All right, he could see her point somewhat, even if he didn’t agree. “I told you before. I had round-the-clock guards watching her and the facility—” he saw her jaw tighten and added “—which is quite nice by the way, like a boarding school. You’ve done an admirable job for your sister.”
And she’d done it all alone without her father’s help. That kind of pressure could explain her over-the-top reaction.
“I searched long and hard to find a place where she could live given how much I have to travel.” Her chest heaved and her cheeks pinked with her rising emotions. “It wasn’t easy and now you’ve jeopardized that. I simply can’t let it pass that they released her to you without even consulting me.”
Now he was starting to get pissed off himself. He’d been thinking of her and he wasn’t accustomed to explaining himself to people. “I’m not a random stranger claiming a connection. It’s well documented and, thanks to your job, highly publicized that I’m your fiancé. My name is known at that facility whether you like it or not and Javier was acting on my authority. We have the space for Jennifer here, as well as the staff on hand for anything she needs. In case you didn’t notice, she’s very happy with the arrangement.”
“Of course she’s happy. And that’s going to make it all the tougher when we have to go back to our everyday, middle-class life. I can’t afford—” she gestured around her wildly, her eyes lingering on a framed Esteban March battle painting “—all of this. I don’t want her getting attached to the lifestyle.”
Then it became clear. He stroked down her arm, ready to entice her anger away in the canopy bed. “You don’t want to get attached.”
She dodged his touch. “You’ll be out of my life in about three weeks. You’ve only been in my life less than a week. Be honest, you don’t want a real relationship with me any more than I want to be a part of your crazy world. This needs to stop before someone gets hurt. We have to go back to our original arrangement.”
Like hell. Anger kicked around inside him as hard as her words in his brain, her insistence that she didn’t want to be involved with the Medina mess. “Do you think backing off will erase what happened last night and again today? Will you be able to forget? Because I damn well can’t.”
He could see those same memories scrolling across her mind.
Her gaze locked on him as firmly as his stayed on her. Moonlight played with hints of the caramel-colored highlights in her brown hair, glinted off the deepening blue of her eyes. He wanted her so much he went rock hard in a flash.
His life would be so much simpler without this attraction.
“Duarte, I haven’t forgotten a second,” she whispered.
Heat flared in her eyes as hot as the fire licking through his veins and he knew he wouldn’t trade a second of the connection with Kate. He knew she couldn’t ignore this any more than he could. Duarte started across the room just as Kate joined him, mouths meeting, passion exploding.
They fell back onto the canopy bed.
Ten
Duarte tucked Kate under him on the canopy bed, her frenetic kisses tapping into all the frustration burning his insides. Static lifted strands of her hair toward him, crackling off his face in an echo of the charged need snapping through him.
After their fight tonight, he hadn’t expected another chance to be with her. Her seductive wriggle he now knew encouraged him to press his thigh closer. She sighed, urging him on with her gasps and fingers digging deeper into his back.
Their legs tangled in the spread. Without moving his mouth from hers, he wadded the coverlet and flung it on the floor. He tunneled his hand under the hem of her dress. The cool sheets slithered underneath them, the high thread count nowhere near as silky as her skin.
“Clothes,” she whispered between nips, “we have too many.”
He knew an invitation when he heard one.
“Let me help you with that.”
Drawing his mouth from hers, he nuzzled down her body until he reached her long legs. She’d driven him crazy all day long with the killer boots. As he eased down one knee-high leather boot, he kissed along her calf, her skin creamy and soft. Her breathy moan, the impatient grapple of her hands on his shoulders encouraged him. He tugged the other boot down and sent it to the floor with a resounding thump.
Kate curled her toes, wriggling the painted white tips in a delicious stretch that called his fingers to her delicate arches. Stretching to the side, she switched on the bedside lamp.
He stroked along her arm and gathered her against him again. “You don’t shy away from the light. That’s a total turn-on.”
She hooked a leg over his hip. “You’re such a guy.”
