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‘I would have stayed for as long as they’d had me. I loved the life.’
‘You loved going into war zones?’
He let out a low rumble of laughter. ‘Believe it or not, yes. I thrived on the danger. We all did. I loved everything about army life. Passing selection for the Special Forces was the best day of my life. Receiving my discharge was the worst.’
Felipe had known as soon as the bullet had hit him that it was the end of his army career and the end of everything he’d held dear. The bullet had splintered in his leg, shrapnel lodging in the bones. There had been talk of amputation.
The long months spent in rehabilitation, working into a sweat just to walk again, dealing with the pain of his wound and the darkness of what he’d lost...it had all brought home to him that he was meant to be alone.
When it was just you in the world the only threat of pain was the physical kind. He’d proven he could deal with that. Physical pain was mind over matter. Determination. It hurt but didn’t leave you bereft and empty inside.
For once Francesca was silent. He knew it wouldn’t be for long. He was right.
‘Is that why you went into protection? So you could still get the adrenaline buzz?’
‘The world is full of dangers and people still need to visit those danger zones. I knew I could provide the protection they needed and that there were many other soldiers like me who were fit and ready for the next challenge.’ But not Sergio. The first bullet that had hit him had gone straight into his heart.
‘Do you get the same fulfilment you got from the army?’
‘It’s a different kind of fulfilment.’ Even though he’d thrown all his energy into it, he could never have guessed how successful his business would be. He had more money than he could spend in a thousand lifetimes, was on the speed dial of the world’s most powerful people, but knew that given the choice of swapping his riches for a return to his army days he would discard his worldly goods without a second thought.
‘Don’t you ever wish for a normal life?’ she whispered in the silence.
‘What’s your definition of a normal life?’
‘One that’s not completely nomadic.’
‘No.’ Yet as he spoke his rebuttal he found his mind meandering for the first time ever to a real home with an ebony-haired beauty...
He pushed the thought away. A normal, regular life was not for him.
‘That’s enough talk. We’ve an early start. Get some sleep.’
‘But—’
‘I mean it. No more conversation.’
But he knew the chances of his getting any sleep were slim, not when he was certain that beneath her oversized T-shirt Francesca lay naked.
He closed his eyes and willed his mind not to think of her naked.
Dios, this was torture. He ached to join her in that bed.
In his head he counted out the reasons why he needed to stay exactly where he was.
One. She was his client.
Two. She was grieving.
‘It’s not even ten o’clock. I’m not tired. I never go to bed this early.’
Just the sound of her voice was enough to make Felipe’s loins tighten.
‘Read your book,’ he said through gritted teeth.
There was another long period of silence but he sensed a shift in the atmosphere, a change in her mood.
‘“Read your book, stop talking, go to sleep”,’ she mimicked suddenly. ‘It’s one step forward and two steps back with you, isn’t it? One minute you’re opening up and talking to me like a normal human being, the next you act like you’re trying to forget my existence. Do you treat all your clients like this?’
He smothered a groan at the hurt echoing in her voice. ‘Like what?’
‘Like they’re an encumbrance to be endured. Sometimes it feels that you don’t even like me.’
He clenched his jaw. What did she want him to say? Mere liking had nothing to do with his feelings for her.
‘It’s different with my other clients.’ He’d never struggled with professional detachment before. He’d never wanted to rip any of their clothes off.
‘So it’s true!’ As quick as a flash she threw her covers off and jumped off the bed. ‘You don’t like me. I thought it was the attraction between us you hated.’ She stormed into her dressing room and slammed her hand against the switch, bathing the room in fresh light. ‘I didn’t realise the problem was that you actively dislike me.’
‘I don’t...’ But his words fell from his lips when she pulled her T-shirt off. Even with the distance between them, he could see her clearly, from the divine weighty breasts with their dark aureoles to the soft womanly hair between her legs.
Oh, dear heaven...
Francesca was heaven. A taste of paradise wrapped up in beautiful, womanly form.
But then she grabbed the dress she’d been wearing earlier and he understood what she was doing.
Springing to his feet, he strode over and blocked the doorway of her dressing room. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘For a drink. Anywhere away from you.’
Fire blazed from her eyes, her whole body vibrating with anger. And, Dios, no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t stop his eyes from devouring her, naked before him, not an ounce of embarrassment in her returning fury.
Then she tilted her chin and pulled the dress over her head. The delectable curves disappeared as she smoothed the dress down and tugged her trapped hair free. As it tumbled down her back he couldn’t help but fantasise what it would feel like to have that hair tumble over him in all its silken glory.
‘Get out of my way,’ she said coldly.
‘No.’
Slowly, her fiery gaze holding his, she stepped to him. When she was close enough for his senses to be hit with her scent, she put her wrists together and held them out to him. ‘If you’re intending to treat me as a prisoner you might as well tie me up because that’s the only way you’re going to stop me leaving this room.’
Electricity shot between them, so real he could almost hear the crackle. It heated him too, tiny jolts bouncing on his skin, his heart thrumming...
His hand rose by its own volition, his fingers stretching towards her.
A throb of need burst through him, so powerful he had to dig his feet into the floor to stop from hauling her into his arms.
‘You are not leaving this suite.’ His speech was long, drawn out, ragged.
‘I’m not staying with someone who can barely look at me and gets irritated every time I open my mouth.’
Without him knowing how it happened, his fingers closed around the delicate wrists. A moment later he’d pulled her to him so their bodies were flush, her breasts pressed against his chest.
