Читать книгу The Secret Mistress - Emma Darcy, Emma Darcy - Страница 9

CHAPTER THREE

GOOD intentions were all very fine when made from a safe distance. Shontelle stared at the door which led into the suite occupied by Luis Angel Martinez and her heart quailed. A suite contained a bed...

She wasn’t over him. She doubted she ever would be. Luis Angel... She’d even been besotted with his name. Dark angel, she thought now, barely suppressing a shiver. It took all her willpower to raise her hand and knock on the door.

In the next few stomach-knotting moments, Shontelle tried to steel herself against revealing the vulnerability she felt. This meeting would only be a matter of pride to the man she had to face. He undoubtedly wanted to rub in that she was the loser, not him.

Somehow she had to let that wash over her, do a bit of grovelling if need be. Remember the bus, she fiercely told herself. She had to get the bus.

At least Luis couldn’t mistake the fact she was dressed for business. Her dark red T-shirt was printed with the Amigos Tours logo and her khaki trousers with pockets running down both legs were plainly practical, as were her sturdy shoes. This was strictly a business visit.

The door opened.

And there he was, hot flesh and blood, simmering in front of her. His thick, wavy black hair was brushed away from the beautifully sculpted features of his face, as always, framing them with a kind of dark, savage splendour. His skin gleamed with almost a magnetic vitality. His deeply set eyes, lushly outlined by their double rows of lashes, projected more power than any one man should ever have.

Shontelle stood rooted to the floor, speechless, breathless, mindless, her good intentions instantly zapped out of existence. Her scalp tingled. Every millimetre of her skin tingled. Her fingers curled into her palms, nails biting into flesh. Her toes scrunched up in her walking boots. Her heart swelled, throbbed, its heavy beat of yearning echoing through every pulse point.

She wanted him.

She still wanted him.

“Welcome back to my part of the world.”

His voice jolted her back to the chilling reality of why she was here. She’d loved his voice—its deep, rich, flowing tones—but there was no caress in it now, nothing warmly intimate. No welcome in his smile, either. The full-lipped sensual mouth that had once seduced her with such passion, was curled into a sardonic taunt, and the dark blaze of his eyes held a scorching intensity that shrivelled any hope of reviving good feelings. Or even a workable understanding.

He stepped aside to make room for her to enter, derisively waving her into his domain. For one nervejangling instant, the highly civilised Plaza suite blurred in Shontelle’s mind and the Amazon jungle leapt into it—its overwhelming sense of the primitive pressing in on her, vampire bats biting for blood, big black tarantulas hiding in trees, ready to pounce on their prey...

“Scared?” Luis mocked, his eyes raking her with contempt.

It goaded her forward. “No. Should I be?” she tossed at him as she passed by, determined on holding a brave front.

He closed the door behind her.

The metallic click felt ominous.

“Spurned Latin lovers are notoriously volatile,” he remarked, still in a mocking tone.

“A lot of water under the bridge since then, Luis,” she answered, shrugging off the implied threat and walking on through the sitting room of the suite, aiming for the big picture window on the other side of it.

The spectacular view of La Paz at night was not the drawcard. She desperately needed to put distance between her and the man who’d deliberately raised memories of their affair. And its ending.

“I must say you look as dynamic as ever,” she threw at him, forcing herself to attach a conciliatory smile. “I’d say life has been treating you well.”

“It could be better,” he replied, watching her move away from him with a dark amusement that raised Shontelle’s sense of danger several notches.

“I expect you’re married by now,” she added, trying to drive a moral wedge between them.

His white shirt was half unbuttoned, revealing a provocative arrowhead of his broad muscular chest, dark skin tipped by a glimpse of the black curls she knew spread across it. His forearms were bare, too, sleeves rolled up, flaunting his strong masculinity. She hated the thought of his wife knowing him as intimately as she had.

“No. As it happens, I’m not married.”

The cold, hard words were like nails being driven into Shontelle’s heart. Had she made a mistake? A flood of hot turmoil hit her. Fortunately she’d reached the window. She swiftly turned her back on him, hiding her wretched confusion, pretending to be captivated by the spectacular view.

Surely to God he was lying! He’d been betrothed to another woman—the Gallardo heiress—before and during their affair two years ago. He’d lied then, by omission. He’d left Shontelle blindly believing she was the only woman who counted in his life when there were two others who had a longer, deeper claim on him.

How could anyone not count Elvira Rosa Martinez?

