Читать книгу Bound To A Billionaire - Мишель Смарт, Michelle Smart - Страница 18

CHAPTER NINE

‘YOU’RE WELCOME TO share my bed,’ Francesca said brightly as Felipe made a bed on the floor for himself close to the door, using the duvet, spare sheets and pillows from his suite.

He didn’t look at her. He’d returned to ignoring her and speaking in monosyllabic grunts ever since she’d insisted on staying for dessert.

Her insistence on staying had been a deliberate kick-back. Felipe had relaxed over their meal and opened up to her, not by much but enough for her chest to lighten and hope to spring free. A proper conversation between two adults enjoying each other’s company. There were times he’d looked at her as if he wanted to eat her, the desire in his eyes vivid... But then he’d withdrawn as quickly as if he’d pulled the trigger on a gun.

Now he was back to looking at her as if he’d like to chuck her in the sea.

‘Why don’t you stop talking and get ready for bed?’ he growled. ‘Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.’

‘I’m not tired.’

‘Read a book.’

She wished she knew what it would take to pull his barriers down long enough for him to forget his reasons for resisting and simply treat her as a woman. That’s all she wanted.

‘I’ll put my nightclothes on in the bathroom, shall I?’

‘Yes!’

‘Okay. I won’t be long. Try not to miss me.’

It didn’t take long for her to change into the over-sized T-shirt she slept in, wash her face and brush her teeth, all the while wondering if she had the courage to go for full-scale seduction.

She could hardly believe she was having these thoughts.

Pieta’s death had brought home how short and fickle life could be. The dangers of Caballeros had reinforced that notion. All those years she’d spent studying, any thought of a romantic life pushed aside so as not to distract her from her dreams... It had stopped her feeling life rather than just going through the motions of living it.

Felipe was nothing like the rich, boring, single men her parents had brought in a steady trickle to the family home before she’d escaped to university, hoping their darling daughter would snare one of them and marry into luxury and be doted on. The only similarity he had with them was that he was fabulously rich.

Francesca hadn’t wanted to be doted on. Her mother had married young and was content to live the life of a social butterfly where the biggest daily problem would be matching her nail varnish with her outfit. Francesca had wanted so much more. She had wanted to be like her brothers and cousin Matteo. They were also expected to settle down and breed but at a much older age. They were expected to have fantastic careers first, whereas she’d been expected to adorn her husband’s fantastic career. She hadn’t wanted to adorn or be beholden to a man. She’d wanted a fantastic career of her own and had known from a very young age that the only way to get it was by studying as hard as she could to get the highest possible grades so her parents had no choice but to take her and her aspirations seriously.

She had succeeded. There had been many fights and many tears but eventually they had accepted her wishes. That hadn’t stopped them parading eligible rich men in front of her but the tone had changed; become hope rather than expectation.

If she continued working hard, in two years she would sit her bar exams and qualify as a lawyer, then spend a few more years establishing herself in the career she’d devoted her life to achieving. Only then would she think of making a marriage, safe in the knowledge that, whoever she chose, her hard-won independence would not be compromised and the marriage would be conducted as equals.

That had been the plan.

What she hadn’t expected was this awakening, this heady desire for a man that no amount of logic could explain.

She didn’t want to explain it. She wanted to explore it, to reach out and touch it and experience these wonderful feelings that had soaked into her being, all of which were for Felipe.

He was not a man to dote on a woman. He was strong and protective but would never treat a woman as a pet.

And he didn’t want a relationship either.

If anything were to happen between them it would be nothing but a short, sweet affair that wouldn’t compromise either of their chosen paths.

The problem, Francesca acknowledged ruefully, came with the if.

It would help if she knew how to seduce a man, let alone one so determined to keep her at arm’s length. And wasn’t seduction supposed to be conducted wearing sexy lingerie? She wore pretty underwear but nothing that could be considered sexy or lingerie.

All she had was herself.

When she walked back into the suite she found Felipe kneeling by his huge khaki kitbag.

He looked at her briefly then closed his eyes and muttered something under his breath before pulling out his washbag. ‘I’m going to take a shower.’

A moment later came the telling click of the bathroom lock.

Taking a deep breath, Francesca turned all the lights off apart from her bedside one, giving the room a soft seductive quality. Then she got onto the huge bed and arranged herself into what she hoped was a seductive pose. Instead of making her feel wanton it made her feel like a fool so she tried a different pose. That made her feel a bigger fool. After trying a variety of others she settled for sitting with her legs stretched out and hooked at the ankles, her head resting on the headboard.

