Her face was small and heart-shaped, but with an inherent strength that elevated it out of the merely beautiful to the extraordinary. High cheekbones. Elegant straight nose. A full, lush mouth made for sin and sinners. Skin like alabaster.
There was a beauty spot close to the edge of her upper lip. She exuded an earthy and very feminine sexual allure. She couldn’t be real. Yet every single ounce of his masculinity was humming and throbbing in reaction to her luminosity.
As if to check that he wasn’t losing it completely, Cesar reached out a hand, noting with almost dispassionate surprise that it trembled slightly. He cupped his hand near her cheek and jaw, without actually touching her, almost afraid that she might disappear if he did...
And then he touched her...and she didn’t disappear. She was real. Warm. Skin as soft as silk.
A movement made his eyes drop and he saw her chest moving up and down rapidly with her breaths.
‘Dios,’ he said faintly, almost to himself, ‘you are real.’
Her mouth opened. Cesar saw small, even white teeth. Her tongue-tip pink. She said, ‘I...’ and then stopped.
Just that one tiny word had been uttered in a husky voice, making Cesar’s whole body tighten with a need that was unprecedented.
Sliding his fingers further around her jaw to the back of her neck, silky hair tickling his hand, Cesar tugged her into him and after a minute hesitation she came, stumbling ever so slightly. All he knew, once he felt the barest whisper of a touch of her body to his, was that he couldn’t hold back now even if a thousand men tried to stop him.
He lowered his head and his mouth touched hers, and all that sweet, soft voluptuousness pierced him right to the centre of his being, and threw him into the pit of a fire of lust so strong it obliterated everything he knew, or thought he knew.
Cesar felt her hands clutching at him, grabbing his shirt. Any resistance vanished when her mouth opened under his, and his arms tightened around her as his hungry tongue thrust into that hot, moist cavern.
However sweet that first initial taste had been, it turned to pure sin. Decadent and rich. Her tongue was sharp and smooth, teasing. Stoking his levels of arousal so that every bit of blood seemed to be rushing to the centre of his body, making that shaft of flesh lengthen and stiffen painfully.
Moving his hands to her waist, encircling it, Cesar almost groaned aloud when he felt his fingers meet. That evidence of her intense femininity pushed his body over the edge, made it betray him as if he were an over-sexed teenager.
He could feel her chest, struggling with constricted breath, moving up and down rapidly. Blood surging anew, Cesar lifted a hand and dragged it up between their bodies, itching to touch that smooth pale skin.
When he came into contact with the swell of one breast his body pulsed with a need that shocked him. He broke the contact of their mouths for a moment, resting his forehead against hers, overwhelmed at the strength of his desire.
‘Please...’
Her voice sounded even huskier...needy. The way he felt. He needed this woman now. Needed to free himself and lift up her skirts and plunge right into the centre of that taut, smooth body. To feel her legs wrap around him.
On some very dim and distant level Cesar was aware that he had become animalistic. Reduced to the cravings and needs of a base animal in an effort to achieve a kind of satisfaction he’d never anticipated before.
But that still couldn’t stop him. Not after that husky please had filled the space between them.
Branding her mouth with his again, the kiss was open-mouthed and carnal. Electrifying.
In the act of lifting up her skirts, almost desperate now, Cesar jerked and flinched when a flash of light seemed to illuminate the world for a second. Like the crack of a whip. Shattering the heady moment.
Lifting his head from where their mouths were welded together, Cesar could only see two huge pools of blue, ringed by long black lashes. That plump mouth was pink. He could feel her chest moving against his.
Then there was another flash, and a rapid jarring, clicking sound. He flinched again. Some vague notion of reality and sanity returned from a long distance. He turned his head, but it was the hardest thing to do—to look away from that face. Those eyes.
He saw a man standing at the entrance of the stables holding a camera up to his face. It was the equivalent of having a bucket of cold water thrown over him. Suddenly reality was back.
Cesar straightened up. Instinctively he pushed the woman behind him as he snarled at the man who was backing away, still shooting, ‘Get out of here. Now.’ One of Cesar’s grooms appeared near the door and he rapped out at him, ‘Get Security now—and get that man’s camera.’
But the photographer had disappeared, and even though Cesar’s groom darted away after him Cesar had the sinking feeling it would be too late. He’d reacted too late himself.
Becoming aware of rapid harsh breathing behind him, Cesar turned around.
And almost fell into the pit again when he saw those huge blue eyes staring up at him and that body which made him ache.
But reality had intruded. This woman was no apparition or ghost. She was flesh and blood, and he had just lost his legendary control spectacularly. Dios, had he gone mad?
Accusingly, Cesar asked, ‘Who the hell are you?’
* * *
Lexie Anderson was barely aware of the sharp accusation in the deep, deliciously accented voice. She couldn’t seem to get enough breath into her challenged lungs to speak. All she could ask herself was: what the hell had just happened?
She remembered wandering away from the camera tests while they set up the lights and finding these quiet stables. She loved horses, so she had come in to investigate.
Then the peace had been shattered when this man had appeared in the courtyard on a huge black stallion. He’d swung down off the horse’s back and from that moment on everything had got a little hazy.
Lexie had been mesmerised by his powerful physique and the play of muscles under his close-fitting polo top and jodhpurs as he’d tended to the horse. And that had been before she’d seen his face properly. When he’d heard her and turned around.
He was stunning. Beautiful. But with a masculine edge that made ‘beautiful’ sound too...pretty. He was hard. Edgy. Dark. Messy dark blond hair. A sensually sculpted mouth surrounded by stubble shadowing a very masculine jaw.
But it was his eyes that rendered Lexie a bit stupid and mute even now, as he waited for her reply. They were green—unusual and stark against dark olive skin. Not hazel, or golden, or light green. Something between all three. Unnerving. Mesmerising.
And he smelled of man. Sweat and musk and heat. Along with something tangy. Woodsy.
Lexie shook her head, as if that might make all this disappear. Maybe she was having some bizarre dream. Because she knew that what had just happened was unprecedented. She did not react to complete strangers by letting them kiss her, or by feeling as if she’d die if they didn’t keep kissing her.
She remembered his big hands around her waist, then reaching under her skirts to pull them up, and how she’d burned between her legs for him to touch her there.
Now was most definitely not the time to be assimilating that cataclysmic information.
‘I’m...’ She stopped, her tongue feeling heavy in her mouth. She tried again. ‘I’m Lexie Anderson. I’m with the film.’
Lexie’s face burned when she realised exactly how she was dressed, and how this man’s eyes had widened when he’d seen her. Belatedly self-conscious, she went to cross her arms but realised the corset only made things worse—especially when those green eyes dropped to her heaving flesh again.
Feeling