She shook her head. “I’m fine as I am.” Stefano set down his pitchfork. He started to pull off his white T-shirt. “Work as you please, then.”
She stared at him with an intake of breath. “What—what are you doing?”
“Working as I please.” He dropped his sweaty T-shirt to the floor, leaving his chest bare. Annabelle’s eyes fixed on his chest, her eyes the color of hot embers as her gaze slowly followed the trail of dark hair down his bare chest until it disappeared beneath the waistline of his jeans.
“Annabelle.”
Her eyes looked up. “What?”
Her tone was belligerent, but beneath her defiance he could see the flush of her skin and the way she swayed forward—even as her feet inched away.
If he hadn’t been hard for her before, he would be now. Painfully. “Come here.”
“What do you want?”
He looked down at her.
“I want to kiss you,” he said in a low voice. “I want to pull that suit off your body and kiss your naked skin all the way down to your feet. I want to take you right here. I want to push you down against the soft, clean hay and make love to you until we’re both hot, sweaty and exhausted with pleasure.”
Her jaw dropped.
“That is what I want,” he said quietly. “But for the moment, I will be satisfied just to talk to you. If you will come closer.”
“I … I can’t,” she choked out, backing away. “I need to get back to work.”
“Are you still afraid of me?”
She clutched her camera in one hand, staring up at him. Then she tossed her head.
“Why would I be afraid of some Spanish playboy?”
“If you’re not afraid, prove it,” he whispered. His gaze fell to her lips.
With a gasp, she jumped back two steps. Stefano wondered if she even knew she’d done it, or if it had been pure reflex.
The beam of morning light from the door illuminated Annabelle’s hair, making it a million shades of gold. She licked her pink, heart-shaped mouth, staring up at him with her big gray eyes.
Stefano swallowed. He’d never felt desire like this before. It was magic. He was caught, ensorcelled by desire.
“You’re so beautiful, Annabelle,” he whispered. “I’ve never seen your equal.”
She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes wide. Then she clenched her hands.
“Just because you comforted me last night, I won’t fall at your feet now.” She shook her head fiercely. “I won’t let you seduce me.”
Beneath her defiance, Stefano saw the increasing tremble of her body. He saw her nervousness and fear. He knew if he came closer to her, even a single step, she would flee. Even now, her feet were inching back toward the stable door. It was only the knife’s edge of pride that held her.
“Why are you so afraid?” he asked in a low voice.
“I’m not!”
“You’re trembling. You’re so afraid of me, that if I take one more step toward you, you’ll bolt for the door.”
She tossed her head, but he saw the desperation hidden beneath the bravado. “Don’t be ridiculous!”
Slowly, deliberately, Stefano raised his black leather boot above the rough wood floor in a single step.
With a hoarse intake of breath, Annabelle stumbled back, dropping her camera with a clatter as she turned and fled the stables.
Annabelle had barely taken a dozen pictures so far that morning, testing the early light, before she’d found him in the stables. The last person on earth she wanted to see.
Stefano.
He’d seen her at her worst last night when she’d screamed in her recurring dream, the horrifying nightmare that always clung to her like cobwebs after she awoke. Annabelle could never awake from it completely. She’d lived it.
“Please don’t hit her! Stop it, stop it!” her little brothers had screamed and cried over the rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack of the whip cutting her flesh as her drunken, enraged father savagely beat her in Wolfe Manor. Annabelle was curled up in a ball on the floor, too weak to protect herself from the continuing blows. She knew her father wanted her to cry and beg for mercy, but she couldn’t do it. If she did, she feared his anger would turn on the little boys crying behind him.
She could barely see little Sebastian and Nathaniel through the sheen of blood as she gasped to them, “Stay away! Run, get out of here!” But they wouldn’t abandon her, even at such risk to themselves.