Felipe spent so long in the bathroom that doubts began to crowd her. Did she have his feelings for her all wrong?

Were those times when she looked in his eyes and saw pained desire burning back at her nothing but creations of her own tortured mind, like a child desperate to see Father Christmas swearing blind they saw him flying his reindeer past their bedroom window? Nothing but a hopeful, overactive imagination?

She sensed when he was ready to leave his sanctuary and swallowed, placing a hand to her rapidly beating heart.

The bathroom door opened. Their eyes met.

He held her gaze a beat too long then broke it, striding past her to the nest he’d made by her door.

She watched his every step with her heart in her mouth.

Francesca had seen Felipe with nothing but tight swim shorts on at the swimming pool but she had been some distance away. Up close his magnificence was stark enough to steal her breath and set her already ragged pulses soaring. Up close there was no escaping the bulge in the snug black boxers he wore.

Even a straight man would do a double take at him.

A silvery mark on his right calf caught her eye, pulling her out of the trance she’d slipped into. ‘What happened to your leg?’

‘Gunshot,’ he answered gruffly.

His answer had her pressing the switch behind her to turn the corner light on.

Her hand flew to her mouth.

It wasn’t just a silvery mark; there was a hollowed out section of flesh around his shin bone that covered half his calf.

Thick icy sludge crawled up her spine and through her veins, freezing her from the inside out.

She could hardly get her vocal cords working to whisper, ‘What happened to you?’

‘The perils of army life.’

‘You were shot in battle?’

‘Something like that.’

Feeling faint, she took a long breath, unable to look away from the ugly wound that made her heart hurt.

Felipe was a military man. She’d known that before she’d met him. It was his career in the army, including his time in the Special Forces, that made him so effective at what he did, that had given him the solid foundations to build the hugely successful enterprise he had now.

Yet whenever she thought about the armed forces—admittedly, before she’d met Felipe that had been rarely—she’d imagined it to be like those computer games she’d been banned from watching Daniele play when he’d been younger and she much younger still but, of course, had sneakily peeked in on. She hadn’t seriously thought about what it must be like to be in a real war, to have people firing at you not for fun but because they wanted to kill you.

Someone had shot Felipe with the intention of killing him.

He must have noticed her horror for his expression hardened. ‘I apologise if my wound disgusts you.’

‘No.’ She shook her head, trying to clear it, trying to refocus her eyes. ‘Don’t think that. I don’t think that. Felipe...’ She shook her head some more.

Now the limp she’d often noticed made sense.

As if to distract her attention from his wound, Felipe slid into the makeshift bed he’d made for himself on the floor, thumped the top pillow and lay on his back, gazing at the ceiling with his arm crooked above his head.

Francesca turned the corner light off so the only illumination in the suite came from her bedside light.

She felt chilled to her core. If whoever had shot at him had had a better aim the vital, intense man who lay in a nest of bedding at her door would not be here. He would be gone from this earth like Pieta, nothing but a memory. But not a memory to her because she never would have met him.

She remembered Daniele—or was it Matteo?—saying Felipe had been discharged from the army on medical grounds.

‘Was that the reason you left the army?’

Even with the limited light she saw his grimace. ‘Yes. The wound meant I was no longer an effective soldier. It’s standard procedure. It wasn’t personal.’

‘Would you have stayed if you could?’

‘I would have stayed for as long as they’d had me. I loved the life.’

‘You loved going into war zones?’

He let out a low rumble of laughter. ‘Believe it or not, yes. I thrived on the danger. We all did. I loved everything about army life. Passing selection for the Special Forces was the best day of my life. Receiving my discharge was the worst.’

Felipe had known as soon as the bullet had hit him that it was the end of his army career and the end of everything he’d held dear. The bullet had splintered in his leg, shrapnel lodging in the bones. There had been talk of amputation.

The long months spent in rehabilitation, working into a sweat just to walk again, dealing with the pain of his wound and the darkness of what he’d lost...it had all brought home to him that he was meant to be alone.

When it was just you in the world the only threat of pain was the physical kind. He’d proven he could deal with that. Physical pain was mind over matter. Determination. It hurt but didn’t leave you bereft and empty inside.

For once Francesca was silent. He knew it wouldn’t be for long. He was right.

‘Is that why you went into protection? So you could still get the adrenaline buzz?’

