He took her into the ballroom so they’d conclude this business with her boss, and he could have her all to himself again.

Eliana spooled away from him, flashing him an exquisite smile. “I’ll go finish my own mission.”

Before he could stop her, an erratic movement caught his eye.

Ferreira.

Rafael’s enemy was on a collision course with them.

Before any of them could move, Ferreira was pulling Eliana into his arms.

Aggression erupted, almost bursting Rafael’s head. He was her boss? And he was on hugging terms with her?

Then the words Ferreira kept saying as he clutched Eliana sank into Rafael’s mind.

Ellie, my baby girl, you’re okay.

Rafael stared at the woman he’d lost his mind over, in the arms of the man he was here to destroy.

And everything crashed into place.

* * *

From Enemy’s Daughter to Expectant Bride is part of The Billionaires of Black Castle series: Only their dark pasts could lead these men to the light of true love.

From Enemy’s Daughter to Expectant Bride

Olivia Gates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

OLIVIA GATES has always pursued creative passions such as singing and handicrafts. She still does, but only one of her passions grew gratifying enough, consuming enough, to become an ongoing career–writing.

She is most fulfilled when she is creating worlds and conflicts for her characters, then exploring and untangling them bit by bit, sharing her protagonists’ every heart-wrenching heartache and hope, their every heart-pounding doubt and trial, until she leads them to an indisputably earned and gloriously satisfying happy ending.

When she’s not writing, she is a doctor, a wife to her own alpha male and a mother to one brilliant girl and one demanding Angora cat. Visit Olivia at www.oliviagates.com.

To Pat Cooper.

I’m so honored and grateful my writing has struck such a chord within you

Your reviews have literally changed my life.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

He woke up in darkness again.

His cheeks were wet, his heart battering his chest, and his screams for his mother and father still shredding his throat.

“Get up, Numbers.”

The vicious voice had terror expanding in his chest. The first time he’d heard it, he’d been terrified, thinking it was a stranger in his bedroom. But he’d soon realized it had been even worse. He’d no longer been at home, but somewhere narrow and long with no windows and no furniture. He’d been on the freezing ground, hands tied behind his back. That voice speaking heavily accented English, the language he knew so well, had said the same thing then.

And that had been how this nightmare had started.

“Seems Numbers wants another beating.”

That was the other man. He believed he’d never see anyone but these scary men ever again. And they called him Numbers. It was why they’d taken him. Because he was good with numbers.

He’d been offended when they’d first said that about him. He wasn’t “good with numbers.” He was a mathematical prodigy. That was what his parents and teachers and all the experts who’d sought him had said he was.

He’d corrected them, and he’d gotten his first ever slap for it. It had almost snapped his neck, sending him crashing into the wall. As the shock and pain had registered, he’d realized that this was real. He was no longer safe and protected. Anything could and would be done to him.

At first, that had made him angry. He’d said if they returned him to his parents, he wouldn’t tell them they’d dared lay a hand on him. The two men had laughed, just like he’d always imagined devils would. One had told the other that this Numbers kid might take longer to break than they’d thought.

He’d still insisted his name wasn’t Numbers, and the other man had backhanded him on his other cheek, even more viciously.

As he’d lain on the ground, shaking with fear and helplessness, the men had told him what to expect from now on.

“You’ll never see your parents or leave this place again. You now belong to us. If you do everything we tell you, the moment we tell you, then you won’t be punished. Not too bad.”

But he’d disobeyed their every order ever since, no matter how severely they’d punished him for it. He’d hoped they’d give up on him and send him home. But they’d only grown more brutal, seemed to be enjoying hurting and humiliating him more, and the hope that this nightmare might end had kept dwindling.

“Shall we give Numbers a choice of punishments today?”

He heard his tormentors snickering, could barely see their silhouettes towering over him out of the eye that wasn’t swollen shut. And in that moment, he gave up.

It finally sank in that what he’d endured their abuse so long for would never happen.

This nightmare would never end.

