“You, my enchantress, are wily.”
“I just want you.”
“And I want nothing but you.” He kissed her pout as he rose and her arms fell off his shoulders like petals. “Lock up after us.”
He rushed Richard out before he succumbed. They strode to the elevator with him already suffering withdrawal.
“What are you going to do with her?”
At Richard’s quiet question, he exhaled. “None of your business, Cobra. Your role here is done.”
Richard pressed the elevator button. “One piece of advice. A warning, really. This woman will turn you inside out.”
“Don’t you believe she already has?”
“I thought so. But now that I’ve been exposed to her, to this...live thing between you, I know I’ve been optimistic in my evaluation. This?” He made a gesture at all of him. “What you’re feeling now? Is nothing to what you will feel a week from now. In a month’s time, you’ll be totally lost in her.”
He cocked an eyebrow as they entered the elevator. “So you like her now?”
“I don’t like anyone. But her? She’s lethal.”
He frowned. “You still think she’s her father’s accomplice? That her orphanage work has sinister motivations? You think I’d look the other way if I suspected such a thing?”
Richard shook his head. “I actually believe your verdict of her benevolence. And that’s what makes her deadly. She’s for real. You’ll have no defenses against her.”
“Who says I want any?”
Richard fell silent as the elevator crowded with more and more people in this city that didn’t sleep. Once out on the street, and before they went their separate ways, he said, “Are you giving up your revenge?”
His heart fisted. “I will never do that.”
“Then do you have any idea how to have it and have her, too?”
“I’ll figure out a way.”
Richard only gave him a “sure you will” scowl before turning and walking away.
He watched Richard recede, his mind in an uproar.
He would destroy her father. He had to. But if she ever suspected he was the one who had done it, he could lose her. He couldn’t even contemplate that.
This meant that his plan to let Ferreira know it was him who destroyed him was out of the question. He’d have to burn every bit of evidence leading back to him so she’d never know.
The one way this wouldn’t be necessary was if in a month’s time he cooled toward her. He could strike at her father and not fear the fallout to their relationship.
But he didn’t need time to know it would only intensify, this all-consuming passion he felt for her.
And that was his verdict as the man who was never wrong.
* * *
They stumbled all the way from the mansion’s doors to Rafael’s master suite, snatching at each other with wrenching lips, straining against each other as if they’d merge.
It took a while to get there, as Rafael’s suite spanned the whole fourth level. At least he’d made sure the mansion was empty before he got her here, after everyone who worked there had managed to walk in on them during the past three weeks.
He threw her down on his extra-large king-size bed and she slid over the satin sheets to its middle as he launched himself ove
r her. She bowed up to intensify his impact, loving his weight and ferocity as he bore down on her.