Spring Bride

by Sandra Marton

  It was hard to swallow, to force her lips to move, but finally she did.

  “How—how did you get in here?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Of course it matters! The door was locked. And what happened to your housekeeper? She was supposed to wake me, not you!”

  He shrugged lazily. “Dolores was busy so I decided to do the job myself.” His sapphire gaze moved slowly over her. “Not that you needed to be awakened, I see.”

  A flush rose in her cheeks. The robe was heavy and long; she knew he couldn’t see anything but her bare toes and yet she felt as if she were standing naked before him.

  “I should have figured you’d have a key to this room, Antonio. And I should have known you wouldn’t hesitate to use it.”

  “Ah, querida, your words wound me.” His tone was light and teasing, as was his smile. “I have no key—but then, the door has no lock. None that works, at any rate.” He chuckled as he swung his long legs to the floor. “I suppose I should have told you that.”

  “Yes,” Kyra said stiffly, “I suppose you should have. You should also learn that if a door is shut, you’re supposed to knock on it and wait until you’re asked to enter.”

  “Another false accusation.” Antonio rose to his feet and came slowly toward her. “I did knock, several times. But there was no answer.”

  “Of course there wasn’t. I was in the shower. Didn’t that occur to you?”

  “It did, in fact.” His eyes drifted over her again, more slowly this time, lingering all too long on the thrust of her breasts beneath the velour. “I thought, she is probably taking a shower. And when she is done, she will come back into the bedroom, her skin damp and smelling of—is that lilac?”

  Kyra’s heart thundered. To take a backward step, to retreat an inch, would be to show him that she was afraid. And she wasn’t. There was nothing to be afraid of. Hadn’t she just convinced herself of that?

  “It’s soap,” she said coldly, her chin elevated to an almost impossible angle. “And you can save the sweet talk. I’m not impressed.”

  Antonio smiled. “Perhaps my gift will impress you more than my words.”

  “I’m trying to tell you, you’re wasting your time. I’m not interested.”

  “Is that so?” His shoulders lifted in an easy shrug. “It was Dolores’s suggestion She thought you would like a change of clothes.” He turned away and reached for something on the bed, a small, neat bundle she hadn’t noticed before “No matter I will take what I brought you and—”

  “Wait a minute.” Her hand shot out, landed lightly on his arm. His skin was warm and firm to the touch, the hair on it soft and silky. Kyra snatched her hand back and stuffed it into the pocket of the robe. “I—I didn’t realize you meant that you’d brought me clothing.”

  Antonio turned toward her. “Did you expect jewels?” He was still smiling, but there was a sudden coldness in his eyes. “But a woman like you must have all the jewels she could possibly want.” He looked at her for a long moment and then he shrugged and handed the bundle to her. “These things will not be a perfect fit but they were the best I could manage on short notice.”

  Kyra thought of Dolores, who was at lease five inches shorter and probably eighty pounds heavier.

  “That’s all right,” she said as she began unfolding the garments. “I don’t much care about being a fashion plate. I just want to feel cle—” Her words choked to a halt Her head came up and her gaze shot to Antonio’s. “This doesn’t belong to Dolores,” she said, holding out a pair of faded shorts.

  “No. It does not. It is mine. All the things I brought are mine.”

  “Yours? But-but-”

  “But what? Anything of Dolores’s would have been impossible. You are far too slender to wear her skirts or dresses. I would think it will be far simpler to pin the waist.” He hesitated. “But if you prefer…”

  “No.” Kyra swallowed dryly. It was silly to be so uncomfortable at the thought of feeling his clothing against her skin. She managed a small, polite smile. “You’re right. Actually, I’ve worn men’s denims lots of times.”

  Antonio’s answering smile was even more polite. “I see”

  Her eyes flashed. There’d been a world of judgment in those two words. She knew what he thought he saw and she didn’t like it.

