She nodded coolly, as if being dragged off to a dot of land thousands of miles from home were something that happened to people all the time. But her fingers were cold and stiff as she fumbled with her seat belt. At last the belt came undone, and she took a deep breath, determined not to let him see her fear.
“Give me your hand,” he said, “and I will help you to the ground.”
She looked down. The ground might have been two feet below her or two miles; between the darkness and the fear, she couldn’t tell. But she’d have stepped off the Empire State Building without a parachute if the alternative meant accepting a favor from him.
“I can manage,” she said coldly—but as she stepped from the plane, Antonio moved forward and caught her in his arms.
“Getting out of a plane is not the same as getting out of a limousine! Don’t be an idiot, Kyra. It’s dark, and…”
His throat seemed to close once she was in his arms. He had not intended to make anything personal of the contact; he had reached out to her instinctively once he realized that she’d forgotten she’d had to climb up in order to get into the plane, and yet the instant her hands fell to his shoulders, his body had seemed to become electrified.
He wanted to lower her to the ground quickly, to do away with the feel of her small hands, the warmth of her breath against his face. But he couldn’t. It was like being caught in a dream where everything happens in slow motion: her breasts brushing lightly against his chest, her belly and thighs grazing his…
Dios, he thought, why had he brought her here? It was an incredibly stupid thing to have done So what if she needed a lesson in humility? This was not a moderndress version of The Taming of the Shrew, dammit. It was real life. It was his life, and he had better things to do with it than stand by while his head and his hormones fought it out.
And that was what had been happening to him since the night he’d first seen her.
Had he learned nothing over the years?
He had made this mistake before, so long ago that the memory was only a whisper. Then, he had been too young and too stupid to know that nothing would ever make his blood the proper shade of blue, that what happened in bed with an ice princess had nothing to do with what happened in the heart of a man who knew what it was to earn his living with his hands.
“Dammit, Antonio, will you put me down?”
Antonio blinked. She was not just struggling in his arms, she was shaking from having suffered his touch. He took a deep breath, set her on the ground, and lifted his hands from her with exaggerated care.
“Forgive me,” he said sarcastically. “But you see, there is no doctor on San Sebastian. If you should hurt yourself, what use will you be to me?”
“How touching.” Her chin came up. It was hard to sound cool and unconcerned when she was still trembling from being in his arms. Damn him! How could he make her feel that way? Kyra forced a scornful smile to her lips. “I wonder, Antonio, do you show all your servants that much concern?”
“Do not worry. I will see to it that there is clean straw in the dungeon, and since tomorrow is Saturday, I will supplement your ration of bread and water with scraps from the kitchen.”
“What a charming sense of humor.”
“Indeed,” he said dryly. He took her arm, ignoring her attempt to wrench free, and guided her to a pickup truck that loomed ahead of them in the darkness.
He let her scramble into the cab herself. Then he turned the key and set off along a narrow road that led through the trees to the house.
He parked in the courtyard, just inside the old wrought-iron gate he’d found during his last trip to Spain and had shipped here. The house was dark but Dolores had left the outside lights on and he could see two of his dogs come charging from the gardens, their tails wagging with excitement as they danced around the truck.
“Are those mastiffs?”
He looked over at Kyra. “They are crossbreeds. But they will not hurt you unless—”
Kyra flung her door open and stepped down.
“Dammit, woman!”
Antonio jumped from the truck, but the huge dogs had already turned toward her.
“Hello there,” she said softly.
The dogs regarded her in silence. One took a stifflegged step forward. Kyra held out her hand.
“What beautiful babies you are,” she murmured. “Come here and let me get a better look at you.”
The dogs approached warily. Antonio knew there was no real danger—he had trained the animals himself and they would respond instantly to his command—but Kyra had no way of knowing that.
He frowned as he watched her. Workmen had been on the island just a few weeks ago—big, burly men with thickly muscled arms and shoulders—and none would come past the gate when the dogs were loose. And yet, here was this slender woman who had just gotten down on her knees and put her arms around the enormous necks of the animals.
