Vistaria Has Fallen (The Vistaria Affair/Vistaria Has Fallen #1)(15)

Her whole body seemed to leap at the quiet confession. She looked at him, her pulse skittering.

He nodded. “Yes. I dreamed of you, of running my hands over that pale, soft skin of yours. Your long legs wrapped about my hips—I spent hours savoring the taste of your flesh, pleasuring you.”

She shuddered as a wave of pure silvered excitement rippled through her, brought to life by the low, sensual sound of his voice, his words. She breathed heavily, remembering the knowing expression in his eyes. There had been regret there—and something else.

“Then, in the cell, I didn’t imagine…”

“No, you did not.” His voice reached into her mind and throbbed in her bones.

Calli turned to face him. She did not move toward him. She feared to hope, to make any movement that might reveal that foolish hope. “That is what you wanted to tell me?”

He shook his head, the same tiny movement he had made in the cell and she almost cried out her dismay, for she knew what came next.

“I wanted you to know, to understand how dangerous it is for me. For…us. You have been here twenty-four hours. I know your uncle will have brought you up-to-date on the politics of Vistaria. My brother Jose is a moderate, just as I am. We know we need American help to keep Vistaria whole. There are factions out there, though, who would tear this country apart before allowing a single American to wield influence here.”

“Why are we hated so much?” Calli whispered.

“It is a hatred born out of fear. For generations Vistaria has watched other North and South American nations fall under the might of the American economy and know-how, their identities, their culture swallowed whole by the U.S.A. They tremble, knowing how easily it could happen here. Radical factions have played on that fear, whipping it into hatred, bigotry and worse.”

The tiredness crept back into her bones. “I see.” She sighed.

“Calli, I am a bastard who cannot use his mother’s name as any Vistarian does by right.” There was bitterness in his voice. “Yet no one forgets who my half-brother is. I have power because I am brother to Jose. If a hint escaped of a foreign woman in my life, if Vistarians believed me to be under the influence of an American, what little power I have would be gone.”

“You want to keep that power so you can help Vistaria.”

“I must keep that power or the precarious balance will be lost and Vistaria will crumble into civil war and worse.”

Her eyes widened. “Is it that...critical?”

He sighed and pushed his hand into his pocket. “You’re used to thinking in terms of billions. This is a small country. We have barely a million people on the four islands. There are perhaps six key people. I would be a fool if I didn’t know I was one of the six. The army, for undisclosed reasons of its own, extends its loyalty to me. For as long as the army stays loyal to me and by extension, my brother, then the country can be held against the rebels. If I lost that loyalty, if they had any reason to think I betrayed them, then their sympathies would swing to the rebels. The civilian population would have no choice but to support the army and Vistaria would fall.”

“You have a tiger by the tail, don’t you?” she said. “You can’t let go.”

“You understand, then.”

She sighed. “You didn’t have to explain yourself. You could have left me…”

“Squirming?” he supplied.

“Ignorant of how you feel,” she amended.

He didn’t answer.

“You wanted me to know?”

“Yes.”

“Why? If nothing will come of it, why?”

“Because I could not stay away,” he ground out. “I want to live in your mind, at least.”

Far down on the dance floor, the show ended. “I have to go,” Calli said. “They will be looking for me.” She moved toward the stairs. As she passed him, his hand touched her wrist. It halted her. She looked at him as he straightened up from his lean. He was very close. His blue eyes were black in this light.

“I must go,” she repeated. “They are waiting for me.” Yet she couldn’t move her feet. With him standing this close, her body prickled with anticipation. He swayed. His hot breath bathed her nape. His fingers slowly stroked the inside of her wrist. He seemed to taste her with his fingertips. A shiver rippled through her in response and she turned her head to look at him.

“If it is so dangerous, Nicolás, then I must go now, before my delay is noted.” She added bitterly, “That is the point you wanted to emphasize, I believe?”

“I want to hear you call me Nick, like any other man you know.”

“You’re not any other man,” she whispered. Nicolás Escobedo’s pull on her was unique. She had never felt such wantonness.

He moved. His jacket brushed against her bare shoulder. His voice sounded in her ear. “I regret what cannot be.”

Because he taunted her with the knowledge that he wanted her after all, only to snatch it away with the next breath, she lifted her chin. “I dreamed of you, Nick. I dreamed of us making love.”

She watched his eyes widen, as the knowledge speared him. Then she moved through the doorway to the stairs that would take her back to the ballroom and the safety of a room full of soldiers.

Calli had been frightened of the soldiers. She had been wary and braced for trouble. The thought made her laugh. Trouble had come from an entirely unexpected quarter.