Chantelle Shaw - Ruthless Revenge - Passionate Possession - A Virgin for Vasquez / A Marriage Fit for a Sinner / Mistress of His Revenge

‘That wasn’t the outfit we agreed on.’ His voice was a low, driven snarl and she tilted her chin at a mutinous angle.

‘Checked shirt...tick. Denim...tick. Stupid cowboy hat...tick. Trainers...tick...’

‘You know what I mean,’ Javier gritted, unable to take his eyes off her.

‘Do I?’ She hadn’t realised how chilly it was and she hugged herself.

‘You’re cold,’ he said gruffly, removing his jacket and settling it around her shoulders. For a second, she just wanted to close her eyes and breathe in the scent from it.

And this was what it was all about. This hunger that had never gone away, but which had to go away, because if it didn’t it would eat away at her for ever. And there was only one way of it just going away and leaving her alone.

‘Tell me,’ she pressed huskily. ‘Why are you so furious? It wasn’t fair of you to send all those poor people packing. They were only doing their job.’

‘That’s not the way I see it,’ Javier growled. The jacket, way too big, drowned her and it was really weird the way that just made her look even sexier. He shifted in an attempt to ease the discomfort of his erection. Was she wearing a bra? He didn’t think so and that made him angry all over again.

‘How do you see it?’

‘The brief was for you to look wholesome!’ He raked his fingers through his hair and shook his head. This was the first time he had ventured to her family home but he hadn’t noticed a single brick. His entire focus was on her. She consumed him. ‘The attractive girl next door! Not a sex siren out to snag a man! How the hell is that supposed to sell the company?’

‘I thought that sex sold everything?’

‘Is that why you did it? Was that your concept of positive input? Dressing up in next to nothing and draping yourself over that lorry like a hooker posing in a motorbike shot?’

‘How dare you?’ But she flushed and cringed and knew that there was some justification for that horrible slur. She barely stopped to think that in summer there were many, many girls her age who went out dressed like this and thought nothing of it. She just knew that it wasn’t her.

‘The entire crew,’ he delineated coldly, ‘must have had a field day ogling you. Or maybe that was what you had in mind. Is that it? Has living in London kick-started an urge to push the limits? Have you realised how much tamer your life up here was?’

‘I didn’t do this so that any of the crew could ogle me.’ She fought to maintain his cool, disapproving stare and took a deep breath. ‘I did this so that...’ Her voice faltered. Her hands were clammy and she licked her lips as the tension stretched and stretched between them.

‘So that...?’ Javier prompted softly.

‘So that you could ogle me...’

CHAPTER SEVEN

THIS WAS WHAT he had been waiting for, the slow burn until the conflagration, because he knew that it would be a conflagration. She oozed sex appeal without even realising it. And she had come to him. He hadn’t been mistaken about those invisible signals his antennae had been picking up and he marvelled that he had ever doubted himself.

Of course, he would have to make it clear to her that this wasn’t some kind of romance, that whatever they did would be a purely physical animal act. They’d had their window for romance once and she’d put paid to that. Romance was definitely off the cards now.

He smiled slowly, his beautiful, sensuous mouth curving as he lazily ran his eyes over her flushed face, taking in everything from the slight tremor of her hands to the nervous tic in her neck, a beating pulse that was advertising what she wanted as loud and as clear as if it had been written in neon lettering over her head.

Him.

She wanted him.

The wheel had turned full circle, and having walked away from him, she was now walking back.

That tasted good and it would taste even better when he laid down his conditions.

‘Is that so?’ he breathed huskily, his erection threatening to hamper movement.

Sophie didn’t say anything in response to that. She read the satisfaction in his gleaming eyes and a primal lust that was so powerful that it easily swept aside any nagging doubt that she might be embarking on the wrong course of action.

He caught the lapels of his jacket and drew her a few inches towards him. ‘There were less complicated ways of getting my attention, Soph...’ he murmured. ‘A simple I want you would have done the trick.’

The fact that he made no attempt to kiss her or touch her acted as an unbearably powerful aphrodisiac. Her heart was beating so fast that it felt as though it was going to explode and she was melting everywhere. She licked her lips and Javier followed that tiny movement with such intense concentration that it made her blood heat up even further.

‘That would have been...too much,’ she breathed. ‘It was tough enough...’ She gestured down to her lack of outfit and Javier half-smiled, remembering how shy she had once been, despite the fact that she had the face and figure that could turn heads from a mile away.

‘Getting into your skimpy little get-up? Let’s go inside. It’s getting breezier out here.’ He kept his distance but the electricity crackled between them. He wasn’t touching her and he hardly dared because one touch and he would have to have her at once, fast and hard, up against a wall.

He didn’t want that. He wanted slow and leisurely. He wanted to explore every inch of the woman who had escaped him. Only then would he be able to walk away satisfied.

Walking towards the house, he really noticed the signs of disrepair which he had failed to see when he had arrived earlier. He paused and looked critically at the façade and Sophie followed the leisurely and critical inspection, marvelling at the damage that had been done over a handful of years.

She longed to reach out and touch him. She longed to link her fingers through his in the same careless gesture of ownership to which she had once been privy. She reminded herself that times had changed since then. This was something quite, quite different.

‘You’re right,’ Javier said drily, stepping back as she pushed open the front door. ‘The place is falling down.’

‘I know.’ Sophie looked around her, seeing it through his eyes. He was now used to the best that money could buy. The apartment loaned to her was pristine, like something from the centre pages of a house magazine. This house, on the other hand...

They were in a cavernous hall. Javier could see that this would have been an enormous and elegant country estate once upon a time but the paint was peeling, the once ornate ceiling was cracked and he was sure that further exploration would reveal a lot more problems.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said gravely and Sophie looked at him, startled.

‘What for?’

‘You told me that penury was harder for you than it ever had been for me and you were probably right. I knew no better and things could only go up. You knew better and the journey down must have been swift and painful. But...’ he tilted his head to one side and looked at her ‘...you coped.’

‘I didn’t have a choice, did I?’ She suddenly felt shy. Should they be heading up to the bedroom? What was the etiquette for two people who had decided that they are going to sleep together? Not in the ‘clutching one another while stumbling up the stairs’ kind of way, but in the manner of a business transaction. At least that was what it felt like—two people putting an end to their unfinished business.

They wanted each other but neither of them liked it.

‘Show me the rest of the place.’

‘Why?’ She was genuinely puzzled.

‘I used to wonder what it was like. You talked about your home a lot when we were...going out. At the time, it had sounded like a slice of paradise, especially compared to where I had grown up.’