“Obviously.” His erection throbbed between them.
Her eyes narrowed with purpose. “Lie back.”
“We’ll get there.” He slanted his mouth over hers.
She flattened her palm against his chest. “I said for you to lie back.” Determination resonated from her words as sure as the unremitting surf rolling outside the open veranda doors. “You give a lot of orders. I think it’s time for someone to take charge of you.”
“Are you challenging me to a power struggle?”
“I’m daring you to give your body over to me. Or does the prince always have to be in control?”
Her question hinted at their argument earlier, and damned if he would let this moment be derailed. His hand glided up to cradle her breast. “What do you have in mind?”
“No, no.” She shook her head slowly, tousled hair a sexy cloud of disarray around her face. “If I spell everything out, you’re not taking much of a risk.”
Her meaning crystallized in his mind. “So I trust you a little and you trust me a little?”
“You first,” she said, the mix of vixen and vulnerability winning him over.
He whipped his shirt off, reclined back. And waited.
Standing at the foot of the bed, she bunched the hem of her dress in her hands, inch by inch exposing her thighs to his hungry gaze. Then showing her cranberry-red panties and bra he’d peeled from her earlier in the airplane.
Her dress covered her face for an instant before she flung it aside. The salty sea air through the French doors fluttered the canopy overhead and her breasts beaded visibly against the satin bra. His hands fisted in the sheets as he resisted the urge to haul her against him right then and there. She shook her hair from her face, flicking it over her shoulders.
“Your turn,” she demanded.
God, she was hot and turned him inside out in a way no other woman had. He tugged his pants and boxers off, ready to cut short this game of dare or strip poker or whatever she wanted to call it.
She quirked a brow then reached for the center clasp—he swallowed hard—to unfasten her bra. Red satin fell away and he couldn’t resist. He arched off the bed toward her.
Shaking her head, she covered her breasts and backed up. He reclined again, his arms behind his head. She lowered her hands and hooked her thumbs in her panties. A slow shimmy later, she kicked aside the underwear.
Her eyes blazed bold and determined as she knelt on the bed. Crawling up the mattress, she climbed toward him. He slid his hands from behind his head, flattened along the sheets, but didn’t touch her, not yet. The intensity in her eyes said she wanted to play this out a while longer. He didn’t delude himself that this would magically fix their argument, and they might be better served talking.
But damned if he could find the words or will to stop her.
She fanned her fingers over his chest. A primitive growl rumbled free ahead of his thoughts. She dipped her head and flicked her tongue over his flat nipple. Again. She devoted every bit as much attention to him as he’d enjoyed lavishing on her beautiful body earlier in the plane. Drawing circles down his stomach, she scratched lightly down and down. His abs contracted under her touch.
Lower still she traced just beside his arousal until his teeth clenched. Then her cool hand curled around him and stroked, deliberately, continuing until his eyes slammed shut and his senses narrowed to just the glide of her touch. The caress of her thumb. The warmth of her mouth.
Dots specked behind his eyelids, the roar in his ears rivaling the crash of waves. His jaw clamped tight as he held back his release, fought the urge to move.
“Kate…” he hissed between clenched teeth.
Shifting, she stretched upward again, her lips leading the way as she kissed, licked, nipped until she reached his face.
Once he opened his eyes, she stared down at him. “Where do you keep the birth control?”
His desire-steamed brain raced to keep pace. “In my wallet. I would reach for it, but someone told me not to move. Do you mind?”
With a fluid stretch over the side, she plucked his wallet from his pants and pulled out a condom. Flipping the packet between her fingers, she smiled at him with such a wicked glint in her now-near-purplish-blue eyes that he knew she wasn’t through with her control game. Not by a long shot. She smoothed the condom down and took him inside her with such sweet torturous precision he almost came undone.
The restraints snapped and his hands shot up to cup her breasts. She pushed into his palms, tips harder and tighter than ever before. Her instant response to his touch sent a rush of possessiveness through him.