by Annie West
‘I care that you think you can blackmail me into marriage. It’s not ethical.’ She speared him with a look and tugged to free her hand from his grip. It didn’t work and she shot to her feet.
Donato rose at the same time, looming close. ‘You want ethics from me? From an ex-crim?’ His jaw set.
‘Why not?’ Ella should be intimidated by the glint in his eyes and by the way he crowded her, his wide shoulders hemming her in. Instead she felt a delicious thrill as she arched her neck to hold his gaze. With Donato she’d never felt more starkly the divide between male and female. She revelled in his size, his brooding presence and the unfamiliar sensation of being almost petite.
Was she insane?
‘You’re not a thug, Donato.’ There was too much intense thought behind his alert gaze for that to be true. And too much control—it was stamped on his features. Then there was the way he’d made love to her...
For the first time it seemed words eluded him. He stared as if he’d never seen her like before.
What? Had he really thought she’d have given herself to a man she feared?
‘You don’t say,’ he said at last. ‘And you’re an expert on thugs? Growing up in a north-shore mansion and attending a posh private school?’ His words were a silky taunt and she wondered at the anger she’d inadvertently stirred. Because she refused to think the worst of him? Had she questioned too closely?
‘You did check on me.’ Ella blinked, amazed at how betrayed she felt. She tasted disappointment, a bitter tang on her tongue.
Donato frowned. ‘I said I hadn’t. It doesn’t take an investigator to know your father wouldn’t send his darling daughter anywhere she’d mix with the wrong sort.’
Ella’s stomach swooped in relief. She hadn’t wanted to believe Donato had lied.
She huffed a mirthless laugh. She’d never been Reg’s ‘darling daughter’. If only Donato knew, her school had had its share of bullies. Maybe if she’d been pretty or pert or less studious they wouldn’t have targeted her.
‘I’ve met some thugs in my time.’ Her father being one. ‘They bully those who seem weaker. But really they’re cowards, scared of anyone stronger.’
‘Yet you don’t think of me as a bully?’
Ella drew a deep breath, then wished she hadn’t as she dragged in his spicy warm scent. It made her want to kiss that hard beautiful mouth. She dragged her hand free and stepped back, her chair grating across the flagstones.
‘No, I don’t.’ Donato was demanding, arrogant, clever and ruthless. But he’d been considerate, reassuring and almost...tender. He’d kept his word, refusing to have her investigated because he knew the idea revolted her. He’d been honest, up to a point.
‘Tell me about the man you attacked.’
Donato’s head reared back. ‘What makes you think I want to talk about that?’
She shrugged. ‘Why wouldn’t you? Don’t tell me you’re scared I’ll judge you?’
Instead of bridling at the taunt, Donato surveyed her with a thoroughness that brought all that reckless awareness straight to the surface in a blaze like wildfire.
Ignoring the flare of arousal, she stared straight back. She needed to understand him.
‘Why did you fight with him?’
He shrugged, his expression closed. ‘He deserved it. He hurt someone.’
Ella frowned. She hadn’t read about anyone else in the fight, just the teenage Donato and a forty-year-old man. Yet it had been the older man carted off to hospital after the police intervened.
‘So you were protecting someone?’ Her chest contracted at the idea of a teenager taking on a grown man to save someone else.
She’d never had a protector in her life, had always fought her own battles, but the idea held huge appeal. Perhaps because no one had ever stood up for her. It made his actions more understandable, more forgivable.
Ella counted one breath, two, three, before finally he shook his head.
‘It wasn’t that simple. Don’t imagine I’m some hero.’ His mouth twisted harshly. ‘I’m not.’
Her thoughts stalled at his tone, and at that flash of dark emotion. He looked...tortured. And she’d swear she heard desolation in his stark words. Then, even as the impression formed, his expression was wiped clear.
But that split second had been enough to set Ella’s thoughts whirling.
Did he blame himself for not protecting this other person? Clearly something still ate at him, despite the passage of time. Donato was in his mid-thirties, yet long-ago hurt was buried beneath all that surface sangfroid.
Whatever he felt in that carefully guarded soul, it ran deep and strong.
Instead of frightening her, the knowledge drew her. She wanted to smooth her hands over his set shoulders, press herself against him and learn all there was to know about Donato Salazar.
Fear jolted through her. Fear of how much she wanted to break down that wall of superior calm and find the man behind it.
You haven’t known him a day and already you want so much!
Alarm made her voice abrupt. ‘Is that the only time you’ve been violent?’
‘What is this, an interview?’
Ella notched her chin high. ‘You’re the one talking about marriage.’
‘I’ve never been violent towards a woman. It’s not something you have to worry about.’
‘Because you say so?’ She crossed her arms over her chest.
‘It’s not something I’d ever do.’ Indignation flashed in his eyes, but it was the proud set of his chin, the distaste in his flared nostrils and flat mouth that told her she’d struck a nerve. ‘I was brought up to respect women. You have nothing to fear from me.’
Scary how easy it was for her to believe him.
‘What about men?’