“They’re wonderful!”
Kyra was looking up at him, her arms still looped about the dogs’ necks, her face creased in an enormous smile.
Antonio didn’t smile back. “And you are a foolish woman. You did not even consider that the dogs might hurt you.”
“Well, you said they wouldn’t.”
“You were out of the truck before I finished speaking.”
“Well, I—I…” She smiled again, with a little less certainty but without letting go of the dogs. “I really didn’t think about it I’ve always loved dogs, and these guys are just so beautiful…”
Antonio frowned. He wanted to tell her that you could never judge a creature by its beauty. But there was something about the sight of her as she knelt between the dogs that made it difficult to maintain his anger.
“Handsome,” he said after a moment. He smiled. “I think they would prefer you think of them as handsome rather than as beautiful.” Kyra laughed. He watched as she stroked the big heads and then he cleared his throat. “So then,” he said, “you have dogs of your own at home?”
“Oh no.” She looked up at him, her smile dimming. “I always wanted a dog but—”
“But?”
“But, my father didn’t approve. He said dogs were dirty creatures that served no useful function, and…” She shrugged her shoulders in a gesture Antonio instinctively knew was more telling than the words she’d spoken. “What are their names?”
He hesitated He had taken a lot of ribbing about those names from anyone who heard them.
“Brutus? Thor? Zeus?”
Antonio couldn’t help smiling. “Not quite. The big black one is called Vergonzoso.”
Kyra laughed. “Bashful?”
”Sí. And the smaller one with the brindled coat is called—”
“Let me guess.” The dog had collapsed on its back, all four legs waving in the air as it demanded to have its belly rubbed. “This one’s name just has to be Bobo.”
Antonio grinned. “Dopey. Yes. But how—”
“Oh, it was easy. I must have seen Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs a dozen times when I was little.” She rose gracefully to her feet, the dogs close beside her. “I just wouldn’t have expected—”
“I wanted to give them names that would forever separate them from their old lives.” Antonio reached down and absently rubbed the two big heads that were butting against his legs. “And the names are appropriate.” He smiled. “The black one would not come out from behind the furniture for
the first month after I brought him home. The brindle insisted on behaving like a clown, even though the scars on his body were proof that someone had worked diligently at changing his disposition.”
Kyra’s eyes widened. “You mean—”
“I found them when they were puppies, in an alley behind the hotel I was staying at in New York City.” His mouth thinned. “It seems as if dog fighting has its aficionados everywhere.”
“Thank God you rescued this pair,” she said with a shudder.
“They had rescued themselves by running away,” Antonio said with a little smile. “I simply adopted them.”
“And turned them into sweethearts,” Kyra said, smiling down at the animals.
“I did not turn them into anything but what Nature intended.”
“Yes, I know. But people always say such unkind things about mastiffs—”
“They say even worse things about crossbreeds.”
There was a bitterness in Antonio’s voice that Kyra had not heard before. She looked at him.
“I never thought about it, but I suppose you’re right.”
His eyes turned cool. “I know I am right.” A long moment passed and then he frowned and nodded toward the stone steps that led to the front door. “Come,” he said brusquely. “It is very late, and I am sure you are exhausted.”
What was the sense in denying it? Kyra nodded. Suddenly, she knew she was more than exhausted; she was tired enough so that she was light-headed.
“Yes, I am. I…”
She swayed unsteadily and reached out to the iron railing for support, but before she could grasp it, Antonio scooped her into his arms.
Kyra’s face flooded with color. “Put me down!”
“I will,” he said coolly, “when I am sure you will have a soft bed to fall on instead of stone steps.”
Of course. She remembered his earlier admonition that there was no doctor here, and if she hurt herself, she would be useless. But somehow the knowledge that lifting her into his arms and holding her this way was just a convenience for his own peace of mind did nothing to keep her breath from quickening at how it felt to be so close to him.
“Put your arms around my neck, Kyra.”
She hesitated, which only made her feel more foolish. His tone was brusque, as impersonal as the reason he’d lifted her in the first place.