Then Jacob had burst into the hallway. Her eldest brother, so tall and strong at eighteen, had knocked their father aside with a shout, snatching up the whip as he punched their father away from her with a single resounding blow. Annabelle saw their father fall, fall, fall as if in slow motion. She heard a loud terrible bang as his head hit the bottom step of the staircase, and their father’s violent life had come to an abrupt end.
It was always the same nightmare when she was under stress, ending with the same shocked look in her father’s eyes.
His death hadn’t been her fault. She’d told herself that again and again. But she didn’t quite believe it. He’d stared straight at her as he’d died. Whenever Annabelle had the dream, she always woke with a sob, woke to loneliness and despair.
But last night, like a miracle, she’d woken to find Stefano’s arms around her. She’d felt safe. Comforted. With him beside her, she’d fallen back asleep, knowing nothing bad could happen when he was keeping watch over her.
Then she’d woken up and he was gone. Her embarrassment that he’d seen her in a vulnerable state was bad enough. Then she’d wondered if he’d seen the scar on her bare skin in the morning light, and it had been her ugly face that drove him away.
You’re ugly beneath that makeup, Annabelle. A hideous monster.
Rising from her bed, she had showered and dressed. She’d pulled back her hair and applied her makeup with a trembling hand. Then, not wanting to face Stefano at breakfast, she’d gone straight outside. She’d tried to focus on taking pictures, but amid the silence of the morning, his low, husky voice invaded her soul.
I want you, Annabelle. And I intend to have you. I will seduce you slowly, bit by bit, until you cannot resist me. Until you are mine. In my bed. At my pleasure.
When she’d found him in the stables, when he’d challenged her after everything that had happened between them, she’d been overwhelmed. Blood rushed through her veins as she’d tried to hold her ground. She’d clung to her pride.
Then he’d taken off his shirt.
She’d seen a man’s bare chest before. But looking at his tanned torso, taut and lean with muscle, with a scattering of dark hair pointed downward like an arrow, she hadn’t been able to look away.
Stefano had taken that single step toward her, and a surge of fear had ricocheted down her body. She couldn’t explain what happened next. She’d just bolted. Her feet had scrambled back, nearly tripping as she fled. She hadn’t stopped running until she was across the farthest field and gasping for air.
Now, as Annabelle finally caught her breath, she became slowly aware of the morning songs of birds, the noisy rippling of the stream. She was alone in the forest, standing by a stream of water on a rocky hillside. She looked up at the beams of morning light shimmering through the dark, shadowy trees.
She blinked. How far and fast had she run?
Breathing in the fresh, cool air, she knelt by the stream and splashed cold water on her face. Gradually the rapid pounding of her heart slowed. As she rose from the rocky banks, she looked around the forest.
No doubt Stefano was still laughing himself silly back at the stables.
Why did he have this effect on her? Even now, she craved his touch. It frightened her. She couldn’t allow herself to be vulnerable to any man—but especially not Stefano! As protective and kind as he’d been last night, a playboy had only one objective. To bed a woman … and forget her.
Annabelle’s cheeks became hot as she recalled the look in Stefano’s dark eyes as he’d taken that single st
ep toward her in the stables … and how, in spite of all her defiance, she’d fled from him like a coward. Like a pathetic virgin.
But a virgin was exactly what she was. She closed her eyes. A pathetic virgin.
“C’mon, don’t act like some pathetic virgin,” the older boy had said, leering at Annabelle’s low-cut lace top. She was just fourteen, and she’d snuck out of Wolfe Manor to follow her twin brother Alex to a party in the village with his older friends. Then her brother had seen her.
“Damn it, this is no place for you, Annabelle!” Alex had marched her straight to the door. “Go home, where it’s safe!”
Her brother hadn’t known she would go home and walk smack bang into their father, who’d just returned drunk from a frustrating day of hunting. Alex hadn’t realized that their father would take one look at Annabelle all tarted up and explode into murderous rage at his daughter for the first time—and the last.
Annabelle’s hand went unwillingly up to her forehead and cheek, feeling the hard ridge of the scar beneath her makeup, the scar that had never completely faded.
Go home. Where it’s safe.
