From Enemy's Daughter to Expectant Bride (3 page)

He had to be imagining this. But all his senses told him he wasn’t. This felt real.

One way to find out. Get closer....

“What are you staring at, Numbers?”

This time Richard’s intrusion annoyed him. He realized his reaction was exaggerated, but he didn’t want to talk, couldn’t risk shattering this moment.

As if afraid he’d startle her out of her indecision, which afforded him the leisure to examine her, he whispered, “Her.”

Richard stepped forward. “Who? That woman at the door?”

Surprised, he turned to him. “You see her?”

Richard scowled. “You asleep on your feet again?”

He hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, but that had nothing to do with his reaction to her. “I’m wide-awake. Though she does belong in a dream. She looks like she’s just stepped out of a fairy tale.”

Richard’s incredulity surpassed his. “You’re serious?”

“I am. I...”

His thoughts stalled. She’d started walking into the ballroom, but her uncertain steps, her darting eyes and the way she fiddled with the long chain of her purse revealed her discomfort. Everything about her unconscious grace and reluctant demeanor made something rev behind his sternum. It intensified with her every step until he had to rub the heel of his hand against it.

“How could this be real?”

“It isn’t.”

Richard’s response startled him. He hadn’t realized he’d spoken out loud. “How can you say that?”

“I can because she’s just another pretty blonde.”

He looked at his friend as if he’d grown a third eye. “She’s
not
blonde. Are you even talking about the same woman?”

Richard seemed about to argue, then changed his mind. “Whatever. Just go initiate your incursion.”

“It won’t be an incursion. I will approach her with utmost finesse.”

Richard frowned. “I’m talking about Ferreira.”

“Forget Ferreira. I’ll...”

Rafael stopped as he realized something. He
couldn’t
approach her. He’d been scrupulous about keeping any photos of himself out of the media. But if anyone knew what he looked like, they were down there at the ball. He didn’t want to risk anyone recognizing him, not now that he’d decided against making an appearance. This evening had suddenly become all about establishing contact with this magical being.

He turned to Richard. “Cobra, bring her to me.”

His former handler blinked. “What’s wrong with you, Numbers? You’ve never reacted to a woman like this before.”

“She’s not just ‘a woman.’”

Richard snorted. “Oh, yes, that’s right. She just slithered out of a fairy tale.”

Rafael gritted his teeth, impatience shooting through him. “Just go down and get her up here.”

“You want me—the man famed for putting people at
such
ease—to approach a woman I don’t know and command her to come with me...to meet another man she doesn’t know? A man who currently looks deranged? You expect this fairy being to be a total moron, too?”

Richard’s derision tripped some still functioning logic circuits. That scenario did seem implausible.

But he
had
to get that woman alone.

Suddenly, another idea came to him. “I’ll go down with you and stand outside the ballroom. You just get her to me. I’ll take it from there.”

“I’m your protector, not your pimp, Numbers.”

“Oh, shut up. And move it.”

With one last glance as if to a madman, Richard turned and headed downstairs. Rafael dogged his steps, scenarios crowding in his overheated imagination.

What if this excitement fizzled out once he saw her up close? Worse, what if it didn’t...but she didn’t reciprocate it? Or what if she
was
interested, but like all other women, her attraction was based purely on his looks, wealth and power? Worst of all, what if she was already taken?

No. This last possibility he categorically rejected.

She wasn’t taken. He just knew it.

At the edge of the ballroom, Richard looked back as if hoping he’d come to his senses. Rafael only shoved him forward.

Grunting a curse, Richard walked away, cutting through the crowd. At six foot six, he towered a head above everyone, making it easy for Rafael to monitor his progress.

Then he saw her. Pressing to the periphery, as if taking refuge from the crowd, wishing she were anywhere but there.

Everything inside him tightened, anticipating the moment Richard pointed her in his direction. Or something. He had no idea what his friend would do or say to get her to cross the ballroom to meet him.

Richard was feet away from her when she suddenly turned her elegant head. And looked straight into
his
eyes.

A bolt hit him through the heart. A growl escaped his lips as the current forked within him. Then again as her eyes widened and her tense features went slack.

He wasn’t imagining this. She’d felt his focus, and it had made her home in on him, even across the distance and with him in shadows. He’d had the same effect on her.