His captors would never stop their cruelty, his parents would never rescue him and no one else would ever help him. It would never stop getting worse.

And if this was what his life would be like from now on, he no longer wanted to live.

But he couldn’t even kill himself. All he had in his cell were metal bowls for dirty water and slimy gunk and the bucket he used for a toilet. There was no way to escape them even through death. Except maybe...

The idea took hold in a second. He’d tried everything except playing along. Maybe if he did, they’d think they’d broken him, and let him out of his cell. He could escape then.

Or die trying.

One of the giants kicked him in the ribs. “Up, Numbers.”

Gritting his teeth against the shriek of pain, he rose.

A terrible laugh. “Numbers finally obeys.”

“Let’s see if he really does.” The other monster shoved his foul-breathed face in his. “What’s your name, boy?”

The burning liquid in his shriveled stomach rose to his mouth. He swallowed it with the last thought of resistance. “Numbers.”

A slap stung across his sore cheek, if not as hard as usual. They’d punish him anyway, just not as badly when he obeyed. “And why are you here?”

“Because I’m good with numbers.”

“And what will you do?”

“Everything you say.” Another slap left his ears ringing, his head spinning, yet he continued, “The moment you say it.”

In the faint light coming from outside, he saw them exchange smiles of malicious satisfaction. They believed they’d succeeded in breaking him. And they had. But he didn’t intend to live long enough for them to enjoy their victory.

And they did as he’d thought they would—they dragged him out of his cell. Too weak to walk, he hung between them, his bare feet and the knees exposed through his tattered pants scraping on the cold, cobbled ground.

Barely able to raise his head to look where they were taking him, he got glimpses of soaring, blackened columns and arches, with a roiling gray sky between them. The whole place looked like a medieval fortress from one of the video games his father had gotten him. The one thing he noticed or cared about now was that the walls between the columns were low enough to jump over. To escape...or fall to his death.

Then one of the monsters said, “If you get near the walls, you’ll get caught, beaten then thrown back in your cell for twice as long as it took to break you the first time.”

So even that plan was impossible. But he couldn’t go on like this anymore. He couldn’t take it.

Before he begged them to just kill him and be done with it, they pulled open two towering wooden doors, dragged him across the threshold and hurled him to the rough ground.

When he finally managed to raise his head, he saw that they were in a huge hall with rows of tables filled with silent boys who’d all turned at their entrance.

“This worm is your newest addition. If you see him doing anything you’re not allowed, report him. You’ll have a bonus.”

With that, his two jailers turned and left him on his knees facing the boys. His pride surged back under their scrutiny, had him staggering to his feet, the initial hope he’d felt when he’d realized he wasn’t alone here draining away. He knew boys could be cruel to those smaller and weaker. And from a first sweep around the room, he was probably the youngest around.

He stood, trying not to hug his aching side, not to show weakness, and almost sagged back to his knees in relief as they turned back to their food and whispered conversations.

So they were all afraid to even raise their voices as the boys in his old school had, who’d been free to laugh and joke. These boys were prisoners like him. They’d been broken before him.

Painfully good smells of hot food hit him, making him dizzier with hunger. Trying to appear steady, he headed toward the source of the aromas.

He was struggling to reach the lid of one of the massive containers when a hand raised it. He hadn’t felt its owner’s approach.

It was an older boy with a shaved head and piercing black eyes who was already as tall as his own father. But instead of being intimidated by the boy’s size and fierce looks, he felt...reassured by his presence.

“My name is Phantom. What’s yours?”

His real name rose to his tongue before he swallowed it. This boy might be waiting for him to do something “they weren’t allowed to,” like tell his real name, so he could report him and get a bonus.

To be on the safe side, he only said, “Numbers.”

The boy’s winged black eyebrows rose. “That’s your specialty? But you can’t be older than seven.”

“I’m eight.”

At his indignation, the boy’s gaze gentled. “The first month—or three in your case—of starvation made us all look smaller. You must now eat well, so you can grow as big and strong as possible.”

