Читать книгу The Ultimate Persuasion: A Tempestuous Temptation / The Notorious Gabriel Diaz / The Truth Behind his Touch - Кэтти Уильямс, Cathy Williams - Страница 12

‘WE’RE never going to make it to Sharrow Bay tonight.’

They had been driving for a little under an hour and Luiz looked across to Aggie with a frown.

‘Depends on how much more the weather deteriorates.’

‘Yes, well, I don’t see the point of taking risks on the roads. I mean, it’s not as though Mark and Maria are going anywhere. Not in these conditions. We spent a lot longer than I anticipated at Sevenoaks and I apologise about that.’

Aggie didn’t know how to get through the impenetrable barrier that Luiz had erected around himself. He had smiled, charmed and chatted with everyone at the home and had done so without a flicker of tension, but underneath she could feel his coolness towards her. It was like an invisible force field keeping her out and she hated it.

‘I hope you didn’t find it too much of a chore.’ She tried again to revive a conversation that threatened to go in the same direction as the last few she had initiated—slap, bang into a brick wall of Luiz’s disinterest.

Her pride, her dignity and her sense of moral self-righteousness at having rightly turned down a proposal for no-strings sex for a day or two had disintegrated, leaving in its wake the disturbing realisation that she had made a terrible mistake. Why hadn’t she taken what was on offer? Since when did sex have to lead to a serious commitment? There was no tenderness, and he would never whisper sweet nothings in her ear, but the power of the sexual pull he had over her cut right through all of those shortcomings.

Why shouldn’t she be greedy for once in her life and just take without bothering about consequences and without asking herself whether she was doing the wrong thing or the right thing?

She had had three relationships in her life and on paper they had all looked as though they would go somewhere. They had been free-spirited, fun-loving, creative guys, nothing at all like Luiz. They had enjoyed going to clubs, attending protest marches and doing things on impulse.

And what had come of them? She had grown bored with behaviour that had ended up seeming juvenile and irresponsible. She had become fed up with the fact that plans were never made, with Saturdays spent lying in bed because none of them had ever shown any restraint when it came to drinking—and if she had tried to intervene she had been shouted down as a bore. With all of them, she had come to dread the aimlessness that she had initially found appealing. There had always come a point when hopping on the back of a motorbike and just riding where the wind took them had felt like a waste of time.

Luiz was so much the opposite. His self-control was formidable. She wondered whether he had ever done anything spontaneous in his life. Probably not. But despite that, or maybe because of it, her desire for him was liberated from the usual considerations. Why hadn’t she seen that at the time? She had shot him down as the sort of person who could have relationships with women purely for sex, as if the only relationships worth considering were ones where you spent your time plumbing each other’s depths. Except she had tried those and none of them had worked out.

‘The kids loved you,’ she persevered. ‘And so did Betsy and Gordon. I guess it must have been quite an eye-opener, visiting a place like that. I’m thinking that your background couldn’t have been more different.’

Like a jigsaw puzzle where the pieces slowly began to fit together, Luiz was seeing the background picture that had made Aggie the woman she had become. It was frustrating and novel to find himself in a position of wanting to chip away at the surface of a woman and dig deeper. She was suspicious, proud, defensive and fiercely independent. She had had to be.

‘There’s a hotel up ahead, by the way, just in case you agree with me that we need to stop. Next town along…’ With every passing minute of silence from him, Aggie could feel her chances of breaking through that barrier slipping further and further out of reach.

‘Is there? How do you know?’ With her childhood home behind them, she was no longer the laughing, carefree person she had been there. Luiz could feel the tension radiating out of her, and if it were up to him he would risk the snow and plough on. The mission he had undertaken obviously had to reach a conclusion, but the cold-blooded determination that had initially fuelled him had gone. In its place was weary resignation for an unpleasant task ahead.

Aggie’s heart picked up speed. How did she know about the hotel? Because she had checked it on the computer Betsy kept in the office. Because she had looked at Luiz as he had stood with his arms folded at the back of the room, watching Christmas presents being given out, and she had known that, however arrogant and ruthless he could be, he was also capable of generosity and understanding. He could easily have turned down her request for that detour. He was missing work, and the faster he could wrap up the business with Mark and his niece, the better for him. Yet not only had he put himself out but he had taken the experience in his stride. He had shown interest in everything Betsy and Gordon had had to say and had interacted with the kids who had been fascinated by the handsome, sophisticated stranger in their midst.