And without volition, holding her mesmerized gaze, he raised his hand and...beckoned.

Her stare faltered, her throat worked. Peach stained her chiseled cheekbones and her gaze darted around, as if unable to believe she was his target.

Look back. Look back at me.

As if against her will, her eyes dragged back to his.

Satisfaction surged through him. She’d felt his need and had been unable to resist it. Testing his theory, he beckoned again, taking a step backward deeper into the shadows.

She stepped forward, looking surprised, as if she hadn’t intended to move. He took another step back. She once again moved in his direction, the confusion on her exquisite face deepening. This live wire of attraction that had sprung to life between them
was
reeling her in to him. He hadn’t needed Richard’s help after all.

The steely Englishman glared down at her as she bypassed him in a daze. Realizing his mediation was no longer needed, he shook his head in exasperation and strode away. Richard fell off Rafael’s radar as he focused on the vision he held in thrall, just as she held him. He continued to recede and beckon, drawing her toward him.

It took forever for her to weave through the throngs of people who turned to stare at her trancelike advance. Then at last,
at last,
she entered the deserted corridor. He took her deeper into his home where no one would come. She kept advancing after he stopped. Lips parted, eyes wide, face tilted up, she finally halted within arm’s reach. The sconces illuminated her face and figure in golden radiance and soft shadow.

She was more than he’d thought from afar, her impact on him fiercer up close.

And she most definitely wasn’t blond. Such a mundane word didn’t describe her cascade of spun silk with its thousand shades. Each strand had the tones of Rio’s beaches, its Sugarloaf Mountain and its sunrays at every time of day.

In contrast, her skin, from forehead to fingertips, was flawless cream. As for her body, it was
the
body sculpted to his every requirement, to accommodate his every desire and demand. At once willowy and womanly, unconscious femininity screamed in its every line and swell and curve.

Richard had been wrong about something else, too. She wasn’t pretty. Or beautiful. She transcended such descriptions. From the intelligent forehead to the elegant nose to the lush lips, her face was a tapestry of perfections, embodying his every taste and fantasy. But it was her eyes, where her essence resided, that snared him. Wide, heavily fringed, a magnificent shape and slant, he’d thought he’d imagined their color as she’d approached. He hadn’t. They were an intense, luminous tawny. The hue of fire. And just as dangerous.

But
her
effect wasn’t about her physical attributes. Something about her just made him want to...devour her. He’d never been so ferociously attracted, or aroused. It was incomprehensible, but all he wanted was to unwrap her then bury himself inside her.

Even in his state, he realized that course of action wasn’t advisable. Even if she was willing. Which, from her glazed stare and agitated breathing, she probably was.

“Obrigado, minha beleza.”

He heard his hungry rasp, thanking her, calling her
his beauty
in his mother tongue. Though most of tonight’s guests weren’t Brazilian, he had a feeling she’d understand. And though he only thought in Portuguese and hadn’t spoken it since he’d been abducted, it felt the only language personal enough, intimate enough, to do this moment justice.

“Wh-what for?”

His breath caught. She
had
understood, yet answered in English. Cultured, American English. And she sounded as shaken as she looked. Her voice was a soft, sultry caress, made to moan enchantments in his ear, against his flesh, in long, pleasure-drenched nights.

“For coming when I summoned you.”

She blinked, as if emerging from a trance. “Summoned me?”

She obviously took exception to his choice of words. He wanted to tease her, say that she
had
obeyed his summons. But he couldn’t talk—he needed to make that first contact. Holding her gaze, he reached out and cupped her cheek.

His breath hissed out as her flesh filled his palm, as he absorbed its texture and heat. She trembled in his grasp, pouring molten steel into his erection. Then her eyes darkened into burning coals and singed away his control.

Two urgent, stumbling steps had her back to the wall, plastering her between its unyielding barrier and his. Hot resilience cushioned his aching hardness and ripped a rumble from his gut. Her echoing gasp filled his lungs with her scent. A hint of jasmine, a mist of pheromones, a gust of compulsion. Hunger writhed inside him until he could no longer bear not tasting her.

Holding her stunned eyes with his, he hovered over her trembling lips for one last anticipation-laced moment. Then he obliterated the distance between them.

