The Girl That Love Forgot

When they reached the field, she felt the warm Spanish sun against her skin. She felt the shifting muscles of his arms and bare chest as he held her, heard the rustle of jean-clad thighs as he walked through the swishy grass.

Annabelle looked at Stefano’s tanned forearms encircling her. She closed her eyes, shivering as she pressed her cheek against his rough, hair-dusted chest. Over the sigh of the wind through the grass, she could almost hear his heartbeat.

She hadn’t been this close to anyone. Not for twenty years. Even before that. She hadn’t been held like this by anyone, not since her mother had died when she was a baby.

She’d had no embraces by lovers, not even a long hug from a friend. She hadn’t allowed it.

She wouldn’t have allowed it now if he’d asked her, but Stefano had simply taken it as his right.

She was overwhelmed with feelings. Of safety. Of longing. Of need.

As they grew closer to the hacienda, some of the young stablehands saw them. Three came running with a shout.

“Get a doctor,” Stefano ordered in Spanish. “Miss Wolfe has been injured.”

“I don’t need a doctor,” Annabelle said in English. “You’re making too much of a fuss!”

Ignoring her protests, he took her inside the house and up the stairs. Carrying her as if she weighed nothing, he brought her to her bedroom and set her down carefully on the bed.

Then he glowered at her.

“Wait here.”

A moment later, he returned with an ice pack. Sitting beside her on the bed, he grabbed a pillow and put it in his lap. Pulling off her shoe, he put her bare foot on the pillow and pressed an ice pack gently against her ankle.

Annabelle’s cheeks burned as she submitted to his care. Looking up at his face, all she could think about was the way he’d kissed her in the forest. The way his body had felt against hers as he carried her back to the hacienda beneath the warm morning sun. And the way he looked now, still shirtless, sitting on her bed. Annabelle’s eyes unwillingly traced the muscles of his tanned chest. They were so close, alone in her bedroom. It would be so easy to.

No! She couldn’t even think that!

But her gaze fell to his mouth. His sensual, masculine lips had taught her to kiss.

Taught her to want. With one heartbreakingly fierce embrace, he’d taught her the meaning of the word desire. Her lips tingled, spreading heat down her limbs to the molten core between her thighs.

“Annabelle,” he ground out. She looked up. “What?” His dark eyes burned through her. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you want me to push you back against this bed. And make love to you until you scream.”

She sucked in her breath, then licked her lips nervously. “I … I don’t. Want you to kiss me.”

“So you keep saying. Lying. To me. To yourself.” Moving the pillow and her ankle off his lap and onto the bed, he stood. He handed her a blanket and said tersely, “The doctor will be here soon.”

She felt vulnerable, lying in the large bed with him standing over her like a giant. “I told you, I don’t need a doctor.”

“You’ll do as I tell you.”

“You’re not listening to me.” She started to rise from the bed. “I don’t want your help.

I don’t need it. I don’t want you. I already quit this job. I’m going back to London—”

With a low snarl in Spanish, Stefano pushed her back against the bed. For a long moment, he held her there, his hands holding her shoulders against the mattress, his half-naked body hard alongside hers.

Their eyes locked, and Annabelle couldn’t breathe. She was lost in his dark gaze, in the sensation of his body pressing her forcefully into the bed. They were alone, and if he chose, he could strip her bare—in every way.

Stefano’s eyes fell to her lips.

“Why do you fight me so constantly?” he said in a low voice. “Why do you refuse to let me take care of you?”