“No,” Kyra whispered.
His lips moved over hers in a touch as light as the brush of a butterfly against the petal of a flower. The breath sighed from her lips as he drew back and looked down at the flush on her beautiful face.
She was right; he should not do this. It was surely not what he had come here to do.
Dolores had told him, in tones of crisp disapproval, that it was obvious to anyone but a fool that the gringa in the guest room needed a change of clothing and he’d realized she was right.
“I will bring her something,” his housekeeper had said, and Antonio had bitten his lip to keep from smiling and said no, no, he would find something for Señorita Landon himself.
And so he had come to the door and knocked. And then he’d opened it, seen the rumpled bedclothes, the wisps of silk so carelessly discarded at the bathroom door. He’d heard the drumming of the water in the shower and somehow it had become mingled with the drumming of the blood in his veins and he had told himself that to wait for her would do no harm.
He lifted his hand and drew it over her soft, shining hair. She didn’t move but she made a little sound and he saw the flicker of her dark, thick lashes. She was like a cat, he thought, a cat that longed to lift its head to the soft stroke of a hand.
This was crazy. It was stupid.
Then why this rush of blood each time he touched her? Why this need to draw her tightly into his arms, to seize her mouth with his and plumb its sweet depths?
There was only one way to get her out of his system. He had to take her, bury himself in her until he was sated. And he could have her. Despite her angry words, her heated denial, he could see the truth in her silver eyes, feel it in the soft compliance of her body.
His hands cupped her face. “I have wondered,” he whispered, “are you everywhere the color of the sun?” His hands swept into her hair as he lifted her face to his. “Or is your body like cream, querida, where the sunlight has not touched it?”
He heard the swift hitch of her breath, felt her sway unsteadily. His gaze fell to her mouth. He saw her lips part. She whispered his name and suddenly she was in his arms.
He kissed her until her mouth was soft and swollen, and his hands went to the sash of her robe. She made no move to stop him, thank heavens, for he no longer knew if he could be stopped. His control, the control he so prided himself on, was gone. His body was tensing into a sword of hard steel; he had never felt such an urgency in his life and yet he wanted to take hours to touch her, to explore her, to watch as her eyes flashed with bright silver fires.
They were smoldering now, he saw, as he undid her robe and slowly drew it from her shoulders. His hands trembled; he yearned to look down and see if her breasts were as perfect as he knew they must be but he wanted to watch her face as he caressed her.
“Antonio,” she said fiercely. “Antonio, please…”
It was a different plea she made now, one that was almost his undoing. He slipped his hands under her robe, slid them down her spine and cupped her bottom; he lifted her up into the cradle of his thighs so that she could feel the full power of his arousal.
A cry broke from her throat and he bent and took her mouth with his. He thrust his tongue between her lips, telling her without words what his body would feel like in hers, and as his heat conquered her will and filled her senses, Kyra admitted the truth to herself. She had wanted Antonio, wanted him to sheathe himself inside her and ride her until the skies exploded around them from the very first night they’d met.
He was moving against her, his erection hard against her belly, his hands holding her face captive for his kisses. And she was going crazy in his arms, making little sounds she had never dreamed a woman would make, drawing his tongue into her mouth as she struggled to get closer and closer to him.
Nothing had prepared her for this. The books she’d read, the whispers shared with girlfriends, the clumsy groping she’d permitted the boys she’d grown up with…none of it had hinted at the reality of what was happening to her now.
How could she know that the feel of a man’s mouth—of Antonio’s mouth—would make her breasts ache? How could she know that his touch would make her flesh quicken? She was turning to fire, to hot liquid fire that pooled in that deepest, most feminine part of her.
She had never imagined making love could be like this.
Of course she hadn’t. She had never met a man like Antonio before. She was being seduced by an expert—an expert who had said he’d rather take a vow of chastity than take her to his bed.
The realization stunned her and she went rigid in his arms while her fevered brain fought for control of her flesh. Antonio had come here to do this. To seduce her. To conquer her. To punish her with the ultimate humiliation.