A spark arced between their lips, making him jerk up. Her eyes displayed shock, too; her lips trembled with it. But the rise and fall of her breasts was that of excitement, not distress. Then arousal seeped into her eyes, weighing down her lids, and made her lips swell, as if he’d already ravished them.

She wanted this. Wanted him. Like he wanted her.

And he didn’t want just a kiss anymore. He wanted everything.

They’d exchanged two sentences—phrases—and he knew nothing about her. But this would follow no rules. The passion that had exploded into existence between them obliterated any.

He would take her first. As she wanted him to. Everything else would come later. Satisfying this overpowering hunger was the most important thing now. The only thing that mattered.

He bent, swept her up in his arms. She only gasped and went limp against him, her eyes enormous orbs of surrender.

Triumph and elation fueled his strides to his study. Kicking the door shut, he put her back on her feet and pressed her against it. Her feverish eyes assured him this was exactly what she wanted. Everything with him. Now.

“Sim, beleza, sim...tudo comigo...agora.”

And he crashed his lips on hers.

Two

E
llie was drowning. In pleasure. The pleasure of this man’s kisses. The man she’d met only minutes before.

But it was okay to drown. Since this had to be a dream.

In the waking world, it was unthinkable for her to lose her head at the sight of a man, let alone her sense of self at his touch. Perfect pleasure like this couldn’t possibly exist. Not for her. She was the last woman on earth to get zapped by attraction at a literal hundred paces. And then came this man.
He
was what proved this must be a dream. He
couldn’t
be real.

No real man could have compelled her like this. Even the way he’d materialized out of the darkness had been unreal.

One thing explained all this. She must be dozing off in her car, lost in the most outrageously erotic dream ever.

Which figured. After two days of continuous work, exhaustion had been another reason she’d hated having to go to that ball. She’d been asleep on her feet by the time she’d dragged herself home at three to throw on “something appropriate,” then driven to that mansion in Armação dos Búzios, the “Hamptons of Brazil.” The damn place was over two hours away. And she’d been lost an extra half hour before finding it.

After she finally did at six o’clock, she had memories of valet parking and walking through the ingeniously landscaped, multilevel gardens into the splendid, four-level edifice sprawling over what she thought was no less than ten thousand square feet. Outside, each spray of indirect illumination enhanced every white-painted arch, column and molding in its neo-Renaissance architecture, giving it the grandeur of a temple or cathedral. Inside, the pervasive, festive lighting came from an abundance of all-crystal chandeliers and antique brass
lampadaires,
giving the Portuguese-French–style gilded interior the feel of a fairy tale. Then she’d reached the ballroom, which was right out of one.

She remembered pausing at the threshold, wrestling with her dislike for crowds, then finally walking in since braving it was preferable to being subjected to more pleading.

Then as she’d kept to the periphery, avoiding the forced gaiety, she’d felt as if she was hit by lightning. Her eyes had jerked to the bolt’s origin. And she’d met his gaze.

As her heart had stumbled like a horse on ice, he’d raised a hand made of elegance and power, and beckoned.

Breath hitching, she’d looked around to see who he was beckoning to. Once sure he was actually motioning to her, she’d had no thought of resisting. He’d kept receding, and she’d kept moving toward him, no volition involved. Then she had been within touching distance, and nothing had remained in her stalled mind but...wow.
Wow.

Even at five-foot-ten with four-inch heels, she was dwarfed by him. Besides his towering height, his shoulders, torso and arms were daunting, his waist and hips narrow, his thighs formidable. And his legs went on forever. And that was what she could see through his slate-gray suit. She couldn’t even imagine what his body would look like out of it.

But one thing she saw clearly. His face.

Ruthless planes and stark angles composed his forehead, nose and jaw. His cheekbones slashed so sharply against his polished teak skin, she felt she could cut herself on them. His lips were sculpted from decadent sensuality. Put together, his features were a standard of male beauty no one would ever come close to measuring up to. Not in her eyes.

But what captivated her went beyond his physical endowments and sexual magnetism. It wasn’t even those stormy eyes, surrounded by lashes as raven-black as the layers of his vital hair, and slanted to the same mysterious angle as his dense eyebrows. It was the entity that looked back at her through them.

Then he’d thanked her, for coming when he’d
summoned
her.

The dark spell of his voice hadn’t stopped annoyance from registering at his arrogance. Even when nothing else could describe the way she’d walked to him as if in thrall. Then he’d cupped her cheek and the world disappeared.

