The Spaniard's Blackmailed Bride. Trish Morey

ahead. She swivelled her head away from the photographers and hissed, ‘Rest assured, it’s not for your benefit.’

      ‘And does that matter?’ he asked, lifting one of her hands in his own and pressing his mouth to the back of it as camera flashes went off wildly all around them, desperate to catch the apparently gallant gesture. ‘When it is indeed me who will benefit. Do you realise how much I am looking forward to this night, to peeling this garment away and seeing how beautiful you are underneath, how beautiful you are everywhere?’

      Remnant heat from his last assault sparked inside her, flames licking sensitive flesh to life. She squeezed down on her muscles, hoping to clamp down on the effect of his words. ‘How unfortunate,’ she bit back unsteadily, ‘that the feeling isn’t mutual.’

      ‘When the time is right,’ he growled, with just a hint of aggravation, ‘all of what we feel will be mutual. I am a generous lover, my wife; you will not be disappointed.’

      She gasped and tried to push herself away but suddenly the air lacked oxygen, burnt up in the blast furnace atmosphere his words generated and in the stirring press of solid flesh behind her. Instead of letting her go, his grip around her waist tightened, keeping her impossibly close to him and his burgeoning hardness. Right now there was fabric between those places they touched, fabric that still seemed tissue thin, but later—later there would be nothing between their skin but air—and, later still, not even that.

      The photographer signalled an end to the formal shots. ‘You can let me go now,’ she protested. ‘We’re all done.’

      ‘No,’ he disagreed, while still easing his grip around her waist enough so she could spin away in a flurry of silk and exasperation. ‘We’re not done—not by a long shot.’

      ‘We’re leaving in ten minutes. I want you to be ready.’

      Briar jumped. If the low voice whispering in her left ear hadn’t been enough reason to scatter her thoughts and send her pulse jumping, her new husband’s seemingly casual gesture of running his fingers up her right arm certainly had been. She excused herself from the group of guests she was talking with and followed the path Diablo had taken from the enormous marquee that had been set up in the grounds.

      ‘Diablo,’ she said, hitching up her skirts and skipping after him as he entered the house, ‘where are we going? There’s a suite been prepared here. I assumed…’

      He spun around and smiled suddenly, disarming her as he stopped in front of the majestic staircase. ‘Is it not traditional in this country for a groom to take his new bride away for a honeymoon?’

      ‘You know it is. But ours is hardly a traditional marriage. Our honeymoon is likely to be over before it’s begun. Frankly I can’t see the point.’