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CHAPTER EIGHT

JULIUS HADN’T PLANNED to drive home so late but his flight back to Buenos Aires from Santiago had been delayed several hours due to a storm. A solid week of work, long hours of meetings and field research had done little to quell the errant feelings he had for Holly. Feelings he hadn’t expected to feel. Didn’t want to feel. She occupied his thoughts whenever his mind drifted away from work. She filled his brain. She filled his body with forbidden desires and wicked urges. She filled his every waking moment—and even his dreams—with visions of her lithe body, her pert breasts, her cheeky smile and the way she upped her chin in a challenge or twinkled her brown eyes in a dare.

He could not remember a time when he had been more obsessed with a woman. She was as far from an ideal partner as any he could imagine. Her wilfulness, her defiance and her rebellious nature made everything that was rational, logical and intellectual inside him shrink away in abject horror. But everything that was male and primal in him wanted to possess her. He ached and pulsed to feel her body, to be surrounded by her. Every hormone in his body twanged with longing. Every nerve-ending craved the stroke or glide of her touch. He had X-rated dreams about her pouty little mouth on him, drawing on him, pleasuring...

Julius was disgusted with himself. Not just because of his uncontrollable desire for her but because he still couldn’t forgive himself for the way he had hurt her. What had he been thinking, hauling her bodily from the pool like that? There was no excuse. So what if she had goaded him? So what if she had defied him? Disobeyed him? He was an adult. He was a civilised, educated man. What had he hoped his action would achieve?

Or had he secretly—unconsciously—wanted to touch her? To hold her sexy, wet body against the throbbing heat of his...

He had wanted to kiss her so badly it had tortured him not to. Her mouth had been so close he’d felt the breeze of her sweet breath. It had taken every ounce of self-control he possessed and then some to drop his hold on her and step back. He could still feel the silk of her skin against his fingers. He could still feel the magnetic force of her body drawing his closer. It was stronger, way more powerful than anything he had ever felt before. How he had not slammed his mouth down on hers and thrust his tongue through her lush lips still surprised him.

He had been so close.

So terrifyingly, shamefully close.

Work had legitimately called him away, thankfully. He hadn’t trusted himself to be around her. He still didn’t trust himself, which was even more worrying.

But it wasn’t just the physical attraction that was so troubling to him. There were other feelings he was experiencing that were far more dangerous. Tiny sprouts of affection were popping up inside him. He actually liked her. He admired her spirit. Her edginess. Her blatant disregard for the rules. For propriety. He found himself missing her teasing playfulness. He missed her dimpled smile and the way her eyes danced with mischief.

He had no business missing her. He wasn’t supposed to get attached to her. She wasn’t his type. And he clearly wasn’t hers. She only wanted to sleep with him to prove a point. It was nothing but a game to her.

He was nothing but a game to her.

Another bonus of being called away to work was that the press had stayed away from his villa. He had been intercepted at the airport and issued his usual ‘no comment’ response to the media. The last thing he wanted was the press sniffing around his home and finding a young woman in residence, especially as he didn’t trust Holly to behave herself. He’d left strict instructions with Sophia on monitoring Holly’s movements and making sure she didn’t speak to anyone if they should turn up at the villa. No one had, which gave him some measure of comfort, but how long before someone did?

Julius parked in the garage and walked into the villa as quietly as he could so as not to disturb anyone. It was two in the morning so he hoped his little house guest was tucked away safely in bed.

She wasn’t.

Holly came out of the kitchen as he came in the back door. She was wearing one of the outfits he’d bought her. The cashmere separates looked far slinkier on her than it had in the online catalogue. But then she would make a bin liner look like a designer gown, he thought. The fabric draped her slim curves like the skin of an evening glove.

‘How was your trip?’ she asked.

Julius wasn’t in the mood for trite conversation. Not with her looking good enough to eat and swallow whole. How did she manage to stir him up so easily? ‘Tiring.’

She moved towards him with catlike grace. ‘Fancy a snack?’

‘What’s on the menu?’ Bad choice of words.

Her eyes glinted. ‘What do you fancy?’

He tried not to look at her mouth but a force far more powerful than his resolve pulled his gaze to its lush ripeness. ‘What’s on offer?’ What was it with him and the double entendres? He was acting like Jake, for God’s sake.

‘Whatever you want,’ she said. ‘Your wish is my command.’

‘I thought you didn’t take too kindly to commands?’

She tiptoed her fingers along the corded muscles of his arm. ‘Maybe I’ll make an exception tonight.’

He suppressed a shiver as her fingers lit every nerve under his skin with red-hot fire. Need pulsed in his groin. Lust growled, roared. ‘Why?’

‘Because I’ve missed you.’

Julius barked out a laugh and gently pushed her arm away as he moved past. ‘Go to bed.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were going away?’

He turned back to look at her. ‘You’re answerable to me. Not me to you. Or has that somehow slipped your attention?’

Her caramel-brown eyes ran over him like a lick of flame. ‘Were you with a lover?’

He gritted his teeth until his jaw ground together like two tectonic plates. ‘No. I was working. Remember that word you seem to have so much difficulty with?’