She had been proud of him and had wanted him so intensely that it physically hurt.

‘I saw a sign for it a little way back.’ She crossed her fingers behind her back at that excusable white lie. ‘And I vaguely remember Betsy mentioning ages ago that there was a new fancy hotel being built near here, to capture the tourist trade. It’s booming in this part of the world, you know.’

‘I didn’t see any sign.’

‘It was small. You probably missed it. You’re concentrating on driving.’

‘Wouldn’t you rather just plough on? Get where we’re heading? If we stick it out for another hour, we should be there, more or less.’

‘I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.’ It suddenly occurred to her that the offer he had extended had now been withdrawn. He wasn’t the sort of man who chased women. Having done so with her, he wasn’t the sort of man who would carry on in the face of rejection. Did she want to risk her pride by throwing herself at him, when he now just wanted to get this whole trip over and done with so that he could return to his life?

‘I have a bit of a headache coming on, actually. I think it must be all the excitement of today—seeing Gordon and Betsy, the children. Gordon isn’t well. She only told me when we were about to leave. He’s had some heart problems. I worry about what Betsy will do if something happens to him.’

‘Okay. Where’s the turning?’

‘Are you sure? You’ve already put yourself out enough as it is.’ Aggie held her breath. If he showed even a second’s reluctance, then she would abandon her stupid plan; she would just accept that she had missed her chance; she would tell herself that it was for the best and squash any inclination to wonder…

‘The turning?’

‘I’ll direct you.’

He didn’t ask how she just happened to know the full address of the hotel, including the post code, in case they got lost and needed to use his satnav. After fifteen minutes of slow driving, they finally saw a sign—a real sign this time—and Aggie breathed a sigh of relief when they swung into the courtyard of a small but very elegant country house. Under the falling snow, it was a picture-postcard scene.

A few cars were in the courtyard, but it was obvious that business was as quiet here as it had been at Mrs Bixby’s bed and breakfast. How many other people were slowly wending their way north by car in disastrous driving conditions? Only a few lunatics.

Her nerves gathered pace as they were checked in.

‘Since this was my suggestion…’ She turned to him as they walked towards the winding staircase that led to the first floor and up to their bedrooms. ‘I insist on picking up the tab.’

‘Have you got the money to pick up the tab?’ Luiz asked. ‘There’s no point suggesting something if you can’t carry it out.’

‘I might not be rich but I’m not completely broke!’ Nerves made her lash out at him. It wasn’t the best strategy for enticing him into her bed. ‘I’m doing this all wrong,’ she muttered, half to herself.

‘Doing what all wrong?’ Luiz stopped and looked down at her.

‘You’re nothing like the guys I’ve been out with.’

‘I don’t think that standing halfway up the stairs in a hotel is the place for a soul-searching conversation about the men you’ve slept with.’ He turned on his heels and began heading upstairs.

‘I don’t like you being like this with me!’ Aggie caught up with him and tugged the sleeve of his jumper until he turned around and looked at her with impatience.

‘Aggie, why don’t we just go to our rooms, take some time out and meet in an hour for dinner? This has already turned into a never-ending journey. I’ve been away from work for too long. I have things on my mind. I don’t feel inclined to get wrapped up in a hysterical, emotional conversation with you now.’

Luiz was finding it impossible to deal with his crazy obsession with her. He wondered if he was going stir crazy. Was being cooped up with her doing something to his self-control? It had not even crossed his mind, when he had made a pass at her, that she would turn him down. Was that why he had watched her with Betsy and Gordon and all those kids and the only thing he could think was how much he wanted to get her into his bed? Was he so arrogant, in the end, that he couldn’t accept that any woman should say no to him?

The uneasy swirl of unfamiliar emotions had left him edgy and short-tempered. He would have liked to dismiss her from his mind the way he had always been able to dismiss all the inconveniences that life had occasionally thrown at him. He had always been good at that. Ruthlessness had always served him well. That and the knowledge that it was pointless getting sidetracked by things that were out of your control. Aggie sidetracked him and the last thing he needed was an involved conversation that would get neither of them anywhere. Womanly chats were things he avoided like the plague.

‘I’m not being hysterical.’ Aggie took a deep breath. If she backed away now, she would never do what she felt she had to do. Falling into bed with Luiz might be something she would never have contemplated in a month of Sundays, but then again she had never had to cope with a sexual attraction that was ripping her principles to shreds.

