The Spaniard's Defiant Virgin

“I’ve waited a long time for this.” His touch was possessive, gentle, as if she were a wild horse to be tamed to his command. “A lifetime.”

“For what?” she managed.

“For you.”

“For me?” She almost wished that he would hit her. She would have known how to deal with that. Instead, she was trembling beneath his touch. He didn’t even need brute force. Just the brush of his fingers was enough to make her agree to anything he asked, and he was only touching her cheek. What would happen if he stroked her breast, kissed her mouth, pulled her down beneath him on the bed…?

She wrenched her face away. “Why did you kidnap me? What are you going to do to me?”

“You’re the spoils of war, Tamsin.” He leaned forward to whisper in her ear, “And I want to find out if revenge tastes sweet…”

As he spoke, his lips brushed against the sensitive flesh of her ear. His breath was hot against her neck, causing prickles to run the length of her body.

“Please,” she whispered, hardly knowing what she was asking for. Her body felt so strange. Tense and tingly, cold and hot.

He ran his hand down her cheek, past the sensitive flesh of her ear, down her neck. He stroked her hair as he gently pulled back her head, exposing her vulnerable throat, her aching mouth. Involuntarily, she licked her lips. For a suspended instant, his eyes followed the movement of her tongue.

Then his mouth was on hers.

His kiss was hungry, demanding. His tongue stroked inside her mouth, intertwining with hers, teasing her. Longing set her whole body aflame and she wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders. She ran her hands through his dark hair as he deepened the kiss.

“The pictures didn’t do you justice,” he whispered against her cheek when he drew away. “Men start wars over women like you…”

The hair of his arms brushed against the bare skin of her torso and she looked down with a gasp. The sheet had fallen from her hands and was now crumpled around her waist. His eyes roved over her breasts, her belly, the aroused nipples pushing through the translucent white lace of her bra.

Before she could pull up the sheet, his hands were on her naked skin, grasping her waist as he pulled her roughly against his body.

She didn’t fight him. She couldn’t. He kissed her, his large hands massaging the bare warmth of her back, and all she could think was that she’d never been kissed like this before. She was lost—lost in him—and the whole world seemed to spin around her as if they were at the center of a whirlwind.

Without thinking, she reached beneath his shirt to imitate the way he touched her, caressing his flat belly, moving her fingertips up his muscular chest. A groan escaped him as he touched her bra clasp.

A hard knock sounded at the door.

He wrenched away. Breathing hard, the two of them stared at each other. He looked dazed, she thought, but not nearly so dazed as she felt.

His expression suddenly changed.

“You’re good,” he said, and his voice was an accusation.

She was good? As if she were the one who’d been seducing him?

He crossed to the door. A young woman waited outside with her arms full. “The clothes for the se?orita, Patrоn,” she said in Spanish, and left.

Turning back to Tamsin, he tossed a black dress and high-heeled shoes on the bed. “Here. Maria took off your kaftan so you’d be comfortable in bed.” His voice was almost a sneer. “These clothes should suit you.”

“Y-you’re leaving?” she stammered. Her defiance had been burned away in his searing kiss. She could hardly imagine standing, let alone walking, with her knees so weak.

He stared at her for a moment, his face angry and brooding. Then, without answer, he turned back towards the door.

“Wait,” she said in a low voice. The day had been a roller coaster of emotion and exhaustion. Tears filled her eyes, threatening to spill over her lashes. “Is that all you have to say to me? You’ve dragged me from my wedding, kidnapped me across the Mediterranean, kissed me, and now you’re going to leave without a single word of explanation?”

His dark eyes narrowed. Dislike emanated from his body like waves of heat in the desert.

“Very well. I will give you that much,” he said. “What did you ask? My name? Marcos Ramirez. What do I want with you? It’s simple, Miss Winter. I intend to destroy your fiancе and your family, and you’re going to help me do it.”

CHAPTER TWO

MAYBE he should have let Reyes kidnap the girl after all.

Marcos glanced at the girl sitting next to him in the Rolls-Royce as the chauffeur drove them three miles inland from the coast.