‘I don’t dislike you,’ he ground out, gazing down at the spitting eyes, the luminous skin, the lips that begged to be kissed... ‘Don’t you see that? I like you too much.’
For long, long moments they did nothing but stare at each other until the anger that blazed so brightly in her eyes softened to blaze with something that struck straight into his loins.
Francesca stared helplessly at the man who had her in a grip so tight she could never break free yet which elicited not the slightest amount of pain.
The humiliation that had washed over her like a cold shower at the realisation she’d been longing for a man who hated her vanished as awareness filled her in its stead, awareness of his heat, of being held against this dangerously masculine man her body craved.
She had no conscious reckoning of the change in him, of how the fury deepened into something so dark and molten her chest filled, of the deepening of his breaths as he continued to gaze down at her...
‘I can’t hear your voice without becoming aroused,’ he said, his voice low, pained. ‘I can’t look at you without wanting to kiss you. I can’t breathe your scent without wanting to possess you. Wanting you like this is torture.’
‘Then stop fighting it,’ she whispered.
Later she would have no conscious remembrance of the moment his lips moulded onto hers. It was like a beast that lived inside them both suddenly became unleashed.
There was nothing gentle about his kiss or her response to it. It burned her, ravaged her. All her nerve endings exploded and leapt onto him. The hand that had been holding her wrists was now wrapped tightly around her waist, her arms now looped tightly around his neck, kissing as if they needed the other for air, lips parted, devouring each other.
She grabbed at the back of his head and raked her fingers through his hair, nuzzling, kissing, nipping, her senses filling with his very essence, all the hunger she had for him soaring free.
His arousal pressed hard and huge against her belly, his hands roamed her contours, kneading, fingers biting. The evidence of his desire for her was dizzying and heightened her own. The desire she’d experienced during the alcohol-induced fumble that had gone further than either of them had expected had been like a carnal dream but this...sober...everything felt gloriously, dizzily heightened and urgent, no slow sensual build-up, her body craving nothing less than full possession.
He broke the kiss to place his hands at her waist and lift her into the air like a ballet dancer lifting his partner. Her hair fell onto his shoulders and he turned his face to breathe the scent of it in. ‘Dios, I want you,’ he muttered raggedly.
Without another word said he sat her on the edge of the bed and pressed her down so he lay on top of her, crushing her, his heart drumming strongly enough for her to feel it against her own hammering heart. Their lips entwined in another deep, hungry kiss and he ran a hand up her thigh to take the hem of her dress and raise it to her waist.
Needing to touch him, she ran her fingers down his back and revelled in the smoothness of his skin, the muscles that bunched beneath her touch, then traced lower to the tight buttocks. Grasping frantically, she found the waistband of his boxers and tugged at them. Felipe’s hand covered hers and together they shifted them down his hips, allowing his erection to spring free.
Her eyes flew open to feel the weight of his excitement against her inner thigh, a deep throb pulsing through her to know this was for her. Her own arousal had melted into a mass of heat and dampness, all concentrating in the one area he was so close to taking possession of.
Francesca had never dreamt she was capable of such wanton, reckless carnality, that her flesh could feel like a living being, that desire could beat like a drum with a rhythm felt in her every pore.
This, she thought dreamily... This...
Instinct had her raising her thighs and wrapping her legs around Felipe’s waist, urging him on, her body speaking the language she had never learned.
The tip of his erection found where it needed to be with no guidance from either of them and in one driving thrust he was inside her.
It happened so quickly that it took a few beats for her brain to register the sharp pain and when it did register, the gasp of relief at his possession that had flown from her mouth turned into a gasp of shock and stilled on her lips.
Felipe froze.
The heady urgency of his desire deflated like a punctured balloon. He gazed down in horror at Francesca’s whitening face.
It wasn’t possible...
His head pounded loudly, bells clanging, sirens wailing.
It wasn’t possible.
With as great a care as he could manage, he withdrew from her and swung his legs over to rest on the floor then grabbed the back of his neck and dug his fingers into it.
The beat of his heart was out of time.
She didn’t move.
He didn’t move.
For the longest time he sat on the bed staring incomprehensibly at the thick carpet while she lay on the bed gazing mutely at the ceiling.
He wanted to be sick. There was movement beside him as Francesca slowly sat up.
A trembling finger was placed lightly on his shoulder.
‘Felipe...’
Slowly he raised his head and caught sight of himself in the mirror on the wall.
The reflection gazing back was a man he didn’t recognise.
He didn’t think he would ever recognise himself again.
CHAPTER TEN (#u11800846-8f89-5170-a4c6-b3cb934c29db)
WHEN HIS THROAT had loosened enough so he could breathe, Felipe got to his feet and put his boxers on. Only then did he turn to the hunched figure in the centre of the bed. She still had her dress on.
Francesca’s eyes were huge but when he met them he saw they were filled with defiance as well as misery.
With a sigh, he sank back onto the edge of the bed and buried his face in his hands. ‘You should have told me.’
Her voice was low but steady. ‘If I’d told you, you would have stopped.’
‘Damn right I would have stopped.’ He swore loudly as he remembered something else that made the hairs on arms lift. ‘We didn’t even use protection.’ Not that they’d needed it. It had been over almost as soon as it had begun.
‘I’m on the Pill,’ she mumbled.
‘Are you?’ he demanded. ‘You’re not just saying that?’
A quick shake of her head. ‘I used to have terrible pains every month. The Pill helped.’
‘Francesca... Dios...’ He raised his head and met her gaze. ‘What were you thinking?’
She didn’t answer.
‘Was it your intention to make me hate myself?’
