Chico’s expression darkened. ‘I had to leave.’
‘Because of my mother?’
He looked at her as if she were mad. ‘Your mother?’ His voice was full of all the contempt he could muster. ‘Dios! No! I stayed as far away from Serena as I could.’ Which hadn’t stopped them falsely accusing him of sleeping with her mother, and worse.
‘Why, then?’ Years of bewilderment filled her and coloured her voice, and when Chico wouldn’t answer she made a sound of scornful resignation and turned to go.
Barely had she taken a step when he seized her arm. ‘Take my advice, Lizzie, and let the past stay in the past. And don’t play me,’ he warned, bringing his face close.
‘Don’t play you?’ she demanded, shaking him off. ‘I have no idea what you mean.’
‘Really?’ He boxed her in again. ‘You play hot then cold. What’s going on, Lizzie?’
‘What’s going on is this,’ she said coldly. ‘You walked out twelve years ago after promising to take me away from that hellhole. You left without a word.’
‘I had my reasons.’
‘Self-preservation?’ she suggested.
‘You know nothing about it,’ he snarled.
‘Clearly.’
Chico towered over her, menacing and as furious as she was. ‘Do you mind?’ She tried to find a way around him.
‘Yes, I mind.’
‘I’m going to bed now.’
‘Yes,’ Chico said as he huffed a derisive laugh. ‘Bed is exactly what you need.’
There were so many angry words she longed to say to him, but she bit them back. There was too much to lose.
‘I left you in the care of your grandmother,’ he called after her as she walked away. ‘I did know how hard it was for you—your parents, those endless parties. I allowed myself to be persuaded that your grandmother would keep you safe.’
She stopped walking. ‘You were easily persuaded,’ Lizzie retorted, still with her back to him. ‘And you could have said something to me before you left.’
‘If I had stayed to explain it would have cost me my freedom. I was a youth with no money and no influence, and Eduardo and your grandmother gave me no alternative when they decided I must leave.’
She shook her head. ‘I thought you understood, Chico, but you knew nothing about my life, just as you know nothing about it now.’
‘As you know nothing about mine,’ he fired back.
As the temperature soared between them she whirled around.
Lizzie started to say something—something angry to hit back at Chico; something passionate to express all the hurt she’d felt when she was a teenage girl—but as she speared a glance into his blazing eyes Chico reached out and caught her to him. Holding her breath, she stared up. He wouldn’t dare—surely he wouldn’t dare—?
His grip tightened and, slowly and deliberately, he brought her inch by reluctant inch to within a whisper of his mouth. And when he brushed her lips with his, she shivered and sighed, because she could do nothing else. He moved closer until his hard body controlled hers. Resting his forearm on the wall above her head, he dipped his head to tease her with almost-kisses until she was helpless with desire. Need collected inside her until, finally, it overwhelmed her. She tried to hold back, but every hungry impulse she had ever experienced seemed to have gathered in one place, and Chico’s hard thigh was brushing her—
‘No—don’t move!’ she gasped out in desperation when, sensing her crisis, he made as if to pull away.
With a low laugh, he increased the pressure just enough, and the dam broke inside her. Without any curbs available to her, she convulsed against him, helpless as she called out his name and yielded to pleasure.
* * *
The final barrier had come down. He scraped his stubble against Lizzie’s neck as she bucked against him, entreating him to hold her even more tightly as she moved helplessly in the grip of a powerful orgasm. He supported her as she broke apart in his arms and felt her legs give way. She had lost her last inhibition, and this new, adult Lizzie was an intriguing mix of vulnerable and hungry. He guessed she would soon want more. She confirmed this, standing on tiptoes to link her hands behind his neck so she could keep him where she wanted him as she lifted her face to kiss him.
A woman who could match him with this type of fire was a revelation to him. He kissed her back, tasting her, and enjoying the sensation of his hard frame mastering her body as he drove his tongue between her lips. Lizzie responded with equal fire as he claimed her, by claiming him, and that turned him on most of all. It was as if she’d bottled up every year they’d spent apart and now those emotions were free, they were pouring out. Making soft sounds of need in her throat, she fought him for more contact, so it was a surprise when he reached for her again and she tensed, pulling away with a shocked, ‘Chico—what am I doing?’ Putting her hand over her mouth as if that could hide all the signs of her arousal from him, she made a sound of disbelief.
‘What’s wrong?’ He loosened his hold on her. ‘What are you feeling guilty about? You’ve done nothing wrong. You’re nothing like your mother,’ he murmured, sensing she needed to hear that. ‘You’re too open with your feelings, for one thing.’
She looked confused, and he guessed for Lizzie everything had been left on ice in the emotional sense on the day he left Scotland. He couldn’t blame her when everything had happened in such a rush. One minute he’d been giving Lizzie the friendship bracelet he’d painstakingly woven for her out of horsehair, and the next he was looking back through the car window at the fast-disappearing shadow of Rottingdean House.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
He pulled his head back to stare down at her. ‘What are you sorry for?’
‘I led you on. I let you think—’
‘That you want this?’
She stared up at him, and for a good few seconds he was happy to let the tension build, and then, pressing her back, he reached for her with one hand, and, with his thigh holding her legs apart, he held her firmly in place with the other, so she couldn’t escape the persuasive action of his fingers.
S
he looked shocked, but in moments she was falling again, and gasping, ‘I need this.’
‘I know you do,’ he breathed against her mouth, supporting her as she thrust greedily against his hand.
‘And now you need something more,’ he said as she quietened.
Her eyes agreed with that proposition, entreating him to repeat the treatment. Even through her jeans he could feel how hot she was. He wanted this too—he wanted their lost time back.
* * *
Chico took the stairs so fast she could hardly keep up with him. Out of breath, and panting with excitement and effort as she raced up the great staircase with him, she clung on hard to Chico’s strong hand, though it was a relief when he stopped on the half-landing and swept her into his arms. He carried her the rest of the way, with the scent of beeswax, fresh flowers and baking contrasting oddly with the hot musk of sex rising from them. Chico had a beautiful home, she registered distractedly. How many years had she spent dreaming about his house and what it would be like?
When he stopped outside a polished mahogany door, she closed her eyes for a moment, like a child waiting for a surprise. She was thrilled to find his bedroom was exactly as she had imagined it: a huge bed dressed with crisp white linen, night-stands on either side—books stacked up on them—and hidden lighting that cast a honeyed glow over a mellow polished oak floor. Several other doors led off the bedroom, no doubt to a bathroom, a dressing room, and possibly a gym. And there were French doors, framed by shutters that led out onto a balcony where the soft strains of music were still faintly audible.
‘What is it you want, Lizzie?’ Chico murmured as he lowered her to the ground.
‘You,’ she whispered fiercely. ‘I want you.’
They came together like a force of nature. Their kisses fierce—her fingertips biting cruelly into his shoulders. She wanted him naked. She wanted him naked now. She had to feel him flesh to flesh. Fighting free, she seized the edges of his shirt and ripped it apart.