More to the point, it had been totally unconscionable of Luis to remain silent about the young woman designated as his wife; the sweet, convent-raised, beautifully mannered Claudia Gallardo.

His silence had spelled out where Shontelle stood in his life—a handy bit of foreign fluff on the side, out of his mainstream, suitable only for fun and relaxation. But then he hadn’t made any promises, she savagely reminded herself.

“I assume you’re not married, either, since you’re travelling with your brother,” he drawled, each word sounding closer.

He was coming after her.

“I’m here on business, Luis,” she said tersely, wishing she hadn’t raised anything personal. He couldn’t be believed anyway. He’d undoubtedly say—or not say—whatever suited his purpose.

“Do you have a lover tucked away at home, waiting to serve your inclinations?” His voice had the stinging flick of a whip.

“I’m all out of lovers at the moment,” she answered flippantly, disdaining even a glance at him.

“Which is why you came on this trip, mmh?”

The silky taunt hit her on the raw. The urge to swing around and let him have the sting of her tongue almost blew her mind off her purpose here. She gritted her teeth, folded her arms to hold wayward impulses in, and stared fixedly at the myriad of lights beyond the window.

“It looks like a fairyland outside, doesn’t it?” she remarked as lightly as she could.

It was true. La Paz was the highest capital in the world and it appeared to be built in a moon crater. From where she was viewing it from the low downtown area, the lights of the city rose in a great circular curve, going up so high they seemed to be hanging in the sky. Incredible there were actually people living behind them.

“You need a magician to get you out of it,” Luis mocked, standing right behind her now.

“We need a bus,” she said quickly, fighting her intense awareness of his nearness.

“The curfew doesn’t lift until six in the morning.”

Her heart skittered. What was he implying? They had all night to negotiate?

“I don’t like your hair constricted in a plait,” was his next comment, confusing Shontelle further.

Her spine crawled at his touch as he lifted the rope of hair away from her back. She knew what he was going to do but her mind couldn’t accept it. He couldn’t still love her hair. He couldn’t still want her!

Or maybe he didn’t.

Maybe he was playing some cruel cat-and-mouse game.

She wanted to look at his face but she was frightened to. What if he was waiting to feed off her feelings? Pride insisted she deny him the satisfaction of knowing she was rattled. Could he hear the mad thumping of her heart? Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm, she recited feverishly.

He’d worked off the rubber band and was separating the twisted swathes, seeming to take sensual pleasure in the feel of her hair. Impossible to ignore it. Impossible to stay calm.

“What do you want from me, Luis?” she blurted out.

“What I had before.”

Her mind fragmented under the force of her own desire to have him again, and his apparent desire to recall and repeat the passion they’d shared. Some tattered shreds of reason shrieked that he was only playing with her, using his power to make her succumb to him, but she had to know, had to see.

As she jerked around to face him, her arms flew out of their protective fold and lifted into an instinctive plea for truth. “What do you mean?” she cried.

He still held a skein of her hair and he wound it around his hand as his eyes blazed their dark purpose into hers. “I mean to seize the day, Shontelle. Or to put it more graphically...the night. You want a bus. I want one more taste of you.”

Shock waves slammed through her.

One more taste...

Only one...

Payment for the bus.

“Not such a difficult deal, is it?” he taunted. “Just a matter of giving me what you gave of yourself two years ago...in your desire to get what you wanted of me.”

“I didn’t get what I wanted then,” she protested, her voice thin and shaky under the appalling weight of devastated hopes.

A savage fury flared into his eyes. “Was I not all you wanted of a Latin lover?” His mouth curled with cruel intent. “Well, let me try not to disappoint you tonight. We have many hours ahead of us. I promise you a feast of hot-blooded sensuality.”

Hot and hard and ruthless.

The awful part was, Shontelle could not stop her body from pulsing with excitement at what he offered. Only with him had she ever known intense physical ecstasy. She hadn’t even felt a twinge of attraction towards anyone else in the past two years. Just the thought of touching Luis again, feeling him...quivers of anticipation shot through her.

But he was treating her like a whore, laying it out that she could only get the bus in return for sex.

Sex...not remotely connected to love. Not even the slightest semblance of love. It was wrong, wrong, wrong! Her heart twisted in torment as he twisted her hair more firmly around his hand and tugged her closer to him. Then his other hand slid over her breasts, his palm rotating caressingly, his eyes glittering their triumphant knowledge of what had pleasured her in the past, and to prove him right, her nipples instantly stiffened into begging prominence.

