And then he dropped his head toward hers. Too late, she realized what he was about. Fire exploded in her veins when his lips pressed to hers.
Shock reverberated through her system. It was too much, too soon. She was still processing what it meant to see him again, to be flooded with conflicting emotions. She didn’t want this, didn’t need it.
Couldn’t resist it for much longer.
Her hands went to his chest, whether to push him away or touch him she wasn’t quite sure. But then she marshaled what was left of her will, intending to shove with all her might. He upped the ante then, his tongue sliding along the seam of her lips, teasing her with remembered bliss.
Rebecca shoved with the last vestiges of her will, but not quite hard enough. His grip on her tightened.
And she caved. Much as she didn’t want to or intend to, her lips parted. She shuddered as his tongue stroked against hers. Rebecca didn’t want to respond, but she couldn’t quite stop herself.
For a moment she was flooded with memories—his mouth on hers, his naked skin beneath her fingers, their bodies moving together in perfect rhythm. Ecstasy unlike any she’d ever known. Happiness and love and a feeling of rightness.
One of her hands threaded into his hair. His fingers slid beneath her blouse, teased her nipple through the lace of her bra. It budded beneath his touch, sensitive and painful and neglected. It’d been so long since she’d been with a man.
She held on to his shoulders, all sense of time and place leaching away as she nearly lost herself in the hot need he called up. She very much feared that if he pressed her to the floor right now, ripped off her clothes and impaled her with his hard cock, she’d wrap her legs around him and hold on for the ride. Just to feel that perfect rightness once more, even if it was only an illusion.
But it was an illusion. She had to stop this, now—
He broke the kiss before she could. “You’re still sizzling, Rebecca,” he said, his breath hot against her moist lips. “And you are still willing to whore yourself for an advantage.”
Before she could think twice, her hand connected with his cheek, her palm stinging with the contact. But she hadn’t hurt him because he moved away, laughing. She thanked God for the fury coursing through her right now. Without it, the shame of having succumbed to his kiss would have eaten her alive.
“I guess we know where we stand,” she said, her breath razoring in and out. She would not hyperventilate, not now. Stupid to let down her guard like that, to feel any softness at all toward this man. “And now I’d like to go to the hotel and get some rest, if you’re finished trying to humiliate me.”
“Your room is upstairs.”
She gaped at him, shocked. “I’m staying here? In your villa? Is that wise?” she added on what she hoped was a cool note.
He was even cooler. “I cannot possibly refuse the paying guests simply to house an employee. You will stay here.”
Employee.
The word grated because it was true. She was an employee. His employee.
“Fine. But don’t you ever touch me again,” she growled.
His mouth twitched. “Are you sure about that? You were not so chilly a moment ago. Were you not remembering what it was like between us?”
Rebecca lifted her chin. No sense lying because he’d see right through her. “You’re a fine lover, Alejandro, but you aren’t the only man who knows his way around a woman’s body. Men like you are easy to find if a woman knows where to look.”
“And where would that be?” His look was half amused, half curious.
“I believe they like to hang out at resorts and fleece rich women out of their money.”
His brows drew down. “You are calling me a gigolo?”
“Keep it in mind if the hotel thing doesn’t work out.”
He threw back his head and laughed. Then he reached for the phone on his desk and touched a button.
“Señora Flores will show you to your room.” Rebecca was almost to the door when his voice stopped her. “And don’t worry, querida, I have no intention of ever again accepting what you offer each time you look at me.”
Rebecca’s spine snapped straight as humiliation rolled through her. “And what do you think I’m offering you? Sudden death? Because if you see anything else, you are a deluded man.”
“Don’t make me prove you wrong again,” he said with all the arrogance of a man who thought he was God’s gift.
She glared. “Try me when I’m no longer jet-lagged, Alejandro. I promise you the response will be much different.”
“Dios!” He let out a rough breath. “Go. Before I do something we both regret.”
Rebecca fled.
3
Alejandro returned to the villa late, having spent several hours at his sleek downtown office. He tossed his Hugo Boss jacket across a chair in the master suite, loosened his tie and tugged it from his collar. He started to pour a drink from the bar in his room, but changed his mind and pulled on a pair of swim trunks instead. Right now he needed the release heavy exercise could bring.
He hadn’t expected Rebecca Layton to get under his skin ever again. It was purely physical now, and yet it annoyed him nonetheless. He’d spent one month with her five years ago. One incredibly hot month that he couldn’t seem to forget no matter how he tried. He’d enjoyed her like none other. Enjoyed the way she looked at him, the way she smelled like wildflowers, and her funny way of saying things that meant something entirely different in American than they did in the British English he’d learned.
He’d cared for her. He’d planned to marry her in spite of what his father expected. No matter what he told her now, he hadn’t been promised to another at all. It was his brother who was to marry Caridad Mendoza, not him. Until Roberto died of an overdose in a filthy drug den overseas.
Still, Alejandro had no intention of taking his brother’s place in the arrangement. He’d spent years fighting in the ring, making himself into something. His future was bright and he would choose his own wife. Rebecca Layton, daughter of a successful American hotel magnate, was exactly the type of woman he needed to marry.
Until she betrayed him. An ex-bullfighter and fledgling entrepreneur wasn’t good enough for the pampered heiress, apparently. The dirt, sweat, and blood of the ring would never wash completely away for someone like her. She’d accepted him as her lover, sworn she loved him, and then tried to steal his future from under his nose.
Her betrayal cost him more than he could ever make her pay for. Taking Layton International away was only the beginning. He’d set it up carefully, made sure he would own her completely when it was done. It’d taken years of planning and months of careful execution, but the culmination was here. Rebecca would regret the day she’d crossed paths with him.
Alejandro pushed open the French doors and padded out to the pool. Lights flooded the water from below, illuminating the terra-cotta and turquoise tiles. He dove into the coolness, hoping it would drive the heat of kissing her from his memory.
Why had he succumbed to the urge? That one kiss brought every bittersweet memory flooding back, especially when she clung to him, her soft moans coiling at the base of his spine, poisoning him with the urge to strip her naked and take her right there on the floor of his office.