He held her gaze. ‘They’re incredible. And I know you’ll think I’m probably just saying that, but I’m not. Your photos are more than “competent”. They’re poetic and powerful. You have real talent, Cristina,’ he said simply.
There was a charged silence.
Cristina could feel the blood buzzing inside her head. She felt dizzy, and suddenly she was fighting to get on top of her emotions. For so long she had wanted to hear those words. To know that she mattered.
‘You do believe me?’
To her surprise, he sounded anxious. She nodded slowly. ‘Yes. I do.’
And she did. Maybe it was the hesitancy in his voice, or the way his eyes were fixed on hers, but somehow she knew that he was telling the truth.
He took a step towards her. ‘Look, we made a deal tonight to stop jumping to conclusions about each other and I meant it.’
‘I meant it too.’
‘Good.’ He breathed out. ‘So, my mother said that you exhibited these?’
He was watching her closely, and she felt her pulse leap as their eyes met. God, he was so handsome. She’d been so busy hating him, hating herself, that she’d forgotten what it was like to be this close to him. Heat as dark and glossy as an oil slick slid over her as she remembered the last time they had been so close.
Pushing aside memories of that night, she cleared her throat. ‘I did. That’s how I met Grace, actually. She came to the exhibition.’
Her skin tightened with the same prickling excitement that she’d felt that day, when Grace had come over to her, casually held out a business card and told her to call her. It had only been later, sitting with her mother, trying to eat but still wound up with nerves and disbelief, that she’d realised Grace had written her personal mobile number on the back of the card.
Even now she still couldn’t believe that she’d pulled it off—or that Grace was even real. But she was. And what was more she was the editor of the biggest news magazine in Europe. It was crazy. Meeting her had felt like one of those feel-good stories that got turned into films. She shivered. Except that in the movies her character wouldn’t mess up her big break by having sex with the client’s son.
Oh, yes, she would, she thought a moment later, as her eyes rested on Luis’s handsome face. Unless for some reason she was trapped under a wardrobe during the entire film.
A very large and heavy wardrobe.
Dragging her gaze away from his beautiful, firm mouth, and the memory of what he could do with it, she forced herself to speak. ‘She was kind to me. I didn’t really have much experience…’ Her cheeks felt warm, and she knew she was blushing. ‘In portrait photography, I mean. But she gave me a chance.’
His dark eyes lingered on her face. ‘Grace is smart and honest. And she’s a very busy woman. If she gave you a chance it’s because you deserved it. She must have seen something special in you…’
He paused, his gaze penetrating deep inside her, and then took a step closer.
‘Just like I did.’
She felt her stomach lurch sideways in response to his simple statement. Nothing he’d said before had suggested that to be the case. Certainly there had been nothing in the way he’d behaved towards her to imply that he thought anything of her at all beyond his superficial and mistaken belief that she had shamelessly seduced him to further her career.
‘What do you mean?’
Her eyes fluttered over his face. And as his gaze locked onto hers her body stilled. She knew exactly what he meant, for even now she could still recall the intensity of his focus. And the way she had responded. There had been no boundaries between them. Even fully clothed she had felt naked.
As if he could see inside her head, Luis took another step closer, his dark grey gaze homing in on the pulse at the base of her throat, and her own eyes dropped to his mouth—that beautiful firm mouth—and instantly she was imagining how it would feel pressed against her bare skin.
Luis sucked in a breath. Around them the air was vibrating, tiny ripples of tension flaring out in waves. But what was he doing? He hadn’t come here for this.
The blood was pounding in his veins, but somewhere deep inside his head he could hear a voice telling him to leave. To turn and walk away. Only for some reason he didn’t move. It was as though his body was acting on instinct—like a boat slipping free of its moorings and following the swirling currents beneath the surface of the sea.
As if to prove that point he took another step closer, and now he was close enough to feel the heat of her skin like a caress.
‘I mean this,’ he said softly and, leaning forward, touched his mouth to hers lightly.
He felt a jolt like lightning—felt his breath spinning out of him at the softness of her lips—and the intensity of his desire almost knocked him off his feet.
With an effort he lifted his head, and as her eyes collided with his they stared at one another in the pulsing silence.
Cristina felt dizzy. Not the fainting, falling over kind. The kind you got when you went on the Waltzer at the funfair. A tingling, shivering rush of endorphins that mixed fear with excitement and pleasure.