Her imagination running riot, a vision of Nick’s magnificent body crushed and broken at the foot of a snow-covered cliff filled Liza’s mind. And she knew she couldn’t bear it if anything happened to him. Whether she was with him or not, it didn’t make any difference. She should have realised that when she watched Nick para-skiing, and decided not to let herself love him. Love was not something you could take or leave. It was inside you, filling every atom of your being, and if you were really lucky your love was returned.
Nick had not offered her everlasting love the night before, but he had offered her a relationship of sorts and she had turned him down, too frightened of getting hurt. Yet she was a hundred times more terrified of Nick getting hurt, and the realisation made everything clear. She loved him totally unselfishly. Whether he was with her for a day or a lifetime, she was going to take a chance.
‘I’ll try,’ Liza said; she had been a coward for far too long, hiding her emotions. If she wanted Nick’s love she had to take a chance and ask for it. ‘Just tell me how to find him.’
‘We can do better than that,’ her mother said, giving her a gentle smile. ‘Manuel is waiting with the car to take you to the airport. Nick’s plane is scheduled to leave at one.’
It was the longest ride of her life; she watched the clock on the dashboard ticking away the seconds and minutes, willing Manuel to drive faster.
Finally at twenty to one she leapt out of the car at the airport.
She dashed in to the building and scanned the crowd and her heart fell to her feet. There was no way she was going to find Nick’s plane in time. She rushed to the information desk and was directed to the VIP lounge, only to find when she got there, breathless and panting, that she was refused entry. Swinging frantically around, panic setting in as to what to do next, Liza slammed into a hard body.
‘Sorry.’ She tried to step back and found her lace top was caught in a jacket button; she grasped it with her finger and looked up. ‘Nick!’
‘You appear to be attached to me,’ he mocked, his dark eyes roaming leisurely over her, lingering on the wide blue eyes, and lower to her lush, trembling mouth.
He lifted a hand to cover hers, still grasping the button of his jacket. ‘Care to tell me what you are doing here, Liza?’
For a long moment she just looked at him as she struggled to catch her breath, her heart aching. ‘I came to find you,’ she finally said.
His dark, brooding glance narrowed fractionally on her face. ‘Why?’
‘Because I love you, and I don’t want you to do the Ver…Ver…Verbier run,’ she stammered on a long, shuddering sigh, but she had said it. His dark eyes look steadily down at her and she began to wonder if he had heard her at all.
Then he moved, his arms locking around her. ‘What do you want me to do instead, Liza?’ he demanded curtly. ‘Something like this?’
His black head bent towards her and his mouth covered hers, and her lips parted to welcome the probing warmth of his tongue. A fierce, primitive pleasure swept through her as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed into his hard body.
‘I seem to remember you said last night I was not your type, Liza,’ Nick prompted, easing her away from him. ‘What made you change your mind?’
He had not jumped at her declaration of love. In fact she was shocked by the fierce tension evident in every line of his body and she had to think for a second what he was talking about. ‘No, no I said you were not the type. I meant for commitment,’ she scrambled to explain. ‘But it’s not important to me any more. I want you—a day, a week, anything I can get.’
The transformation from cold arrogance to glittering triumph was spectacular. ‘You’d better mean what you say, Liza,’ Nick declared adamantly, black eyes blazing. ‘Because I am never letting you go again,’ and he captured her mouth with his own in a wildly possessive kiss.
When Nick finally let her breathe again, she heard the sound of clapping. Her wide blue eyes, lit with love, looked into his. ‘I think we have gathered an audience.’ And they both burst out laughing.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Nick murmured and turned, but one side of his jacket was still caught on Liza’s blouse. He wrapped an arm around her waist and, hugging her to his side, they left the airport. Manuel grinned when he saw them, and with a flourish opened the rear door of the car.
Liza suddenly stopped dead on the pavement. ‘Wait, Nick.’
‘Changed your mind again?’ Nick closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘No.’ Liza smiled and slid into the back seat. ‘I forgot—you must call your mother; she will be worried sick.’
