Something she would not give a name to. Something that had leapt in her throat as she let his dark, dissolving gaze hold her.
He reached a hand out to her. Lightly—casually—devastatingly—he drew the backs of his fingers along her cheek.
She jerked away as if a thousand volts had just gone through her.
‘Don’t touch me!’
There was panic in her voice.
Long lashes swept down over his eyes.
‘But you want me to touch you, Portia. And I want to touch you. Very much…’
He leant towards her. She could do nothing. Not even shrink back into the corner of her seat.
Her eyes fluttered shut.
His mouth moved on hers, long fingers tilting up her face to his. That slow, dissolving lava was molten in her veins, her body.
She tried to summon outrage, tried to want to push him away, shout at him—slap his face!
But she could not. She could only sit there, her body dissolving, at his touch.
I don’t let men do this. But Diego Saez, who only wanted to amuse himself with her for a bare handful of weeks, she let him. Let him help himself—shamingly, humiliatingly, totally, to her mouth…
He pulled away and dimly, very dimly, she became aware that the car had stopped.
He drew a finger across her swollen lips. Her body was trembling. His eyes were dark, so dark.
‘Tonight, Portia, it begins.’
He smiled at her. A long, sensual smile.
Absolutely confident.
Supremely expectant.
It was the smile that did it. Broke through the dissolving, weakening paralysis that was holding her in a helpless thrall. As if surfacing from a deep, drowning wave, she felt a new emotion surge through her. Virulent. Overpowering.
She was icy with rage.
Rage at Diego Saez for daring, daring to do that to her. For helping himself to her as if he had every right to do so, as if all he had to do was simply reach out and sample her…
And she had let him. Had let him do exactly that. Had offered no resistance—none—as he had made free with her as no man had ever done. And for a man like Diego Saez to do that to her—arrogant and spoilt by legions of women drooling over him, a hedonistic sensualist for whom women were an appetite, an indulgence. Everything, everything she despised in a man.
Good God, if she hadn’t liked Geoffrey kissing her, touching her—a man she’d respected, liked…loved…how could she bear to have someone like Diego Saez kiss her…touch her…?
But she had let him kiss her. Touch her. Had let him walk off with her in front of everyone, signalling to the whole world what his intentions to her were. Portia Lanchester—ice-cold Portia Lanchester—was about to feel the heat…
About to be Diego Saez’s next amusement.
The icy rage shot through her again. But this time it had a different target.
Herself.
Fear shivered through her. Somewhere deep inside, in a part of her she had never known existed but which, now she did, terrified her, she knew that Diego Saez could exert a power over her that she had never imagined.
With every ounce of her being she fought it. Rejected it.