  “No,” she said coldly, “you do not see. Men’s clothing is not my idea of morning-after attire. What I meant was that I grew up with three brothers. I used to snag their old jeans for my own ”

  “Snag?” Antonio frowned. “I do not know the word”

  “I used to snitch them. Borrow them…sort of.” She bit back a smile as she remembered the nifty stack of comfortable old Levi’s she’d collected before her brothers figured out what was happening. “My father didn’t approve of girls wearing jeans, so until I was old enough to stand up to him—”

  “I am not surprised to hear that you did not like following rules.”

  “Rules made arbitrarily aren’t rules,” Kyra said sharply. “They’re commands.”

  Antonio’s dark eyebrows rose in amusement. “Is there a difference?”

  “Of course there’s a difference! No one should have to obey blindly. It’s—it’s inhuman to expect people to do that.”

  His smile faded. “And that is what I am? Inhuman?”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to say yes, that was precisely what he was…but it wasn’t quite true. Would a man who was inhuman have gone out of his way to save a pair of puppies from their fate? Would such a man have faced down a knife-wielding drunk to save the neck of a strange woman?

  She shrugged her shoulders. “No,” she said stiffly. “I suppose not.”

  He laughed softly. “And I suppose that is as close as I will come to a thank-you for bringing you this designer wardrobe.”

  She couldn’t help smiling. “Compared to the thought of putting on what I wore yesterday, it’s haute couture.” She took a breath. “Thank you for the clothes.”

  The ghost of a smile curled across his lips. “You are welcome.”

  Kyra stared at him. He was standing so close that she could see herself reflected in the pupils of his eyes. Two Kyras looked back at her, each with a strange, fevered look.

  She swallowed hard. “Is that it?”

  Antonio reached out and touched a strand of hair that lay curled against her cheek

  “Is that what?” he said, his eyes on hers.

  “Is that—is that what you came to do?”

  His gaze dropped to her mouth, then returned to her eyes.

  “What more would you like me to do?”

  His voice was soft and suddenly husky; it drifted across her skin like smoke. She took an inadvertent step back.

  “I—I only meant that if you’ve finished talking, I’d like to get dressed.”

  “What a pity,” he said softly. “That you wish to get dressed, I mean. I would much prefer you to stay as you are.”

  “Antonio,” Kyra said, trying for a forceful tone. “I know you may find this intrusion very amusing, but-”

  “Not amusing, querida. Illuminating.”

  His fingers stroked across her cheek, following the line of her jaw to her throat. He was touching her gently, yet somehow she could feel a pulse of flame trail behind his caress.

  “Don’t—don’t do that,” she said.

  “Do what?” His brows rose. “Touch you, you mean?”

  “Yes.” Her breath hitched as his hand curled lightly around her throat. “I don’t—I don’t like it.”

  He smiled, but his eyes weren’t smiling. They had grown dark and hot.

  “Is that the reason I can feel your blood leap here, in the hollow of your throat?”

  It was true; she could feel the pounding of her heart beneath the gentle pressure of his thumb. There was no sense in denying it.

  “Antonio…” She searched for the words that would protect her, not from him but from whatever darkness was sweeping away her reason. “An
tonio, I’m not—”

  “Not what?”

  “I don’t—I don’t want you to do this. Please. You asked me a little while ago if—if I thought you were inhuman, and—”

  “Ah, querida, that is the problem. I am very much human when I feel the way your skin heats at my touch.” He moved even closer. “And when I see the way your head tilts back just so, and your lips part…” A tremor went through her as he lifted her chin. “I am so human that I think she longs for my kiss, just as I long for hers.”

  “No,” Kyra whispered.

  His lips moved over hers in a touch as light as the brush of a butterfly against the petal of a flower. The breath sighed from her lips as he drew back and looked down at the flush on her beautiful face.

  She was right; he should not do this. It was surely not what he had come here to do.

  Dolores had told him, in tones of crisp disapproval, that it was obvious to anyone but a fool that the gringa in the guest room needed a change of clothing and he’d realized she was right.

