She saw the anger and the shock etching his bronzed features into rigidity and she could not bear the sight. If he turned from her now he would never come back to her again. She knew that as clearly as though he had spoken and she fought it with her instincts, reaching up, touching his sensual mouth with the soft promise of hers, refusing to let him go.
‘Rico…’
And it was done. In the circle of her arms he trembled, far less in control than he had sought to pretend. His rigidity broke, his body surging against hers again in a rhythm as old and as relentless as time. With a stifled groan of earthy satisfaction he completed his possession of that place which had once been hers alone.
The pain had gone as though it had never been. Renewed heat flooded her as he thrust into her again, fast and deep, his hands sinking beneath her hips to press back her thighs. She gasped as he moved inside her and enforced the pace to a level of shattering, driving intensity. Her heartbeat thundered, her pulses madly accelerated. She was controlled, dominated, excited to a pitch beyond her belief. When she went over the edge into the tumultuous, shuddering pleasure of release she cried out his name as if it were a talisman in the swirling darkness that blocked out everything else in the world.
Except his withdrawal. It could not block out that. Within seconds of that climax Rico dragged himself free of her arms. The shock of that abrupt severance was immense. Bella opened dazed eyes and focused on him. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Qué pasa? “What’s wrong?”’ Rico sliced the repetition back at her with stinging derision. ‘You dare to ask me what’s wrong?’
It was like a bucket of cold water on sunburn. Bella sat up, every lingering and pleasurable sensation stolen from her. With a shaking hand she drew the blanket over her. But Rico stood there, unashamedly naked, every taut line of his magnificently masculine body exuding fury.
She had never felt more agonisingly confused. She would not have given herself without love. And with the people she loved Bella was a giver of unparalleled generosity. She asked for nothing in return. But did she love him?
‘I don’t know what’s wrong.’ She couldn’t yet think straight and opted for honesty, searching his hard, dark features with a pain concealed by the veil of her lashes.
‘What’s your game? What do you want from me? What was that sweet little seduction scene angled at?’ he demanded with raw hostility. ‘Had I known I was to be the first I would not have touched you!’
‘I think that was my choice to make,’ Bella muttered, lowering her head, the sting of tears furiously blinked back.
‘Por Dios…it was certainly not mine! I believed I was making love to an equal partner. I do not sleep with virgins,’ he said darkly, with a positively vicious bite.
‘I told you I was—’
‘But you were aware that I did not believe you. If there’s one thing you don’t look it’s innocent!’ he condemned. ‘And innocent in thought and deed you’re not. Tell me now…what is this likely to cost me?’
‘C-cost you?’ she repeated blankly.
‘The honey trap and then the price,’ he drawled with chilling menace. ‘I’ve been down that path before. This scenario has a deeply sordid familiarity for me. If you’re the fertile type I expect I’ll be supporting you for the next decade and a half at the very least!’
Every icy word fell like a whiplash on her exposed back. Bella was appalled. He had made love to her with incredible passion, and now he was rejecting both that passion and her with a brutality that paralysed her. ‘Rico…?’
‘I warn you now… I will not marry you,’ he imparted with icy emp
hasis. ‘I will never marry again.’
Again? He had already been married? Even in the midst of her turmoil Bella was struck by that unexpected revelation.
‘So, if you are cherishing some pitiful fantasy of Cinderella catching her prince, let me assure you that even a pregnancy wouldn’t persuade me to make that ultimate sacrifice!’
Bella sucked in badly needed air to fill her seemingly squashed lungs. She studied her tightly clenched hands. ‘You’re not my prince, Rico. Relax,’ she whispered painfully. ‘Learn to enjoy life as the toad who didn’t deserve to be kissed and transformed. This particular Cinderella doesn’t believe in fairy tales.’
He expelled his breath in an audible hiss. She sensed that whatever he had expected from her it hadn’t been that. In that sense they were equal. She had been thrown violently off balance by his accusations. Where she had given, he saw deliberate enticement. Where she had expected nothing, he demanded to know the cost. It was impossible to believe that mere minutes ago they had been as intimately close as a man and a woman could be. For when Bella had trustingly dropped all her defences Rico had raised his with a savage hostility which took her breath away. And her pride revolted against the image he had formed of her.
‘Why, then? Why did you give yourself to me?’
In a sudden movement Bella scrabbled for her clothes where they lay about the bed. A deep, sustaining anger made her hands tremble. Well, you lived and you learnt. There was no surer truth, it seemed. She had been a fool to expose herself to such an extent to a male who understood her about as well as he might understand an alien being. Where emotions were concerned she was dealing with a male so impenetrably thick that he ought to be locked up for his own safety, she thought furiously.
‘Bella…?’ he pressed harshly.
‘I wanted you! Lust… what else?’ Magnificent green eyes flashing, she shot him a look of vibrant derision, unperturbed by his sudden stillness and the freezing of his strong features. “There was no hidden agenda.’
He stared at her, forbidding dark eyes, fringed by lush ebony lashes, nailed to her with mesmeric intensity. His sensual mouth compressed into a cold, hard line.
‘I thought that might shut you up.’ Bella let loose a not quite steady laugh as she pulled on her jacket and rummaged beneath the blanket to haul up her skirt. ‘Lust is OK for you but not for me, right? Did you think I was about to delicately beat about the bush like your fancy lady-friends?’ she hissed. ‘Or did you fondly imagine that I was going to tell you I had fallen madly in love with you and just couldn’t help myself? Get real, Rico!’
With that final, ringing statement Bella sprang out of bed and strode through the beaded curtain. She turned on the water full force at the sink and leant back against the door, trembling on legs that briefly didn’t feel strong enough to keep her upright. Love grabs you by the throat when you least expect it and rips the heart out of you, she thought sickly. I don’t want this…I don’t need these feelings!