“Like you?”

Phantom’s lips twitched. “I’m not done growing. But I’m working on it.”

The older boy filled a bowl of steaming stew that smelled mouthwatering compared to the rotting messes he’d been unable to force down for what he’d just now realized had been the past three months. He’d had no way of knowing how long it had been until Phantom had told him.

After handing it over, Phantom filled himself a bowl, then beckoned for him to follow. “If you warranted a name according to your skill that young, you must be a prodigy.”

It pleased him intensely that this huge boy with the soundless steps and penetrating eyes could see him for what he was. Even after his jailers had stripped him of everything that made him himself.

Encouraged, he asked, “How old are you?”

“Fifteen. I’ve been here since I was four.”

The boy had answered his next question before he’d asked it, telling him that what his jailers had said was true.

He’d never leave here.

They reached one of the tables and Phantom gestured for him to sit down. There were five other boys, each looking as different as could be from the other, all older than him, but none as old as Phantom.

Two boys scooted along the bench to make space for him as Phantom introduced him to them, his lips somehow not moving, so it would appear to the guards who flanked the hall that he wasn’t talking at all. Each of the boys introduced himself. Lightning, Bones, Cypher, Brainiac and Wildcard.

As they continued to eat, each of them asked him something, about his past life. He emulated the boys in stealth, telling them truths without revealing facts. Then they started giving him equations, which he solved with perfect accuracy no matter how convoluted they made them.

By the time they finished eating, he felt he’d known these boys for a long time. But the guards were announcing the end of the meal, and all the boys stood up to leave the hall.

Unable to control his anxiety, he clung to Phantom’s arm. “Will I see you again?”

Phantom gave him a stern look, making him remove his hand before the guards noticed. But his voice was gentle when he said, “I’ll see that you’re brought to our ward.”

“You can do that?”

“There’s a lot you can do around here, if you know how.”

“Will you teach me?”

Phantom raised his eyes to the other boys. And it was then he realized they weren’t just fellow prisoners who sat together for meals or shared the same ward. These boys were a team. And Phantom was asking their approval before he let him join them.

Suddenly, this was all he wanted in life. To be part of their team. His old life was gone. And he just knew he wouldn’t have a new one without these boys.

He watched each boy give Phantom a slight nod, each filling him with hope he’d thought forever dead.

Before Phantom started walking away, leaving him behind, he said, “Welcome to our brotherhood, Numbers. And to Black Castle.”

One

Twenty-four years later

Rafael Moreno Salazar stood in the shadows, looking down from the mezzanine of his newly acquired mansion in Rio de Janeiro.

The grand ball was in full swing. All the major names in the marketing world were enjoying his exclusive hors d’oeuvres and free-flowing Moët et Chandon and waltzing to the elegant music of his live orchestra. And he hadn’t yet made an appearance.

He was leaving his guests to...stew, letting their curiosity about him and his intentions reach a fever pitch.

He’d been doing that since his announcement. That Rafael Salazar—the enigma who’d revolutionized financial technologies—was shopping for a marketing partner in the Western hemisphere. Although the announcement’s impact was already huge, he’d kept stoking interest by deepening his mystery. Then he’d added a pinch of spice. A handful of dirt, really.

As he always did with potential clients and associates, he’d let info leak that his background was in organized crime. As it was. Just not in the way people imagined. He and his brothers had had their own shadow operation in their beginnings.

Heads of state had been fascinated by his avant-garde methods from the start, but they hadn’t courted him aggressively except when they’d found out those methods had been forged in the crucible of crime and tested through the ingeniousness of corruption.

But he hadn’t been sure the marketing tycoons he was baiting would be as open to dealing with someone who dabbled in the world’s grayest zones and was one of those zones’ most ambiguous figures.

But instead of being repelled, it seemed everyone thought any illegal skills and liaisons he commanded would make him an even more lucrative partner. And if he was as formidable as it was rumored, he’d also be invulnerable. They could all do with a partner bullets bounced off.

