She pushed the doors open to go and let Hugo down gently and bid Esme good-night.
But one step out into the quiet corridor and her arm was tugged, her hand clasped and off she was dragged. Rocco took four strides and turned into a dark alcove. He hauled her round and threw her down onto a hard velvet love seat as if he was still choreographing a dance. She fell down and her head fell back.
‘Is this what you want, Frankie? You tease me, stand me up—then flaunt yourself all around this party—dancing like an orgasm is waiting to explode from your body! And you think I’ll just stand back and watch?’
She gripped the sides of the seat and faced him. Her dress had ridden up and her bare legs skittered out in front of her. She breathed and fumed through angry teeth and stared up at his furious face, still working out what had just happened.
‘I thought more of you than that. All these years I have respected your memory. I never had you pegged as a little tease.’
She saw her own hand flying out in front of her to slap him. But he grabbed it and hauled her to her feet. The love seat dug into the backs of her legs. His body was flush with her front. His fury was too close, too real.
His hand still circled her forearm and she tugged it free. ‘Let go of me! Let me go. Go and dance with your blonde. I don’t want anything to do with you—I don’t want my name associated with you!’
He fumed, dipped his head closer to her. All she could see were glittering black eyes.
‘So that’s it? You want my body and my bed but you don’t want anyone to know? You’re still trying to play the good girl? Even though it’s obvious to anyone here tonight that you are desperate for my touch.’
As he spoke he trailed one featherlight finger over her cheek. She shuddered. Feverish.
He drew his head back an inch and smiled like the devil.
‘Desperada,’ he whispered.
Then he reached behind her and squeezed her backside, pulling her into furious contact with his pelvis again.
She opened her mouth, but the raging defence she’d intended to spit out died in her throat. There was no defence. She burned for him. She ached for him. She had to have him or she would never, ever be complete.
She reached for his face. Grabbed hold of his head in her hands and pulled it down—pulled down that mouth she had dreamed of and kissed it.
She thought she might drown.
Her fingers threaded and gripped his hair. His cheekbones pressed into her palms. Hot wet lips pushed against hers. His tongue darted into her mouth and her legs gave way. He licked and suckled and smoothed his tongue over hers.
He grabbed her head with one hand and the cheeks of her backside with the other. He pulled her flush against him. Hard against him. She moaned his name and he silenced the sound. He breathed her in and she breathed him. Her hands flew around, grabbing hair and shirt and skin. She moaned again and again. His mouth was on her throat, kissing and biting, and then moving back to her lips. She snaked her leg round his waist, heaved herself up as close as she could.
He walked them two paces, then slammed her against the wall.
‘You little wildcat. You crazy little wildcat.’
They were the first words he’d said, his breath in her ear as he held her against the wall with his body and ran his hands over her, up and under her dress. He found her panties and tugged them to the side, slicked fingers across her soaked, swollen flesh. The bullet of pleasure careered to her core and she bucked. Once, twice.
‘Rocco …’ she cried into his shoulder.
‘Here? In this hallway? We wait ten years and it is to be here?’
He barely touched her and she cried out again—almost a scream.
Over his shoulder she saw a figure, but she didn’t care.
He must have sensed it, for he immediately slid her to the ground and sorted out her dress. She stood like a rag doll. He tilted up her chin, smoothed her hair, looked at her with eyes blazing and glinting and fierce.
Then he cupped her face and bent down for a kiss. Slower, softer, but still a kiss that killed her. He tilted his brow to rest it on hers and held her close in his arms. She felt the heat, the strength, the fire of this man all around her.
‘I want you so badly. I want you like I’ve never wanted any other woman. Ever.’
He pushed back from her, still holding her head, stayed nose to nose with her.
‘You are with me now. The games are over.’
He kissed her again, fiercely branded her mouth with his tongue. Then he stepped back, ran one hand through his hair and took her hand in the other.
‘Come. We will go to my home.’
She started to move in a passionate trance, her legs and her head swimming and weak.
‘Wait—I need to tell Esme. I’m with her.’
‘Brett Thompson’s wife? I told her already. I told her you were leaving with me. Told her and Hugo. As if I would let you spend another moment with him.’
She processed that. ‘You did what? When did you do that?’
He looked down the hallway, tension and command rolling off him. ‘You’d left your table. I asked where you had gone. They presumed to the restrooms, so I told them you wouldn’t be returning—we had unfinished business.’
She stalled and her eyes flew open.
‘You said that?’
‘What? Was there really going to be another outcome, querida? Did I force your tongue into my mouth and your legs around my waist?’
Without waiting for an answer, he led her off down the plush carpet of the hall.
Oil-painted bowls of fruit and soft amber lamps lined their path. At the end, the giant Lalique chandelier marked the entrance and the exit. The table below it was cleared of champagne, its gleaming oak surface smoothly and proudly uncluttered. A few people still milled around. More rested in armchairs, their voices lower, softer, tired.
And outside the night was turning to day and the day was only beginning.
ROCCO HAD THREE HOUSES and one boat. His town house in Recoleta was mere streets away. They could walk it. His estancia, La Colorada, was two hours away by car. His seafront villa in Punta del Este was a short helicopter trip away. And his boat was somewhere off the coast of Cayman.
His head rolled options like dice as he palmed the small of Frankie’s back and escorted her out.
He wanted unrestricted, uninterrupted access and time with this woman. He deserved it—he needed it. And so did she.
He glanced at her and she turned big hazel eyes up to him. He put his arm round her shoulders and squeezed her into his side. She reached up and touched his chest, scraped her fingers across the new wound that throbbed under his shirt. Better than any physio, she would be the ultimate remedy for every last thumping bruise and cut from today’s match.
‘How long until you go back to Europe?’
He nodded to the doorman and walked her down the carpeted steps. His car rolled into view. He checked each way and across the street. Nobody. He checked behind them. Clear. He always checked. He was always his own security, but he was hers, too—for now.
‘A