  “I will bring her something,” his housekeeper had said, and Antonio had bitten his lip to keep from smiling and said no, no, he would find something for Señorita Landon himself.

  And so he had come to the door and knocked. And then he’d opened it, seen the rumpled bedclothes, the wisps of silk so carelessly discarded at the bathroom door. He’d heard the drumming of the water in the shower and somehow it had become mingled with the drumming of the blood in his veins and he had told himself that to wait for her would do no harm.

  He lifted his hand and drew it over her soft, shining hair. She didn’t move but she made a little sound and he saw the flicker of her dark, thick lashes. She was like a cat, he thought, a cat that longed to lift its head to the soft stroke of a hand.

  This was crazy. It was stupid.

  Then why this rush of blood each time he touched her? Why this need to draw her tightly into his arms, to seize her mouth with his and plumb its sweet depths?

  There was only one way to get her out of his system. He had to take her, bury himself in her until he was sated. And he could have her. Despite her angry words, her heated denial, he could see the truth in her silver eyes, feel it in the soft compliance of her body.

  His hands cupped her face. “I have wondered,” he whispered, “are you everywhere the color of the sun?” His hands swept into her hair as he lifted her face to his. “Or is your body like cream, querida, where the sunlight has not touched it?”

  He heard the swift hitch of her breath, felt her sway unsteadily. His gaze fell to her mouth. He saw her lips part. She whispered his name and suddenly she was in his arms.

  He kissed her until her mouth was soft and swollen, and his hands went to the sash of her robe. She made no move to stop him, thank heavens, for he no longer knew if he could be stopped. His control, the control he so prided himself on, was gone. His body was tensing into a sword of hard steel; he had never felt such an urgency in his life and yet he wanted to take hours to touch her, to explore her, to watch as her eyes flashed with bright silver fires.

  They were smoldering now, he saw, as he undid her robe and slowly drew it from her shoulders. His hands trembled; he yearned to look down and see if her breasts were as perfect as he knew they must be but he wanted to watch her face as he caressed her.

  “Antonio,” she said fiercely. “Antonio, please…”

  It was a different plea she made now, one that was almost his undoing. He slipped his hands under her robe, slid them down her spine and cupped her bottom; he lifted her up into the cradle of his thighs so that she could feel the full power of his arousal.

  A cry broke from her throat and he bent and took her mouth with his. He thrust his tongue between her lips, telling her without words what his body would feel like in hers, and as his heat conquered her will and filled her senses, Kyra admitted the truth to herself. She had wanted Antonio, wanted him to sheathe himself inside her and ride her until the skies exploded around them from the very first night they’d met.

  He was moving against her, his erection hard against her belly, his hands holding her face captive for his kisses. And she was going crazy in his arms, making little sounds she had never dreamed a woman would make, drawing his tongue into her mouth as she struggled to get closer and closer to him.

  Nothing had prepared her for this. The books she’d read, the whispers shared with girlfriends, the clumsy groping she’d permitted the boys she’d grown up with…none of it had hinted at the reality of what was happening to her now.

  How could she know that the feel of a man’s mouth—of Antonio’s mouth—would make her breasts ache? How could she know that his touch would make her flesh quicken? She was turning to fire, to hot liquid fire that pooled in that deepest, most feminine part of her.

  She had never imagined making love could be like this.

  Of course she hadn’t. She had never met a man like Antonio before. She was being seduced by an expert—an expert who had said he’d rather take a vow of chastity than take her to his bed.

  The realization stunned her and she went rigid in his arms while her fevered brain fought for control of her flesh. Antonio had come here to do this. To seduce her. To conquer her. To punish her with the ultimate humiliation.

  And she had almost let him.

  She swung her fists against his shoulders, taking him by surprise.

  “Damn you,” she said. “Let go of me!”

