Gabriel moved closer to her, watching how her eyes flared and colour tinged her cheeks. She wanted him. He knew it.
‘Did you not hear what I said?’
She swallowed. Her fingers clutched her wrap.
For a second the possibility trickled into Gabriel’s mind that she was different from other women he knew in terms of experience, but he batted it away. She was twenty-four. To be inexperienced at her age, with her stunning beauty, in this modern cynical world, was practically an impossibility. Far more likely she was playing him. She knew he wanted her and she was getting off on watching him work to seduce her.
There was little novelty in Gabriel’s world and he suspected it was the same for her. She was hardly a wide-eyed innocent when she’d been about to announce a business arrangement masquerading as a marriage.
‘I want you, Leonora. You felt it too this evening. I saw it.’
She flushed and her eyes were huge. ‘But…we don’t even know each other. How can—?’
‘How can it be possible?’ Gabriel decided he’d indulge her faux innocence. ‘Because chemistry transcends such mundanities.’
Every line in her body was tense.
‘You don’t have to do this, you know.’
There was a fierce pride in the aristocratic lines of her beautiful face. Her eyes had turned stormy.
‘I don’t need your pity, Gabriel.’
Leonora was resisting the pull she felt to this man with every atom of her being. He was toying with her. He had no clue how inexperienced she was and she wasn’t about to let him expose her any more than she’d already been exposed tonight.
She went to move past him, intent on getting out of there before she could unravel completely, but he caught her hand, stopping her. Heat travelled up her arm. She clenched her jaw.
‘You seriously think I pity you?’
The incredulity in his tone compelled her to face him, her hand still in his. He was frowning. Suddenly she was very aware of their proximity, and of the darkness of his chest under the white shirt.
She swallowed. ‘Maybe you just feel sorry for me…for what happened. You feel some kind of responsibility to make me feel…better.’
Even as she said this out loud she wanted to cringe. It sounded ridiculous.
He shook his head. ‘You give me far too much credit. I’m not that nice. I told you I want you because I meant it. And I believe you want me too. You wanted me even as you stood beside your fiancé.’
Leonora flushed with guilty heat. She tried to pull her hand back but Gabriel didn’t let go. He tugged her closer. She couldn’t breathe.
‘You don’t believe I want you? I can prove to you that I do. And that you want me.’
Leonora knew that if she tugged hard she’d be free. She knew that if she did that, and if she turned and walked away, he wouldn’t stop her. He was too proud for that. Too sophisticated to chase a woman or force her. And yet…she couldn’t move. Didn’t want to. That sense of being in a moment outside time, outside of her life, was acute.
As if sensing her vacillation, Gabriel said, ‘Here you are beholden to no one. There’s no duty or responsibility. We’re just two people. A man and a woman who want each other. Who are free to indulge our mutual desire.’
Leonora searched the hard planes of his face, those dark eyes. Was it really that simple? Could it be that simple? Was she free?
She thought of where she would be now if that woman hadn’t interrupted the announcement of her engagement.
She would be in a very similar situation with a man she’d liked, but hadn’t wanted. Maybe he would be kissing her now and she would be feeling nothing, resigning herself to the fact that this was as good as it would get. Because so much more was at stake. The future of her family. Her brother’s security.
She considered the vagaries of fate and timing and how she might not be here at all, how she wouldn’t be feeling this terrifying but exhilarating wildness coursing through her blood right now.
But she was. And it sank in that Gabriel Torres was deadly serious. He wasn’t being nice. Or pitying her. He wanted her. And she wanted him. For one night. One night out of time.
The wildness rushing through her body turned into something far more reckless. Tonight she really was free. Tomorrow she would return to reality and pick up the pieces of her life.
She wanted to seize this moment that fate had handed her. A chance to experience true desire with a man who wanted her for her. Not because of who she was or what her name represented.
Gabriel was watching her. Reading her.
Without saying a word, letting his actions speak for him, he let her hand go and reached for her wrap, tugging it out of her hands, pulling it off her shoulders slowly. The silk trailed across her skin and she shivered minutely at the sensation. She’d never thought of herself as sensual before, but she felt sensual now. Under his gaze.
His eyes not leaving hers, he draped the wrap over the back of a nearby chair and Leonora could see it out of the corner of her eyes, a vivid red splash of colour.
Danger. Passion.
He took her bag out of her hand and put it down. Anticipation built inside her, deep down. Coiling tight. She couldn’t take her eyes off his face.
He said, ‘I’ve told you I want you and I mean it. I haven’t wanted a woman like this in a long time. But you owe me nothing. I brought you here to give you refuge, and my guest suite is at your disposal for as long as you need it. It’s your choice what happens next.’
She let out the breath she’d been holding unconsciously. She hadn’t expected that kind of consideration. And at that moment Leonora almost resented him for not just kissing her and taking the decision out of her hands.
She knew it would be so easy to gather up her wrap and bag and say, No, sorry…not now. But something inside her had bloomed into life and she suspected he knew that very well. Better than she did.
She felt totally out of her depth. Another woman, more experienced, would no doubt be sliding her arms around his neck, pressing herself against every hard muscle of his body. But she felt paralysed with sudden shyness.
Gabriel’s gaze narrowed on her face. He frowned slightly. ‘Leonora, if you don’t want to—’
‘I do,’ she blurted out before she could lose her nerve. ‘I do…want you.’
She stepped closer. They were almost touching. His sheer physicality was overwhelming but it didn’t intimidate her. It excited her.
He put his hands on her arms and tugged her closer. She rested her palms on his chest. It was like steel. A spasm of sheer lust gripped her insides in a vice of tension. She pressed her thighs together to stem the heat flooding her core. But it was impossible. Every nerve quivered with anticipation and her heart was thumping so loudly she was sure it had to be audible.
Slowly, Gabriel took his hand off one of her arms and brought it up behind her head. She felt him undo her hair, so that it was loosened out of the ponytail. He massaged her scalp, his long fingers strong but surprisingly gentle. It made something else quiver inside her. Not just desire. Emotion.
But before that could really register he was lowering his head to hers, and as if in some desperate bid to cling on to a semblance of reality she kept her eyes on his, on those gold-flecked pools of brown. Intense and direct. Anchoring her to the moment.
But any hope of clinging to reality dissolved in a flash