Nothing was left but his touch, and the building urge for something...more. And he gave her more. Like a hungry panther, he backed her against the wall only to hover over her lips, tantalizing her with the dizzying scent of his maleness and desire.

She started trembling, fearing her heart would stop if he didn’t kiss her. Then he did. And that intensity between them manifested into a literal spark, zapping what remained of her coherence. She looked up into his eyes when he jerked away, confessing her helplessness. And a change came over him.

As overriding as his approach had been up till that point, there’d been restraint in it. But now his eyes explicitly said there’d be none from this point forward. He wouldn’t stop at a kiss. He wanted more. Everything. Then he told her just that.

Yes, my beauty, yes. Everything with me. Now.

On some level, she realized this was insane. But when he swept her up into his arms, she melted in his hold, let him take her wherever he would.

Then he crossed into a semidark room, an opulent study. He set her back on her feet only to press her against the door. Before she could draw another breath, he thrust his tongue deeper in her mouth as he undid her hair clip. Her hair swished down over his hand, and he combed his fingers through it, sending pleasure cascading to every root. Then his other hand found her zipper and slid it down.

She moaned a sound she’d never before produced—the sound of relief-laced shock—as her bodice released her breasts with a rustling sigh. His lips swallowed her moans, drugging her with delight. One thing kept repeating in her brain.

She’d wake up any moment now.

But she didn’t wake up. And now she knew she wouldn’t.

This was just too overwhelming to be a dream.

This was real.

Another shock zigzagged through her as his fingers splayed against her back, and her flesh almost burst into flame. She jerked away from the burning, then pressed back for more. And he took his onslaught to the next level.

He yanked up her skirt, cupped her buttocks beneath her panties and hauled her up against him. She gasped at his grip over her intimate flesh, at his effortless power. Gasps became moans as he ground the steel of his erection against her core, flooding it with another rush of liquid heat.

Something scalding rumbled from him as he tugged one thigh, splaying her around his hips. Then he thrust against her to the same rhythm his tongue plunged inside her mouth. His powerful chest rubbed against her breasts, the friction of their remaining clothes pricking her nipples into pinpoints of agony.

She trembled in his hold as his lips burned a trail from her lips down to her neck, settling there to ravage her with tugging kisses that sent pleasure hurtling through her blood with each savage pull.

It felt as if all existence converged on him, became him, his body and breath, his hands and mouth. She was no longer herself, but a mass of needs wrapped around him, open to him. The flowing throb between her legs escalated to a pounding that needed
something
to assuage it. When it tipped into sheer discomfort, she cried out.

He shuddered against her, as if her cry electrified him, then he snapped his head up and crashed his lips on her wide-open mouth, thrusting deeply.

She plunged into his taste again as his tongue dueled with hers, as his lips and teeth mastered her. This was nothing like the slow seduction she’d imagined her first intimate encounter would be. This was an invasion, a ravaging. And she wanted it that way.

In unison with her feverish need,
he snatched her off her feet again, crossed the room. Lowering her on a massive couch that would accommodate his full length, he straightened and looked down at her. In the dim light coming from somewhere in the spacious room, his gaze reflected the illumination, sparkled silver, devouring her. Hers druggedly luxuriated in gliding over his awe-striking figure.

Then he finally came down over her, his powerful limbs a prison of muscle and maleness.

“Estou louco de desejo por você, minha beleza única.”

I’m mad with wanting you, my unique beauty.

She would have said the same to him, if she could. But all she could do was silently arch up to help him when his hands dipped beneath her to undo her bra. He peeled it off and spilled her swollen breasts into his palms. She lurched as he growled his appreciation, pressing them together, mitigating their ache, heightening her fever. Then he bent and showed her there was more exquisite agony, grazing one nipple then the other with his teeth, swirling them with his hot tongue. By the time he suckled them, she was writhing beneath him as he built to long, hard pulls.

Then he blew his scorching confessions on them. “You made me lose my mind with a look. Then I touched you, tasted you, felt you like this, beneath me, open for me, needing me.”

She could only nod jerkily, her teeth starting to clatter as his hands squeezed her buttocks, then slid her soaked panties off her quivering legs. He then
discarded his jacket, undid his shirt and flung it open before pressing back over her. His silky hair-roughened flesh rubbed her into a frenzy, then suddenly...he stilled.