He called on his mobile from the car, and thirty minutes later Liza was standing in the hall of his Malaga home.
‘It’s beautiful, Nick.’ High ceilings, the floor a marble mosaic, and the central staircase white marble. She glanced at him; he had removed his jacket when they got in the car, and his white tailored shirt fitted snugly across his broad shoulders, contrasting with his tanned sculptured features.
Nick stepped in front of her. ‘My beautiful Liza.’ And he lifted a hand to brush gentle fingers across her cheek. ‘Are you going to make me wait again?’
‘Well, maybe,’ she said, a bubble of laughter emerging from her throat at the brief appalled expression on his handsome face. ‘Until you find a bed.’
‘Witch.’ His eyes gleamed with humour and a deep sensual passion as he lifted her in his arms and carried her up the grand staircase.
She put one arm around his neck and with her other hand set her fingers to work on the buttons of his shirt. By the time he shouldered the bedroom door open, and finally placed her back on her feet by the side of a large bed, his shirt was hanging off him.
He stripped off the rest of his clothes, and hers, and they fell onto the bed in a tangle of arms and legs. Nick’s mouth found hers and the kiss was like no other, deep and tender and then very quickly flaming out of control.
‘I can’t wait Liza…it has been too long,’ Nick growled, raising his head, his dark eyes burning into hers as he nudged apart her legs and moved between her thighs.
Liza slid her arms around his neck and clenched her hands in his black hair. ‘Then what’s stopping you?’ she said urgently. Naked flesh on flesh, she burned with a need, an ache that was almost pain.
The hunger, the need seemed to explode as Nick’s mouth met hers, and they were engulfed in a tidal wave of wild primitive passion. Nick’s hands and mouth were all over her body, caressing her heated flesh in a frenzy of possessive need, as if he would devour her whole. Liza heard her own wild moans even as she gloried in the husky growls she drew from him with her own frantic caresses of his magnificent body.
‘Liza.’ Nick rasped her name and her ecstatic cry mingled with his as she met and matched the driving rhythm of his incredible body, totally possessed. They climaxed as one in seismic convulsions savage in intensity that left them spent and shuddering uncontrollably in each other’s arms.
For a long moment the only sound was the tortured breathing of two sated bodies. Eventually Nick rolled onto his back and, curving an arm around Liza’s shoulders, pulled her close and leaned over her. ‘I needed that; I needed you.’ His smile was slightly uncertain. ‘Are you all right?’
Liza smiled radiantly back. ‘Never better.’ She saw the familiar confidence return to his slumberous black eyes.
‘I was amazed when I saw you at the airport,’ Nick offered softly. ‘But I’m glad you came.’ He brushed his hand through the strands of blonde hair falling over her face, stroking them out against the pillow. ‘I dreamt of your hair on my pillow again,’ he murmured throatily. ‘You drive me crazy, Liza. I just have to see you to want you. You’re so exquisite.’ He glanced down at the languorous curve of her naked body, then back again, his dark eyes serious as they caught and held hers.
‘I love you. I love everything about you—from your incredible hair to your sexy body.’ Rubbing his chin, he added,
‘Even your left hook I decided was better than no contact at all in the two long months we’ve been apart. How desperate is that?’ he joked.
Liza tensed in shock; was she dreaming, or had he finally said he loved her?
Nick felt her tense. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, his dark eyes, full of concern, searching her beautiful face. ‘I didn’t hurt you?’
Lifting her hand, she cupped the strong line of his jaw. ‘No, you didn’t hurt me.’ There had been too many half-truths between them, but now there was no need. ‘I loved every second,’ she said softly, her blue eyes wide as she met his concerned gaze and saw the flare of pleasure in his eyes.
‘And I am so sorry for hitting you that day. I would have died if anything happened to you. You were always my hero as a child,’ she told him honestly, wrapped safely in his strong arms. ‘Then, after the episode in the stables, I tried to hate you. But as soon as I met you again in Lanzarote and you kissed me I knew I was lost.’
