He arched a brow. ‘So your response was down to shock?’
He stood up straight and started to move towards her. Trinity panicked, stepping away from the chair. She should never have come in here. This had been a terrible idea.
‘Yes,’ she said desperately. ‘Of course it was shock. And you can’t do that... Just...manhandle me when you feel like it.’
* * *
Cruz stopped in his tracks. Trinity’s words hung starkly in the air between them. Anger raced up his spine. No, fury. He had to control himself, because he was very close to manhandling her into admitting that their kiss had been very mutual.
But she was looking at him with wide eyes, as if he was some kind of wild mountain lion. He felt wild, and he was not wild. He was civilised.
He bit out, ‘For someone being manhandled your response was very passionate.’
He saw her throat move as she swallowed and the pulse beating frantically at the base of her neck. Right now he knew with every cell in his body that if he was to touch her they would combust. But something held him back—some sense of self-preservation. He couldn’t trust that she wasn’t just baiting him on purpose.
When they did come together it would be on his terms, and he wouldn’t be feeling these raw, uncontrolled urges pushing him to the limits of his control.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’m here because there are things I want to talk to you about. Important things.’
Cruz kept his gaze up, away from her tantalising curves in that amazing dress. He would put nothing past her. One thing was for sure, though. She wasn’t going to see how his blood throbbed just under the surface of his skin. He wouldn’t lose it twice in one evening.
He leant back against his desk and folded his arms, as if that might stop him from reaching for her. ‘Well, no one is stopping you from talking now, Trinity. I’m all ears.’
She swallowed visibly, and Cruz saw that she was nervous. Once again she could be taking advantage of this situation, seducing him, but she wasn’t. It irritated him.
‘All that stuff Rio told you about me being a gold-digger...none of it is true. He lied to you.’
Cruz went cold. She didn’t have to come here and seduce him—she was smarter than that. She just had to come and mess with his head.
He stood and closed the distance between them and her eyes widened. He stopped just short of touching her. ‘How dare you use the fact that my brother is silenced for ever as an excuse to further your own cause?’
‘I’m not,’ she said fiercely, tipping up her chin. ‘You need to listen to me. You need to know the real truth of my marriage to Rio...’
A dark emotion was snapping and boiling inside Cruz at the thought of the truth of her marriage to Rio. Sharing his bed. The thought that his brother had got to fully taste what she’d offered up to Cruz so enticingly before he’d stopped her.
Did he want to hear about that? No. He wished that thoughts of her with Rio would make him turn from her in disgust, but the fire inside him only burnt brighter as he battled a primal urge to stake a claim that reduced him to an animal state.
He caught her arms in his hands and hauled her into his body, so he could remind her of where she was and with whom. Him.
He ground out, ‘When will you get it that I will never trust a word you say? From now on if you want to try to manipulate me I’d prefer if you used the currency you use best...your body. At least that way we’ll both get pleasure out of the interaction and it’ll be a lot more honest.’
‘Cruz...’
That was all he heard before he stopped Trinity’s poisonous words with his mouth.
The kiss was an intense battle of wills. Cruz’s anger was red-hot, thundering in his veins. But then she managed to break free, pulling back, her hands on his chest, breathing heavily. If Cruz had been able to call on any rationality he would have been horrified. No woman had ever driven him to such base urges. To want to stamp his brand on her.
They stared at each other, tension crackling. But then, as he looked down into those blue eyes, swirling with something he couldn’t fathom, the intense anger dissipated to be replaced by something far less angry and more carnal.
He curled an arm around her waist, drawing her right in, close to his body, until he saw her cheeks flush with the awareness of his erection against her soft flesh. It was torture and pleasure all at once. With his other hand he reached around to the back of her head and undid her hair, so that it fell around her shoulders in a golden cloud.
He could feel her resistance melting. Even though she said, ‘Cruz...don’t...’
‘Don’t what?’ he asked silkily. ‘Do this?’ And he touched her jaw, tracing its delicate line, then cupped her cheek, angling her head up.
She spread her hands o
n his chest and he thought she was going to push him away, but she didn’t. Something inside him exulted. This time when he bent his head and kissed her there was an infinitesimal moment of hesitation and then her mouth opened to him and his blood roared. There was just this, and this was all that mattered right now.