‘No,’ he said harshly, ‘but I didn’t need to be so rough.’
Something in his voice inexplicably made her melt inside, made her forget her intention not to tell him anything. ‘I … it happened about five months ago. Rebel militia had surrounded the aid camp and were taking pot shots at us. They killed twenty people. The bullet that got me was a ricochet. I’m lucky, it turned out to be little more than a flesh wound …’
Dante had moved off the bed and pulled on his trousers, leaving them open. Lucky. He knew that had to be an understatement. She spoke so carefully and precisely that he knew well she was trying to avoid remembering the undoubted horror. If she was telling the truth … something urged him to believe that she was, though … she’d reacted too forcibly to him touching her there.
Alicia’s gaze was drawn to where the hair descended in a line to the potent heat of him—the heat that had almost consumed them. She closed her eyes and turned her head in disgust at herself. But she had to focus on him, on the physical, because if she didn’t … she would think about the rest. Her hands clenched.
Dante paced close to the bed. She’d been shot. A bullet had passed through her flesh … Alicia’s flesh … cutting it open. He stopped and felt a curious weakness in his chest for a moment. He looked at her averted profile, her chest moving up and down, her breasts crushed by her knees and arms. He realized then too that she’d said this had happened five months ago … and she’d obviously stayed, hadn’t left a dangerous situation … thoughts were shifting around him, in him, and he couldn’t stop them.
He sat down on the side of the bed and watched as the colour flooded her cheeks. He ran a finger up and down her arm and saw goosebumps spring up. Even now, he burned for her. He spoke her name without thinking, instinctively. ‘Alicia …’
She looked up at him with desperation in her eyes. It shocked him. Her hair was tumbled over her shoulders, her eyes were huge and again the thought of someone shooting at her made him want to gather her up close and never let her go. A maelstrom of emotions ran through him.
‘I’m OK. It’s fine.’
But she wasn’t. Everything was
starting to flood back. Images, faces of the dying … the ever present danger. And yet, right now, being here with this man and the power he held over her body and mind scared her witless too.
She could move, get up, leave the room; she knew instinctively that he would let her go. But … this heat that vibrated between them wouldn’t let her move, as much as she wanted to. As much as it terrified her.
This man had the power to halt all the terrible images that threatened to flood her mind. She remembered the feeling of safety she’d had in his arms. And, right then, desire surged through her, powerful and so strong—again she had that overwhelming urge to lie with him, be with him. She knew she was flirting with a far more dangerous fire in order to obliterate her own pain, even for a short while. She needed to feel alive, needed some of this man’s potent vibrancy. The fact that she was allowing herself to be seduced yet again. She blocked it out. And she knew, somewhere that she wasn’t willing to look at yet, that Raul Carro had never had her so aflame that she couldn’t resist.
Before she could lose her nerve, she took her hands away from her breasts and lay down on the bed. And also before she could lose her nerve, in a bold and completely untutored instinctive move, she lifted her hips and slipped her panties off. She lay there naked. She saw the confusion in Dante’s eyes, the split second of hesitation before a familiar hardness crossed his face.
Without a word, he stood and slipped his trousers off lean hips again. This time she didn’t look down; she looked up and, as Dante came down beside her and lowered his head to hers, she breathed a sigh of relief. This danger was infinitely preferable to being vulnerable in front of him. She twined her arms around his neck, holding him close, revelling in the heat of him, the scent of him and the protective strength of him. Sexual heat combusted all around them, white-hot and illuminating. Within what seemed like minutes they had surpassed where they’d got to before and all that Alicia was aware of was the man who hovered over her, muscles bunched in his arms as he looked down at her.
His hand parted her legs and she had a brief moment of trepidation as she could feel the smooth head of him nudge her slick entrance. As if sensing that fear, Dante stopped for a second, even though never before had he had the urge to drive in so far and so deep that he’d lose himself. He put a hand between them, feeling for himself. Her wetness made him throb; she was so ready. She moaned as his hand moved and he slipped a couple of fingers inside her. She bit her lip and moved her hips slightly against him and then he took his hand away.
