‘Careful.’ His face was only a breath away.
‘Thank you,’ she said, pulling away as if he had burned her.
‘My pleasure,’ Diego murmured, with a great deal too much insight in his voice and in his eyes for Maxie’s liking.
This was like trying to take on the forces of nature single-handed, she concluded. Her heart was pounding a tattoo, and if she couldn’t trust herself to behave what hope was there? But instead of taking things further as Diego so easily could have done, he let go of her arm and stood back to let her pass.
He wanted her. His hunting instinct was in full flood, but his instinct also told him to keep her safe. From him. He wanted to thank her for bringing him relief from pain, but he knew where that would lead. And he could sense that Maxie was vulnerable. In business she had all the confidence you would expect, together with the skills necessary to succeed, but in her personal life… He knew nothing about her personal life, except that she was innocence personified compared to him. What was she hiding? he wondered as he stared into her cool grey eyes.
Damn it. She hated being on the back foot. Diego had almost certainly guessed how much she had wanted him to kiss her.
‘Are you coming?’ he said, holding the door.
To buy time, she grabbed a couple of towels and waved them at him. She needed a moment. But she couldn’t keep him waiting all day… ‘Excuse me,’ she said politely when she reached the door. The open space with Diego in it was far too small to pass without brushing against him.
‘Excuse me,’ he replied, but instead of moving away he moved in.
Catching her close, he smiled into her eyes, and with such exquisite confidence she could only gasp as he brushed her lips with his. And then he proceeded to tease her mercilessly with kisses to her neck, before pulling back as if to study the effect. He must have known she was lost. Closing her eyes, she pressed her palms flat against Diego’s chest. Two could play at this game. She slowly traced the map of muscle to his neck and then linked her hands behind his head. Opening her eyes she found him smiling down at her.
‘Maxie,’ he murmured in a faintly chastening tone.
‘Yes?’ she whispered.
Taking hold of her hands, he gently drew them down again.
‘Don’t tease me,’ she warned, ready to push all her past failures aside in the hope of achieving one perfect moment.
‘Is that a challenge?’ Diego asked, drawing her attention to his lips.
A dam burst inside her. Pressing against him, she reached up. Locking her hands behind his neck she exclaimed with relief when Diego’s grip tightened. Dipping his head, he brushed her lips with his. Parting them with his tongue, he searched deep. It was a fiery exchange, as if she filled some empty part of him. He certainly fulfilled every one of her wishes. A wild sound escaped her throat when his hands first touched her breasts, and she shivered with desire when he caressed them with a tenderness that amazed her. He chafed her erect nipples until she could hardly breathe and every part of her was on fire for him. Her lips were bruised and swollen from his kisses—she loved his taste, his warm, clean-man scent. The urge to battle Diego’s strength and share his passion consumed her, and uttering his name in a half-sob of desperation she thrust her hips greedily against the brutal thrust of his erection.
‘Maxie—’ It took her a good few moments to realise that everything had changed and that Diego was gently disentangling himself. She was lost in a world of sensation until he held her at arm’s length to whisper, ‘Enough…’
What had she done wrong? Why had he kissed her in the first place? Why respond to her at all if only to draw back now? And then, in the most humiliating and provocative of gestures, he reached out to stroke her hair, as if he could tame her like one of his ponies, or pacify her like a child. ‘Don’t,’ she warned, pulling back.
‘Don’t you think I know?’ he said, holding her firmly in front of him. ‘Don’t you think I can read you like a book?’
‘What do you know?’ she asked, outraged.
‘You can’t use me to practise on.’
‘Of all the arrogant—’
‘You haven’t enjoyed sex in the past,’ Diego said, ignoring her, ‘and you want to know what it would be like. So what am I supposed to do about it? Throw you to the ground and ravish you? Is that really what you want?’
She had to wait until her breathing steadied before she could trust herself to speak. By then she was ready to accept that Diego had only responded to the signals she’d sent him and that she couldn’t blame him for that any more than she could blame herself for wanting him.
She had to calm down and pull this back. How else could she continue working with Diego to make Holly’s wedding day the best it could be?
‘I’ll see you at the house.’ Diego said this in an impressively normal voice and he stood well clear of the doorway.
‘Sure.’ She knew she should be relieved he could turn it off so easily and knew she must do the same. ‘I expect I’ll see you at supper,’ she managed in her usual businesslike voice, as if she hadn’t just flung herself at him. ‘You go ahead. I’ll gather up the rest of the things here.’ Along with her senses, she hoped.
Diego walked off in the direction of the stables while Maxie clung to the fact that he had seemed to take their encounter very much in his stride. Not so good was discovering she was the type of woman he found so easy to resist. She couldn’t pretend that didn’t hurt—especially when every part of her had just woken up to the most amazing possibilities.
Diego was seething with anger, all directed at himself. He had ignored every one of his self-imposed warnings and paid for that with the discovery that just being close to Maxie was enough to rock his self-control. He was in the barn now, walking down the line of stalls, searching for the soothing effect the horses always had on him. Today it eluded him. He and Maxie lived different lives. Making love to her would be the easiest thing in the world, but a brief period of elation would be followed by regret. And what form would that regret take for Maxie? Hadn’t he done enough damage in his life? For him, regret would only involve more self-loathing, knowing he had taken something pure and good, just because he could, and trashed it. He was bad news and Maxie deserved better. The animal inside him might be clamouring to be fed, but the man he was said no.
* * *
Maxie spent the next week working as hard as she could on Holly’s behalf. She worked pretty hard at avoiding Diego too. When she had to meet up with him to work on his leg she made sure it was always under Maria’s watchful eye. Diego wanted her to continue the treatment, and Maxie had to prove to herself that she could. What had happened in the pool house couldn’t be allowed to interfere with his treatment when they could both see signs of improvement.
Maxie had decided that the answer in the long term was to train Maria, and ask Maria to pass on the knowledge to whoever could help Diego at his next port of call.
One evening, when she arrived in the kitchen, she found him pacing up and down impatiently. ‘You’re here at last,’ he said, throwing her one of his black looks.
‘Yes, sir,’ she murmured dryly.
‘I want you to come outside,’ he said.
She looked at Maria for clues, but Maria just smiled at her and shrugged, as if to say Maxie would have to wait and see. The first thing she noticed when she stepped outside was the huge bonfire. ‘What are you burning?’
‘Can’t you guess?’ Diego demanded as he matched his stride to hers.
‘Your cane!’ One of the stable lads was stoking the