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For a moment, her plan seemed crazy, but then she firmed her resolve. “I want to thank you properly,” she said in what she hoped he would take as an inviting tone.
“Properly?” he queried suspiciously. “What does that mean?”
“What would you like it to mean?” she asked softly.
His gaze sharpened with interest. “What did you have in mind?” he countered.
Everything that had seemed so straightforward in the planning stages changed radically, and all because Diego stirred feelings in her that were so unaccustomed, even a flutter of attraction between them hit her like a seismic shock. He wasn’t going to make this easy for her, she guessed. He was relaxed, while she was anything but. Everything hung on what she did next. He was waiting for her to make the first move. Good luck, she thought. You’re inexperienced and gauche, while he’s one of the most sophisticated and experienced man on the planet. Only her determination to follow through with her plan drove her on.
“I don’t have all night, Celina.”
She was no siren, so blunt would have to do. Lifting her chin, she told him, “I want to have sex with you.”
Chapter Three
And he thought nothing could surprise him. “Why do you want to have sex with me?” he asked Celina.
She seemed lost for words. “Do I need a reason?” she said at last.
“When you’re asking that question of an older and far more experienced man, you most certainly do. Well?” he pressed when she remained silent. His intention was not to crush her. He was an admirer of strong women, and he knew from personal experience that Celina was one of the best, but where sex was concerned, he suspected she was an innocent, while his appetite was huge. She didn’t know what she was asking, but he was here, and she was appealing.
> “You’ll get hurt,” he warned as he remembered the words of his glamorous and aristocratic mother. She might have had little time for him when he was a child, but when he was a youth, testing himself, she had impressed upon him the fact that a real man protected and revered women; he didn’t just use them.
He thought of that now as he stared at Celina. Framed in moonlight, her innocence had never seemed more pronounced. His body hardened accordingly. He was no saint. In her white dress with her dark hair flowing free, she could easily play the role of vestal virgin to his dark, satanic satyr. He was used to women coming on to him. Sophisticates who wanted the same thing he did, which was good sex and no ties. Gold diggers wanted his money and got short shrift from him. And then there were ingénues who mistook him for someone who cared. There were others, like the girl at the party tonight, being pushed forward by ambitious parents. He pitied them for their lack of free will. Celina didn’t fit into any of these categories. She knew exactly what she was doing. The only question that occurred to him was why was she doing it? “How much experience have you had?” he asked in an approach as blunt as hers.
“None. Very little,” she amended.
“Which is it?” he pressed.
“Very little?” She opened her arms almost apologetically as she went on to explain. “University was a washout. I studied in preference to dating. I knew knowledge would take me places short-lived romances never could.”
“You craved independence?” he guessed.
“I craved freedom,” she corrected him.
Of a type that didn’t allow for relationships to interfere, he thought. He got that. “Are you sure about this?”
Her gaze remained steady on his. “I’m certain,” she confirmed.
The urge to protect her rose inside him, as did the desire to possess her. As the two feelings warred inside him, he shrugged off his jacket and hung it on a branch. Freeing the links from his cuffs, he dropped them into the jacket’s pocket. “Why don’t we take a swim first?”
“You want to give me time to think about it,” she guessed. “I won’t change my mind.”
His jaded palate didn’t stand a chance. “You might want to undress,” he suggested as she walked to the water’s edge.
Turning her head, she looked over her shoulder at him with an expression that was unconsciously pure siren. “You might want to undress me,” she countered in a voice that definitely seduced him.
Only now did he realize how much compliance had bored him in the past. It would be a mistake for him to think Celina unsophisticated in every respect. Her thoughts were busy. She would do nothing without a good reason, including having sex with him. She’d seen more horrors than most people twice her age, and as they stared at each other, he noticed what his colleagues must have seen when they hired her. Beneath her fragile-looking shell, Celina was tempered steel. She was no innocent at the mercy of a practiced seducer, but a woman who knew her own mind. “So, what’s your angle?” he asked.
“My angle?” she demanded with affront. “Do I need an angle? Isn’t a simple thank-you enough?”
“Forgive me,” he commented dryly, “but there isn’t anything remotely simple about the type of thanks you have in mind.”
“If you’d rather not—”
“Did I say that?” he interrupted. “But you have to be straight with me.”
She firmed her jaw. “One night. That’s all I’m asking. One night of pleasure.”