And there they were, the hopeful candidates, pretending to be enjoying his lavish party and trying to be gracious to one another. But he could feel them seething with frustration, wondering whom he’d favor if and when he finally deigned to grace his own ball.

“Will you finally make an appearance tonight, Numbers?”

He slanted a calm glance at the man who’d appeared silently at his side. “I just might this time, Cobra.”

The Englishman he’d called Cobra for the past twenty years curled a ruthless lip as he examined the scene. Rafael had told him the same thing on three previous occasions.

To the world, he was Richard Graves—the name he’d picked when they’d manufactured their new identities. At forty-two, Richard looked like a Hollywood movie star, and at first glance, he could pass for Rafael’s older brother. They had almost the same build and coloring, only Richard’s jet-black hair was threaded with discreet silver. On closer inspection, however, their bone structure revealed their different ethnicities, with Rafael being of Portuguese Brazilian stock.

But there was one other major difference between them, and it wasn’t on the surface. It was in their specialties.

Though Rafael had been trained to be deadly, his main power lay in his mind. He’d rarely relied on his prowess in violence but was the go-to guy to liquidate targets financially. Richard was code-named Cobra for the best reasons. He was the total package of lethality. His liquidations had always been the literal kind. He now hid the deadliness that made him the ultimate assassin behind a facade of refinement. Until you examined him. Or he examined you. Rafael didn’t know any mere mortals who could withstand his scrutiny.

But Richard’s days of eradicating scum were behind him. Or so he said. But whether this was true or not, he now eliminated threats in the worlds of business and politics with an equally ruthless precision. With Richard as his partner and protector, Rafael felt confident that the past would never catch up with him...and that the future could hold no worries.

Richard pulled back, leveled probing eyes on him. “Aren’t you playing this with too much deliberation? You waited years to concoct this plan—I thought you’d be a bit more eager to finally put it into action.”

Rafael jerked one shoulder. “I’m in no hurry.”

“Really? Could have fooled me.” Richard huffed. “Seriously, all you’ve done for two months is set up such events, then stand in the wings watching. Don’t you think you’ve done enough reconnaissance?”

“After twenty-four years, you think two months is too long for me to savor the anticipation of my revenge?”

“Put that way, no.” Richard made a sound of self-deprecation. “Seems I’m the one who can’t contain my impatience. You’ve always been the most methodical, patient person I know. That is, along with your dear, relentless Phantom. But you still have one up on him. On anyone. You see the intricacies of probability as simple equations when they’re a maze to the rest of us.”

Rafael didn’t contradict him. He’d long known that the fluke of his mathematical ability did make him see the world in a different way.

But no matter what he’d just claimed, Richard was as clear-sighted as he was in his own way when it came to his concerns. However, when it came to Rafael’s, Richard had zero tolerance. He’d killed for him, would no doubt do so again if need be. He’d die for him. The feeling was absolutely mutual.

It never stopped amazing him that he’d not only been blessed with such a “brother” but with seven. Even though they were down to six these days.

Shaking away the disturbing memory of how they’d lost Cypher, seemingly forever, he sighed. “Maybe I’m discovering revenge is a dish best served cold.”

At Richard’s unconvinced grunt, Rafael chuckled, then sipped his champagne, swirling the sweet taste of vicious expectation.

His revenge would be cold. As bitterly cold as the prison he’d grown up in. As agonizingly slow as time had sheared past there. As grimly inexorable as the hatred he’d nursed all those years for those who’d had a hand in his enslavement.

Twelve interminable years of enduring his enslavers’ dehumanizing as they’d molded him into the mercenary the Organization would later lease to the highest bidders. Their patrons ranged from top names in politics and commerce to those in organized crime, espionage and war mongering.

He’d been one of a few hundred boys, picked from all over the world. Some kidnapped from their families, others bought or bartered, many more plucked from orphanages, the streets or chaos-torn zones. They’d all been way above average, physically and mentally. Some were gifted. Like him and his brothers.