‘No, bella, it’s going to be much better than that.’
And, lowering his body, pushing against her, he slid in. Sweat broke out on his brow at the first feel of her tight muscles squeezing around him, holding him so snugly that he didn’t even know if he could push in any more, but then he felt her hands on his arms and she tilted her hips and he slid deeper. He bit back a long moan of pure masculine joy and pleasure. No woman had ever felt like this around him. So snug, so tight, so hot.
He looked down into Alicia’s eyes and they were black pools of want and need. He flexed his bottom and kept sliding in, all the way.
His breathing was harsh and jagged, like hers. Alicia looked up, wide-eyed. She’d never felt so stretched, so full … so full of aching tightening sensations; they were building through her body like a delicious tidal wave of sensation upon sensation. Dante slowly started to move, in and out. He tilted her hips, deepening the penetration even further and Alicia moaned softly, wrapping her legs around his back, as far as they would go.
She pulled his head back down to her, searching for and finding his mouth just as he thrust deep and hit the very heart of her again, and she gasped against his mouth. All her muscles were tensing; she couldn’t believe she was so close already, but the waves were building and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Her back arched and she cried out as she exploded into pieces around him. But he wasn’t done, not yet.
With long, hard thrusts he kept moving and, although her body was so sensitive for a second that it almost hurt, Alicia could feel herself adjust and start building all over again. She thought to herself: It’s not possible … she wouldn’t be able to survive another orgasm like it … but Dante had other ideas.
Alicia gripped his arms. Their bodies were slick with sweat, her legs fell from his back as she tensed again. And, just as the wave crested, he lowered his head and caught one nipple in his mouth, sucking fiercely, and Alicia couldn’t stop the tremors, even stronger this time from gripping her whole body and turning everything black for a second. The world shifted back into focus just as Dante tensed above her and in her, before his own body spasmed and she felt the pulsating strength of him release deep into her body. And in that moment, as he fell over her in a dead slump, everything suddenly made sense to Alicia. As if she’d lived just for this moment.
After a long minute of their intermingling breaths lengthening and becoming normal again, their frantic heartbeats slowing, Dante finally found the strength to roll off Alicia and lay at her side. He wanted to pull her close, take her hand, and had to clench his fist to stop the impulsive action. Great sex. That was all it was. Great sex had the biological result of inviting feelings of affection, wanting to be close. Even if it had never happened before … or the only time it had happened he’d learnt his lesson never to succumb again and, so far, he’d never met a woman who’d inspired this feeling … until now. Which proved to him that he was right not to trust her an inch.
She was the same—all mercenary women were the same.
He jackknifed off the bed and was about to stand up when sudden cold horror spread through him. He looked back at the woman behind him. Her eyes were closed, her arm was over her face and her shoulders shaking ever so slightly. Was she crying? It momentarily diverted him from his very unwelcome revelation.
He reached back and took her arm down. Her eyes remained shut but he could see wetness on her cheeks.
‘Alicia.’
She opened her eyes finally and pulled her arm from his hand. She sat up and got off the bed, her face a mask of indifference as she bent and picked up her clothes. Awkwardly pulling on her skirt and holding the rest of her things over her chest, she walked to the door of her bedroom.
Still stunned and surprised at her actions, at the evidence of tears, Dante could only watch. She turned at the door and said huskily, with the slightest catch in her voice, ‘Just so you know, as you obviously don’t think about such mundane matters, I’m on the pill, so there shouldn’t be any consequences of this …’ she was obviously searching for words ‘… act.’
And then she slipped through the door and disappeared. How dared she? Dante jumped up, incensed, his male pride bristling, and took a few steps towards the door before stopping himself. The thought of protection or, more to the point, the lack of it was the thing that had made him stop in abject horror. He never, ever forgot about protection. He was fanatical about it and, on very rare occasions where he didn’t have any and he didn’t trust the woman if she told him she was on the pill, he had no qualms about calling a halt to things.