Exotic Nights

“It’s never too late,” he said, yanking her close. Before she could process the million and one sensations of finding herself pressed to him so intimately, he dipped his head and claimed her mouth for his own.

CHAPTER FOUR

FRANCESCA TRIED TO pull out of his grip, but it was like trying to bend an iron bar. Her heart pounded so hard she thought surely he could feel it in his bones. One broad hand rested against the small of her spine, pressing her into his hard body. The other threaded into her hair, angling her head back to give him better access.

His tongue plunged between her lips. She’d meant to rebuff him. Meant to shove him away and refuse to engage in the kiss.

But being kissed by Marcos Navarre was a sensual bombardment. She could hardly remember her name, much less the fact that she was supposed to resist.

The kiss was thrilling. Arousing. Delicious.

She’d dreamed of kissing him when she was a girl. Dreamed of how sweet and tender it would be. Of how he would take her hand, look deeply into her eyes as he pulled her closer. Of how his head would dip, his eyes closing gently while her heart slammed into her ribs and she stretched up to meet him.

This kiss, however, was not sweet or tender. It was raw, untamed, and threatened to incinerate her from the inside out.

This was the kind of kiss a man gave a woman. The kind of kiss that said I want you and You are mine.

But why? Why would he kiss her like this? She wasn’t the sort of woman he preferred, wasn’t soft and gorgeous and oozing femininity. She’d desperately wanted to be when she was eighteen, yet she’d always known deep inside that he was not attracted to her. He could not be so now, either. It was a ploy, a means of subduing her.

And, God help her, it was working.

She’d pressed her hands to his chest to push him away, but now they lay against the soft cotton of his shirt, useless. Her body was softening in places she’d thought long dead. Melting. Liquefying.

When was the last time she’d felt sexual desire?

Over four years ago.

She’d had a few lovers over the years, and she’d enjoyed sex well enough. But after Robert abandoned her, after her baby was taken from her so tragically, she’d lost all desire for a man.

Until now.

Why, dear God, did it have to be this man?

Marcos’s hand skimmed up her side, over the swell of her breast. She couldn’t stop the little moan that escaped her when his thumb brushed her nipple. So long since she’d felt pleasure …

She leaned into him, on the verge of losing herself in his heat and maleness. Just once. Just this once, she wanted to feel alive again …

But what was she doing? If she allowed this, she was no different than the naïve girl she used to be, the girl who would have done anything to be what he desired. That girl was dead and buried, along with her innocent belief in unconditional love and all-consuming passion.

Francesca gripped his wrists, intending to push his hands away. But his body went rigid. He broke the kiss abruptly, jerking his arms from her hold so viciously that her fingers stung where he’d ripped her grip apart.

He was breathing hard, that haunted, wild look in his eyes again. The same look as last night.

“Marcos, what’s wrong?”

He shook his head, shoved a hand through his hair as he put distance between them. “It’s nothing. Forget it.”

“It didn’t feel like nothing.” Was it because he’d realized who he was kissing? That he could no longer keep his disgust under control? She wrapped her arms around her chilled body. Of course that was it. She repulsed him.

And suddenly that angered her, especially after the way she’d responded to him. He made her feel things she’d thought forgotten—and she made him feel disgust.

“I told you not to kiss me. If you knew you would find the experience so repulsive, you shouldn’t have done it.”

“And I told you to forget it,” he growled.

“I’ve been trying to forget for the past eight years,” she said. “I was doing a pretty good job of it until you dragged me here.”

He looked utterly furious. “Had you not tried to steal the Corazón del Diablo, you wouldn’t be here. Do not blame me for your actions.”