The Organization’s “recruiters” chose their potential operatives using unerring criteria, and they went to great lengths to “acquire” them. They delivered them to that prison in the depths of the Balkans, where they were kept segregated from the world in that sinister fortress his brothers had named Black Castle.

The Organization acquired children as young as possible, the easier to shape them. The ones they acquired a bit older, like him, or younger but strong enough to resist, like his brothers, they broke first, before they put them in training.

Training was a euphemism for the hell, both physical and psychological, that they put them through to forge them into lethal weapons. Once they graduated to fieldwork, they were sent out in teams according to the skill set each mission required. They performed under the airtight surveillance of their “handlers.” Death rewarded any attempt to escape.

Yet he’d survived escaping and, before that, the years of oppression and abuse. Not that it had been because of his own strength. He’d had none left after that first period of isolation and torture. If he hadn’t met his brothers, he wouldn’t have lasted much longer. Then, four years later, Richard had taken him under his wing, too. Richard and his brothers had saved his sanity, and his life.

Phantom, now Numair Al Aswad, had fulfilled the promise he’d made that day in the dining hall when he and the boys had recognized him as a kindred spirit. From that point on, they’d made life worth living, their brotherhood replacing the family he’d lost. After proving himself worthy of their total trust, they’d included him in the blood pact they’d sworn. That they’d one day escape and become powerful enough to bring the entire Organization down.

To that end, Phantom had maneuvered the Organization into constantly teaming them up together until they became their prized strike force. This inseparable unit had been vital to their very long-term plans.

Phantom had also made them believe they’d eradicated their individuality, had turned them into inhuman weapons to be pointed wherever they pleased.

Once they’d become trusted and depended on, they’d been granted more autonomy, until that laxness had allowed them to execute their escape.

When they’d finally broken out, they’d gone deep underground, using their combined covert expertise to forge new identities....

“Reminiscing?”

Richard, his onetime handler, always read him with uncanny accuracy. It was how he’d found Rafael and the others after they’d escaped—by tracing him.

His brothers’ handlers had thankfully had no insight into their true nature. But since Richard had been assigned to him when he’d been twelve, an unbreakable bond had developed between them. Richard, ice-cold and implicitly trusted by the Organization, had hidden it perfectly. But there’d been no hiding anything from his brothers. Especially from Phantom and Cypher. Those two saw everything. And seeing his growing rapport with Richard had made them more apprehensive by the day. Their trepidation had proved well-founded when Richard had found them.

They’d distrusted Richard as totally as Rafael trusted him, considered him one of their enslavers. Their decision had been unanimous. Richard had to die.

Rafael hadn’t known whom to fear for more. Richard was the most lethal operative the Organization had ever had and certainly capable of wiping them all out. There’d been only one way he could avert that catastrophic situation.

He’d declared he’d stake his life on both sides, so if there was any killing, they had to kill him, too. Thankfully, they’d trusted him and his judgment implicitly, and it had been enough to make them all back down.

Yet even after he’d proved their escape plans wouldn’t have worked without Richard’s covert help, they’d still suspected Richard’s motives. It had taken proof that Richard had been a hostage of the Organization himself for them to believe that he wanted to bring them down, too.

It had still taken his brothers ages to warm up to Richard. Never in Numair’s case. Rafael remained the link between them, since he didn’t relish tearing Richard and Numair’s fangs out of each other’s flesh.

Those two had never had a truce, not even while they’d collated their unique skills to guide their brotherhood into building their joint enterprise. The one thing they’d ever agreed on was the name of their business—the name they’d given their prison, where they and their brotherhood had been forged. And so Black Castle Enterprises had been born.

Their business now spanned the world, with each becoming a billionaire in his own right. Each was also on a personal quest. Some searching for the family they’d been taken from, others for the heritage they’d been stripped of, some for a new purpose in life. But beyond planning the Organization’s downfall to save other children from their same fate, they had one more quest in common. Investigating how they’d ended up in the hands of the Organization.