She had come to the conclusion that, whilst she knew it was crazy to sleep with a guy whose attitude towards women she found unnerving and amoral, not to sleep with him would leave her with regrets she would never be able to put behind her. And, if she was going to sleep with him, then she intended to have some control over the whole messy situation.

A lifetime of independence would not be washed away in a five-minute decision.

‘I just want to talk to you. I want to clear the air.’

‘There’s nothing to clear, Aggie. I’ve done what you asked me to do, and I’m pleased you seemed to have had a good time seeing all your old friends, but now it’s time to move on.’

‘I may have made a mistake.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Can we discuss this upstairs? In your room? Or we could always go back downstairs to the sitting room. It’s quiet there.’

‘If you don’t mind me changing while you speak, then follow me to my room, by all means.’ He turned his back on her and headed up.

‘So…’ Once inside the bedroom, Luiz began pulling off his sweater which he flung on a chair by the window. Their bags had been brought up and deposited in their separate rooms and he began rummaging through his for some clothes.

‘I never wanted to make this trip with you,’ Aggie began falteringly, and Luiz stilled and turned to look at her.

‘If this is going to be another twenty minutes of recriminations, then let me tell you straight away that I’m not in the mood.’ But, even as he spoke, he was seeing her tumble of fair hair and the slender contours of her body encased in a pair of the new jeans and deep burgundy jumper that was close-fitted and a lot sexier than the baggy jumpers she seemed to have stockpiled. Once again, his unruly lack of physical control made him grit his teeth in frustration. ‘I’m also not in the mood to hear you make a song and dance about paying your own way.’

‘I wasn’t going to.’ She pressed her back against the closed door.

‘Then what was it you wanted to tell me?’

‘I’ve never met anyone like you before.’

‘I think,’ Luiz said drily, ‘you may have mentioned that to me in the past—and not in a good way—so unless you have something else to add to the mix then I suggest you go and freshen up.’

‘What I mean is, I never thought I could be attracted to someone like you.’

‘I don’t do these kinds of conversations, Aggie. Post mortems on a relationship are bad enough; post mortems on a non-relationship are a complete non-starter. Now, I’m going to have a shower.’ He began unbuttoning his shirt.

Aggie felt the thrill of sudden, reckless excitement and a desperate urgency to get through to him. Despite or maybe because of her background she had never been a risk taker. From a young age, she had felt responsible for Mark and she had also gathered, very early on, that the road to success wasn’t about taking risks. It was about putting in the hard work; risk taking was for people who had safety nets to fall into. She had never had one.

Even in her relationships, she had never strayed from what her head told her she should be drawn to. So they hadn’t worked out. At no point, she now realised, had she ever concluded that maybe she should have sat back and taken stock of what her head had been telling her.

Luiz, so different from anyone she had ever known, who had entered her life in the most dubious of circumstances, had sent her into a crazy tailspin. She had found herself in terrifying new territory where nothing made sense and she had reacted by lashing out.

Before he could become completely bored with her circuitous conversation, Aggie drew in a deep breath. ‘You made a pass at me and I’m sorry I turned you down.’

Luiz, about to pull off his shirt, allowed his arms to drop to his sides and looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘I’m not with you,’ he said slowly.

Aggie propelled herself away from the safety of the door and walked towards him. Every step closer set up a tempo in her body that made her perspire with nervous tension.

‘I always thought,’ she told him huskily, ‘that I could never make love to a guy unless I really liked him.’

‘And the boyfriends you’ve had?’

‘I really liked them. To start with. And please don’t make it sound as though I’ve slept around; I haven’t. I’ve just always placed a lot of importance on compatibility.’

‘We all make mistakes.’ At no point did it occur to Luiz that he would turn her away. The strength of his attraction was too overwhelming. He didn’t get it, but he knew himself well enough to realise that it was something that needed sating. ‘But the compatibility angle obviously didn’t play out with you,’ he couldn’t help adding with some satisfaction.

‘No, it didn’t,’ Aggie admitted ruefully. She sneaked a glance at him and shivered. He was just so gorgeous. Was it any wonder her will power was sapped? She would never have made a play for him. She would never have considered herself to be in the category of women he might be attracted to. It occurred to her that he only wanted her because she was different from the women he dated, but none of that seemed to matter, and she wasn’t going to try and fight it.