‘If you were a man we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’ His voice dropped to the deep, resonant pitch that made her want to do something crazy, like drag his head down to hers and kiss him till he told her all his secrets.
She made herself take a single step back from him. His jaw tightened.
‘You haven’t answered my question.’
‘Am I physically dangerous?’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘It was all a long time ago. I told you on the phone. I learned to think before I act. Prison is a great teacher.’
He lifted one finger to follow the line of that narrow scar bisecting his cheek. ‘I thought I was tough as a kid but I had a lot to learn.’
Ella’s heart lurched. Imagine going behind bars as a teenager and emerging a man. Imagine who he’d mixed with there. No wonder Donato had a hard, impenetrable edge.
That scar, though silvered now, scored perilously close to the corner of his eye. It was faint enough to give him a rakish hint of the buccaneer, but she’d dealt with knife wounds when she’d worked in Emergency. She knew what sliced flesh looked like.
‘Ella?’ His breath feathered her face, warm and coffee-scented. ‘You’re feeling sorry for me?’ His brows knitted as he leaned over her, astonishment clear in those brilliant eyes.
‘No, I...’
Her words dissolved as his lips brushed hers, soft and almost tentative.
That was all it took. One kiss. Not even a kiss but the merest whisper of a caress, and she ignited, falling against him as he tugged her in. He wrapped his arms around her, not hard, but to her disordered mind it seemed protectively, tenderly. That just fuelled her response, like petrol poured on open flames.
He pulled his head back to stare down at her, his gaze darkening to midnight.
‘I don’t need your pity.’ She felt the rumble of his voice through their bodies, where she pressed against him. ‘I was found guilty, remember?’
‘Who said anything about pity?’ Yet there was a knot in her throat at the idea o
f him as a kid, coming of age in prison because he’d tried to defend someone.
His look sharpened. ‘Women want me because I’m rich. Because I’m powerful. Or for a thrill because I’m big and bad and dangerous.’ That unblinking gaze pinioned her. ‘Never because they feel sorry for me.’
It was a warning, as clear as a flashing red light. Yet he hadn’t mentioned the most obvious reason any woman would want him. Because he was the single most fascinating, sexy, infuriatingly charismatic man on the planet.
Ella had finally found a weak spot in his aura of omniscient authority. When she had more time, when she wasn’t pressed up against him from thigh to breast, she’d think about that.
Now, though, her thoughts frayed. Logical Ella was unravelling. That new bold Ella stirred again, the woman who dared to act on impulse, regardless of consequences. She shuddered as desire rose like a blast of hot summer air.
‘Good, then you won’t expect sentiment from me.’ She rose on her toes and anchored her hands in his thick soft hair, pulling him down to her level.
She was confused by this man, alternately irritated and fascinated. But she needed him. More now than before, as if what they’d shared earlier had given her a taste of something deliciously addictive.
‘Kiss me, Donato.’ It was new Ella speaking, her voice an unfamiliar throaty purr. ‘And make it good.’
Ella had never said anything like that to a man. But the fingers threading his hair were hers, as were the breasts straining against his hard torso, and the hips circling needily as he clamped her against him. The mouth was definitely hers, fusing with his demanding lips, sighing her pleasure as he forgot about conversation and gave her what she needed.
By the time they made it to a large canopied day bed near the pool, she was in her underwear and he’d lost his shirt and shoes.
Ella lay back, enjoying the view of his bronzed torso, powerful and dusted with dark hair across the chest. Even the couple of scars, pale on his ribs, didn’t mar his perfection. Muscles bunched and twisted as he reached for a condom then shoved down his pants.
A gasp escaped and he looked up.
It would be too naïve of her to blurt out that he was the most imposing man she’d ever seen. Just the sight of him made her heart hammer.
‘You’re well prepared.’ Was that her voice, that husky drawl of invitation? ‘Do you usually carry so many condoms?’
His mouth curved in a tight smile at odds with the blaze in his eyes. ‘I was expecting you.’
He reached out, dispensing with her underwear with casual efficiency. His eyes like lasers, so hot she felt her skin shiver. Then his mouth was on her breast, his hand between her legs, and there was nothing but Donato and pleasure so intense it saturated her, from her bones to her brain and everywhere in between.
He licked her nipple and her breath caught. He sucked it inside his hot mouth and her hands on the back of his head turned to claws, dragging him closer.
His hand moved and she bucked against him. Impossibly she felt a trembling begin deep inside. A trembling that grew and spread.
‘Now! I need you now.’ Desperately she groped down between them. He was thick and solid against her palm, twitching at her touch.
Heat suffused her, intensified at the slide of his hard body against hers. The tickle of chest hair against her breasts, the haze of his breath on her neck. His fingers covered hers, guiding, till he was right where she needed him.
Their eyes locked as Donato dragged her hands above her head, holding them high against the cushions as he thrust home with one hungry glide that brought them colliding together.
Ella arched up, stunned by the sheer intimacy of him there, at the heart of her, his eyes holding hers as surely as he claimed her body. The air locked in her lungs as sensation rocked her. Not physical sensation but something she couldn’t name, a sense of rightness, of belonging.
Donato’s eyes widened. Did he feel it too?
