He was partially shadowed, but Olivia glimpsed a rough, unshaved Latino face, all planes and angles, with cheekbones that looked sharp enough to cut glass. He had a starved look to him, as though he’d never quite had enough to eat. She sucked in a reflexive breath, unaware she’d stopped breathing.
Rafe’s heart thundered in his chest at the sound of that deep breath. He was ready to bolt if she screamed. He’d be no good to this operation—or to George’s memory—with a bullet through his heart.
But she didn’t scream. She just watched him, calm except for the breathlessness. He respected that even as it occurred to him that perhaps she didn’t scream because she was a princesa and thought herself impervious to strange men in dark hallways. He ought to disabuse her of that notion, Rafe thought. He worked up a sneer but could manage nothing more menacing than that. Olivia Galpas was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. And frankly, he’d never had much stomach for threatening women, pretty or not.
She was small, no more than five foot four. Rafe was taller than most of the men in his family by several inches, and this woman’s head would hit below his chin. Her hair was plaited down her straight spine in a heavy braid that reached the curve of her bottom. He wondered about the texture of all that braided hair, wondered what it would feel like if he ran his thumb down the length of it.
Her breasts were discreetly camouflaged by the peasant blouse she wore, but they looked small enough for each to fit whole into his mouth. Rafe swallowed hard at that ridiculous idea. This was Cervantes’s woman. He no more wanted to touch her than he wanted to put his hand in a basket of rattlesnakes.
Her face was flushed from fear or the sun—he could see the color high on her classic cheekbones even in the dim light of the hallway. She had a small, full mouth that she’d set into a brave and stubborn line he had to admire.
And her eyes. Her eyes.
They were dark, those eyes, with whites like snow and thick lashes Rafe thought she probably used to hide the truth. Her pupils dilated, until he imagined every spark of light in the hallway had been swallowed up by them.
Her eyes flashed at him, and Rafe found his knees weak. An absurd reaction for a man such as Rafael Camayo, he thought. But what could he do? Like a green boy, he was weak-kneed after one look from Ernesto Cervantes’s American lover.
Olivia was experiencing the very same sensation in her knees, but for an entirely different reason.
“Who are you?” she said. She’d meant to sound authoritative, barking out a question to be answered at once. But her voice sounded much more like a mewl than a bark, and she could have kicked herself for it. Of course, the man didn’t answer such a pathetic little question. Olivia cleared her throat and tried again. “Señor Cervantes has men all over this house, whoever you are,” she said, sounding stronger. “If you’re not a guest here, I suggest you leave.”
Oh, did she? Rafe almost smiled. “I don’t take orders from you, princesa,” he said, speaking in Spanish, as she had.
“Who are you?” she snapped. Though, of course, she already knew. The drug smuggler, or at least one of them. A man this frightening could only be a pirate, a smuggler, a thief.
She took a step forward, in exactly the opposite direction her prudent, cautious brain was telling her to go. Typical. First her hair and now her feet. Her body was being very disobedient tonight, and if she got out of this little confrontation alive, she intended to have a stern chat with all her various parts.
“Answer me,” she said.
Answer me? Rafe’s mouth moved back into a sneer. Good grief. Every word out of her mouth was a command. She certainly spoke like a princesa.
The man clearly was not going to answer, even though she’d finally worked up a decent bark. Olivia pulled her lips through her teeth, swallowed the lump of fear in her throat, clamped down on the trembling that was beginning to make her hands shake and her mouth quiver. Demanding answers wasn’t going to work, and she clearly was incapable of doing anything as judicious as hiking up her skirt and fleeing down the stairs, screaming bloody murder. Still, this man was invading Ernesto’s beautiful home. What kind of friend would she be if she did nothing about that?
“If you don’t leave right now,” she said calmly, firmly, “I will alert the guards.”
Rafe smiled, a flash of white teeth in the shadows. “You won’t alert the guards,” he said.
Olivia blinked, unnerved by that fierce, confident smile. Weren’t smugglers supposed to be furtive? This one was cool as a cucumber. “I won’t?”
“No.”
“Why won’t I?”
“Because you’re a woman, Dr. Galpas, and women are more practical than men.”
He knew who she was. Olivia felt the impact of her name on his smirking lips shiver all the way down to the backs of her thighs, raising the fine hairs there.
“How do you know me?” she whispered.
Rafe shrugged. “It’s a small village. You’re a beautiful woman. And a smart one,” he reminded her pointedly.
Obviously not, Olivia thought wildly. Smart women did not converse with bandidos in dark upstairs hallways while their almost-fiancés waited downstairs with fifteen armed men. Smart women screamed in situations like these, or at least fainted so they wouldn’t be held responsible afterward. Olivia considered both options.
Rafe watched her carefully, saw her eyes dart toward the stairs, measuring for the first time the distance between herself and safety. About time, he thought. Stupid woman, to be standing here talking to him.
“Too late, señorita,” he whispered, stepping from the deep doorway and taking her arm.
He moved so quickly that Olivia had no time to choose between screaming or fainting. One instant he was a shadowy figure several safe feet away, the next his hand was wrapped hard over her biceps and she was deftly turned and pressed back against his body. Her breath left her again.
Rafe slid his free hand to her throat. Stomach for it or not, he had to keep this woman from exposing him, at least until he got out of the house. After that, let her scream until she turned purple. It would only serve to further pique Cervantes’s pride and temper, having had the bandit who had been stealing from him invade his very own hacienda.
The operation was what mattered, and damn his weak knees. And whatever else was reacting to Olivia Galpas.
“Stop struggling,” he hissed in her ear, “and listen.” He ran his thumb along the base of her throat and let it rest in the hollow there, for his own pleasure. He felt the woman shudder in his arms and wondered briefly what it would be like to make her shudder from something other than fear. He shifted again, hoping she didn’t feel his arousal at her backside. “You can scream, you can run, you can alert every man in the building, and I will not leave this house tonight alive. That’s true.”
Olivia felt him shift behind her once more, prayed he’d moved far enough away that she wouldn’t have to feel his lower body against her again. She’d been shocked by his obvious excitement, terrified that he intended more harm to her than she’d assumed.
But he was clearly trying to spare…one of them, anyway, from whatever that arousal implied.
“But I won’t die alone,” he continued softly at her ear. “Do you really want to take the chance with the lives of your lover and his friends?”
Olivia thought to correct him on that count; Ernesto was not her lover. But then, she thought as his hand reached up to clamp gently around her throat, she had more important things than semantics to worry about right now.
“Do you?” he repeated harshly.
“No,” Olivia whispered.
“I thought not. I will leave when I’m finished, and no one will be hurt. Unless you make a mistake, señorita. The fate of these people are