Hot tears pricked her eyes and she ground her teeth together. “I’m safe?”
He reached out to touch the side of her neck, just below her jawbone, his fingers trailing across the soft skin left exposed by her turtleneck. “Perfectly safe.”
She quivered and jerked at the hot painful touch. “Is there no one else here?”
“Just an elderly servant, but she doesn’t speak English and won’t bother you.”
He lifted his finger from her neck and she felt as though he’d split her in two. The touch had been light and yet he’d lit a bomb inside her skin, heat exploding in her middle, fire racing through her veins. It was the most shocking touch and she wanted to cry out loud, overwhelmed by the intensity of her response.
“Come inside. You’re tired.”
“I’m afraid.”
His dark head tilted. “Of?”
His deep voice was pitched so low that it throbbed within her, a soft but distinct vibration that left her humming. She hated him, feared him, and yet he was strangely charismatic, too. Of everything that could happen, she wanted to answer, but she didn’t say it. Wouldn’t say it.
He must have read her thoughts because he smiled faintly. “Think of it as an adventure.” Then he moved aside, stepping back to allow her to pass.
An adventure? He must be mad.
Yet his peculiar dark-light eyes held hers, and he waited, neither speaking nor rushing her. He was going to let her choose. He was going to put the next move on her.
What should she do? Stay outside in the darkness, on the endless pampas, or go into the warm yellow glow of the house?
With her heart thudding, she stepped inside.
Lazaro spotted Zoe Collingsworth the moment she stepped from the jet-way at the airport earlier in the afternoon. Young, blond, beautiful, she was the epitome of Argentine beauty. His narrowed gaze had followed her movements as she rummaged in her leather handbag for dark sunglasses.
Her hand had shook as she’d propped the tortoiseshell glasses on her small, straight nose. She could have been a Hollywood starlet. Her sweater’s high funnel neck stopped just short of her chin, accenting her smooth, creamy jaw and the long tumble of golden hair.
Lazaro could see that the men in the airport waiting area were already projecting their fantasies onto her. They saw what they wanted to see, the full breasts beneath the thin black sweater and the very feminine hips in wool trousers the color of rich caramel. They were admiring her hair, too, wondering if the glorious color was natural.
It was natural. Her hair was like her sister Daisy’s, only more golden. In fact, the two of them looked remarkably similar.
Only two years after marrying Count Dante Galván, Daisy was already considered a great beauty in Argentina’s elite social circles, but Zoe had a different beauty than Daisy’s…a softer beauty.
Lazaro shut the door to the ranch house but didn’t bother locking it. No point in locks. There was nowhere for Zoe to go.
He watched her now as she took a step into the hall, her blue eyes wide, and apprehensive, the irises more lavender than sapphire. She scanned the interior, as if searching for a hidden door or a secret torture chamber.
“There’s nothing sinister here,” he said calmly. “No knives, guns, whips, chains. Just a simple ranch house.”
Her chin lifted, her full lips trembled, but she pressed them together. “Have you sent a ransom note already?”
“No.”
She blinked, long black lashes sweeping down, brushing the high elegant curve of her cheekbone before looking up again. She was so young. Nearly twelve years younger than he. A lifetime between them.
The age difference should have killed his attraction. It didn’t.
Ever since she’d stepped from the jet-way this afternoon, his gut had ached, his body throbbing. His response to her stunned him. It was such a primitive reaction, so fiercely and purely physical that he felt raw on the inside. Barely controlled.
The desire was there even now and his body tightened yet again, his black wool slacks growing snug, confining.
He felt hungry. Like a prehistoric creature brought back from the dead. Something about her made him crave her, made him feel ravenous. Ruthless.
He wanted to feel her, taste her, possess her. And in a distant part of his brain he knew he would. Someday.
When he’d crushed the Galváns.
When he’d had his revenge.
But this wasn’t the time. Right now she was exhausted and afraid, and she was a guest in his house.
“Let me take your coat,” he said, softening the edge to his voice, knowing he had a hard voice, and a brusque manner. He wasn’t known for his sensitivity, or civility.
He extended a hand for her coat but she took a frightened step back.
Zoe nearly screamed when his hand reached out. She couldn’t let him touch her again. She couldn’t let him anywhere near her, feeling trapped, helpless, far too vulnerable. Again she was reminded of his height, his size. There was something about him that exuded strength, not just in terms of muscle, but control…power.
She pressed her thin coat more tightly to her body. “I’d like to keep my coat.”
His heavy eyebrows lifted. “You’ll get it back.”
He was making fun of her. Heat banded across her cheekbones and she lifted her chin. “I’m cold.”
“Come closer to the fire then. It should warm you.”
He led her from the wide high-ceiling hall into a surprisingly spacious sitting room, the dark-beamed ceiling as rustic as the floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace. Yet the furnishings were luxurious, from the vibrant scarlet and gold rug covering the wood-planked floor to the deep plush sofas and chairs clustered in small groupings. The artwork on the walls were all massive canvases, oversize oil paintings in vivid brush-strokes—electric blue, blood red, hot yellow.
This was no simple ranch house.
Zoe moved past the wrought-iron and leather coffee table with its stacks of books toward the fire. Her legs felt brittle, her muscles taut.
With a fleeting glance at the bookcases behind her, she reached out to the stone hearth, trembling fingers spread wide to capture the fire’s heat.
Kidnapped, she repeated silently, she’d been kidnapped. It still hadn’t completely sunk in. Would it ever?
She remembered disembarking the plane, remembered filing out of the jet-way with the other passengers and entering the gate area to discover a waiting throng.
She remembered scanning the crowd, looking for Dante, or a driver. Dante had promised someone would be there to meet her. But she didn’t see Dante, or anyone holding a sign. There were mothers and young children, businessmen in suits on cell phones, elderly seniors in wheelchairs but no one for her.
Her eyes had suddenly watered as she felt a pang of loss. Normally something like this wouldn’t upset her, but it hadn’t been a normal month. Her father was getting so much worse. He seemed to have forgotten everything now and it was awful watching him fade before her eyes. He’d been a smart man, and a loving man, always generous with others.
Her eyes continued to well with tears and she dug in her shoulder bag for her sunglasses. She’d cried most of the flight, and the oversize black sunglasses had come in handy then, too. The truth was, she’d cried so much in the last month she should be out of tears, but somehow the