Her lips twisted with bitterness. No place was ever safe. Especially not home.
And no person was safe, either. People died, like her mother. People turned on her, like her father. People left, like her assistant. Or they betrayed her, like Patrick.
Better to just be alone.
Closing her eyes, Annabelle took a breath of the fresh mountain air. She heard the ragged sound of her breath over the birds of the forest and stream.
“There you are,” a deep voice growled behind her.
She whirled around. The cold feeling in her heart exploded into heat that almost brought her to her knees.
“Stefano,” she whispered.
Still shirtless, he stood before her, his muscular body and jean-clad legs planted on the ground before her. He looked powerful, rugged. Dangerous.
She licked her lips. “What are you doing here?”
His dark eyes looked at her across the shadows of the forest. “I came for you.”
“You followed me?”
“It wasn’t difficult.”
She tried to glare at him, but she was so tired of fighting. So tired of running. “I … I don’t appreciate you sneaking up on me. Can’t you see I’m here trying to … to work?”
Sunlight and shadows shifted over the muscular curves of his half-naked body as Stefano walked toward her. In the slanted sunlight, dust motes floated lazily through the golden air. He seemed like a handsome gypsy, a dark prince from a fairy tale.
Then, wordlessly, he held out her camera.
Looking at it, Annabelle felt the blood rush from her face. Reluctantly, she reached out to take the camera.
Their fingers touched, and the shock of his rough fingertips against her skin caused a seismic tremble through her body. She started to pull away.
With a low Spanish curse, he grabbed her hand. “Why are you so afraid?”
She felt like she was falling apart. Desperately, she lifted her chin. “Afraid? Of you?”
“Yes, of me, damn it,” he said harshly. “Of everything. Of life!”
His words hung between them, echoing in the cool air. She took a shaking breath.
“Because I don’t want you to seduce me.”
“But you do.” He lowered his face until it was inches from hers. “You want it badly.”
He knew too much, saw too much. Her heart hammered in her throat.
He abruptly released her. “You didn’t run into this forest to take photographs,” he said harshly. “You ran away from me because I was getting too close. And that’s how you use your camera, your rudeness, your coldness. To keep people at a distance.”
She swallowed, looking away. When she spoke, her voice was almost too quiet to hear.
“Yes.”
“Why?” he demanded. She took a deep breath, lifting her chin. “Because,” she whispered, “it ends badly if I let anyone close to me.”
Stefano’s eyes were suddenly gentle as he reached his hand toward her cheek. “But, querida, just because a journey sometimes ends badly, doesn’t mean it’s not worth taking—”
Annabelle jerked her head away before he could touch the makeup that hid her scar. She flashed him an angry glance. “I’m not like you, all right? I’m not promiscuous. I don’t try to seduce total strangers. I don’t have one-night stands in hotels, with anonymous lovers I don’t even want to bring home!” He sucked in his breath. “No,” he said in a low voice. His eyes glittered. “Instead, you have no home. You share yourself with no one, because you are afraid!” She gritted her teeth. “You don’t know me!”
“No?” His eyes narrowed. “Your body reveals the truth. You turn to me, querida, like a flower to the sun.”
She gasped in outrage at hearing the truth spoken aloud. “No, I don’t!”
His dark eyes electrified her as he stepped closer. “Even now, you want me to take you in my arms,” he said. “You want me to kiss you so badly you’re trembling.”
“I’m not!”
His handsome face was brutal, his body lithe and powerful, and he moved closer until only an inch separated them. She could feel the warmth emanating off his naked skin, feel the dark hair of his chest brush against the fabric of her jacket.
“Are you sure?” he said softly.
Ruthlessly, he took her in his arms. His broad, rough hands cupped her chin, tilting her face upward. She saw his lips curve wickedly beneath the dappled sunlight.
And he lowered his mouth to hers.
She tensed, expecting him to ravish and plunder her mouth, almost expecting him to roughly take her with force.