Disentangling their bodies, he rose on extended arms and loomed above her. “You’re trembling all over. Are you afraid?”

Surprise made words catch in her swollen throat. “O-only that my heart might stop...or I might faint.”

Something more dangerous than anything he’d exposed her to spread on his face. A smile. Predatory, starved, unbearably arousing. “I feel the same. Minus the fainting. My heart might stop if I don’t have you naked beneath me.” But instead of extracting her from her undone dress, he bunched it at her midriff. “Next time, I’ll worship you from your lashes to your toenails. But now I need to be inside you. Say you need me, too. Say you can’t wait. Say it.”

There was no voice left in her. She was coming apart, the pounding in her core rising to a frantic hammering. Her head jerked on a nod, a tear slipping from her left eye.

He swooped down, closed his lips over her earlobe, catching the moisture. With his first nip, she arched up into his arousal with a cry, her legs falling open, giving him license to take, to possess.

His breathing as harsh as hers, he rose to his knees, and in barely suppressed urgency, released himself. Her heart rammed her ribs. With intimidation at the size of him.

Then he took his erection in his hand, and she could only lie there, waiting for him to do whatever it took to satisfy this gnawing hunger. Her heart thundered, expecting him to drive into her, filling that maddening emptiness he’d created inside her, bracing for the pain. But he didn’t, only squeezed his eyes shut on what sounded like a vicious curse. When he opened them, they almost vaporized her. Then pushing her thighs wider apart, his hand slid beneath her, tilting her hips. His gaze swept downward, dragging hers with it. With a stuttering heart, she watched him open the engorged lips of her sex, then, making no attempt to penetrate her, he rubbed the scorching length of his manhood between them.

The pleasure was so acute she bowed up on a shrill cry.

His other hand clenched her buttocks, he bent and clamped her lips in a fierce kiss.

“Do you feel how wet and hot and ready for me you are?”

He glided up, nudging her most sensitive knot of flesh. She shrieked in his mouth, ecstasy almost too sharp to bear.
He circled her swollen knot with his crown until everything in the world focused on the point where his flesh tormented hers.

“Please, please...”

She pleaded with him even when she didn’t know if she could accommodate him. But this...this was what she’d been waiting for all her life. This was why she’d never been tempted to share her body with a man. Because she’d never experienced anything like this mind-searing, caution-annihilating lust.

His lips possessed hers
again, swallowing her pleas as he thrust against her, prodding her nub over and over.

The pleasure became an unbearable pressure that clamored to unfurl. When she felt she could stand it no more, he quickened his tempo and snapped the tension inside her.

He pinned her beneath him as she bucked and shrieked, release tearing through her. Continuing to pump his hardness against her quivering flesh, he drained her of the last spasm of pleasure her body needed to discharge.

She slumped beneath him, depleted, sated, her intoxicated gaze fixed on him as he rose to his knees between her splayed legs. Pumping his erection, groans gusted from his depths as he climaxed, his blazing eyes never leaving hers.

She’d never known anything as incredible as the sight and sound of him in the grip of orgasm, nor felt anything as fulfilling as knowing she’d given him as much pleasure as he’d given her. Breathing slowing down, she spiraled into a chasm of satisfaction and melted deeper into the plushness beneath her....

Awareness flooded back into her as she felt him gently wiping her belly before he came down over her, claiming her lips in luxurious kisses. It was as if after devouring her, he was now sipping her, savoring her. Each clinging kiss solidified the intimacy they’d shared, and told her the explosive episode had been a prelude to a deeper passion.

When he finally raised his head it was to reach above her. A light burst on. Even though it was soft and soothing, her eyes squeezed shut. When she opened them again, she found him looking down at her indulgently.

“What—what just happened?”

She hadn’t intended to speak. Certainly not to say something that moronic. But she had, her voice deep, husky and nothing like she’d ever heard it.

Expecting ridicule to enter his gaze, his hypnotic eyes only turned serious. “No idea. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. But if I have to guess, I’d say...magic.”

Relief swamped her. He didn’t consider her bewilderment an act, or stupid. And he felt the same way.

She exhaled in relief. “In the absence of any other explanation, I’d have to agree.”