‘I was warned about your arrogance,’ I mutter, hoping I sound dismissive.
Another gruff laugh, a bark of noise. ‘I’m sure you were.’
He shifts gear and my gaze flickers lower.
‘You have a tattoo.’ I change the subject without really meaning to. He’s unnerved me by being so breathtakingly honest—and beautiful. ‘Two of them.’
‘I have more than two.’ The look he shoots me is pure sensual invitation. My heart stammers.
‘Santiago...’ It’s a breathless complaint. ‘Listen to me. What happened between us the other day...’
‘When we kissed?’ he prompts, once again tilting his face to mine, a knowing look in his eyes.
‘Right.’ I brush it away but my lips tingle and my soul aches. ‘It was a mistake.’
‘Oh?’ He hits the indicator then turns the car off the road, taking us towards the beach. The water shimmers like diamonds in the distance, the sun bouncing off it. He
skilfully navigates a narrow one-way street then takes us across a busy road, turning one corner and then another, checking the rear-view mirror to be sure my detail is following.
‘Definitely,’ I murmur, toying with my fingers in my lap.
‘You don’t like to be kissed?’
I briefly imagine how he’d react if I told him that that was the first time I’d ever been kissed.
‘It’s not appropriate for you to kiss me.’
The only sign he’s heard is that his knuckles briefly turn white as he grips the steering wheel more tightly, before sliding the car down a ramp towards an undercover car park. I notice a steel-and-glass monolith above us and my mind immediately fills in the gaps—it’s his casino, the building he had designed and constructed some ten years ago when, at twenty-one, he was a self-made billionaire and already the envy of Europe.
‘Why not?’
‘Because.’
‘That’s not an answer.’
So what is an answer? That I don’t have the freedom to simply kiss any man I find desirable? That I’m supposed to marry some man my parents picked out for me before they died? That I owe my country more than to become one of Santiago’s lovers, a single woman in a long line of women to have graced his bed?
‘Let’s just chalk it up to experience and leave it at that.’
He swings the car into a parking bay right next to the lifts.
His eyes lock with mine and the air between us thickens, sparking with electricity. I feel as though I’m being sucked into a vortex of awareness, every inch of me reverberating with need.
Desire sparks like a fever in my blood, propelling me forward, but only by an inch; despite what I’ve just said, I want him to close the gap. My lips part, my breath is held, and my eyes are on his at first, then on his lips, tracing their outline as I remember what it felt like to be held in his hands and ravaged by him.
‘You want me to kiss you right now.’
The words are a statement of fact. I contemplate denying it, but pride won’t let me lie.
‘What I want and what I know to be right are two different things.’
‘And wanting me isn’t right?’
I shake my head a little, and somehow end up closer to him, my body almost touching his now. My seat belt strains across my chest but the pleasure of that physical contact is like a placeholder for him. I imagine his hands on my thighs and at my shoulder, and shiver.
‘Why not?’
In the distance, there is the banging of car doors. My security detail. Their approach makes me feel urgency.