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Those lips were his. Firing one last stare at Nacho, he led her onto the floor.
It was like holding an electric current in his arms—dangerous, hot and impossible to contain or let go. ‘Don’t worry,’ he soothed in a soft, mocking voice as she looked up at him, ‘I’ll be gentle with you.’
‘And I with you,’ she assured him as they waited for the music to begin.
He noticed how poised she was. She was a very different woman to the one who had taken the floor so awkwardly with him in Buenos Aires. Could this be the same woman who was almost, but not quite touching her flattened palm to his?
It was only Bella’s hand, but he wanted it. He wanted her hand in his… He wanted all of her.
She evaded him as the music began and, with a provocative flash of her emerald eyes, she whipped out of his reach in a t
urn he wouldn’t have imagined her to be capable of executing. He snatched her back again and held her close, staring down, imposing his will.
Raising a brow, she thrust him away.
His eyes assured her that he accepted the challenge and, when he drew her close this time, she had no option but to move with him. She fought him at first, and then she relaxed. They were attracting attention, he noticed. Or, rather, Bella was attracting interest. She was his perfect partner. The fact that they were dancing together, and quite so intensely, was drawing a lot of attention. He noticed Ignacio watching them from the shadows. The jigsaw didn’t take much piecing together. Ignacio knew Nero had finally met his match and had enjoyed tutoring Bella so she could more than hold her own when they next met on the dance floor.
Hold her own? Bella was incredible. She set the air on fire, and everyone had gathered round to watch. Sensually and emotionally, she was transformed. It was like dancing with a different Bella—a confident woman who had found herself and knew what she wanted out of life—and she wanted more than polo. There were other gaps in Bella’s education, gaps that only he could fill.
‘Where are we going?’ Bella demanded as Nero strode with her across the yard. She dug her heels in, refusing to go another step with him until he explained why he had taken her away from the party.
‘I don’t care to play out my private life in front of an audience.’
‘I thought you didn’t care what people thought.’ She fought him, but his grip only tightened on her arm.
‘I don’t.’ Nero stopped dead, his breathing heightened as he stared down at her. ‘You look fabulous tonight, Bella.’ And just when her eyes widened at the thought that he was paying her a compliment, he added, ‘You could hardly think you were going to fade into the background in a dress like that?’
‘Are you jealous, Nero?’
‘Jealous?’ Heat rose in his eyes.
‘Do you regret dancing with me when there were so many more important women at the party?’
‘What?’ Nero looked genuinely bemused.
‘Or don’t you like my dress?’
‘It certainly draws attention.’
A glint of humour was in his eyes and the glance he lavished on her now made the blood sizzle in her veins.
‘And men were staring at me?’ She struck a pose to stir him even more. As if she was on a mission to push Nero to his limits, she couldn’t stop. Even his growled response and his grip on her arm had no effect. ‘You were happy to call me the Ice Maiden along with everyone else, but now I show another side and you don’t like it.’
‘That’s not true,’ Nero said huskily, ‘I like it a lot.’
‘How much?’ She shivered deliciously as Nero’s thunderous expression changed to a challenging smile. He was playing with her, Bella realised as he released his grip on her arm. He was treating her like one of his ponies in the corral—drawing her to him, then casting her into the void without him so she craved nothing more than his attention. ‘I’m going back to the party.’
‘I don’t think so.’
Balling her hands into fists, she thrust them against his chest, but from the waist down they were connected. There was so much passion between them now they could set the barn on fire. Had Nero planned to goad her all along? He did very little in life without a very good reason. Nero was the consummate seducer—of horses, women—everyone he met. Ice Maiden? Nero cared nothing for that tag. He had always known how to make her burn.
They should have made it to the house—to a bedroom—to a bed.
They’d made it halfway across the stable yard when Nero dragged her close and trapped her between his hard body and the barn door. With his hands planted flat on the door either side of her face, he nuzzled her ears, her lips, her cheeks, her neck, sending heat shooting through her veins to her core. Her breasts felt heavy and a pulse throbbed hungrily between her legs. And when she managed to focus at all it was only to see all sorts of wickedness in Nero’s eyes.
She was drowning in arousal by the time Nero dipped his head to brush her bottom lip with his mouth. As his warmth and strength enveloped her, all it took was his lightest touch to fire her senses. The will to move—to leave him—the will to do anything remotely sensible had completely deserted her. She claimed one small victory, hearing him groan deep in his chest when he deepened the kiss and her tongue tangled with his. A lifetime of avoiding men had left her hungry, and now she found it ironic that the most masculine man she had ever met had freed something inside her, allowing her female powers to have their head.
Their kisses grew more heated, more urgent, until the barn door creaked behind them. Shouldering it open, Nero drew her inside. The silence was intense. It shielded them from the noise of the party, and when he dropped the great iron bar across the door she knew that no one could disturb them.