Rafael had recently found out exactly how.

“Ferreira is down there?”

Richard’s question brought him out of his musings. “Of course.”

“So when will you put the man out of his misery?”

Rafael glanced fondly at his friend. “I wouldn’t put it past you to mean that literally.”

Richard gave him his patented predatory smile. “Oh, no. I think your plan is a much worse fate. I couldn’t have thought of a more diabolical one.”

“High praise from the man who puts 007 to shame.”

Not one for false modesty, Richard only said, “You know I’m a fan of subtle and protracted torture.”

Indeed. And his impending torment of Ferreira would have an abundance of both elements. Disgracing him and oh-so-gradually stripping him of his wealth would only be the beginning.

“Your plot is far more effective than putting a bullet in his brain. I just wish you’d get on with it.”

“So you no longer disapprove of my direct approach?”

Richard shrugged. “A remote one remains better. It would be the perfect setup if he didn’t realize where the blows were coming from. But that’s logic talking. And there’s more than logic involved here. You need the satisfaction of looking that git in the eyes as you stick the knife in and turn it.”

Richard had originally advised against getting close to Ferreira, with the inherent drawbacks and dangers that entailed. It now warmed Rafael that his friend not only understood his need, he empathized. He wanted this for him. This gratification. This closure.

And he would come close. He’d make Ferreira taste everything he’d ever hungered for...before snatching it away. Rafael would have a front-row seat to his betrayal and desperation.

Putting his glass down, he sighed. “But you’re right. It’s time I got that satisfaction. I won’t single Ferreira out tonight, though. I’ll dangle myself, pretend to take pitches, let the mystery around me build a bit more, before...”

Something sizzled at the back of his neck. As if a soft hand stroked him there, or a hot breath blew over his skin.

Frowning, he turned to investigate the source of the disturbance. It couldn’t be someone’s gaze. He wasn’t in anyone’s line of sight.

As expected, no one was looking his way. But those sensations only increased, enveloped his body and...

Everything seemed to fade as his senses converged on the beacon of disruption. A woman.

Framed in the ballroom’s doorway, she stood as if at a loss for what to do. She was swathed in an ethereal off-the-shoulder cream evening gown, gleaming hair swept away from a face that seemed almost unreal before cascading to a tiny waist that...

“Before what?”

He blinked Richard’s question away, resuming his focus on her. Though he’d never suffered anything like this before, he knew what it was. A bolt of attraction. More than that. Recognition...of the woman who translated his every fantasy into glorious reality.

He had to be imagining this. But all his senses told him he wasn’t. This felt real.

One way to find out. Get closer....

“What are you staring at, Numbers?”

This time Richard’s intrusion annoyed him. He realized his reaction was exaggerated, but he didn’t want to talk, couldn’t risk shattering this moment.

As if afraid he’d startle her out of her indecision, which afforded him the leisure to examine her, he whispered, “Her.”

Richard stepped forward. “Who? That woman at the door?”

Surprised, he turned to him. “You see her?”

Richard scowled. “You asleep on your feet again?”

He hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, but that had nothing to do with his reaction to her. “I’m wide-awake. Though she does belong in a dream. She looks like she’s just stepped out of a fairy tale.”

Richard’s incredulity surpassed his. “You’re serious?”

“I am. I...”

His thoughts stalled. She’d started walking into the ballroom, but her uncertain steps, her darting eyes and the way she fiddled with the long chain of her purse revealed her discomfort. Everything about her unconscious grace and reluctant demeanor made something rev behind his sternum. It intensified with her every step until he had to rub the heel of his hand against it.

“How could this be real?”

“It isn’t.”

Richard’s response startled him. He hadn’t realized he’d spoken out loud. “How can you say that?”

“I can because she’s just another pretty blonde.”

He looked at his friend as if he’d grown a third eye. “She’s not blonde. Are you even talking about the same woman?”

Richard seemed about to argue, then changed his mind. “Whatever. Just go initiate your incursion.”

