Santiago's Command

Ramon loosed her but as she pulled away grabbed her hand.

Lucy took a deep breath, the surface of her skin prickling in a weird response to the sound of his voice. ‘Good evening.’ She turned her head as Santiago Silva emerged fully from the shadows.

Her already rapid heart picked up tempo as she struggled to hide her reaction, not that he could be unaccustomed to attracting awed stares.

He was, she admitted, pretty awesome and she was staring.

She struggled to direct her gaze past him, but like a compass point returning north her eyes zeroed back to the tall, rampantly male figure dressed in a beautifully cut dark suit teamed with a white shirt he wore open at the neck. The informality went skin deep; he looked exclusively and every inch the autocratic patrician occupier of a castle.

He inclined his dark head, the courtesy of the gesture doing nothing to disguise the predatory gleam in his hooded eyes.

She was no adrenaline junkie but she imagined it might feel this way to jump out of a plane with nothing but a parachute. Actually maybe not even the parachute, she thought, moistening her dry lips with the tip of her tongue.

The nervous action drew his dark gaze to her mouth.

Lucy swallowed and felt a flicker of apprehension. Harriet had warned her that this was not a man to be messed with and she was messing. Was she mad or just …? She swallowed, suddenly identifying the emotion mingled in with the trepidation as excitement … Yes, clearly she was mad!

Santiago recognised the surge of molten anger he felt as he watched them, but refused to acknowledge the accompanying emotion as being related in any way to jealousy. He was not jealous of his brother; he was furious! Furious that Ramon could be so stupid; frustrated that he could not think above waist level; that he could not see past the stunning beauty of the woman in his arms.

He, on the other hand, could compartmentalise, think past the painful level of his arousal. She really was the embodiment of sin, he decided, swallowing hard as his burning glance moved over the undulating curves of her body. She was sheathed in a tight red dress that would probably and legitimately in his opinion be illegal in several countries.

‘Lucy, this is my big brother, Santiago … Santiago, this is Lucy.’

Ramon pushed her forward with a pat on her bottom that under other circumstances Lucy would have objected to, and she found herself taking a stumbling step towards Santiago. Recovering her poise and covering her growing anxiety behind a plastic smile, she took a second, more graceful step, murmuring a good evening and ignoring the voice in her head that was counselling she run in the opposite direction.

Her half-extended hand fell away as Santiago met her midway. Bending down towards her—not something that happened a lot when you were five ten in your bare feet—he planted his hands on her shoulders.

The light touch concealed a strength that she felt as strongly as the brush of his breath on her cheek. Steeling herself for an air kiss, she stiffened, gasped faintly and closed her eyes as his mouth, his lips, lightly touched her skin.

Feeling the responsive quiver run through her body, he smiled and bent in closer.

‘Great work,’ he admired. ‘Though you might want to rethink the dress—it’s a bit obvious—but the husky sexy voice, nice touch, I like it …’

The blue eyes winked wider in protest. ‘What? Husky, sexy? I wasn’t …’

She stopped, remembering just in time her role of heartless courtesan, and produced a wide, brilliantly insincere smile as she whispered back, ‘In my experience—’

‘No doubt vast.’ His nostrils quivered in response to the fragrance she wore. It smelt of something light, floral and very feminine.

‘You have no idea.’ A joking comment made by her solicitor drifted back into her head. ‘The only way we can legally clear your name is to produce a medical certificate saying you’re a virgin.’ He had never appreciated the black irony. ‘In my experience there is no such thing as too obvious when it comes to men, and if you think that was sexy … watch and learn …’

She let her voice trail away significantly and had the satisfaction of seeing a muscle along his hard jaw clench. She lifted her chin, turning a deaf ear to the voice in her head that was screaming warnings about playing with fire. Instead of lowering the temperature she raised it several degrees, responding to the anger she saw reflected back at her in the dark surface of his eyes with a slow ‘cat got the cream’ smile.

The guiding hand that then slid to her elbow was not this time light, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of reacting to the biting, bone-crushing grip of his fingers. With Ramon walking on the other side of her, he steered her towards the sweep of stairs that led to the massive porticoed entrance.

Feeling more frogmarched than guided, she lifted the ankle-length hem of her skirt as gracefully as she could and took the first step up.

It’s never too late to run.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE door pushed wider and a figure appeared at the top of the stairs. For a moment Lucy thought it was a child, then as she stepped into a shaft of light thrown by one of the spotlights that illuminated the building Lucy realised it was actually a young woman.

She was petite and wand slim, her slender curves almost hidden by the long black fine-knit silk sweater teamed with black leggings she wore. Not a look many could have pulled off, but this girl did!

Ramon, with an exclamation of welcome, pushed past Lucy. ‘Carmella!’

As she watched the two embrace Lucy was very aware of dark eyes watching her like the hawk Santiago reminded her of—it wasn’t just the nose and the hauteur, but the predatory ruthlessness. She schooled her expression into serene neutrality and considered the situation objectively—or as objectively as was possible when your body was humming with an uncomfortable combination of antagonism and a heart-pounding awareness that made her skin prickle. The wretched man set every nerve ending in her body on edge. She longed to put some distance between herself and the weird electrical charge-negative he exuded. God, even her scalp was tingling!