‘You’d like me to persuade you, wouldn’t you? It will be a pleasure for us both. A pleasure we’ve denied too long.’ His mouth, hot and sensual, moved up her neck, kisses becoming tiny, erotic nips that tightened her skin and puckered her nipples. Her hands slid across the planes of his chest, raking slick skin and coarse hair.
Then his hand slid round her hip, delving unerringly in one quick, sure motion to her feminine core. His fingers pressed hard against the fabric of her bikini bottom, making a pulse thud hard and quick between her legs.
Her breath snagged again and a wisp of sanity invaded her clouded mind. It would be so easy to give in. But something about the knowing ease of his action evoked a memory: Andreas, with his practised seduction technique that she’d been too na?ve to recognise. Andreas, who’d used her for his own ends.
Damaso’s mouth dipped from her ear to the sensitive point at the corner of her jaw, sending every nerve into tingling ecstasy. Marisa felt him smile knowingly against her skin.
He knew precisely how to seduce her.
One desperate shove and a backward step and she was free, her chest heaving, her legs wobbling as if she’d run for her life. Shock hit her that she’d actually broken away. Her body screamed with loss now he wasn’t touching her.
Marisa watched unguarded emotion flit across Damaso’s features: shock, anger and desire. Determination.
Her heart sank. If he touched her again, she’d be lost; even knowing his every move was carefully orchestrated to make her putty in his hands.
It wasn’t his seduction she fought but herself. Her face flamed.
He moved towards her and she shrank away.
Instantly he stopped.
In the silence all she heard was the thunder of blood in her ears and his ragged breathing.
‘Don’t.’ Her voice was choked and thick. She swallowed hard. Her gaze dipped to the reddened streaks on his heaving chest. Her nails had scored him.
Marisa’s scalp tightened as she saw that reminder of her unbridled response. It was one thing to give in to lust when they’d come together as equals. It was another to let herself be coaxed by a man ruthlessly assessing her weakness to achieve his own agenda.
‘Please.’ She gasped as the word slipped out, but her pride was already in tatters. Her vision glazed and she wanted to hide her face, ashamed at how easily she’d responded.
Forcing her eyes up, she met his slitted gaze. Marisa drew a shuddering breath. ‘If you have any respect for me at all, if you want any possibility of a future together, don’t ever do that again. Not unless you mean it.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘DAMASO! IT’S BEEN an age.’ The once familiar, sultry voice made him turn. It had been months since Adriana had shared his bed but, looking into her exquisite, model-perfect face, it felt like far longer.
Once he’d been eager to accept the invitation in her sherry-gold eyes. Now he looked and felt nothing, not even an echo of past satisfaction.
She was stunning, from her glossy fall of black hair to her ripe curves poured into a flame-coloured dress that looked like liquid fire in the mood lighting. Even the memory of her enthusiasm for pleasing him did nothing to ignite his interest.
‘Adriana.’ He inclined his head. ‘How are you?’
‘All the better for seeing you.’ Her smile was a siren’s, her hand on his jacket proprietorial.
Annoyance tracked a finger down his spine and he shifted, watching her frown as her hand dropped.
‘You’re not happy to see me?’ Her lips were a seductive scarlet pout.
‘It’s always a pleasure.’ Or it had been, until she’d started hinting about staying in his city penthouse and asking about his movements. Possessive women were guaranteed to dampen his libido.
‘But not enough to call me.’ Damaso opened his mouth to terminate the encounter but she spoke again, pressing close. ‘Forgive me, Damaso. I didn’t mean that.’
‘There’s nothing to forgive.’ Yet he didn’t respond to the blatant offer in her gaze or the way her body melted against his. He stood straighter. She was beautiful, but...
‘I see you have a new friend.’ Her voice dipped on the word. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me?’
He turned to see Marisa threading her way through the throng. Her gold hair was piled elegantly high, adding inches to her small frame. Or maybe it was the way she held herself. The frothy skirt of her scant, sapphire-blue dress swung jauntily above her knees as she walked, drawing covetous glances.
She looked right at home among Brazil’s elite as they celebrated. Marisa was chic, gorgeous and effervescent, thriving on the attention of so many besotted men.
She stopped to exchange a laughing comment with a debonair man in exquisitely tailored formal clothes. A man who obviously cared about looking good at Fashion Week’s premier event. He might have been a model with that chiselled jaw shadowed with designer stubble.
The stranger reached out and touched Marisa lightly on the hand.
Damaso felt heat ignite deep inside, sparks shooting through his bloodstream. His fingers tightened on his glass as Marisa smiled at the man now blocking her path.
‘Although it seems she’s otherwise occupied.’ Adriana’s voice filtered through the fog of pulsing sound in his ears. ‘Your princess appears to know a lot of people.’
Across the room she drew yet another slavering admirer into the conversation. She positively sparkled at the epicentre of male attention.
Damaso slammed his glass onto a nearby table, his fingers flexing.
Marisa was his. She mightn’t admit it yet but she soon would. He could have forced her to do so just days ago on the island. But that haunted look, her desperate dignity when she’d pleaded to be left alone, had stopped him.
Crazy, when he knew she wanted him.
Now the sight of another man, other men, fawning over her made him want to smash his fist into one of them. All because of a woman!
‘Damaso? Are you okay?’ Adriana touched his hand. ‘You’re burning up! Are you unwell?’
He wrenched his gaze away to focus on Adriana. She looked worried. Perhaps because it was the first time she or anyone had seen him lose his cool.
He’d brought Marisa to the city to keep her occupied while he worked through what had happened that day on the beach. The feelings Marisa provoked scared Damaso as nothing had since he’d been fifteen and he’d taken on the pair of knife-wielding thugs who’d ruled his squalid neighbourhood.
No other woman got to him the way she did.
His jaw tensed and seconds later he was looming over Marisa’s admirers. Conversation faltered and they melted away.
‘Damaso.’ The husky way Marisa said his name, the way her eyes darkened as she looked up at him, made him want to hoist her over his shoulder and forget any pretensions at being civilised. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’
‘Are you? You seemed to be enjoying yourself.’ His jaw clenched.
She shrugged, her smile dying as she read his face. What did she see there? Anger? Possessiveness?
Marisa turned away but he wrapped his fingers around her chin, tipping it so he could read her expression. Long lashes veiled her eyes but her lips trembled. The animation bled from her face and he read weariness there, the hint of shadows beneath her make-up.
‘Marisa?’ Something swooped in his chest. ‘What’s wrong? I thought you were enjoying yourself.’
If anything was guaranteed to satisfy the party-girl princess, it was this, one of S?o Paolo’s most chic, most exclusive parties. The guest list was a who’s who of beautiful people and the music was an enticing pulse-beat of good times.