Her breathing quickened, but she stayed put. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Delivering the punishment I promised.’
‘Sorry?’
‘You called me senhor when we were in the restaurant.’
She tried to turn around but he pressed her more firmly against the car. ‘I…don’t remember.’
‘Of course you do. You also thought I wouldn’t act on my promise in full view of other diners, didn’t you?’
‘No, I wasn’t—’
‘Maybe you were right. Or maybe we both knew I’d want to do more than just kiss you.’
‘You’re wrong…’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes…’
‘So you’d prefer I let this one slide?’ He rocked his hips against her bottom and her breath hitched. ‘You won’t think me weak?’
Her shocked laugh heated the air around them. ‘Only someone foolish would think you weak.’
‘I’m not sure whether there’s a compliment in there. Is there?’
Her head fell forward, exposing the seductive line of her neck. ‘Am I to pander to your ego too, Theo?’
He laughed. ‘How can you appear submissive and yet taunt me at the same time?’
She lifted her head and turned to stare at him. Whatever she saw in his face made her squirm harder. Provocatively. Her gaze dropped to his mouth and Theo could no more resist the temptation than he could breathe.
Fingers sliding beneath her knotted hair to hold her still, he caught her mouth in a fierce kiss. Every emotion he’d experienced since waking that morning was delivered in that kiss—passion, arousal, confusion, anxiety and anger. He pinned her against the car so she couldn’t move, couldn’t put those seductive hands on his body.
Although he missed her touch, a part of him was thankful because, had she had access, he would’ve lost even more of his mind than he suspected he was losing.
He registered the brief flashes behind his closed eyelids but didn’t break the kiss. He suspected Inez had no idea what had just happened. And even if she had, she wouldn’t have suspected the true reason behind the paparazzi shots because she was used to being the darling of the press.
Well, she was in for a rude awakening…
She started to open her mouth wider, to return his demanding kiss.
He slowly lifted his head. When she made a tiny sound of protest and tried to recapture his mouth, he forced himself to step away. He’d achieved one part of what he’d set out to do. The second part was a short drive away.
Curving his arm around her waist, he peeled her away from the door, opened it and deposited her inside, all the time trying not to stare down at her legs and imagine how they would feel wrapped around his waist.
He swallowed hard as he rounded the hood and slid behind the wheel.
‘Time to head to the club before I give in to the urge to deliver more punishment.’
Her eyes dropped to his mouth and he barely suppressed a groan as she licked her lips.
‘For your mercy, I will teach you how to samba like a true Brazilian,’ she replied huskily.
* * *
Inez lay among the white sheets the next morning, trying hard not to relive the events of the night before but it was as futile as trying to stop a tidal wave.
They’d eventually emerged from the nightclub at two in the morning. She’d been flushed and sweaty from being plastered to Theo’s superb body for three straight hours. But the wild racing of her heart had nothing to do with her exertions on the dance floor and everything to do with the man who’d focused on her as if she was the only woman in the whole club.
And Deus, had he danced like a dream? Far from tutoring him on the correct steps of her native dance, she’d found herself following his lead as he’d moved expertly on the dance floor.
When he’d caught her to him, her back to his front and replayed the scene in the car park, but this time to music, she’d seriously feared her heart would beat itself to expiration.
In that moment, she’d forgotten that there was a sinister purpose to Theo’s plan; that he’d all but admitted she was being used as a pawn in some deadly game he was playing with her father. When he’d laid his stubbled jaw against her cheek and hummed the sultry samba music in her ear, she’d closed her eyes and imagined what it would be like to belong—truly belong—to a man like Theo.