“Stop it!” she hissed, hating his power to arouse her even as she revelled in the sharp sensation that stimulated a host of nerves, arcing from her breasts to the innermost core of her sexuality.

One black eyebrow arched mockingly. “You no longer like this?”

He was the devil incarnate, tempting her. The truth was, she didn’t want him to stop. She didn’t want him to ever stop. But he would. This was only to be one more taste. Unless...

Something deeply primitive stirred in Shontelle.

He wasn’t married, so he said.

And he still wanted her.

He also wanted a payback for his wounded pride.

Well, so did she. So did she!

“I don’t normally go for one night stands,” she said.

“But these are special circumstances,” he returned silkily.

“Just let me understand you clearly, Luis...”

With her heart thumping to a wild beat, Shontelle flicked open the shirt button over his chest curls and slid her hand inside, seeking and deliberately tweaking one of his nipples. His sharply indrawn breath was music to her ears. She had power over him, too. It wasn’t a one-way street.

Her eyes flirted challengingly with his as she spoke through the provocative, physical teasing. “...If I stay with you the night and let you have your...” She lowered her gaze to his mouth, regarding it assessingly. “...taste of me...” She let the words linger for a moment, then flicked her gaze up, raising her eyebrows in pointed questioning. “...I get the bus? Is that the deal?”

“Yes,” he hissed at her.

“Then make your calls now, Luis. Let me hear you arrange the delivery of an appropriate bus to The Europa Hotel as soon as the curfew is lifted tomorrow. When you’ve done that, I’ll call Alan to assure him everything’s all right and I’ll be staying with you until morning.”

His jawline tightened. His eyes narrowed. He didn’t like her calling the shots, but he’d dealt her the cards, made the rules of the game, and Shontelle figured he couldn’t fault her over playing them. A sense of triumph poured a burst of adrenalin through her veins. No one was a victim unless they allowed themselves to be.

She pursed her lips into a considering little smile. “A feast of hot-blooded sensuality sounds good. I do hope you’re up to it, Luis.”

The moment the words were out, she felt a swell of danger—a dark and fierce emanation from him swirling around her, sending shivers down her spine. He smiled right back at her as he released her hair—a smile that promised himself a deep well of satisfaction. He plucked her hand from inside his shirt and drew it slowly down, palm against him, fingers splayed.

“Feel for yourself how up to it I am, Shontelle,” he drawled, his other hand gliding up her throat to cup her chin.

He was fully erect, his arousal straining against the barrier of clothes. He guided her into stroking him as he tilted her head and bent his own. “Just to make sure I do want the taste,” he murmured, then covered her mouth with his, not giving her any chance of reply.

Shontelle didn’t even think of trying to deny him. The urge to taste him, too, was far too strong for any denial. And his mouth was soft, sweetly seductive, at first, his tongue merely flicking over the soft inner tissues of her lips, sensitising them with delicious tingles.

She responded, wanting to know if the passion they had once shared could be triggered again, beyond pride, beyond all the differences between them. Her free arm instinctively curled around his neck to hold him to her and the kiss deepened, pursuing a more erotic, more exciting intimacy.

Her body started clenching with a need it had all but forgotten. She grasped the hard proof of his desire, fingers digging around it, revelling in the feel of him. She was so caught up in her own strong responses, it came as a shock when he abruptly ended their kiss, removed her hand from him and broke out of her embrace.

“You must be hungry for a man, Shontelle,” he mocked, lifting the fingers that had been squeezing him to his mouth. He lightly nipped them. “Definitely an appetising taste. Please excuse me while I execute my half of the deal. I look forward to the rest of the night.”

He walked away from her, seemingly completely in control of himself. Shontelle was left feeling shattered, her legs trembling, drained of strength, her stomach churning so much she wanted to be sick, her heart aching, her mind zigzagging helplessly through a maze of fierce contradictions.

She loved him... and hated him.

She craved more of him...yet wanted to cut out his callous heart.

Was it to be a night of intense life... or a night of heart-killing desolation?

She didn’t know...couldn’t decide...couldn’t tear herself away from whatever might pass between them.

He picked up a telephone, pressed a sequence of numbers, spoke with the arrogant authority of his name, his position, the power that came automatically with great wealth...Luis Angel Martinez...the only man who’d ever moved her like this...and maybe the only man who ever would.

Was there anything to win by staying?

The bus, her mind answered.

But the bus had no relevance to the question.

She wanted...needed...to win something for herself. So she had to stay and see this night through, even if she lost everything.

One night...one night...unless she could turn it into something more.