Silent at last. It was an improvement from the previous few hours, when she’d demanded for him to let her go so she could rush back and marry Aziz al-Maghrib. When her demands hadn’t worked, she’d tried insults and threats. Thinking about it now almost made him laugh. He was not one of her suitors. Her moods held no sway over him.

Or did they? An image of their kiss flooded his mind. He hadn’t meant to kiss her in the cabin of his yacht, but she’d just looked so damned desirable. And the kiss itself…

He pushed the disturbing memory from his mind. The woman was an experienced coquette. According to the tabloids, she’d slept with every male celebrity who set foot in the London boroughs; of course she knew how to kiss. It changed nothing. If anything, it only lowered his opinion of her. Her pretense of bewildered innocence, the way she’d blushed after pretending to drop the sheet—was there anything the woman wouldn’t do in order to return to Morocco and get her claws into the al-Maghrib fortune?

He’d actually told her the truth about his plan to destroy her family, but she hadn’t asked a word about it. Apparently, her whole family could starve, so long as she herself was slathered with diamonds and rubies as the honored wife of the Sheikh’s nephew.

Shallow-hearted and greedy, he thought contemptuously. As venal as her bridegroom, and probably as brainless as her half-brother into the bargain.

A pity she was also the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

Her beauty wasn’t just in her porcelain skin, her pink lips or her wide blue eyes. It was more than that. Her charm was in the way she moved, like a flamenco dancer. It was in the way her long red hair swayed gracefully against her pale shoulders. It was in the sound of her voice, deep and melodic. It was in her slender, reed-like waist, long legs and full, high breasts. Put all of that together, and he could see why she’d been called the most desirable woman in Britain. A lesser man would instantly be a slave to her charm.

It would serve her right to seduce her, he thought suddenly, glancing at her. She was pressed against the opposite side of his car, glaring at the passing Spanish countryside. How he would love to break her will. To make her sigh and scream with pleasure. To overwhelm her rudeness and insults with an onslaught of desire. His whole body tightened as he thought of it. It would serve the spoiled girl right…

Damn it to hell. He clenched his jaw, realizing that his attraction to her was in danger of overriding his reason. Obviously he was just as susceptible to her charm as any other man. It infuriated him. He had no doubt that he could resist her, but that he’d even thought of taking her to bed proved how dangerous she was.

As the car pulled to the castle’s front steps, his gaze unwillingly followed the curves of her body in the low-cut black dress. The Andalusian summer night was sultry and fragrant with jasmine as, with a dismissive motion to the chauffeur, Marcos walked around to her door.

She continued to ignore him. Without a word, he grabbed her arm and pulled her from the car. He dragged her up the wide steps, followed by Reyes, Maria and the others from the van.

She stumbled on the top step, looking up at the crenellated battlements of the fourteenth-century castle. “This is your home?”

“Yes,” he said shortly. “And your home for the next few weeks.”

Her face shut down in that rebellious expression he knew so well. “I won’t stay here. You can’t make me.”

In spite of everything, he could feel himself starting to lose his patience. Between her beauty and her insolence, she seemed to know just how to get under his skin. “You’re here as long as I want you.”

She yanked away from him, folding her arms over her deliciously full breasts as she entered the castle. He let her go, confident that she could not escape with the tall, heavy doors closed behind them. The reluctant clack-clack-clack of her high heels echoed against the walls as she followed him, staring upward in amazement. Long ago, the magnificent foyer had been built to impress, with high ceilings carved in intricate designs of flowers, Arabic letters and geometric patterns.

He remembered she’d briefly majored in medieval studies before switching to economics. Hopefully the foyer was impressing her, he thought grimly. She wasn’t in London any more. It was time she realized who was in power here.

Holding her prisoner here would financially decimate both of his enemies. Without the wedding between the two families, Sheikh Mohamed ibn Battuta al-Maghrib would not sell the argan oil harvest on credit to Sheldon Winter, which he needed for the relaunch of his only profitable product. The board members of Winter International would sell the company off for parts, and Sheldon would be swamped beneath the weight of his personal debts.

Aziz would be hurt even worse. Without his uncle’s promised wedding gift, he would no longer be able to hide his gambling addiction. The Sheikh, an honorable but strict man, would likely disinherit him, and his creditors would break both his legs. A perfect end, in Marcos’s opinion.