‘You and I both.’ Nick groaned. ‘I love you to the point of desperation.’ And he sank back on the bed, hauling her over him and kissing her so urgently she had to pull back eventually.
‘Nick, I need to breathe.’ Draped over his broad chest, she looked down into his darkly attractive face, and she saw the passion mixed with tenderness and love in his night-black eyes. ‘You really love me?’ she prompted, and she could feel his heart bounding in his broad chest, her own almost bursting with love.
A large hand slid around the nape of her neck and tangled in the long length of her hair. ‘Never doubt it, Liza. I can’t begin to tell you how much.’
‘Enough to forget about the Verbier run?’ she teased but with a hint of anxiety.
‘Enough to forget about everything except you,’ he ascertained. But he could still sense her slight insecurity and he determined to leave her in no doubt at all of his feelings. ‘I loved you as a child of eight, but I fell in love with you as a man when you were sixteen.’
‘What?’ Liza exclaimed. ‘I don’t believe you.’
Nick chuckled. His hand was around her narrow waist, and she folded her arms over his broad chest and rested her chin on them, fascinated and intrigued as he continued.
‘I noticed you were turning into a women the summer you were fourteen, but you were still young Liza, my pal. The next summer was different. When we were out riding and you fell from your horse.’
‘I remember that,’ Liza inserted. ‘You were so kind.’
‘Kind was not how I felt,’ Nick said drily. ‘I thought you were dead, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I couldn’t imagine a world without you in it.’ His hand tightened on her waist. ‘I should have known then that I was falling in love with you. But I arrogantly dismissed the feelings you aroused in me, as a simple reaction to the shock at the thought of the loss of a friend’s life, nothing more.’
‘And the next summer you were engaged to Sophia.’ Liza frowned.
‘Yes,’ Nick sighed. ‘I told you about that, but with hindsight, it was not just for my father’s benefit I got engaged to Sophia. I think subconsciously I knew that the way I felt about you when you had your accident was dangerous. You were far too young for me, and the engagement was not just to protect my father, but myself.’
‘But you slept with her,’ Liza could not help adding.
‘No, I didn’t. Sophia is more interested in women.’ He gave her a slanted smile. ‘I am a lot older than you, so there have been other women in my life, but you are the only one I have ever loved or ever will.’
Somehow what he had told her about Sophia didn’t surprise her; it made sense of the convenient engagement. ‘But that day in the stable, when you saw me…’ She trailed off. Why had he been so angry?
As if reading her mind, Nick said, ‘I knew my engagement to Sophia was a convenience, nothing more. But seeing you kissing that spotty young boy, I was eaten up with jealousy because it should have been me. I suddenly realised I had always thought in the back of my mind that one day you and I would get together and I was furious. But I could do nothing about it, which is why I lashed out at you.’ He kissed her hard and fast, as though to expunge the memory.
‘But if what you say is true why did you never look me up later?’ she asked when she could get her breath back.
Nick made a wry face, and, rolling her over onto her back, he eased a long leg over her slender limbs, so she was pinned beneath him. He was taking no more chances. ‘Because, sweet Liza,’ he said, smiling crookedly, ‘I only recognised the truth after I met you again. I could not help trying to protect you, but even after we became lovers I told myself it was just another affair. It was at the cabin that I finally admitted to myself I loved you.’
‘Why, you… Talk about spinning a line.’ She wriggled against him, but he laughingly held her firm, and his hairy chest rubbing against her breast sent a tingling awareness from her head to her toes.
‘Do you want me to go on?’ Nick drawled huskily. ‘Or shall I prove I love you another way?’ And she felt his great body stirring against her belly.
‘Keep talking,’ she said, her heart beating fast as she watched him through the thick curl of her lashes, a half-smile curving her lips.
‘Spoilsport,’ he chuckled. ‘Well, you know I came to Lanzarote looking for you. And as soon as I saw you at that café I wanted you. I still needed the information, but I convinced Carl to let me take care of you. The very first night at my villa I decided I didn’t care what you had or had not done, I was not having you involved, and I got you to come to Spain.’
