Annie stood firm in her defiance. ‘What do you expect me to do once this is all over?’ she snapped. ‘Crawl into some dark corner and pretend I no longer exist? I have a life waiting for me out there, Mr DeSanquez. You can put it on hold for a few short weeks but not for ever! And, my God, I vow that the first thing I’ll do with that life is save Todd from Susie’s calculating clutches if it becomes the very last thing I am able to do!’
His anger shot up another notch, sent there, she suspected, by sheer frustration with her for defying him like this. ‘By telling Hanson the truth?’ He was demanding confirmation.
‘About your lies? Yes!’ she declared.
His hand whipped out, curling threateningly around the back of her neck. ‘Then we will have to make the lies the truth,’ he gritted, moving close so that his body pressed along the full length of hers. His breath was warm against her face, his green eyes glowing with a new and terrifyingly readable light. ‘I shall bed you if I have to, Angelica Lacey,’ he told her huskily. ‘I will take your beautiful body and drown in its sinful lusts every night for the next two weeks if you continue to insist on telling the truth.’
‘No,’ she protested, trying to move away from him. The heat from his body was having a strange effect on her own, burning it, bringing it to life, disturbing all those delicate senses she had always so thoroughly locked away.
‘Why not?’ he whispered. ‘Why not make the charade the truth? Two weeks is a long time for a woman like you to go without a man. And I find I am man enough to be—receptive to your charms. Why not?’ he repeated, almost as though he was trying to convince himself rather than her. His mouth lowered to brush a tantalising caress along her cheek. ‘I can feel you trembling,’ he murmured. ‘I can feel your breasts throbbing against my chest, smell the sweet scent of desire on your skin. You want me, Angelica.’
‘No—’
‘Yes,’ he insisted. ‘As much as I admit to wanting you.’
‘No—’ she denied again, trying to pull free because he was conjuring up all kinds of sensations that were totally, frighteningly foreign to her.
‘You want proof?’ Reaching down, he took hold of her tightly clenched hands and grimly prised the fingers apart before forcing by sheer superior strength her tense palm to press against the hardening muscle between his thighs. ‘Proof,’ he muttered, and captured her shaken gasp with his hungry mouth.
For a few blinding, ecstatic moments Annie let herself sink willingly into the embrace, some small, sensible corner of her brain telling her that this had been coming from the moment they’d met the night before, that the violent exchange of words had merely been a vent for…this—this sudden greedy need to feel his mouth on hers again, to feel his body pulse against her, know his touch, his taste, the texture of his tight, tanned skin.
But it was only for a few hectic moments, then an icy darkness began closing her in—the darkness of bad memories, of man’s physical power over woman and his ability to subdue her if she dared to protest.
And suddenly, instead of the warm, coaxing mouth of the man kissing her now, she was being stifled by the hot, wet pressure of another mouth—a cruel mouth—and cruel hands that hurt as they touched her. Hands which had her crying out, fighting for breath, straining to get free, struggling—struggling so desperately that she didn’t even know that she was flailing wildly at César DeSanquez with her fists, didn’t realise that he was no longer kissing her but frowning down at her, no longer holding her in an embrace but trying—unsuccessfully—to stop her from landing blows on his surprised face.
‘Angel—’
It was all she heard. Not the full ‘Angelica’ he had actually said in husky concern but ‘Angel’ as Luis had husked at her—‘Angel. I have a real angel in my bed.’
‘No!’ she ground out, and managed at last to break free, her blue eyes wild as she turned like a terrified animal and ran.
Ran out of the open windows across the veranda and down the wooden steps. Ran—ran with no idea where she was running as her feet took her across the springy grass still warm from the long day’s sun. It was almost dark outside now, but she didn’t notice—didn’t notice anything as she made her mindless bid for escape.
She came to a halt only when the balmy water of the Caribbean lapped around her thighs. Breathless from running, panting with fear, she lifted her dazed eyes to the miles of coral-washed water laid out in front of her and at last felt reality return.
Not Luis Alvarez but César DeSanquez. Not the darkened bedroom of a plush London penthouse but a Caribbean island basking in the embrace of a beautiful dying sun.
‘Oh, God,’ she choked out thickly. ‘Oh, God.’ And, limp-limbed suddenly, she dropped like a weighted sack onto her knees, then as the water closed in a lazy, silken swirl around her heaving shoulders she put her hands to her face and wept.
Whatever he would do about her stupid flight she didn’t consider, but certainly she didn’t expect him to come wading into the water after her, his dark eyes tight with fury as he hauled her angrily to her feet and began dragging her back onto dry land again.
It was only later that it occurred to her that it might well have looked to him as if she were trying to drown herself. Whatever, it gained her no sympathy whatsoever—no hint of remorse as he muttered something harsh and Spanish beneath his breath then picked her up in his arms and carried her back up the garden towards the house.
His step hardly altered as he carried her up a flight of steps that led up the outside wall of the house and along the upper balcony into a room where he dropped her onto her unsteady feet before stalking off towards what she vaguely assumed was a bathroom.
Becaus
e this was a bedroom, she realised on yet another rise of panic—a bedroom with two full-length windows standing open either side of a huge coral-pink covered bed.
‘Get those wet things off!’ He came back with a fluffy white towel. Annie started, her blue eyes huge in her pale face as she stared blankly at him, unable to move a single muscle in case she fell down again.
With another Spanish curse he began stripping off her clothes, the bite of his fingers quelling any attempt she made at trying to stop him. She was shivering violently, though with shock rather than cold. Her top came off and was thrown down on the soft coral-coloured carpet, her arms wrenched away when they automatically crossed over her breasts. With rough hands he unclipped her bra and sent that flying too.
Then, as she stood there still half-numbed by her mind-blowing reaction to his kiss, the towel landed around her shoulders and he was kneeling in front of her, dark face stem as he ruthlessly began to strip the dripping wet skirt from her, followed instantly by her briefs.
‘You stupid fool,’ he bit out hoarsely. ‘What made you do something as crazy as that?’
She didn’t answer—couldn’t. She just stood there huddling into the towel and shivering so badly that her teeth chattered. He cursed again, turning angrily away, and began wrenching off his own sodden clothes. His trousers landed on top of her skirt, the sleek, lean flanks of his buttocks flexing as he stripped away his briefs and sent them the same way before spinning back to face her, arrogant in his complete lack of modesty and misreading her new, white-faced stillness as indifference to his exposure while he railed at her once again.