Page 84 of Exotic Affairs: The Mistress Bride\The Spanish Husband\The Bellini Bride

She didn’t run, was too tired to run. And his next, was to reappear wearing nothing but a short black robe that exposed more of his tanned skin than it covered. He brought the clean scent of soap into the room with him—and a heightening of tension because he looked so damned sexually sure of himself, the way he obviously thought he could climb into this bed with her—and naked, by the looks of things!

‘I won’t sleep with you,’ she informed him flatly.

He was hanging his clothes away in the cupboard when she spoke, but he paused, glanced at her. ‘Sleep as in sleep?’ he asked. ‘Or sleep as in make love?’

‘Both,’ she replied. ‘And I don’t know how you’ve got the arrogance to think that I would.’

He didn’t answer that one straight away. Instead he went back to what he had been doing while Caroline followed his every movement with a heart that was trying hard not to beat any faster.

It didn’t succeed very well—especially when he turned towards the bed and began to approach. And his face was wearing that hard, implacable look she didn’t like very much. Bending down, he braced himself with one hand on the pillow beside her head and one right by her curled-up knees. He looked very dark, very dangerous—and very, very serious.

‘Let’s just get a couple of things straight, Caroline,’ he suggested quietly and chillingly. ‘As far as I am concerned our deal still stands. If you decide not to go through with it, then you know the consequences. They haven’t changed because your father was taken ill,’ he pointed out. ‘But,’ he then added, ‘if you decide to keep your side of our bargain, then I will expect you to convince your father, and everyone else for that matter, that I am what you want more than anything else in your life. Understand?’

Yes, she thought dully, she understood. Her choices here were still non-existent. ‘If anything happens to him,’ she said thickly, ‘you know I’ll never forgive you, don’t you?’

He allowed himself a small grimace at that. ‘I think I had already worked that one out for myself,’ he replied dryly.

‘And if you try to touch me now, tonight, I shall probably be sick.’

This time it wasn’t a grimace but a weary sigh, and his dark head came closer—close enough for her to feel the warmth of his breath caress her face. ‘If I touched you now, Caroline, you would probably burst into tears—then cling to me as though your life depended on it,’ he taunted softly.

And to prove his point he brushed his mouth across her mouth. Sure enough, even as he straightened away, the tears were flooding into her eyes.

And she didn’t feel sick. She felt—vulnerable. Too vulnerable to say another word as Luiz reached out to flick a switch that plunged the room into darkness. A few seconds later there was a rustling of fabric before she felt the other side of the bed depress.

He didn’t attempt to reach for her, didn’t try to cross the invisible barrier that ran down the centre of the large bed. She fell asleep still struggling with a mix of emotions ranging from the bitterly resentful to the wretchedly disgusted with herself—because he was right, and she did want to cling to him.

She awoke during what was left of the night, though she wasn’t sure what it was that had woken her. But in those few drifting moments before she remembered just where she was, she was only aware that she was lying on her stomach, sprawled diagonally across the bed, feeling so sublimely at peace with herself that it came as a shock to realise that not only was it Luiz’s bed she was lying in, but that her cheek was pressed up against his satin-smooth shoulder and her arm was lying across his hair-roughened chest.

And, worse, he was awake. She knew he was because he was lying there on his back, letting his fingers stroke feather-light caresses along her resting arm. It wasn’t a sexual gesture; she knew that instinctively. More an absent stroking, as if he was l

ying there maybe staring into the darkness, lost deep in his own train of thought.

It was nice.

So nice in fact that she didn’t really want to end it. Though she didn’t know if she could simply go on lying here pretending to be asleep when she wasn’t, because already she could feel her pulse-rate picking up, feel the even tempo of her breathing alter.

It was a long time since she’d last felt the warm strength of a man lying beside her. Seven long lonely years, in fact.

And even then it had been this man. This same dark, sensually attractive man, with the same clean, slightly musky scent that was so intoxicatingly familiar.

It seemed ironic now, to find herself in this situation when it was Luiz who had spoiled her from wanting to go to bed with another man.

He released a small sigh. Caroline wished that she could do the same, only she knew it would give the game away. Then her defences would have to go back up, the tension would return, the need to keep on fighting him.

The sigh escaped anyway, so she tried to use it as an excuse to slide away, as if in her sleep. Luiz moved at the same time, his fingers tangling with her fingers at the same moment that he rolled onto his side and towards her. She wasn’t quick enough to close her eyes, and it was like looking into a mirror and seeing her own sombre mood reflected back at her. Only his eyes were dark—as dark as the night still surrounding them.

He wanted her, she could see the need written there. And the mirror was in knowing that she wanted him. Too late to pretend. Too late to run and hide. He knew just as she knew. It was that simple, that final.

With the use of their tangled fingers he drew her up against him, and even as she felt the aroused heat of his body pushing gently against her his mouth was hungrily capturing hers.

And—oh, but it felt good, like finding something she had been mourning the loss of for too, too long. And perhaps because she didn’t fight him, didn’t even try to protest, he savoured the kiss, almost as if he was feeling the same way about it as she.

Or maybe it had more to do with the lateness of the hour, their slumberous state, the relaxed warmth with which they had come together, or even that all-encompassing darkness itself.

Whatever, this kiss was like no other kiss they had ever shared. It was slow and it was deep and it was unbelievably tender. And it went on and on and on, until she felt as if she were floating, lost to a beauty so profound that she had to reach up with her free hand and cup his cheek—just to check that he wasn’t a mere figment of her dreamy imagination.

Her fingers found lean, taut flesh that rasped lightly with a five o’clock shadow. She touched his cheekbone, his nose, the corner of his mouth where it covered her own mouth, heard his low groan as if her exploration moved him.

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