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He did care about her. It was obvious, wasn’t it? Her breath exhaled on an emotional sob. She wriggled forward, reclaiming the small unendurable space he’d put between them. Maybe he was remembering the wonderful magical times they’d shared all those years ago, was regretting having played around, one girl for the daylight hours, one for the evening. Maybe…
Expelling a driven moan, Lisa dragged his head down to hers and kissed him with a wild hunger that drew an answering blisteringly passionate response. Only when the need for breath became imperative was she able to tell him what was in her heart, her voice no more than a whisper as she confessed, ‘I want to stay. I want you, Diego, I want everything back the way it was.’
‘That can’t happen, my angel,’ Diego denied wryly, one hand gently caressing her fine-boned shoulder. ‘The past can’t be reclaimed, no matter how much we wish it could be. We are both older and hopefully wiser. All we can do,’ he said thickly, ‘is concentrate on the present.’ His hand slipped lower, resting possessively on the throbbing peak of one breast then sliding to the other, the hot pleasure almost more than she could stand as her whole body was invaded by a desire so intense it shocked the breath out of her body.
‘You are so beautiful. I ache for you!’ His voice was ragged with emotion, more heavily accented than she had ever heard it. ‘I have dreamed of this,’ he confessed rawly, the touch of his hands as he explored her willing body slow and sensual, blowing her mind, making her writhe against him, her breath coming in frantic gasps until he held both her hands above her head and murmured softly, ‘Patience, my angel. I am a possessive man and I will give pleasure such as you have never known.’
His black eyes smouldered with male intent. ‘After tonight there will be no room in your mind for any other man.’
There had never been any other man, Lisa thought dizzily and wondered whether she should tell him, then gave up on all brain functions as his lips erotically travelled the path of his exploring hands.
She’d been a virgin; he was sure of that. She might have been a flirt and a tease, but she hadn’t been promiscuous. She hadn’t even slept with Clayton; he’d stake his life on it.
Looking down at her fragile, fine-boned body as at last she slept, Diego’s heart swelled with an emotion he couldn’t name. The triumph of male possession? A release from the devils of the past?
Love?
Love. His mouth compressed wryly. He’d loved her once, adored her, put his angel on a golden pedestal. And look where that had got him! His days of romanticising fallible womanhood were long gone.
Yet she was ineffably special; he was too honest to deny that.
Tenderly, careful not to wake her, he drew the silken cover over her body, as graceful in sleep as she always was awake, and eased himself off the bed. Fingers of dawn light were creeping into the room. Each climax had been more stunning than the last. He had never known anything like it but, in spite of all that sensual overload, he was bursting with vitality.
A long walk was called for. Something to tax his body and leave his mind free to work out his feelings, let him see the future—if there could be any futur
e for the two of them, he amended—more clearly.
Lisa woke to floods of sunlight. She could hear the doves calling in the courtyard below, a soft sweet sound that matched her mood perfectly. Releasing herself from the tangle of the silky cover she wriggled over and stared at the empty space beside her.
Diego was already up and about. It didn’t matter that he’d left her to sleep alone. She vented a dreamy sigh. He could change his mood more often than he changed his socks and that didn’t matter either.
She knew what she knew.
What he felt for her went far deeper than simple male lust; she knew it did. Hadn’t he offered to let her go before things went any further, hadn’t he admitted he wanted her to stay, but only if she wanted it too? And throughout the long, ecstatic night he’d made love with such passionate tenderness, as if she were the most precious thing in the world!
It couldn’t possibly get any better or any more revealing of his true feelings than that, could it?
Slipping out of bed, she hugged her arms around her body. She was actually squirming with happiness inside. She felt intoxicated by it. Despite what he’d said, they could recapture the past. And if he still went on denying it then she’d have to make sure to change his mind!
The embarrassing problem of getting back to her own rooms, naked, without being met by Rosa or Manuel, was solved when Diego walked into the room moments later. He was carrying something over his arm; she didn’t register what because she only had eyes for him, for his heart-wrenching gorgeousness.
Those dark eyes were intimately warm, his slow smile infectious, and the way the fine cotton of his sleeveless shirt clung to the wide span of his shoulders, those long legs clothed in narrow-fitting sand-coloured jeans, made her legs go hollow, her tummy tighten with intense physical need.
Feeling the rosy peaks of her breasts swell and tingle, her pale skin bloomed with warm colour as his eyes made a languid tour of every naked inch on display.
Her eyelids drooped, she could hardly keep them open and her breath was coming in ragged little gasps. She loved him so, wanted him until she went weak and boneless from the tips of her toes to the top of her tousled head.
Diego walked towards her and then past without so much as touching her. Lisa’s face fell a mile but her dismay was swiftly forgotten when he laid garments she vaguely recognised from the stuff he’d splurged out on yesterday down on the bed and turned to her, grinning wickedly over his shoulder.
‘I’ve been retrieving last night’s careless scatterings.’ He straightened up, his feet planted apart, his soft, slightly breeze-ruffled black hair gleaming in the shafts of sunlight, his eyes smiling for her. ‘We left your dress and a fortune in diamonds in the courtyard, remember?’ A slanting brow quirked. ‘Now, I don’t mind the staff putting two and two together but I thought you might.’ His mobile mouth curved. ‘The diamonds are back in the safe and your dress is back in your room.’
And after that he’d tramped the hillside, getting his mind straight and not liking himself. He could only describe his behaviour as appalling. He’d verged on an unprecedented and shameful temper tantrum after she’d admitted that holding on to her father’s approval was the only reason she’d agreed to his unholy proposition. So, not recognising what was actually happening to him when it smacked him squarely in the face, he’d set out to punish her.
He’d been falling in love with her all over again and had been too stiff-necked and blinkered to admit it to himself. He didn’t care how badly she’d behaved in the past. Madre di Dios! She’d been little more than a child at the time!
‘And this—’ a lean tanned hand indicated the clothing he’d put down on the bed, drawing a steadying breath to get himself back on track ‘—is for you to dress in after you’ve showered.’ He glanced at her enquiringly. ‘So, breakfast in half an hour?’
At her mute nod he dipped his head understandingly and came to her, where her feet felt rooted to the polished boards, his hands thrust firmly in his trouser pockets. ‘I know.’ His voice lowered with husky understanding. ‘But if I touch you we’ll never leave that bed. And I’ve got plans for today. There’s a cove I know of, not more than a hour’s drive away. No one ever goes there. It will be just the two of us.’