Ella remembered how it had felt coming apart in his arms, drowning in his gaze. She felt it again, fierce pleasure and more too, the powerful connection, the sense she gave up part of her soul, not just her body. It had scared the life out of her.
She squeezed her eyes shut, focusing on the crescendo of physical rapture. The climax that was upon her before she knew it, throwing her high to the stars. She bit her tongue, desperate not to cry his name as ecstasy took over, needing not to give in completely.
Donato jerked hard, spilling himself, his voice a guttural, seductive slur of Spanish, and her eyes opened of their own volition.
Instantly she was lost in indigo heat, in the heady, terrifying tumble into unfamiliar territory that wasn’t merely about eager bodies and erotic caresses. Into a place where she was no longer Ella but part of him, part of Donato, and he was part of her.
He held her gaze for what seemed minutes, their breathing ragged, chests heaving, bodies twitching in the aftershock of that momentous eruption of delight.
Ella told herself it was okay. She’d be fine. She was just unused to sex. To giving herself to any man. This was purely physical.
Then he bent his head and touched his lips to hers in a delicate feather of a kiss and something huge and inexplicable welled up inside. Ella choked back a lump in her throat, blinking furiously as heat glazed her eyes and a tear spilled down her cheek.
CHAPTER NINE
‘IF YOU STAY the night, who knows,’ Donato murmured hours later, languidly tracing Ella’s back, ‘we might make it to a bed.’
It was the first time he’d invited a woman to stay overnight but he’d passed the stage of being surprised at his need for Ella. Whatever this was between them, he’d enjoy it to the utmost.
A rich chuckle shivered through her, tickling his hand and tugging at something in his belly. She had a warm, sexy laugh. ‘That would be a novelty.’
He smiled. That was better. The sight of her silver eyes awash with tears had disturbed him, even if it had been in the aftermath of a stunning climax.
He’d gathered her close, ignoring the upsurge of desire as she settled across him. The shadows had lengthened and she’d slept, making him wonder at her exhaustion. Perhaps she hadn’t slept last night either.
Ella Sanderson wasn’t what he’d expected. From her plain cotton bra and knickers, as if she’d deliberately dressed not to entice him, to the look in her eyes when she’d probed about his past.
Donato’s chest clenched. No one since his mother had ever been completely on his side, not even his lawyer. He wasn’t used to it. That explained the weird, full sensation when Ella had looked at him with such sympathy, her mouth a pout of distress.
He shook off a sense of disquiet. Deliberately he pulled her against his erection, enjoying her gasp. He enjoyed holding a woman who was all sweet curves and hollows. He looked forward to exploring every centimetre.
A phone pierced the silence and Ella moved. Donato was surprised at the strength of his urge to tug her back.
‘That’s mine.’ She scrambled across the day bed, breasts swaying, her peach of a backside making his mouth dry as he imagined taking her from behind.
‘It can wait.’ He propped himself on one elbow for a better view. How could a woman who looked as good as Ella doubt her attractiveness? He’d put the pieces together now—her discomfort when he’d called her attractive, her haughtiness that defied him to find fault and the surprise in her silvery eyes when he’d pulled back to admire her.
‘It might be important.’ She scooped up her phone and, before he could stop her, stood.
‘On a Saturday?’ What could be so vital? Another lover? The idea punched his gut. Instinct, or maybe pride, told him Ella wasn’t promiscuous, despite the rampant sex they’d shared. He’d seen her shock when they came together so spectacularly and her dazed disbelief when rapture claimed her.
He guessed her bravado hid a deep reserve.
His gaze lingered on her hourglass figure, slightly broader at the hips and deliciously narrow at the waist. Long shapely legs and hair like dark honey. She wrapped a nearby towel around herself and scowled at the phone.
‘Hello, Dad.’ Her voice was wary. More than wary.
Donato’s interest stirred.
Ella shot a harried glance at him then moved away. But the curve of the building improved the acoustics so he caught part of the conversation.
‘No, it’s not all settled! We’ll find another way.’ She hunched the phone against her ear and pulled back her shoulder-length hair in a gesture that screamed frustration.
‘You wouldn’t! That’s Rob’s money. You have to repay that before you do anything else.’ Another look over her shoulder before she walked to the end of the pool.
Donato watched her long-legged stride. She couldn’t keep still. One hand slashed the air and her mouth turned down as if she’d swallowed something sour.
Talking to Reg Sanderson had that effect on him too.
So there was a rift between father and daughter. He’d guessed that, seeing the lack of affection between them. Plus there was outrage in Ella’s voice when she spoke of Rob’s money. Rob, her brother? Had Sanderson got his claws into his kids’ assets?
Donato shouldn’t have promised not to investigate her and, by extension, her siblings. It tied his hands. There was far more he wanted to know, but having given her his word—
She strode back, her features taut. Something clenched hard inside him.
‘Come here.’ Donato put out his hand. ‘You need someone to help you feel better. I’m just the man.’
His invitation wasn’t entirely selfish. He didn’t like her troubled expression, knowing Sanderson had caused it. Another reason to hate the man.