‘And seduced me on the plane!’ Liza gave him a teasing look. ‘But I admit I wanted to be seduced. I had had a crush on you since I was fourteen, and when you got engaged I was devastated—more so when you caught me in the stable and called me a slut. I decided I hated you, but then at your villa I agreed to go to see your mother in Spain, and at the same time decided you could be my holiday romance if nothing else.’
‘I surprised myself on the plane,’ Nick confessed drily. ‘I am not the womaniser the Press makes me out to be. I am usually the most restrained of men, and that was the first and only time I have made love on the jet. But as for the holiday romance…’ His voice deepened and his arms tightened around her. ‘I like the idea, as long as it is a holiday romance that lasts a lifetime, with you as my wife. Do you agree?’
Liza’s blue eyes widened in amazement on his. Nick was stripped of the cold, arrogant persona he usually showed the world, and she saw the uncertainty in the darkening depths of his eyes, the vulnerability, and her heart overflowed with love for him. ‘Yes, I agree—though it wasn’t the most romantic proposal in the world,’ she teased.
Nick grinned, and raised a finger and brushed her cheek. ‘But it worked, and I won’t let you out of my sight until you have my ring on your finger.’ He held her closer and his mouth moved on hers in a kiss of tender worshipful possession. ‘We will marry as soon as possible.’
‘Yes,’ Liza breathed, and looked into his deep dark eyes. She saw they had a fire burning in them, a dark all-consuming fire in which she saw herself reflected. ‘My hero…’ she sighed, and reached for him.
Four hours later Liza turned as Nick strolled back into the bedroom, looking stunning in dark trousers, a blue shirt, and a cashmere sweater draped loosely over his broad shoulders. ‘I thought you said five minutes.’ He grinned, and Liza’s heart-rate speeded up.
‘Do I look all right?’ she asked, shoving back the over-long shirtsleeves. Her own top was torn, and she was wearing one of Nick’s shirts over her hipster jeans.
‘I am not going to answer that on the grounds we will never get out of here if I start thinking exactly how delectable you are. Come on.’ And, catching her hand, he led her downstairs and out of the house.
Twenty minutes later Nick ushered Liza into a very exclusive jewellers. The proprietor knew Nick, and in moments they were seated in deep-cushioned velvet chairs beside a glass-topped table, and an assistant was asking them wh
at they would like to drink. Coffee, Champagne…
Nick ordered both.
‘Do we have to do this now?’ Liza demurred, intimidated by the hushed opulence of the place.
‘It’s up to you,’ Nick said reasonably, his fingers caressing her palm. ‘If you want to appear ringless at dinner tonight in front of the two mothers I don’t mind.’ He smiled into Liza’s eyes while tightening his hold on her hand. ‘After you insisted at the airport I phoned Mamma and I told her you had persuaded me to give up the Verbier run, and all other extreme sports, she was delighted,’ he said casually. ‘In fact, she was almost speechless when I told her I was thinking of indulging in more indoor sports, and I was taking you home with me for a siesta as befitted a man of my age,’ he ended with devilish mockery.
‘You didn’t!’ Liza exclaimed in horror. Looking into his dark eyes, she saw the wicked golden sparks and groaned. ‘Oh, no, you did.’ She turned scarlet.
Nick was still grinning at the expression on Liza’s face when the proprietor reappeared with a tray of exquisite diamond rings. He felt her hand jerk in his, and the grin swiftly turned into a grimace. Diamonds were not a good idea, under the circumstances. The last thing Liza needed was a constant reminder of the diamond heist. How insensitive was that?
‘I’m sorry, Liza.’ He turned her face towards him with a hand at her chin. ‘I never thought. Why don’t you choose something else?’
For once the tables were turned and her indomitable lover was looking less than his usual confident self. Lifting her free hand, she patted his cheek, taking full advantage of his obvious discomfort. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Liza said slowly, her eyes gleaming with repressed amusement. ‘I have become rather fond of diamonds—they will always remind me of you, Nick, darling.’
At the Spaniard's Pleasure Page 18