‘The world is full of dangers and people still need to visit those danger zones. I knew I could provide the protection they needed and that there were many other soldiers like me who were fit and ready for the next challenge.’ But not Sergio. The first bullet that had hit him had gone straight into his heart.

‘Do you get the same fulfilment you got from the army?’

‘It’s a different kind of fulfilment.’ Even though he’d thrown all his energy into it, he could never have guessed how successful his business would be. He had more money than he could spend in a thousand lifetimes, was on the speed dial of the world’s most powerful people, but knew that given the choice of swapping his riches for a return to his army days he would discard his worldly goods without a second thought.

‘Don’t you ever wish for a normal life?’ she whispered in the silence.

‘What’s your definition of a normal life?’

‘One that’s not completely nomadic.’

‘No.’ Yet as he spoke his rebuttal he found his mind meandering for the first time ever to a real home with an ebony-haired beauty...

He pushed the thought away. A normal, regular life was not for him.

‘That’s enough talk. We’ve an early start. Get some sleep.’

‘But—’

‘I mean it. No more conversation.’

But he knew the chances of his getting any sleep were slim, not when he was certain that beneath her oversized T-shirt Francesca lay naked.

He closed his eyes and willed his mind not to think of her naked.

Dios, this was torture. He ached to join her in that bed.

In his head he counted out the reasons why he needed to stay exactly where he was.

One. She was his client.

Two. She was grieving.

‘It’s not even ten o’clock. I’m not tired. I never go to bed this early.’

Just the sound of her voice was enough to make Felipe’s loins tighten.

‘Read your book,’ he said through gritted teeth.

There was another long period of silence but he sensed a shift in the atmosphere, a change in her mood.

‘“Read your book, stop talking, go to sleep”,’ she mimicked suddenly. ‘It’s one step forward and two steps back with you, isn’t it? One minute you’re opening up and talking to me like a normal human being, the next you act like you’re trying to forget my existence. Do you treat all your clients like this?’

He smothered a groan at the hurt echoing in her voice. ‘Like what?’

‘Like they’re an encumbrance to be endured. Sometimes it feels that you don’t even like me.’

He clenched his jaw. What did she want him to say? Mere liking had nothing to do with his feelings for her.

‘It’s different with my other clients.’ He’d never struggled with professional detachment before. He’d never wanted to rip any of their clothes off.

‘So it’s true!’ As quick as a flash she threw her covers off and jumped off the bed. ‘You don’t like me. I thought it was the attraction between us you hated.’ She stormed into her dressing room and slammed her hand against the switch, bathing the room in fresh light. ‘I didn’t realise the problem was that you actively dislike me.’

‘I don’t...’ But his words fell from his lips when she pulled her T-shirt off. Even with the distance between them, he could see her clearly, from the divine weighty breasts with their dark aureoles to the soft womanly hair between her legs.

Oh, dear heaven...

Francesca was heaven. A taste of paradise wrapped up in beautiful, womanly form.

But then she grabbed the dress she’d been wearing earlier and he understood what she was doing.

Springing to his feet, he strode over and blocked the doorway of her dressing room. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘For a drink. Anywhere away from you.’

Fire blazed from her eyes, her whole body vibrating with anger. And, Dios, no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t stop his eyes from devouring her, naked before him, not an ounce of embarrassment in her returning fury.

Then she tilted her chin and pulled the dress over her head. The delectable curves disappeared as she smoothed the dress down and tugged her trapped hair free. As it tumbled down her back he couldn’t help but fantasise what it would feel like to have that hair tumble over him in all its silken glory.

‘Get out of my way,’ she said coldly.

‘No.’

Slowly, her fiery gaze holding his, she stepped to him. When she was close enough for his senses to be hit with her scent, she put her wrists together and held them out to him. ‘If you’re intending to treat me as a prisoner you might as well tie me up because that’s the only way you’re going to stop me leaving this room.’

Electricity shot between them, so real he could almost hear the crackle. It heated him too, tiny jolts bouncing on his skin, his heart thrumming...

His hand rose by its own volition, his fingers stretching towards her.

A throb of need burst through him, so powerful he had to dig his feet into the floor to stop from hauling her into his arms.

‘You are not leaving this suite.’ His speech was long, drawn out, ragged.

‘I’m not staying with someone who can barely look at me and gets irritated every time I open my mouth.’

Without him knowing how it happened, his fingers closed around the delicate wrists. A moment later he’d pulled her to him so their bodies were flush, her breasts pressed against his chest.

