‘It doesn’t even have to be my best,’ Cesare murmured thickly, dense black lashes screening his gaze to a sliver of hard gold as he scanned her feverishly flushed face and unwittingly pleading eyes. ‘The one thing you ever gave me that was honest…why? You can’t control it. But I can——’
‘Can you?’ Mina was in another world, one where she felt far more than she thought. Her hand lifted of its own volition, shyly smoothed along his strong, cleanshaven jawline, fingertips softly brushing a high cheekbone. Her nostrils flared on the warm maleness of him. That close, it would have been sensory deprivation not to touch.
He dipped his dark head and trapped her fingers with his mouth before she could reluctantly drop them again. Her eyes squeezed shut on a wave of unbearable excitement as he sucked first one finger and then another and her breath rasped in her dry throat, liquid fire running through her quivering body, melting every bone to boiling honey. She was poised on the edge of an erotic anticipation so intense, it consumed her.
‘Cesare…’ She curved into him, aching for closer contact.
His hand tightened painfully in her hair. Her lashes flew up, crashing her into molten gold demand. ‘Dio! I want to be inside you,’ he muttered with a shuddering savagery that shook her to her very depths. ‘But afterwards I’d wonder whether you turn on like this for Clayton as well. And I expect you do. After all, he looks the type likely to offer you a wedding-ring. I’m not surprised you didn’t want me to find you.’
‘It’s not like that
…’ It was an effort to think, an enormous effort. Her whole body was aching with a need strong enough to drain her of all self-will.
‘Sex with me or security with him,’ Cesare drawled with derision.
‘Steve is not my lover——’
‘Only another string to your bow.’ Cesare vented a rough laugh, his strong features laced with innate cynicism and contempt. ‘How many more strings do you have? You lead a double life, Mina. Haland and your humble little job, which would undoubtedly have become extremely lucrative but for my intervention, and down here…Is that his house up there?’
Mina was savaged by the reminder of his image of her. How could she have forgotten for one moment how he saw her? Yet she had forgotten—she had forgotten so completely that, but for his greater control, she would have let him make love to her right here in the car. Her skin crawled with shame at her inability to withstand the desperate hunger that Cesare could evoke within her at will. ‘No.’
‘Maybe he isn’t rich enough yet for you to retire—maybe he’s simply an insurance policy on a back-burner. Who owns that house?’
‘I’m not telling you.’ She wrapped her arms round her still trembling body, suddenly feeling cold, dimly acknowledging that she was suffering from shock.
‘I can find out. You know that.’
‘Please leave me alone,’ Mina suddenly breathed. ‘Just go away and forget you ever knew me!’
‘I’ll do that after I’ve had you in my bed for a while,’ Cesare spelt out with hard emphasis.
‘I won’t let that happen again!’
‘You’re so hot for me, you won’t be able to help yourself.’
Every scrap of colour drained from her cheeks. The savage pain of humiliation engulfed her. In Cesare’s eyes she would always be a confidence trickster and a tramp. Dishonest and promiscuous and greedy for money. He despised her but he got an electric charge out of using sex to reduce her to emotional and physical rubble. ‘I’m not what you think I am,’ she whispered tightly. ‘And I don’t know why you hate me so much.’
‘Someday, if I’m feeling very cruel, I might tell you.’ His lean face was as hard as iron as he said it.
He expelled his breath in a sudden hiss and rammed the car into reverse.
‘What are you doing?’ Mina gasped in consternation.
‘You’re so desperate to get me away from here, I want to know why!’
‘No!’ Mina protested, her voice breaking up with stress.
Cesare flicked her a grim glance. ‘You brought this on yourself, cara. Your two worlds are about to collide!’
‘It’s Baxter’s house!’ Mina told him in rush. ‘Baxter Keating. Steve is his grandson——’
‘You told me Baxter was a guest. Are you a compulsive liar?’ Cesare sent her a glittering look of anger.
‘I’m not lying this time. I just don’t want another scene.’
‘Or maybe you’re scared in case Clayton finds out a little too much about you,’ Cesare suggested unpleasantly.
‘Don’t go back to the house!’