‘What happened?’ Luiz strolled towards the king-sized four-poster bed and flopped down on it, his hands linked behind his head. His unbuttoned shirt opened to reveal a tantalising expanse of bronzed, muscular chest. This was the pose of the conqueror waiting for his concubine, and it thrilled her.

Aggie shrugged. ‘They were free spirits. I liked it to start with. But I guess I’m not much of a free spirit.’

‘No. You’re not.’ He gave her a slow, lingering smile that made her toes curl. ‘Are you going to continue standing there or are you going to join me?’ He patted the space next to him on the bed and Aggie’s heart descended very rapidly in the direction of her feet.

She inched her way towards the bed and laughed when he sat forward and yanked her towards him. Her laughter felt like an unspoken release of all her defences. She was letting go of her resentment in the face of something bigger.

‘What do you mean?’ Heart beating a mile a minute, she collapsed next to him and felt the warmth of his body next to her. It generated a series of intensely physical reactions that left her breathless and gasping.

‘So you’re not impressed by money. But a free spirit would have taken what I offered—the computer, the extensive wardrobe; would have factored them in as gifts to be appreciated and moved on. You rejected the computer out of hand and agonised over the wardrobe. The only reason you accepted was because you had no more clothes and I had to talk you into seeing the sense behind the offer. And you still tell me you’re going to return them all to me when we get back to London. You criticise me for wanting control but you fall victim to the very same tendency.’

‘We’re not alike at all.’ They were both on their sides, fully clothed, staring at one another. There was something very erotic about the experience, because underneath the excitement of discovery lurked like a thrilling present concealed with wrapping paper.

‘Money separates us,’ Luiz said wryly. ‘But in some areas I’ve discovered that we’re remarkably similar. Would this conversation benefit from us being naked, do you think?’

Aggie released a small, treacherous moan and he delivered a rampantly satisfied smile in response. Then he stood up and held out one hand. ‘I’m going to run a bath,’ he murmured. ‘Your room’s next to mine. Why don’t you go and get some clothes…?’

‘It feels weird,’ Aggie confided. ‘I’ve never approached an intimate situation like this.’

‘But then this is an intimate situation neither of us expected,’ Luiz murmured. ‘And that in itself is a first for me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It never fails to surprise me just how turned on I get for you.’

‘Because I’m nothing like the women you’ve gone out with?’

‘Because you’re nothing like the women I’ve gone out with,’ Luiz agreed.

Aggie knew that she should be offended by that, but then who would she be kidding? He was nothing like the guys she had gone out with. Mutual physical attraction had barrelled through everything and changed the parameters. Maybe that was why it felt so dangerously exciting.

‘You’re a lot more independent and I find that a turn on.’ He softly ran his fingers along her side. He couldn’t wait for her to be naked but this leisurely approach was intoxicating. ‘You’re not a slave to fashion and you’re fond of arguing.’

Aggie conceded privately that all three of those things represented a change for him, but a change that he would rapidly tire of. Since she wasn’t in it for the long haul, since she too was stepping outside the box, there was no harm in that, although she was uneasily aware of a barely acknowledged disappointment floating aimlessly inside her.

‘You like your women submissive,’ she said with a little laugh.

‘Generally speaking, it’s worked in the past.’

‘And I like my guys to be creative, not to be ruled by money.’

‘And yet, mysteriously, your creative paupers have all bitten the dust.’ Luiz found, to his bemusement, that he didn’t care for the thought of any other man in her life. It was puzzling, because he had never been the possessive type. In fact, in the past women who had tried to stir up a non-existent jealousy gene by referring to past lovers had succeeded in doing the opposite.

‘They haven’t been paupers,’ Aggie laughed. ‘Neither of them. They’ve just been indifferent to money.’

‘And in the end they bored you.’

‘I’m beginning to wish I’d never mentioned that,’ Aggie said, though only half-joking. ‘And if they bored me,’ she felt obliged to elaborate, ‘it was because they turned out to be boring people, not because they were indifferent to money.’ She wriggled off the bed and stood up. ‘Perhaps I’ll have a bath in my own bathroom…’

Luiz frowned, propping himself up on one elbow. ‘Second thoughts?’ His voice was neutral but his eyes had cooled.

‘No.’ Aggie tilted her chin to look at him. ‘I don’t play games like that.’

