THE PERFECT TARGET (15 page)

What did he want?

His body tightened brutally at the answer. He wanted to erase the past fifteen minutes. He wanted to take back the story of Virgil, to wipe her fingerprints from the statue in his pocket. He wanted to trample the intimacy gathering between them, the desire to put his mouth to hers, to drink her in as greedily as he'd once consumed the Medeira label. But all of those wants were equally impossible. She was a woman of sunshine. He was a man of the shadows. She'd made it obscenely clear she longed to live her life without her every step, smile, word being scrutinized. He'd walked away from his life the first chance he got, turning his back on the personal freedom she craved. As soon as Javier made contact, Sandro would turn her over and never see her again.

Making more memories than absolutely necessary made about as much sense as telling her about Virgil.

"Well?" she asked, and he knew he really had no choice.

Very slowly, very deliberately, he put a hand to her waist and pulled her against the hard planes of his body. He saw her eyes widen at the contact, at the discovery of truths his body couldn't hide. With his other hand, he cupped her face, skimmed his thumb along her bottom lip.

The sexy little hitch to her breathing almost did him in. "I want plenty," he murmured, his voice deliberately thick and low. He slid the hand at her waist to cup her bottom, and tried not to groan. Candlelight flickered cruelly across her face, revealing the thin veneer of bravery in her gaze, the vulnerability leaking through.

Precision had always been Sandro's calling card, not cruelty. But now he had no choice. "Did you know you sleep with your lips parted?"

Her eyes flared, but she said nothing.

"You do," he said. "And ever since last night … hell, ever since you kissed me so hotly in the alley, I've wanted to take your mouth again, to feel you open for me, accept me, take me deep, give me the same ride you gave the man in that picture."

In his arms, she went deathly still. In her gaze, confidence splintered into cold shards. "W-what?"

"You know," he forced himself to continue. "The man in that tabloid picture." Self-contempt backed up in his throat. "I looked it up on the Internet the night I learned the general was going after you, and wondered if you'd be as willing as you were in the picture, if the ambassador's daughter could really make a man weak with nothing more than a kiss." Cruelly, he added a laugh. "My partner Javier said I didn't stand a chance."

She stood so still that had she not spoken, he wouldn't have been sure she breathed. "You and your partner talked about me?"

The question was little more than a broken whisper, making it harder to force a smile. "He was jealous, said I didn't deserve the chance to live out his wet dream."

She came alive then, beautifully, horribly. Shock flashed hotly in her eyes. Color surged to her cheeks. Her mouth fell open. She struggled against him, ripping free of his arms and staggering back.

"You asked," he reminded, hating himself more than he'd imagined humanly possible. "Don't worry,
bella,"
he added. "Like I said, I know we don't always get what we want."

He didn't expect the sudden rush of tears flooding her eyes, not from this fiery, defiant woman. He didn't expect to see tiny pieces of her unravel right before his eyes.

"I was wrong about you," she whispered.

The urge to yank back his words almost sent him to his knees. Instead, he shrugged. "Most people are."

"I thought you were different," she went on, hurt and disillusionment glowing in her eyes. "I thought you had a heart. But you're just as cold and indifferent as all the others." She turned then, walked away. Just like he'd intended.

But it didn't feel anywhere near as good as he'd hoped. Sandro watched her disappear between two rows of oak barrels. His heart pounded hard. His lungs couldn't take in enough oxygen. Coldness slammed in from all directions, chilling him on the inside, battering him from the outside.

And he couldn't take it. Couldn't just stand there and let her slip into the shadows, not the woman who belonged in the sunshine. He couldn't let her hurt like that. Never in his life had success left such an obscene taste in his mouth.

He went after her, found her just around the corner. She stood next to one of the huge casks of wine with her back to him, arms hugged around her middle.

Leave her alone, the voice of preservation whispered, but Sandro could no more turn his back on her than he could take back the heartless words he'd told to crush the intimacy growing between them. Words be hadn't meant. Lies. He'd only wanted to put some distance between them, dampen the attraction that threatened to burn out of control.