“It won’t be an incursion. I will approach her with utmost finesse.”

Richard frowned. “I’m talking about Ferreira.”

“Forget Ferreira. I’ll...”

Rafael stopped as he realized something. He couldn’t approach her. He’d been scrupulous about keeping any photos of himself out of the media. But if anyone knew what he looked like, they were down there at the ball. He didn’t want to risk anyone recognizing him, not now that he’d decided against making an appearance. This evening had suddenly become all about establishing contact with this magical being.

He turned to Richard. “Cobra, bring her to me.”

His former handler blinked. “What’s wrong with you, Numbers? You’ve never reacted to a woman like this before.”

“She’s not just ‘a woman.’”

Richard snorted. “Oh, yes, that’s right. She just slithered out of a fairy tale.”

Rafael gritted his teeth, impatience shooting through him. “Just go down and get her up here.”

“You want me—the man famed for putting people at such ease—to approach a woman I don’t know and command her to come with me...to meet another man she doesn’t know? A man who currently looks deranged? You expect this fairy being to be a total moron, too?”

Richard’s derision tripped some still functioning logic circuits. That scenario did seem implausible.

But he had to get that woman alone.

Suddenly, another idea came to him. “I’ll go down with you and stand outside the ballroom. You just get her to me. I’ll take it from there.”

“I’m your protector, not your pimp, Numbers.”

“Oh, shut up. And move it.”

With one last glance as if to a madman, Richard turned and headed downstairs. Rafael dogged his steps, scenarios crowding in his overheated imagination.

What if this excitement fizzled out once he saw her up close? Worse, what if it didn’t...but she didn’t reciprocate it? Or what if she was interested, but like all other women, her attraction was based purely on his looks, wealth and power? Worst of all, what if she was already taken?

No. This last possibility he categorically rejected.

She wasn’t taken. He just knew it.

At the edge of the ballroom, Richard looked back as if hoping he’d come to his senses. Rafael only shoved him forward.

Grunting a curse, Richard walked away, cutting through the crowd. At six foot six, he towered a head above everyone, making it easy for Rafael to monitor his progress.

Then he saw her. Pressing to the periphery, as if taking refuge from the crowd, wishing she were anywhere but there.

Everything inside him tightened, anticipating the moment Richard pointed her in his direction. Or something. He had no idea what his friend would do or say to get her to cross the ballroom to meet him.

Richard was feet away from her when she suddenly turned her elegant head. And looked straight into his eyes.

A bolt hit him through the heart. A growl escaped his lips as the current forked within him. Then again as her eyes widened and her tense features went slack.

He wasn’t imagining this. She’d felt his focus, and it had made her home in on him, even across the distance and with him in shadows. He’d had the same effect on her.

And without volition, holding her mesmerized gaze, he raised his hand and...beckoned.

Her stare faltered, her throat worked. Peach stained her chiseled cheekbones and her gaze darted around, as if unable to believe she was his target.

Look back. Look back at me.

As if against her will, her eyes dragged back to his.

Satisfaction surged through him. She’d felt his need and had been unable to resist it. Testing his theory, he beckoned again, taking a step backward deeper into the shadows.

She stepped forward, looking surprised, as if she hadn’t intended to move. He took another step back. She once again moved in his direction, the confusion on her exquisite face deepening. This live wire of attraction that had sprung to life between them was reeling her in to him. He hadn’t needed Richard’s help after all.

The steely Englishman glared down at her as she bypassed him in a daze. Realizing his mediation was no longer needed, he shook his head in exasperation and strode away. Richard fell off Rafael’s radar as he focused on the vision he held in thrall, just as she held him. He continued to recede and beckon, drawing her toward him.

It took forever for her to weave through the throngs of people who turned to stare at her trancelike advance. Then at last, at last, she entered the deserted corridor. He took her deeper into his home where no one would come. She kept advancing after he stopped. Lips parted, eyes wide, face tilted up, she finally halted within arm’s reach. The sconces illuminated her face and figure in golden radiance and soft shadow.