‘Good.’ He felt himself relax. To have been rejected once bordered on the unthinkable. To be rejected twice would have been beyond the pale. ‘Then what games do you play? Because I think I can help you out there…’

The promise behind those softly spoken words sent a shiver up her spine and it was still there when she returned to his bedroom a few minutes later. She had not been lying when she had confessed that she had never approached sex like this before. Stripped of all romantic mystique and airy-fairy expectations that it would lead somewhere, this was physical contact reduced to its most concentrated form.

The bath had been run. Aggie could smell the fragrance of jasmine bath oil. The steam in the enormous bathroom did nothing whatsoever to diminish the impact of Luiz, who had stripped out of his clothes and was wearing a towel around his waist.

Outside, the snow continued to fall. In her room, she had taken a few seconds to stare out of the window and absorb the fact that Mark and Maria, and the mission upon which they had embarked only a few days previously, couldn’t have been further from her mind. When exactly had she lost track of the reason why she was here in the first place? It was as though she had opened the wardrobe door to find herself stepping into Narnia, reality left behind for a brief window in time.

She could barely remember the routine of her day-to-day existence. The school, the staff room, the kids getting ready for their Nativity play.

Was Luiz right? She had always fancied herself as a free-spirited person and yet she felt as though this was the first impulsive thing she had ever done in her life. She had thought him freakishly controlled, a power-hungry tycoon addicted to mastering everything and everyone around him, while she—well, she was completely different. Maybe the only difference really was the fact that he was rich and she wasn’t, that he had grown up with privilege while she had had to fight her way out of her background, burying herself in studies that could provide her with opportunities.

‘Now, what I’d like…’ Luiz drawled, and Aggie blinked herself back to the present, ‘is to do what I was fantasising about when you did your little catwalk in that shop for me. Instead of showing me how you look with clothes on, show me how you look with them off.’

He sauntered out of the bathroom and lay back down on the bed, just as he had before.

Aggie realised in some part of her that, whilst this should not feel right, it did. She would never have believed it possible for either of them to set aside their personal differences and meet on this plane. Certainly, she would never have believed it of herself, but before she could begin nurturing any doubts about the radical decision she had made she told herself that everyone deserves some time out, and this was her time out. In a day or two, it would be nothing more than a wicked memory of the one and only time she had truly strayed from the path she had laid out for herself.

She watched, fascinated and tingling all over, shocked as he drew back the towel which had been modestly covering him, and revealed his arousal. She nearly fainted when he gently held it in one hand.

Luiz grinned at her. ‘So easy to make you blush,’ he murmured. Then he fell silent and watched as she began removing her clothes, at first with self-conscious, fumbling fingers, then with more confidence as she revelled in the sight of his darkened, openly appreciative gaze.

‘Come here,’ he rasped roughly, before she could remove the final strips of clothing. ‘I’m finding it hard to wait.’

Aggie sighed and flung her head back as his big hands curved over her breasts, thinly sheathed in a lacy bra. Their mouths met in an explosive kiss, a greedy, hungry kiss, so that they gasped as they surfaced for air and then resumed their kissing as if neither could get enough of the other. Her nipples were tender and sensitive and she moaned when he rolled his thumb over one stiffened peak, seeking and finding it through the lacy gaps in the bra.

She was melting. Freeing a hand from the tangle of his black hair, she shakily pulled off the panties which were damp, proof of her own out-of-control libido.

Luiz was going crazy with wanting her. He could hardly bear the brief separation of their bodies as she unclasped her bra from the back and pulled it off.

Her nipples were big, circular discs, clearly defined, pouting temptingly at him. He realised that he had been fantasising about this moment perhaps from the very first time he had laid eyes on her. He had not allowed himself to see her in a sexual way, not when he had been busy working out how to disengage her and her brother from his niece and the family fortune. But enforced time together had whittled away his self-control. It had allowed the seeds of attraction to take root and flourish.

‘You have the face of an angel,’ he breathed huskily as he rolled her on top of him. ‘And the body of a siren.’

‘I’m not sure about that.’ Aggie gazed down at him. ‘Aren’t sirens supposed to be voluptuous?’

‘God, you’re beautiful…’ His hands could almost span her waist and he eased her down so that he could take one of those delicate breasts to his mouth and suckle on the hot, throbbing tip. He loved the way she arched her body back, offering herself to him—and even more he loved the way he could sense her spiralling out of control, her fists clenched as she tried to control the waves of sensation washing over her.