A Price Worth Paying(40)

Emotion.

Powerful, strong emotion.

It was the final straw.

‘I’m sorry. I can’t do this any more.’

‘You cannot walk along the beach?’

She wanted to lash out at him. Did he deliberately go out of his way to misunderstand her? Surely it was obvious? ‘The moon. The beach. Holding hands. All of it. I don’t want it. I cannot pretend to be some blushing bride. I cannot look forward to a wedding night that I wanted no part of, that you have blackmailed me into.’

‘Is it such a dire prospect that you face, making love with me?’

‘When it was unwanted all along? When it remains so? Of course it is!’

‘Unwanted?’

‘Haven’t I made that clear from the start?’

He paused a moment, looking into space, almost as if listening to the building music, the evocative violin, before he looked back at her. ‘You’re the one who agreed to change the terms.’

‘Only because you threatened to tell Felipe our marriage was a sham! Do you know how much I hate you for that? You left me with no choice and then you have the gall to think I will happily fall into bed with you! I cannot believe how arrogant you are. You are everything I hate in a man and nothing I want in a husband!’

She finished her tirade breathless and panting and mentally preparing herself for his next shot, expecting to receive the full force of his fury.

‘Dance with me,’ he said instead.

‘What?’

His flashing eyes sent out a challenge as the instruments merged, their sound weaving together on the night air. He took a purposeful step. Or more a glide across the sand. And then another, his body straight, his head held high. ‘Dance with me.’

‘No. It’s too crazy. I don’t know how.’

‘You do,’ he told her, changing direction. ‘You are doing it now, with your tongue. With your words. Do it instead with your body. Show me how angry you are.’

‘No!’ she insisted, turning away, the idea of dancing with this man on the beach too ridiculous to consider. ‘There is no point.’

But she’d barely taken a step before he’d grabbed her wrist and spun her bodily back into him, her shoes and stockings flung far from her grip. She collided bodily against his chest, her hands between them, the air knocked from her lungs and angry as hell at being plastered full length against him.

‘I said no!’ She shoved hard against his chest and wheeled away but he had hold of her hand and she was at arm’s length again before he snapped her breathlessly back into his embrace.

‘You bastard!’ With her hands at his shoulders, she pushed herself away as far as she could, but his arms were wound around her waist, his eyes intent on hers, and she could do nothing as he moved in a circle around her, his body as tight, his movements as purposeful as the dancer they’d seen. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

‘I am dancing. With my wife. Do you have a problem with that?’

‘Yes!’ When it meant his hands were like steel bands around her and his muscled chest like a wall under her hands. She’d seen that chest naked and in all its glory and now her fingers drank in every detail of the feel of him. He was so hard and lean and magnificent and she wanted to be nowhere near him because she didn’t want her hands to tell her these things.

‘I can’t dance. Not this.’

‘You will find it easier if you put your arms around my neck.’

Easier? Perhaps, but at least her hands wouldn’t be subjected to the play of muscle under skin. Her grip relaxed, her hands sliding their way around his neck. He growled, a low sound of appreciation that rumbled its way into her bones as he spun her in a circle around him.

And then he slid one hand up behind his neck and took one of her hands in his own, drawing it down to his mouth to kiss the palm of her hand. She gasped, the sensation of his tongue flicking across the sensitive skin, the look of his eyes so darkly intent on hers, the music made for couples, the feel of his arm wrapped tightly around her waist—it was too much.

He took one slow step, and then another, drawing her across the sand. Long purposeful steps. Powerful. Dramatic. He guided her back, leading her with his touch and his body before he spun her around and dropped her low over his arm, holding her so securely that even for one so inexperienced she was never in any danger of falling. ‘You see,’ he said, drawing her slowly up again, held tight against his body, setting up a delicious friction in her breasts and her belly and the aching place between her thighs, ‘you can do this.’