Instead, to her shock, his lips were warm and tender. His sensual mouth moved against hers gently, luring her, tempting her to pleasure, and against her will, she melted into his arms.
She felt dizzy, swirling in a whirlwind of bliss and need. She felt his hard chest crushing her breasts. His skin was hot and silky beneath the trail of hair. He was so powerful. He could have taken her at his will. But he had no need to force her.
Annabelle found herself kissing him back with trembling, innocent lips.
He deepened the embrace, pulling her more tightly into his arms. Her lips melded with his as he guided her, teaching her the rhythm. His hands softly stroked her back, up and down. He parted her lips with his tongue, and as she felt him brush inside her mouth, a gasp of pleasure came from the back of her throat.
Annabelle’s knees trembled. She twisted her arms around his neck, holding on for dear life. His hands moved to her hips and he held her firmly, keeping her close and tight against his body.
His tongue teased her mouth, tasting the corners of her lips, entwining and dancing with her trembling tongue. Pleasure cascaded in waves down her body. His kiss was hungry, his body hot and hard against hers. He held her against him, not allowing her to escape or deny his sensual demand. As if she could …
Her first kiss. She was lost in sensation, overwhelmed with desire. The whole world seemed to shrink to their physical points of contact, to his strong arms around her, to his hard, naked chest, to the fiery heat of his lips against her own.
His kiss changed. His lips no longer softly lured her. They became more demanding. Stefano no longer tried to convince her. He simply took what he wanted. He kissed her savagely, hungrily, hard enough to bruise. Clutching his shoulders, Annabelle kissed him back with the same force, with all her pent-up need of her lonely life.
Her mind was long gone, her body possessed. She only knew she had to kiss him or die. And it was so good she almost wept …
It seemed minutes or hours later that Stefano pulled away.
“And you still say,” he breathed against her temple, “that you did not need to be kissed?”
Eyes still closed, Annabelle pressed her cheek against his chest. Her heart was beating so fast. Her lips were bruised. She felt warm sunlight on her skin. His strong arms felt like a s
hield, protecting her from the hard, cold world.
He stroked her hair tenderly. “How long has it been, querida?”
“What?” she whispered, dazed.
He smiled down at her. “Since you last took a lover.”
She blinked. Then she stared up at him in slowly dawning horror. Her heart pounded in her throat as all the passion and heat and fire turned to cold ash inside her.
You’ll never have me, Stefano, she’d said. Never.
She’d lied. The playboy was seducing her.
Annabelle sucked in her breath as waves of fear whipped through her. She couldn’t let it happen. She couldn’t! If she gave her virginity to a playboy like Stefano, she would lose everything. Her heart. Her soul.
While thirty seconds after Stefano had possessed her, he would forget her and move on to his next conquest!
With a gasp, she pulled away. Turning, she started to stumble back through the shadowed forest.
“Where are you going?” he demanded.
She tossed back over her shoulder, “I quit!”
“Running back to London? The fearless Annabelle Wolfe?” he taunted behind her. “Over one small kiss?”
She paused, looking back at him, her heart still pounding. “It wasn’t small.”
Stefano stood motionless, staring at her. Overhead, the green trees swayed in the warm breeze, causing dappled sunlight to scatter over them both like topaz.
“You hated it so much?” he said softly.
Hated it? No. She hadn’t hated it. That was the problem.
Stefano’s kiss had exploded her world. For the rest of her life, her memory would be divided in a new before and after. Today would forever be the day when she knew, without a doubt, how deep her loneliness and hunger went. And that she’d always be alone.
Annabelle felt a painful sting beneath her eyelids. She wanted to rush back into the warmth of his arms, to cling to him and beg him to kiss her again, to hold her tight and never let go.
But she knew how it would end.
You won’t be able to resist him. No woman can.
The broken hearts he’s scattered are as infinite as stars.
All the warnings hadn’t saved her. He’d still penetrated her defenses. If she stayed at Santo Castillo, he’d have her flat on her back in a week!
Bad Blood Collection Page 104