She leaned one shoulder against the door jamb. ‘I’ve been working. Go ask Sophia.’

‘I will, but not at this time in the morning.’

Her eyes did another scan of his body, her chin coming to rest at a haughty height. ‘I even cleaned your room.’

Julius didn’t like the thought of her in his room. Actually, he liked the thought way too much. His mind filled with images of her laid out on his bed, her gorgeous, luscious body as hungry for him as he was for her. His flesh crawled with lust. It was like a fever in his blood. Raging. Taking him. Taking over his control like a shot of a powerful drug. ‘I’d prefer it if you’d stay out of there.’

‘Why?’ she said. ‘You let Sophia change your bed. Why shouldn’t I?’

Because I want you in it, not changing it, he thought with a savage wave of self-disgust. ‘I trust you left everything as you found it?’ he said.

Her brows drew together. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I seem to recall your rap sheet includes theft.’

‘So?’

‘So I want you to keep your hands clean.’

Her top lip curved up on one side. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘You have nothing I want.’

‘Only my body.’

A dark, triumphant glint shone in her gaze. ‘Not as much as you want mine.’

‘You think?’

‘I know.’

Julius wanted to prove he could resist her. He needed to prove it, if not to her then to himself. He reached for her, encircling her wrists with his fingers. Holding her. Securing her. Her eyes widened but not in fear. He could read her signals as easily as she read his. Mutual desire ran between them like the shock of an electric current. He could feel it through her flesh where it was in contact with his. He looked at her mouth and watched as she ran the tip of her tongue over her lips, leaving a glistening sheen.

Her eyelashes came down over her eyes, her breath dancing over his lips as she rose on tiptoe. He felt the brush of her body against his just before her mouth touched his. He didn’t move. Didn’t respond. Willed himself not to respond. Her tongue licked his top lip and then his lower one. The tantalising friction set his nerves screaming for more but still he stayed statue-still.

She came at him again, her tongue sweeping over his lower lip in a drugging caress that made his groin tighten to the point of pain. The need to taste her, to take control of the kiss, was like an unstoppable tide. He let out a muttered swear word as he splayed his hands through her hair and covered her mouth with his.

Her lips were soft and full, her mouth tasting of chocolate, milk and temptation. He drove his tongue through her parted lips, plundering her mouth, seeking her tongue to tangle with it in a duel that made the blood pump all the harder in his veins. She made a sexy little sound of approval as he pulled her closer to his body, letting her feel his hardness, the need he couldn’t hide even if he’d wanted to.

Julius succoured on her mouth as if it was his only source of sustenance. She was a drug he hadn’t known he had a taste for until now. He was lethally addicted to her. His body craved hers. Ached for hers. He pulled at her lower lip with his teeth, taking little nips and bites before using his tongue to salve where he had been. She responded with her own little series of playful bites, not just on his mouth, but also on his neck, and his earlobes, sucking on them until he thought he was going to disgrace himself. He shivered as her tongue came back to play with his, in and outside of their mouths in little flicks and thrusts of lust.

He took charge again by backing her up against the wall, his hands shaping her curves as his mouth crushed hers. She made a little whimpering sound as one of his hands cupped her breast. She moved against him, a gesture of encouragement he was in no state to resist. He shoved aside her top and bra to access her naked flesh. He brought his mouth down to suckle on her erect nipple before he swirled his tongue around her areole. He kissed his way over her breast, lingering on the underside when he heard her gasp as if he had found a particularly sensitive erogenous zone.

The skin there was as soft and smooth as silk. He trailed his tongue like a rasp along that scented curve, his senses in overload as he thought of how much he wanted to possess her. It was a driving force in his body. A primal urge he had no hope of controlling. His desire was a wild, primitive beast that had broken free of its chains and was now on the rampage.

Julius uncovered her other breast and subjected it to the same sensual assault, breathing in the fragrance of her body—a mixture of the flowery perfume he had bought her and her own bewitching female scent. The scent that was filling his nostrils, making him crazy, making him want her more than he had wanted anyone.

He left her breasts to come back to her mouth, driving his tongue through the seam of her lips, as he wanted to drive through the seam of her body. She gave a breathless whimper and reached between their hard-pressed bodies to uncover him. Her hands were on his belt buckle and then his zip, but he didn’t do anything to stop her. It was too intoxicating to feel those wicked little hands moving over him, releasing him, stroking him, pleasuring him.

He smothered a rough curse as her thumb caressed the sensitive head of his erection while her mouth played with his. He had never had a more exciting encounter. He wanted to feel her mouth on him, to have her submit to his wildest fantasies.

And, as if she was acting a role scripted right from his imagination, she sank to her knees in front of him, cupping him, breathing over him with her dancing breath, her moist tongue poised.

He put a hand on the top of her head and pulled back. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to do that.’

She looked up at him questioningly. ‘But I thought all guys...?’

‘It’s not safe without a condom,’ Julius said.

She got to her feet, pushing a strand of her hair back behind one of her ears as she did so. ‘That’s a first.’