Three long strides eliminated the distance between them. No power on earth could have stopped him from doing what he did next, from putting a hand to her shoulder, turning her to face him. With his index finger, he gently brushed at the moisture beneath her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"Impossible," he said. "I don't want to hurt you."

"You mean you don't want to hurt the ambassador's daughter."

The jab dug deep. "You're not the ambassador's daughter to me, Miranda. You're a beautiful, spirited woman." He hesitated, replaced lies with truth. "You're Astrid."

She said nothing at first, just looked at him. Through him. Her eyes were dry now, overly bright, even in the darkness. The sole candle revealed the color gone from her cheeks, replaced by an unnatural paleness.

"When I was growing up," she said, her voice oddly remote, "we had a live-in housekeeper named Luciana. She was this wonderful Brazilian woman with two daughters, one a year older than me, one a year younger, and in the evenings, she'd play Brazilian folk music in the little house out back and teach her girls to dance. One night she caught me looking in the window and invited me inside. I never even hesitated, even though my parents were hosting a garden party I was supposed to be attending. I went inside Luciana's small house, and there in her barely furnished den she taught me to dance."

Sandro tensed. His hand remained against the side of her face, but his fingers had drifted back into her soft brown hair. He knew he should sever the contact. But couldn't.

Didn't want to.

"Did your parents find you?" he asked.

"No," she said with a tight smile. "A reporter did. Mitsy Maynor. She'd slipped free of the party and was wandering the grounds, looking for something more exciting. She hit pay dirt when she found me. The next morning, we were eating breakfast when my mother opened the paper to read the write-up on her party, only to see a picture of me dancing with the hired help."

He smiled at the image. "Ouch."

"I used to lie in bed at night and wish I was one of Luciana's daughters," she admitted, revealing just how deep her desire for freedom, anonymity, ran. "That I could grow up without a camera in my face, without people cataloguing and analyzing every move I made. Every experiment. Every mistake."

The recrimination hit with unerring accuracy. "Without jackasses like me thinking they know you, when they don't," he finished for her.

She pulled his hand from her face. "I just want to live a normal life," she said simply. "Is that really so very wrong?"

The longing in her eyes, her voice, twisted him up inside. "No," he said. "Just dangerous."

In more ways than she realized.

"But that's just it," she said, angling her chin. The color rushed back to her cheeks, the life to her eyes.
"Life
is dangerous, not just for me, but for everyone. And that's all I really wanted. To be like everyone else. To slip into a crowd and not be mobbed. To dance in the street and not be splattered across the front of every tabloid. To embrace my friends without speculation as to my sexual orientation."

Sandro braced himself, tried to hold himself back, but felt himself going over the edge anyway. "There are some things more important than dancing in the street,
bella."

She looked up and met his eyes. "Like what?"

He might live to be an old man like his grandfather, or maybe just another year, another day. A man in his line of work never fully knew. He did his job as best as he could, taking every precaution imaginable, and then some. Mistakes were unacceptable, because mistakes got people killed.

Miranda was a mistake. He knew that. He accepted that. But for the first time in five long years, he couldn't find the right countermaneuver. He felt himself move, felt himself draw her close. Felt the heat shoot through him. Felt himself stiffen.

Felt the long freefall begin.

"Like dancing in a wine cellar," he murmured against the clean smell of her hair.

She didn't move against him like he wanted, didn't curl her arms around his waist. "Sandro—"

"There's no tabloid photographers waiting in the shadows," he whispered. "Only me."

"There's no music."

That, he thought grimly, was a bald-faced lie.

He pulled back far enough to see her face. "Not all music comes from radios and compact discs,
bella.
Listen," he instructed, pausing to let the purr of the wind and the whisper of the candles prove his point. "Don't you hear it?"

Her eyes took on a slow glow. "Drums?"

He took her hand and drew it to his chest, pressed her palm to the soft cotton of his shirt, felt the heat clear down to his bones. "The next best thing."

A smile of pure sunshine touched her lips and slayed the last of his common sense. "Staccato," she whispered. "Just like mine."

