Damaso’s hand tightened around Marisa’s.
He wasn’t the sort to step back from what he wanted. He’d never have survived the slums if he hadn’t learned early to take life by the throat and hang on tight.
But there was more than one way to get what he wanted. He was fast learning Marisa wasn’t the two-dimensional party girl the world thought she was. He’d seen hints of it from the first. Her revelations about her uncle and her distress when Damaso had snapped that she should get a job had shattered that image.
‘Let me go, Damaso. You’re hurting me.’
Yet she stood stock still, too proud to fight his hold. Unexpectedly, his chest squeezed at her defiant posture. Holding her as he did, he felt her tremble.
‘Am I?’ He slid his fingers down to wrap around hers and lifted her hand, inhaling the tang of her skin’s scent. Slowly he lowered his head and pressed his lips to the inside of her wrist. Instantly her pulse flickered hard and fast. He kissed her again and heard her swift intake of breath.
‘Damaso. Let go of me.’ Her voice had a distinct wobble. It reminded him of her broken cry of ecstasy the first time she’d climaxed beneath him. Heat saturated his skin as his libido shifted gear, rousing in an instant.
‘What if I don’t want to?’ Her fingers twitched in his hold as he kissed her again.
Damaso didn’t look up. Instead he held her hand and laved the centre of her palm, feeling her tiny shudder of reaction and its echo in the tightening of his groin.
It was a warning that the seducer could also be the seduced. But Damaso had no doubt who was in control. He’d keep Marisa here by whatever means worked—by force, if necessary—but far better to convince her she wanted to remain exactly where she was.
‘I want you to stay.’
‘Really?’
He tugged her hand and she stumbled a half-step closer. Damaso took advantage of her momentum to wrap his other arm around her and draw her close. Slowly, with a thoroughness designed to break the strongest will, he pressed his lips to her wrist again, then higher, planting firm kisses along Marisa’s forearm. When he got to her elbow she jerked in his hold, her breath a soft gasp.
Instantly the heat drenching his skin stabbed deep into his belly, igniting a fire that spread to his groin.
He wanted her.
Just like that, he wanted her again. Not only the baby—but Marisa, lithe and sexy, in his bed.
From her elbow he took his time tracing a path up her soft flesh till he reached her bare shoulder. He felt her choppy breathing flutter over his throat, the gentle softening of her body in his hold, and triumph filled him.
She’d stay, and on his terms.
Damaso nuzzled the pulse point at the base of her neck and she arched back, giving him unfettered access.
His groin was rock-hard as he gathered her in and kissed his way up her neck to the corner of her mouth.
Desperate hunger rose. Despite the carnal intimacies they’d shared, he’d yet to taste her lips. She’d always distracted him with her body, her caresses. He intended to remedy that.
He turned his head to take her mouth but she wrenched away. Taken by surprise, he wasn’t quick enough to catch her back. She broke free and stood, breathing heavily, one palm pressed to her chest as if fearing her heart might catapult free.
Damaso was about to reach for her when his vision cleared and he read her expression: confusion, desire and fear, all etched starkly on features drawn too tight.
An iron fist crushed his chest, forcing the air from his lungs.
She looked so weary. Yet she drew herself up, as if to repel a hostile takeover. Her chin angled proudly in that familiar tilt, but her face was flushed, and one hand twisted the edge of her top.
Damaso could seduce her. He’d felt her tremble on the brink of surrender. But at what cost?
For the first time in his life, Damaso pulled back from the edge of victory. Not because he didn’t want her but because Marisa wasn’t ready.
He breathed deep, stunned at the decision he’d made without thinking—putting her needs before his.
Somehow he managed a smile. He watched her eyes widen.
‘I have a proposal, Marisa.’
Instantly she stiffened.
‘Stay here while we get to know each other. Relax and recuperate till the morning sickness passes. Take the time to rest and don’t worry about your uncle. He can’t reach you here.’ He swept an arm towards the windows. ‘Swim, eat, sleep and take all the time you need. Then later we’ll talk. In the meantime treat this as a private resort.’
‘Your private resort.’
He nodded, barely stifling impatience. ‘I’ll be here. It’s my home.’ He neglected to mention his apartment in the city and the other residences scattered around the globe. He had no intention of leaving Marisa. How could he seduce her into staying permanently if he wasn’t here?
Eyes bright as lasers sized him up and he had the unexpected sensation Marisa knew exactly what he intended. His hands clenched as she surveyed him. Patience wasn’t his strong suit.
Finally, she spoke. ‘I have one condition. There’ll be no coercion.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘As your guest, I expect you to respect my privacy. When I want to leave, you won’t try to prevent me. I’m here of my own free will. I refuse to have my movements curtailed.’
Damaso inclined his head, wondering how long it would take to convince her it wasn’t privacy she craved.
CHAPTER SIX
A SHADOW BLOTTED the sun and Marisa opened her eyes, squinting up from the sun lounger.
‘You’ll burn if you stay there any longer.’ Damaso’s voice turned the warning into a seductive samba of delicious sound. That deep, liquid, ultra-masculine voice, the lilt of his accent, sent her nerves into overdrive.
Immediately her drowsy comfort vanished as her heart took up a wild percussion rhythm. Even after weeks on his island she wasn’t immune to the sheer sensual appeal of the man. And she’d tried. How she’d tried!
Her mouth dried as she saw he’d stripped off his shirt, his skin dark-gold in the afternoon sun. The board shorts he wore rode low over his hips, drawing the eye to the sculpted perfection of taut muscle.
A whorl of sensation twisted between her legs, making her shift uneasily.
‘I put sunscreen on just a while ago.’ Her voice sounded reedy, and no wonder. She’d never met a man as physically compelling as Damaso. Despite her efforts to blot their night together from her memory, she remembered exactly how it had felt, pressed up against that glorious body, embraced by those powerful arms.
She’d never thought she’d regret the end of her morning sickness, but after mere weeks it had waned and without its distraction Marisa found herself conscious of Damaso at a deep physical level that disturbed her.
‘Here.’ Damaso held up a tube of sunscreen, squirting some onto his palm. ‘Let me protect you.’
‘No!’ Why did his words make her think of another sort of protection altogether? One that had already failed?
Heat scored Marisa’s cheeks as she reached out and took the tube from him. ‘Thanks, but I’ll do it myself.’ She did not need Damaso’s hands on her.
Their time on his island had only escalated her awareness of him. He hadn’t touched her, but the intensity in his dark eyes whenever they rested on her was proof he hadn’t forgotten their night together either. And, despite the way her thoughts chased round in her head as she tried to plot a future for herself and her baby, Marisa found herself too drawn to this almost-stranger.