At the edge of the ballroom, Richard looked back as if hoping he’d come to his senses. Rafael only shoved him forward.
Grunting a curse, Richard walked away, cutting through the crowd. At six foot six, he towered a head above everyone, making it easy for Rafael to monitor his progress.
Then he saw her. Pressing to the periphery, as if taking refuge from the crowd, wishing she were anywhere but there.
Everything inside him tightened, anticipating the moment Richard pointed her in his direction. Or something. He had no idea what his friend would do or say to get her to cross the ballroom to meet him.
Richard was feet away from her when she suddenly turned her elegant head. And looked straight into his eyes.
A bolt hit him through the heart. A growl escaped his lips as the current forked within him. Then again as her eyes widened and her tense features went slack.
He wasn’t imagining this. She’d felt his focus, and it had made her home in on him, even across the distance and with him in shadows. He’d had the same effect on her.
And without volition, holding her mesmerized gaze, he raised his hand and...beckoned.
Her stare faltered, her throat worked. Peach stained her chiseled cheekbones and her gaze darted around, as if unable to believe she was his target.
Look back. Look back at me.
As if against her will, her eyes dragged back to his.
Satisfaction surged through him. She’d felt his need and had been unable to resist it. Testing his theory, he beckoned again, taking a step backward deeper into the shadows.
She stepped forward, looking surprised, as if she hadn’t intended to move. He took another step back. She once again moved in his direction, the confusion on her exquisite face deepening. This live wire of attraction that had sprung to life between them was reeling her in to him. He hadn’t needed Richard’s help after all.
The steely Englishman glared down at her as she bypassed him in a daze. Realizing his mediation was no longer needed, he shook his head in exasperation and strode away. Richard fell off Rafael’s radar as he focused on the vision he held in thrall, just as she held him. He continued to recede and beckon, drawing her toward him.
It took forever for her to weave through the throngs of people who turned to stare at her trancelike advance. Then at last, at last, she entered the deserted corridor. He took her deeper into his home where no one would come. She kept advancing after he stopped. Lips parted, eyes wide, face tilted up, she finally halted within arm’s reach. The sconces illuminated her face and figure in golden radiance and soft shadow.
She was more than he’d thought from afar, her impact on him fiercer up close.
And she most definitely wasn’t blond. Such a mundane word didn’t describe her cascade of spun silk with its thousand shades. Each strand had the tones of Rio’s beaches, its Sugarloaf Mountain and its sunrays at every time of day.
In contrast, her skin, from forehead to fingertips, was flawless cream. As for her body, it was the body sculpted to his every requirement, to accommodate his every desire and demand. At once willowy and womanly, unconscious femininity screamed in its every line and swell and curve.
Richard had been wrong about something else, too. She wasn’t pretty. Or beautiful. She transcended such descriptions. From the intelligent forehead to the elegant nose to the lush lips, her face was a tapestry of perfections, embodying his every taste and fantasy. But it was her eyes, where her essence resided, that snared him. Wide, heavily fringed, a magnificent shape and slant, he’d thought he’d imagined their color as she’d approached. He hadn’t. They were an intense, luminous tawny. The hue of fire. And just as dangerous.
But her effect wasn’t about her physical attributes. Something about her just made him want to...devour her. He’d never been so ferociously attracted, or aroused. It was incomprehensible, but all he wanted was to unwrap her then bury himself inside her.
Even in his state, he realized that course of action wasn’t advisable. Even if she was willing. Which, from her glazed stare and agitated breathing, she probably was.
“Obrigado, minha beleza.”
He heard his hungry rasp, thanking her, calling her his beauty in his mother tongue. Though most of tonight’s guests weren’t Brazilian, he had a feeling she’d understand. And though he only thought in Portuguese and hadn’t spoken it since he’d been abducted, it felt the only language personal enough, intimate enough, to do this moment justice.
“Wh-what for?”
His breath caught. She had understood, yet answered in English. Cultured, American English. And she sounded as shaken as she looked. Her voice was a soft, sultry caress, made to moan enchantments in his ear, against his flesh, in long, pleasure-drenched nights.
“For coming when I summoned you.”
She blinked, as if emerging from a trance. “Summoned me?”
She obviously took exception to his choice of words. He wanted to tease her, say that she had obeyed his summons. But he couldn’t talk—he needed to make that first contact. Holding her gaze, he reached out and cupped her cheek.
His breath hissed out as her flesh filled his palm, as he absorbed its texture and heat. She trembled in his grasp, pouring molten steel into his erection. Then her eyes darkened into burning coals and singed away his control.
Two urgent, stumbling steps had her back to the wall, plastering her between its unyielding barrier and his. Hot resilience cushioned his aching hardness and ripped a rumble from his gut. Her echoing gasp filled his lungs with her scent. A hint of jasmine, a mist of pheromones, a gust of compulsion. Hunger writhed inside him until he could no longer bear not tasting her.