimson and she wouldn’t look him in the eye.

“You didn’t like me.”

Fresh color swept her cheeks, and she laughed softly, and it was a surprisingly deep husky laugh for someone so slight. “I questioned your morals and values.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it.”

“You did encourage Johann to gamble.”

“Of course I did.” He couldn’t resist touching her flushed face, couldn’t help touching what he’d craved for so long. “If it meant I could get what I wanted…”

“That’s what made me uncomfortable. You have to have ethics, Cristiano. You can’t just do whatever you want because you want something.”

Now it was his turn to laugh. “Oh, yes, you can,” he said, pushing the door open and steering her back in.

CHAPTER EIGHT

AFTER the kiss, Sam was sure that something would happen, but after returning to the fire, Cristiano lost himself in some reading he’d brought with him and Sam sat in her chair, feeling nervous and excited, rather like a girl going to her first dance.

But nothing else happened. It was as if the kiss had never occurred.

Cristiano focused on his reading and Sam sat feeling like a wallflower.

He must regret kissing me, she thought, chewing on her thumb. Or he kisses so many women it’s really nothing.

She had a sneaking suspicion it was the latter.

Finally it was time for bed, and Cristiano slept in one of the bedrooms while Sam carried blankets to the couch in the sitting room.

It took her forever to fall asleep and when she woke up stiff and cold in the morning, her mood was not much better.

Her mood didn’t improve later, either, when during breakfast she felt him watching her.

Sam did her best to ignore him, just like she struggled to ignore the buzzy butterflies in her middle. He doesn’t even remember the kiss, she told herself sternly. You can’t dwell on it, either.

But it was hard to forget, especially after such a sleepless night where she lay awake for hours, thoughts tormented, body hot, and empty, craving satisfaction.

Breakfast over, Sam attacked the few dishes, scrubbing the plates that had nothing more than crumbs on them. Cristiano came up behind her to set his cup on the counter and she jumped as if somebody had touched her with a hot wire.

Just the knowledge that he was near her, behind her, made her acutely sensitive. And when he leaned past her, to pick up a dish towel and dry the dishes she’d washed, she felt a coil in her middle that actually hurt.

If this was desire it was awful.

It wasn’t fun. It was fierce. Hot. Angry.

She felt maddened by it, by want, by the unknown.

She must have sighed or made some sound because Cristiano looked down at her, one black eyebrow lifting. “Something bothering you today?”

She tossed the scrub brush down, faced him, one hand gripping the sink. “Yes.”

His hazel gaze slowly traveled the length of her, resting provocatively on her throat, her breasts, her hips. “Tell me what it is. Maybe I can help.”