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PALE, pure moonlight bathed Lisa’s beautiful body in silvered washes as he lowered her on to his bed, the dark cover accentuating the ivory loveliness of her limbs and the silver gold of her hair, those long silky tendrils spread around her.
His heart racing, Diego straightened, his fingers moving to his shirt buttons. His hands were shaking. His body was aching for her. Just her. Only ever her. His pale, glorious angel.
He’d waited so long. Too damned long!
A soft breeze from one of the many open windows set deep in the ancient stone walls feathered over his skin as he dropped his shirt to the floor, his eyes never leaving the deep pools of hers.
Moonlight made a mystery of her. He snatched in a breath. His lungs tightened. He was about to solve that mystery.
She was his!
A tiny gasp alerted him to the fact that her eyes had broken his hypnotic hold on her and were drinking in his partial nakedness, sweeping achingly slowly across the breadth of his shoulders, down to the tightness of flat stomach muscles. A nerve jumped at the side of his hard jawline as she raised her pale slender arms to him, her lips parting on another intake of breath.
Without having to think about it, he took her outstretched hands in his and brushed his lips over the backs of her fingers, turning them over to place lingering kisses in her tender palms, just as he had always done when he’d greeted her way back in that time so long ago when love had been young and infinitely precious, the most precious thing in the world for him.
‘Diego—’
Just his name, emerging from her lips on a rawly breathy sigh that could have been the desperate plea he’d been waiting for. His heart seemed to swell t
o twice its normal size within his chest cavity, making him breathless as his impatient, unsteady hands dropped to the waistband of his trousers and dealt summarily with the zip.
And Madre di Dio! Did she know what her eyes were saying to him as they rose, limpid dark pools full of yearning neediness, to lock again with his?
Leaning over her, he touched her soft lips with the tips of his fingers and she parted them with immediate, telling response, her long lashes drifting closed over those beautiful sultry eyes.
He lowered his tight, throbbing body on to the bed beside her, hot masculine pleasure flowing through him in a wild unstoppable tide as she turned to him, those delicate naked limbs reaching for him, holding him, her arms around his body, her legs entwined with his, her gloriously sexy mouth raised to his.
He wanted to lose himself in that mouth, in that exquisite body. The need was raw and primitive, but ‘Slowly, my angel,’ he murmured thickly, needing to savour this moment, the forerunner of the climax that had haunted his mind for far too long, savour this timeless moment before the blessed release from private nightmares of anger and frustration.
Even so, he could no more stop his hands from sweeping down the length of her body, sweeping away the tiny briefs, the final barrier between them.
He heard her soft intake of breath, felt her body shake with fine tremors as the instinctive, urgent arching of her hips met his full arousal and he knew the sting of desire was building in her, unfettered, hot and greedy, meeting his own.
His hand on the seductive curve of her hips pressed her closer and lightning forked through his loins as she moved against him, her sweet mouth trailing feverish kisses along the length of his throat.
Diego dragged in a harsh breath. This was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? Lisa’s wantonly willing body in his bed, pleasuring him, washing away the years of anger and bitterness.
And yet— He wanted more. Far more than the primeval act of mating. He had no idea where the sudden need had sprung from but the power of it was an insistent beat in his brain.
Feeling her skin against his skin, the heated urgency that was melding them together, two bodies as one, had wrought a change in him, a shift in his underlying emotions. This thing—the path to revenge he’d put in train—was debasing both of them.
Knowing he could be an all-time loser, committing himself to frustrated needs, no earthly chance of redemption, Diego levered himself up on one elbow, his eyes narrowed solemnly on her lovely face.
His voice flat with the knowledge of what he was about to do, the outcome uncertain, he told her, ‘The game’s over, Lisa. You’ve kept your side of the unworthy bargain I forced on you—coming willingly to my bed—and I’ll keep mine.’ He shifted his weight slightly, putting an unwanted space between them and hating it, craving the ultimate closeness which now might never come. ‘The magazine’s safe. Your father won’t have occasion to lower his new found good opinion of you.’ He dragged in a harsh breath, his stomach hollow. ‘And you’re free to go back to your own room right now, if that’s what you want, and back to London as soon as we can arrange a flight. Just say the word.’
Shock froze Lisa’s body, wiped out her vocal cords. He didn’t want her! She was offering and he was saying no thanks! His sole and despicable intention had been to humiliate her.
Struggling helplessly to work out what was happening here, she scoured his shadowed face with desperate eyes but found no answer, merely enigma. His moods could change faster than a teenager’s. Marbella this morning. And now this.
Now that he’d proved to himself that he could bring her to the point of writhing about on his bed, naked and frantic for his love-making, he was throwing her out like the worthless object he had decided she was!
‘You are one vile human being! Do you know that?’ burst from her on a wild tide of really loathing him. Limbs flailing, humiliation exploding inside her, Lisa tried to struggle off the bed, get as far away from the monster as she possibly could.
‘Tranquilo.’ Two gently determined hands curved round her shoulders, pressing her back against the pillows. A smile mellowed his voice. ‘Allow the vile human being to finish.’
At her seething snort of outrage and ineffectual struggles the smile vanished, leaving his voice ragged. ‘I want you to stay. Believe me, I want it more than anything else. But only if you want it too. Without threats hanging over your head, Lisa. You don’t owe me anything and if you stay with me it must be of your own free will. Otherwise, when we make love it will be meaningless. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Poleaxed into speechlessness, Lisa lifted her hands to cup his beloved face. Her heart was suddenly so full she was sure it was about to burst. He wanted her to stay with him; he’d said so with a sincerity that made her heart ache. He wanted to make love with her, not just have sex. And he wanted it to mean something!