  Sharp satisfaction swept through her as he stumbled back The astonishment in his face made what she’d just gone through almost worthwile. It was so obvious! He’d come here to do something despicable, and she had stopped him.

  ”Querida,” he said, “what is it?”

  “Give it up, Antonio.” Her hands shook with anger as she clasped the edges of her robe together. “That passionate Latin-lover routine doesn’t work on me.”

  He was looking at her as if she’d lost her mind. Well, she almost had. When she thought of what she’d come close to letting him do…

  “Is this how you get your women? By bringing them here and—and…Don’t you know when a woman wants you to stop?”

  The flush of passion was fading from his cheeks. He looked at her steadily, his eyes unreadable. The only sign of distress she could see in his face was the twitch of a tiny muscle in his jaw.

  “If that is how you tell a man to stop,” he said, his voice almost toneless, “then I would be interested in knowing what it is you do to tell him to continue.”

  “All right.” She cleared her throat. “Okay. Maybe I—maybe I gave the impression I wanted you to—to kiss me But—”

  “But?” he said, his eyes on hers.

  “But I didn’t want anything else.”

  Antonio laughed. “You’re a liar.”

  “Go on, tell yourself that, if it’s what your ego needs.”

  “Shall I prove it to you?” He moved toward her, his face grim, and she almost stumbled in her rush to back away. A smile curled across his mouth. “Now, which of us is the liar, querida?”

  “All right. I admit, I—I responded to you. So what? I’ve responded to lots of other men.” The lie was so enormous that she almost gagged saying it, but it worked. Antonio couldn’t manage that conceited smile this time. “I suppose I just wanted to see if a man like you could—could—”

  “You wanted to see if a man like me could what?”

  She stared at him while she groped for an answer. To admit that he’d almost seduced her was out of the question. But she had to say something, so she said the first thing that popped into her head.

  “Look, I was curious, okay? I wanted to see if—if you could excite me.”

  “And?” His voice was ominously soft.

  “And I found that you could. But—but the thought of doing anything else—I mean, when I thought about what I was doing, who I was doing it with—”

  She cried out as his hands bit into her shoulders. “For a woman wearing nothing but a robe,” he said, “you
are either very stupid or very brave.”

  The threat brought a rush of crimson to her face and the shadow of fear to her eyes.

  The sight pleased Antonio. He was not a man who enjoyed frightening women but this was different. The Kyra Landons of this world had to know they could not go through life playing games with the peasants without paying a price.

  He let go of her, stalked to the bed, and snatched up the clothing he’d left there.

  “Get dressed,” he said sharply, tossing the bundle at her feet. “When you are ready, come downstairs and Dolores will put you to work.” He paused at the door, looked down at the remains of what had once been a very expensive French clock, and edged them aside with the toe of his sneaker. “And clean up that mess. There is no one here to do it for you.”

  “Get out,” she said, her voice trembling. “Damn you, Antonio, get out!”

  He looked at her and gave her a slow, cool smile.

  “With the greatest of pleasure. By the way, I would be remiss if I did not tell you that the failure of your little ‘experiment’ was not entirely your responsibility.”

  He saw her fight against asking him to explain. Her chin lifted, and he knew it was a battle she had lost.

  “Is that supposed to have some deep meaning?”

  He laughed. “There is nothing deep about it, querida. The simple fact is that I could have taken what you offered. A man would have to be a fool not to” He let his gaze move slowly over her, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes and then up again. “But it would not have been a memorable experience for me, Kyra. Do you understand? You are beautiful and desirable—but you are hardly unique.”

  He heard something hit the door almost as soon as he shut it. Whatever she had thrown this time, it was larger than the clock. A lamp, most probably, he thought, and despite his anger, he laughed.

  She had courage, he had to give her that.

  Antonio’s mouth hardened.

  In a little while, he would find out just how far that courage would take her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  DRESSED in Antonio’s denim shorts, his T-shirt and her slightly battered thong sandals, Kyra was ready to face the day.