over, when he let her go and stepped back, breathing hard in an effort to regain his icy control, all she wanted was to wrap her arms around him and make him do it again.
17
They didn’t speak on the ride back to the villa. Rebecca huddled against the door and watched the night-lights of Madrid slide by. She had no idea what Alejandro was thinking. And she didn’t want to ask. That kiss. God in heaven, she’d have done anything he asked at that moment.
Thankfully, he hadn’t repeated it. He liked toying with her. He liked to get her teetering on the edge of her emotions before he flung her off the cliff and onto the rocks below. He had no intention of seducing her, only of proving to her again and again how vulnerable she was to him.
It was after midnight when they entered the darkened interior of the house. There was no sign of Señora Flores or any other servants. A light burned softly in the great room, spilling into the hall, but nothing stirred.
Though every instinct told her to flee, Rebecca paused in the foyer. Alejandro stood with hands in pockets, watching her closely.
Say goodnight and get away. “Thanks for, um, understanding when I didn’t want to get back into the car right away.”
“You said it wasn’t the first time someone had you investigated. Who did so before?”
Rebecca removed his jacket from her shoulders, folded it over her arm and held it out. “You better take this now before I forget.”
He tossed the jacket aside, caught her wrist and held her still when she would have fled. “Rebecca.”
Irrational tears clogged her throat. “Good night, Alejandro.” She didn’t want to talk about it, most especially not with him. To share her humiliation with the one man who’d ever meant anything to her, who’d rejected her so brutally? Impossible.
His grip tightened as she tried to pull away, preventing her from moving even a fraction. It was like playing tug-of-war with a tank.
“You don’t have to tell me. It’s not at all necessary for what happens now.”
She stopped trying to extract herself from his grip and stared up at him, her pulse beginning to hum erratically. “I want to go to bed.”
A predatory smile creased his face. “Sí, as do I.”
“Alone, Alejandro.”
He ignored her. His arms encircled her, his fingers stroking down the exposed skin of her back, trailing fire in their wake. “This is not possible, querida. I have told you what I intend.”
Her palms came up to press against his crisp shirtfront. “You can’t mean it. You can’t want to make me do this.”
One brow lifted. “Make you do this?” His fingers skimmed her spine, up and down, up and down, eliciting shivers along her nerve endings. “I think I will not need to make you do anything. You want me, Rebecca. You have wanted me since the moment you arrived.”
Rebecca’s throat closed. Damn him for throwing the truth in her face. Yes, she wanted him. But she also wanted chocolate after every meal. She didn’t indulge because it was bad for her. He was bad for her.
“You are mistaken.”
“I’m not,” he replied, his lips a fraction above hers, “and it doesn’t matter anyway. You are mine.”
This time when he slanted his mouth over hers, she held herself firm and refused to break. He ran his tongue along the seam of her lips, slid his hands down to grasp her buttocks. Then he pulled her into the cradle of his hips.
And, oh my, he was blessedly, hugely, gloriously hard. For her.
But she would not break. Her sanity depended on it. Depended on holding a part of herself separate from him. She knew more about him now than she ever had before, and that knowledge threatened to enslave her heart in spite of everything he’d done.
But why? Why did she feel this pull, this intense storm of emotion over this man? Why not David, her long-suffering and incredibly patient boyfriend who’d finally left her over a year ago because she couldn’t ever love him the way he’d wanted her to?
It wasn’t fair.
“Dios,” Alejandro said against her tightly closed mouth. “You are determined to fight me.” His lips moved along her jaw line, down her throat. Before she realized what he was doing, he slid his fingers beneath the shoulders of her dress and jerked it forward, down her arms, trapping her with her naked breasts exposed to his gaze.
“Alejandro, let me go! Someone could see.”
“I thought you could not