He couldn’t fight it any longer. Couldn’t hold back, couldn’t hide the way she affected him.
Slowly his proud head lowered, and, sensing his intention, Isabelle lifted her own face to his, her mouth softening, lips parting instinctively in anticipation of his kiss.
Behind them the kettle, knocked off the flames by being moved slightly to one side, came to the boil again with a wild shriek. Startled and confused, Isabelle took a step backwards, blinking in shock.
‘Por Dios!’ Luis muttered, darkly savage, though whether he was swearing at her, the kettle, or himself, Isabelle had no way of knowing.
She didn’t have time to decide before he had wrenched himself away from her, releasing her arms with a speed that made it look as if he feared it might actually contaminate him to keep hold of her.
‘Luis…’ she tried, but the moment was gone, destroyed in a second, and there was no way she could get it back.
But it had happened. And the fact that it had told her something very deep and very important about this husband of hers. Something she was sure that he would have preferred to keep totally secret. That he would have died rather than have her find out.
‘Where’s the coffee?’ Luis snapped, snatching the kettle up off the stove. ‘Mugs?’
‘Here…’
Isabelle obeyed the note of command in his tone automatically, but her thoughts weren’t on the simple task at hand. Instead they were centred on those few moments in Luis’s arms and the seconds when she had known, when on the deepest, most intuitive level of understanding, she had sensed just what had been happening to him.
He still wanted her.
He might try to deny it to her face. Might act as if he were totally indifferent to her, but the truth was something else.
He couldn’t hide the reaction of his body. And she had felt the hard, hot response that had revealed the desire he couldn’t control. But it was more than that. In the moment she had looked into his eyes, she had seen the dark, fierce blaze of something very strong and very primitive. Something more potent than thought and more forceful than any attempt at restraint.
And she knew she could use that against him to try and discover the truth about how he really felt.
CHAPTER THREE
‘SHALL we take our coffee into the other room?’
Luis didn’t look at Isabelle as he spoke, already heading into the small sitting room. He needed to put some space between them. He had to regain control of his senses, force his clamouring body under control before he could take things any further.
‘The fire must have warmed the place up by now.’
He had known he was lost in the seconds that he had tossed aside the enveloping cloak, and seen her standing before him, tall and slender in the clinging green velvet dress. Long and flowing, it shaped her delicate ribcage, the narrowness of her waist, with sensual intimacy, hugged tight by the elaborately embroidered belt.
The colour did amazing things to her skin and hair, making her eyes gleam like polished emeralds, the soft flush of her cheeks matched by the lush curve of her mouth. And standing so close, inches taller than she was, he had had the best view possible of the warm curves of her breasts, the opulent cleavage created by the corsetry of the boned bodice.
She’d filled out in the years since he’d last seen her. She was no longer just a girl burgeoning into maturity, but a woman in her prime. Stunning, sexy and enticing.
And he wanted her.
Dios, he wanted her more than he had ever wanted any woman in his life. More than the sensual madness that had pushed him towards her in the first moments that they had met. More than the aching hunger that had made him propose marriage far too soon, and well before either of them had actually been ready.
‘It still isn’t all that warm in here.’
Deliberately, Isabelle came to sit beside him on the small settee, curling her legs up underneath her in a way that brought her even closer to him.
‘We need to sit right in front of the fire,’ she added by way of a belated excuse for her action. ‘So—now I think you owe me an explanation of why you’re here.’
‘I’ve explained.’
He was definitely on the run, mentally at least. Those copper-coloured eyes wouldn’t look directly at her, but stared straight into the small gas fire. And the long, lean body was held unnaturally taut, as far away from her as was possible on the two-seater settee, making her determined to press home the advantage he had unexpectedly given her.
‘I told you, I want you to be my wife again. If you do, then you’ll want for nothing. You’ll live in luxury; you’ll only have to think of something you’d like and it will be yours.’
‘And you think that will be enough?’