she ignored my advice and bought it and, yes, made a fortune.’ He gave a faint smile. ‘A smallish one.’
‘So you were wrong?’
He reached out and tangled a wet curl around one long brown finger and drawled, ‘You’ve discovered the chink in my infallible armour. Please do me a favour and keep it to yourself.’
As he released the curl his finger brushed her cheek. It barely made contact, but Zoe, who had been holding her breath, felt an electric tingle pass through her body all the way to her curling toes.
His voice was a soft attractive buzz. She could hear what he was saying, but over and above the words was a louder buzz—a combination of her own heartbeat and the thrum of the deep hunger that was coursing through her veins with each beat of her heart as she stared at the deep V of golden chest dark against the white towelling.
It took every ounce of her self-control to stop herself reaching out and touching him…She curled her hands into fists and tucked them behind her back.
‘I put her onto the decommissioned church that was up for sale in town as a possible site for a new gallery. She has wanted to expand into this area for some time, so she owes me a favour. She is genuinely looking for someone to run it, and you have an art background…So it is perfectly feasible for you to live here and commute to do the foundation course.’
‘And amuse you in bed.’ He acknowledged her bitter addition with a tilt of his head. ‘You have it all worked out.’
He gave a smile. ‘The secret of success is taking control of events and not allowing them to control you.’
Yeah, you carry on telling yourself that, Isandro, if it makes you feel any better. The fact was he had felt out of control since the moment he had met this woman. From day one she had managed to turn his well-ordered life into chaos.
She shook her head. ‘Don’t you dare smile. I’m not listening to a word you’re saying.’
He took the hands she had pressed to her ears and pressed them against his chest. Then holding her eyes with his, he brushed his lips across her cheek.
‘You’re not shouting, though,’ he murmured against her mouth.
She wasn’t. Zoe was barely breathing. Her body felt strange and tingly, as though it didn’t belong to her. Her arms and legs felt heavy as though a great weight were dragging her down. Dizzy, she clutched at the towelling of his robe. Somehow it parted and her hands were flat on his skin, the warmth seeping into her cold fingers, the heavy thud of his heartbeat mingling with the frantic clamour of her riotous pulse.
Common sense told her to push him away.
‘This isn’t going to happen.’ Why was she whispering? She should be shouting.
‘If you say so, querida.’ His big hand sank into her wet hair, cupping the back of her skull. His long fingers tangled in her hair while his thumb trailed tingling paths down her cheek. His breath was coming fast and hot against her neck.
Her knees gave out, but before she could slide to the floor his arms snaked around her waist. He was so close that his face was a dark blur. She could see the predatory glow of his beautiful eyes. Her own eyes burned but she couldn’t blink, she couldn’t look away, not until he tugged at the soft pink flesh of her lower lip, holding it between his teeth. Then her eyes squeezed tight closed as she released a soft sibilant sigh and opened her palms flat on his chest, pushing them under the thick fabric of the robe, up over his warm skin to his shoulders.
Still she didn’t push. Like someone in a dream she clung, and still he didn’t kiss her. The scent of his warm male body in her nostrils, she was desperate for the taste of him. The need consumed her utterly, so strong that it blotted every other thought from her mind. He radiated raw power, and it excited her unbearably, sent a primitive heat sweeping through her in waves crashing over her. She felt herself going under.
Need, primitive need, raw and all-consuming, blinding lust controlled his actions as he tilted her face up. Dios, but he had wanted to kiss her for…It felt like a lifetime.
His tongue slid between her parted lips and Zoe’s brain closed down as instinct took over. Her moan was lost in the warm recesses of his mouth as her lips parted to deepen the sensual invasion.
She kissed him back, greedily drinking in the taste of him, wanting more…wanting everything. He hauled her body into him. His hands slipped down to her bottom as, cupping it, he lifted her off the ground. Without thinking, she wrapped her long legs tight around his waist as she framed his face between her hands, gave a throaty sigh and whispered, ‘God, but you are so beautiful…the most beautiful man.’
With a deep groan that rose up in his throat he plundered Zoe’s mouth, kissing her with barely controlled desperation, stealing the breath from her lungs, lighting a passion that flared into violent life. As she kissed him back with a wild and unrestrained hunger, satisfying the mutual need between them, everything else ceased to exist.
Her fingers dug into the muscles of his shoulders, her legs tightening around his waist as she fought to get closer to him, her strength fuelled by the primal desire to be joined with him…be one.
Joined with her that way still, he walked blindly towards the bed.
Zoe felt as if she were falling—and then she was really falling and he was falling on top of her. A pillow beneath her head, she barely noticed the weight of his body on top of her until he levered himself off.
Panting, her eyes as dark as midnight, she gave a small cry of protest, then she saw what he was doing. Kneeling over her, Isandro was shrugging off his robe.
‘Oh, my God!’
He was long and lean, his skin gleaming like burnished gold. Not an ounce of excess flesh blurred the perfect lines of his powerful body. Every bone and sinew of him was perfect, like a bronzed statue. A rampantly, fully aroused bronzed statue.
She bit down hard on her full lower lip as heat washed her skin with a warm rosy flush. Her initial shock at the earthy image was replaced by a stomach-clenching, incapacitating, lustful longing that closed down every logic circuit in her brain.
His grin was fierce and his laughter strained as he husked, ‘If you look at me like that, querida, this thing is going to be over before it has begun.’
‘I want you,’ she whispered, pulling herself up onto her knees. ‘So badly…’ She reached out and touched him, unable to believe her daring as she curled her fingers around the shaft of his erection. Silky smooth and rock hard, he pulsed hotly against her small hand. ‘You feel—’ her breasts quivered as she gave a fractured sigh and continued to stare, fascinated, at him ‘—incredible.’
A hiss left his lips as he caught her wrist.
‘Too much,’ he muttered, pressing her body back onto the bed before he joined her. Arranging his long lean length beside her, he kissed her, a kiss full of passion and promise that made words redundant. Lifting his head, he stroked her face and held her eyes as he reached for the tie on her robe.
The embarrassment she had anticipated did not materialise but the voluptuous pleasure did as he whispered fiercely, ‘You are exquisite, flawless.’
His searing gaze swept upwards slowly, greedily drinking her in as it took in every detail from her narrow feet and ankles, the long elegant length of her legs, and over her belly. Then finally to her lovely, pertly pointed breasts.
His hand came to cover one perfect soft mound. Her skin was flawless. He could smell the perfume of the soap on her skin, and the faint but distinctive delicate, musky scent of her arousal made his vision mist red.
As he massaged the smooth skin, his touch firm but sensitive, running his thumb with slow deliberate strokes across the sensitised peaks, Zoe gasped and muttered his name. Her head thrashed wildly back and forth on the pillow. The pleasure was so intense—beyond words, she clenched her hands into fists at her sides as she felt herself losing her struggle