MELANIE MILBURNE - The Valquez Seduction

She shuffled over to where her clothes were folded in a neat pile on a coffee table next to one of the plush sofas. ‘I have to get moving. The girls will be waiting for me.’ She scooped up her clothes with her free hand, turning back to glance at him. ‘Do you mind if I use your bathroom to get changed?’

His eyes had that laughing glint in them again. ‘Be my guest.’

Daisy sniffed the air in the luxuriously appointed bathroom for any trace of sickness. To her very great relief it smelt of citrus with a hint of lemongrass and ginger. She unwrapped herself from the sheet and quickly donned her clothes, her fingers tracing over the lace of her bra and knickers as she thought of Luiz handling her intimates, even to pass them over to the laundry staff. Had he put her to bed? Had he carried her or had she walked/stumbled/crawled on her own? Had he tucked her in? A shiver passed over her flesh at the thought of his hands on her naked body. Damn it. Why couldn’t she remember the most exciting moment of her life? If he hadn’t acted inappropriately given the way he said she had, then why not? Wasn’t he supposed to be a bad boy or something?

Or did he have some scruples after all?

When Daisy came out of the bathroom he was standing with his back to her, looking down at the Vegas strip in all its crazy madness. ‘Are you decent?’ he asked.

‘Hardy-ha-ha.’

He grinned as he turned around to face her. ‘Don’t you like your men with a sense of humour?’

Her men? What a laugh. If only he knew the only men in her life were her father, her bodyguard and Robert, the elderly gardener at Wyndham Heath.

Daisy was afraid she was starting to like Luiz Valquez a little too much. His uncharacteristic chivalry was potently attractive. If what he had said was true about her having been in danger of being taken advantage of by the Ealing guy, she owed him a huge debt of gratitude, not censure. Anything could have happened to her last night but he had stepped in and made sure she was safe, possibly putting himself at risk in the process. She’d had him pegged as a hard partying bad boy and yet he had acted with honour and propriety.

Had the world got it wrong about him? Or did he cash in on his racy reputation because it fitted the image of the sporting superstar? Who was he behind that mask of sophisticated playboy? If she had offered herself to him so shamelessly and he’d refused, then he must surely have far more to him than met the eye.

She held her purse in front of her stomach with both hands, suddenly feeling terribly gauche…well, even more so than usual. ‘About last night…’ she began.

‘Don’t mention it. I won’t.’ Another glinting look. ‘It can be our little secret.’

She gnawed her lip as she thought of all the thousands of followers he would have on Twitter or other social media. He could make an absolute fool of her with a couple of hash tags. What if he’d taken pictures of her without her knowing? Her stomach dropped. The stripper routine. Oh, God. What if he’d recorded it? Uploaded it? Sent it out to cyberspace. What if he blackmailed her? What if—?

He reached into his trouser pocket and handed her his phone. ‘You can check it if you like.’

Daisy stared at his phone as if it were a grenade with the pin pulled out. ‘I really don’t think that’s—’

‘Here, I’ll show you.’ He came and stood shoulder to shoulder with her, accessing the camera roll on his phone. ‘See?’

She peered at the images he was scrolling through, conscious of the way his light lemony and citrus cologne sharpened the air. She could feel the slightest brush of his hair-roughened arm against her smoother one. Her traitorous mind began assembling images of them in bed together, limbs entangled, lips locked, tongues mating. ‘Good gracious, is that a dress that girl is almost wearing?’

He gave one of his deep rumbly chuckles that sent her senses spinning all over again. ‘For a simple scrap of fabric it was damn hard to get off.’

Daisy gave him a wry glance. ‘What? She didn’t offer to help you?’

‘Can’t remember.’ He carried on thumbing through another few photos.

‘How long ago was it—erm, she?’

‘Ages ago.’ He flashed her a sudden grin. ‘A couple of weeks at least.’

Daisy rolled her eyes and then pointed to a picture on the photo stream of a slightly older woman standing next to Luiz at what looked like a cocktail party. ‘Who’s that?’

‘My mother, Eloise.’

Something about the way he said his mother’s name alerted her to an undercurrent of tension. ‘She looks very beautiful. Very glamorous. Like a movie star.’

His lips moved in the semblance of a smile. ‘Yes, she likes the spotlight, that’s for sure.’

‘You’re not close?’

He looked at her briefly, his eyes meshing with hers in a moment of silence. There was a vacancy in the back of his gaze, as if he was looking in the past for something but was having trouble finding it. ‘We were once, or so I thought.’

‘When was that?’

He clicked off the screen of his phone and slipped it back into his pocket in a subject closed manner. ‘What do you normally eat for breakfast?’

‘ Well …ideally, I would eat an egg white omelette and drink a herbal tea.’

His brow lifted. ‘Ideally?’

She gave him a self-deprecating look. ‘I’m rubbish at sticking to diets. I last about three days and then I cave in and eat everything that isn’t nailed down.’

‘How does bacon and eggs, pancakes, maple syrup and a side of hash browns sound?’

Daisy swayed on her feet as if about to go into a swoon. ‘Like heaven. I’m so hungry I could eat a horse and chase the rider.’

He stood looking down at her with a gleaming look in his dark as pitch eyes. ‘I’ve heard there are some riders out there who like to do all the chasing.’

Daisy held his look with an aplomb she had no idea she possessed. Who knew flirting could be so much fun? ‘Then perhaps those riders should make sure they never get caught.’

He picked up a lock of her hair and twirled it a couple of times around his tanned finger. She felt the gentle tug as one by one the roots of her hair lifted off her scalp. His eyes slipped to her mouth, lingered there as if he was weighing up whether to kiss her or not.

Do it. Do it. Do it , a voice chanted in her head.

His head came down in a slow motion action, blocking out the light shining in from the window. He stopped a mere millimetre away from her mouth, close enough for their breaths to mingle. His smelt of toothpaste. God alone knew what hers smelt like after a night on the tiles. Bathroom ones included. Ack!

Daisy put a fingertip against his lips, her voice coming out as little more than a husky whisper. ‘Wait.’

He nibbled her fingertip with his lips, making her legs unlock at the knees. ‘What for?’

‘I haven’t even told you my name.’

He turned her hand over and kissed a tickling pathway from her wrist to her elbow. ‘So, tell me.’

She shivered as his lips came back down to the sensitive skin on the underside of her wrist. ‘Daisy…Daisy Wyndham.’

He held her wrist to his mouth as his eyes meshed with hers. ‘Nice.’

Daisy had trouble breathing. His eyes were so dark she felt as if she were drowning in their bottomless depths. His stubble-surrounded mouth against her skin was making her belly do somersaults worthy of a Cirque du Soleil performance. She even heard the rasp of his skin as he moved his mouth to the heel of her hand as his tongue made one flicking lick against the ridge of flesh. A flashpoint of heat triggered a tumult of sensation in her core. She hadn’t even realised that part of her hand had an erogenous zone.