The words seeped through him like a benediction. He could do nothing but draw her against his body, curling one arm around her lower back, the other around her shoulders. She didn't pull away as he'd dreaded but half expected, didn't stiffen. She went liquid in his embrace, sinuous, wrapping her arms around his body much as he'd done hers. They began to sway then, moving in unison with the rhythm of the night.

Sandro closed his eyes, savoring the way she felt in his arms. Like holding sunshine, he thought ridiculously, heat and radiance, beauty. The rays warmed the chill of the shadows, brought light where he'd become accustomed to darkness. She was so strong and brave and courageous, it surprised him to feel how slender she was, drove home how vulnerable she really was.

The need to keep her safe tangled with other needs, needs that had nothing to do with safety, and everything to do with desire. He wanted to taste her lips again. To feel her taste him back. He wanted to lose himself in her innocence, her spark, to intoxicate her senses with the desire pounding through him.

He wanted to lay her down between the rows of resting wine, strip away the barriers between them, make her his.

Lead us not into temptation.

The prayer from his childhood echoed relentlessly through him, but he couldn't bring himself to pull away. Instead he savored the feel of her in his arms, the way she rested her head against his chest. Something so wrong shouldn't feel so right. He told himself to step back, even as his hands began sliding, urging her closer. They molded together perfectly, making it impossible for her not to realize how badly he wanted her.

Still, she didn't pull away. She inhaled deeply, tightened her hold on him. He chanced a glance down at her face, saw her eyes closed, a contented smile curving her lips.

And his heart damn near stopped.

With brutal detail he remembered their moments by the reflecting pond, how beautiful she'd looked standing there in the puddle of sunshine, with the crumbling stone turret behind her, the swans gliding across the water. He remembered the enchantment on her face, the sense of adventure, the intimacy he'd skillfully destroyed when she'd tried to take his picture.

He'd wanted to crush her in his arms, not crush her.

But there could be no pictures, just as there could be no intimacy. There could be nothing real and tangible stemming from their time together. It was a mistake in the first place, a mistake they would both have to forget.

Pictures, the intimacy his body hungered for, would make that impossible. They could have only these moments in the shadows, memories that would fade without leaving permanent scars.

Instinctively, he knew she already bore too many of those.

Outside, the wind whispered louder, sending a branch strumming against the side of the wine cellar. A few splatters against the roof indicated a nearby storm. She stilled then, looked up at him. The little candle had almost burned itself out, but its valiant flicker provided enough light to see desire glowing in the green of her eyes.

It was like standing before an executioner with no hope of a pardon in sight.

Deliver us from evil,
he thought desperately, but realized the prayer couldn't help him. The need to put his mouth to hers was dangerous, but it wasn't evil. The desire to taste her, drink her in, was purity in its most unabashed form.

The moment stretched to the breaking point. Pull away, Sandro told himself, but could no more let go than he could rip his heart from his chest. He slid a hand over her shoulders to tangle in her hair, then did the only thing he could.

* * *

Miranda put a hand to Sandro's chest and stopped him before his mouth could touch hers. The fever in his midnight eyes burned through her, but she couldn't indulge it. Not until she knew for sure.

"Who, Sandro? Who do you want to kiss?"

Tangled in her hair, his fingers tensed. And a languorous smile curved his lips. "The woman who's doing her best to drive me insane."

"But who am I?" she persisted, and saw the moment he realized what she asked.

"You're you," he whispered. "Not a Carrington, not the ambassador's daughter, but a beautiful woman who needs no name."

That was all it took. She melted there in his arms, sliding her hand from his chest to curve around his neck and urge him to her.

He needed no urging. On a groan his mouth found hers. Whereas in the alley she'd tried to shut him out, this time she opened for him, inviting him in, hungering to taste the same passion she'd tasted the day before. This kiss was different, though. Deeper. Almost … seeking. His mouth moved against hers as though searching for something lost. Something precious. Miranda felt his need deep in her bones, and responded instinctively. There was a tarnished nobility to this man of the shadows, a thread of regret beneath the swagger and hard muscle. She didn't know why he unsettled her so, only knew she wanted to bring him light. Help him find what was missing.