And she had almost let him.
She swung her fists against his shoulders, taking him by surprise.
“Damn you,” she said. “Let go of me!”
Sharp satisfaction swept through her as he stumbled back The astonishment in his face made what she’d just gone through almost worthwile. It was so obvious! He’d come here to do something despicable, and she had stopped him.
”Querida,” he said, “what is it?”
“Give it up, Antonio.” Her hands shook with anger as she clasped the edges of her robe together. “That passionate Latin-lover routine doesn’t work on me.”
He was looking at her as if she’d lost her mind. Well, she almost had. When she thought of what she’d come close to letting him do…
“Is this how you get your women? By bringing them here and—and…Don’t you know when a woman wants you to stop?”
The flush of passion was fading from his cheeks. He looked at her steadily, his eyes unreadable. The only sign of distress she could see in his face was the twitch of a tiny muscle in his jaw.
“If that is how you tell a man to stop,” he said, his voice almost toneless, “then I would be interested in knowing what it is you do to tell him to continue.”
“All right.” She cleared her throat. “Okay. Maybe I—maybe I gave the impression I wanted you to—to kiss me But—”
“But?” he said, his eyes on hers.
“But I didn’t want anything else.”
Antonio laughed. “You’re a liar.”
“Go on, tell yourself that, if it’s what your ego needs.”
“Shall I prove it to you?” He moved toward her, his face grim, and she almost stumbled in her rush to back away. A smile curled across his mouth. “Now, which of us is the liar, querida?”
“All right. I admit, I—I responded to you. So what? I’ve responded to lots of other men.” The lie was so enormous that she almost gagged saying it, but it worked. Antonio couldn’t manage that conceited smile this time. “I suppose I just wanted to see if a man like you could—could—”
“You wanted to see if a man like me could what?”
She stared at him while she groped for an answer. To admit that he’d almost seduced her was out of the question. But she had to say something, so she said the first thing that popped into her head.
“Look, I was curious, okay? I wanted to see if—if you could excite me.”
“And?” His voice was ominously soft.
“And I found that you could. But—but the thought of doing anything else—I mean, when I thought about what I was doing, who I was doing it with—”
She cried out as his hands bit into her shoulders. “For a woman wearing nothing but a robe,” he said, “you
are either very stupid or very brave.”
The threat brought a rush of crimson to her face and the shadow of fear to her eyes.
The sight pleased Antonio. He was not a man who enjoyed frightening women but this was different. The Kyra Landons of this world had to know they could not go through life playing games with the peasants without paying a price.
He let go of her, stalked to the bed, and snatched up the clothing he’d left there.
“Get dressed,” he said sharply, tossing the bundle at her feet. “When you are ready, come downstairs and Dolores will put you to work.” He paused at the door, looked down at the remains of what had once been a very expensive French clock, and edged them aside with the toe of his sneaker. “And clean up that mess. There is no one here to do it for you.”
“Get out,” she said, her voice trembling. “Damn you, Antonio, get out!”
He looked at her and gave her a slow, cool smile.
“With the greatest of pleasure. By the way, I would be remiss if I did not tell you that the failure of your little ‘experiment’ was not entirely your responsibility.”
He saw her fight against asking him to explain. Her chin lifted, and he knew it was a battle she had lost.
“Is that supposed to have some deep meaning?”
He laughed. “There is nothing deep about it, querida. The simple fact is that I could have taken what you offered. A man would have to be a fool not to” He let his gaze move slowly over her, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes and then up again. “But it would not have been a memorable experience for me, Kyra. Do you understand? You are beautiful and desirable—but you are hardly unique.”
He heard something hit the door almost as soon as he shut it. Whatever she had thrown this time, it was larger than the clock. A lamp, most probably, he thought, and despite his anger, he laughed.
She had courage, he had to give her that.
Antonio’s mouth hardened.
In a little while, he would find out just how far that courage would take her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DRESSED in Antonio’s denim shorts, his T-shirt and her slightly battered thong sandals, Kyra was ready to face the day.