‘I don’t dislike you,’ he ground out, gazing down at the spitting eyes, the luminous skin, the lips that begged to be kissed... ‘Don’t you see that? I like you too much.’

For long, long moments they did nothing but stare at each other until the anger that blazed so brightly in her eyes softened to blaze with something that struck straight into his loins.

Francesca stared helplessly at the man who had her in a grip so tight she could never break free yet which elicited not the slightest amount of pain.

The humiliation that had washed over her like a cold shower at the realisation she’d been longing for a man who hated her vanished as awareness filled her in its stead, awareness of his heat, of being held against this dangerously masculine man her body craved.

She had no conscious reckoning of the change in him, of how the fury deepened into something so dark and molten her chest filled, of the deepening of his breaths as he continued to gaze down at her...

‘I can’t hear your voice without becoming aroused,’ he said, his voice low, pained. ‘I can’t look at you without wanting to kiss you. I can’t breathe your scent without wanting to possess you. Wanting you like this is torture.’

‘Then stop fighting it,’ she whispered.

Later she would have no conscious remembrance of the moment his lips moulded onto hers. It was like a beast that lived inside them both suddenly became unleashed.

There was nothing gentle about his kiss or her response to it. It burned her, ravaged her. All her nerve endings exploded and leapt onto him. The hand that had been holding her wrists was now wrapped tightly around her waist, her arms now looped tightly around his neck, kissing as if they needed the other for air, lips parted, devouring each other.

She grabbed at the back of his head and raked her fingers through his hair, nuzzling, kissing, nipping, her senses filling with his very essence, all the hunger she had for him soaring free.

His arousal pressed hard and huge against her belly, his hands roamed her contours, kneading, fingers biting. The evidence of his desire for her was dizzying and heightened her own. The desire she’d experienced during the alcohol-induced fumble that had gone further than either of them had expected had been like a carnal dream but this...sober...everything felt gloriously, dizzily heightened and urgent, no slow sensual build-up, her body craving nothing less than full possession.

He broke the kiss to place his hands at her waist and lift her into the air like a ballet dancer lifting his partner. Her hair fell onto his shoulders and he turned his face to breathe the scent of it in. ‘Dios, I want you,’ he muttered raggedly.

Without another word said he sat her on the edge of the bed and pressed her down so he lay on top of her, crushing her, his heart drumming strongly enough for her to feel it against her own hammering heart. Their lips entwined in another deep, hungry kiss and he ran a hand up her thigh to take the hem of her dress and raise it to her waist.

Needing to touch him, she ran her fingers down his back and revelled in the smoothness of his skin, the muscles that bunched beneath her touch, then traced lower to the tight buttocks. Grasping frantically, she found the waistband of his boxers and tugged at them. Felipe’s hand covered hers and together they shifted them down his hips, allowing his erection to spring free.

Her eyes flew open to feel the weight of his excitement against her inner thigh, a deep throb pulsing through her to know this was for her. Her own arousal had melted into a mass of heat and dampness, all concentrating in the one area he was so close to taking possession of.

Francesca had never dreamt she was capable of such wanton, reckless carnality, that her flesh could feel like a living being, that desire could beat like a drum with a rhythm felt in her every pore.

This, she thought dreamily... This...

Instinct had her raising her thighs and wrapping her legs around Felipe’s waist, urging him on, her body speaking the language she had never learned.

The tip of his erection found where it needed to be with no guidance from either of them and in one driving thrust he was inside her.

It happened so quickly that it took a few beats for her brain to register the sharp pain and when it did register, the gasp of relief at his possession that had flown from her mouth turned into a gasp of shock and stilled on her lips.

Felipe froze.

The heady urgency of his desire deflated like a punctured balloon. He gazed down in horror at Francesca’s whitening face.

It wasn’t possible...

His head pounded loudly, bells clanging, sirens wailing.

It wasn’t possible.

With as great a care as he could manage, he withdrew from her and swung his legs over to rest on the floor then grabbed the back of his neck and dug his fingers into it.

The beat of his heart was out of time.

She didn’t move.

He didn’t move.

For the longest time he sat on the bed staring incomprehensibly at the thick carpet while she lay on the bed gazing mutely at the ceiling.

He wanted to be sick. There was movement beside him as Francesca slowly sat up.

A trembling finger was placed lightly on his shoulder.

‘Felipe...’

Slowly he raised his head and caught sight of himself in the mirror on the wall.

The reflection gazing back was a man he didn’t recognise.

He didn’t think he would ever recognise himself again.