She was more than he’d thought from afar, her impact on him fiercer up close.

And she most definitely wasn’t blond. Such a mundane word didn’t describe her cascade of spun silk with its thousand shades. Each strand had the tones of Rio’s beaches, its Sugarloaf Mountain and its sunrays at every time of day.

In contrast, her skin, from forehead to fingertips, was flawless cream. As for her body, it was the body sculpted to his every requirement, to accommodate his every desire and demand. At once willowy and womanly, unconscious femininity screamed in its every line and swell and curve.

Richard had been wrong about something else, too. She wasn’t pretty. Or beautiful. She transcended such descriptions. From the intelligent forehead to the elegant nose to the lush lips, her face was a tapestry of perfections, embodying his every taste and fantasy. But it was her eyes, where her essence resided, that snared him. Wide, heavily fringed, a magnificent shape and slant, he’d thought he’d imagined their color as she’d approached. He hadn’t. They were an intense, luminous tawny. The hue of fire. And just as dangerous.

But her effect wasn’t about her physical attributes. Something about her just made him want to...devour her. He’d never been so ferociously attracted, or aroused. It was incomprehensible, but all he wanted was to unwrap her then bury himself inside her.

Even in his state, he realized that course of action wasn’t advisable. Even if she was willing. Which, from her glazed stare and agitated breathing, she probably was.

“Obrigado, minha beleza.”

He heard his hungry rasp, thanking her, calling her his beauty in his mother tongue. Though most of tonight’s guests weren’t Brazilian, he had a feeling she’d understand. And though he only thought in Portuguese and hadn’t spoken it since he’d been abducted, it felt the only language personal enough, intimate enough, to do this moment justice.

“Wh-what for?”

His breath caught. She had understood, yet answered in English. Cultured, American English. And she sounded as shaken as she looked. Her voice was a soft, sultry caress, made to moan enchantments in his ear, against his flesh, in long, pleasure-drenched nights.

“For coming when I summoned you.”

She blinked, as if emerging from a trance. “Summoned me?”

She obviously took exception to his choice of words. He wanted to tease her, say that she had obeyed his summons. But he couldn’t talk—he needed to make that first contact. Holding her gaze, he reached out and cupped her cheek.

His breath hissed out as her flesh filled his palm, as he absorbed its texture and heat. She trembled in his grasp, pouring molten steel into his erection. Then her eyes darkened into burning coals and singed away his control.

Two urgent, stumbling steps had her back to the wall, plastering her between its unyielding barrier and his. Hot resilience cushioned his aching hardness and ripped a rumble from his gut. Her echoing gasp filled his lungs with her scent. A hint of jasmine, a mist of pheromones, a gust of compulsion. Hunger writhed inside him until he could no longer bear not tasting her.

Holding her stunned eyes with his, he hovered over her trembling lips for one last anticipation-laced moment. Then he obliterated the distance between them.

A spark arced between their lips, making him jerk up. Her eyes displayed shock, too; her lips trembled with it. But the rise and fall of her breasts was that of excitement, not distress. Then arousal seeped into her eyes, weighing down her lids, and made her lips swell, as if he’d already ravished them.

She wanted this. Wanted him. Like he wanted her.

And he didn’t want just a kiss anymore. He wanted everything.

They’d exchanged two sentences—phrases—and he knew nothing about her. But this would follow no rules. The passion that had exploded into existence between them obliterated any.

He would take her first. As she wanted him to. Everything else would come later. Satisfying this overpowering hunger was the most important thing now. The only thing that mattered.

He bent, swept her up in his arms. She only gasped and went limp against him, her eyes enormous orbs of surrender.

Triumph and elation fueled his strides to his study. Kicking the door shut, he put her back on her feet and pressed her against it. Her feverish eyes assured him this was exactly what she wanted. Everything with him. Now.

“Sim, beleza, sim...tudo comigo...agora.”

And he crashed his lips on hers.

Two

Ellie was drowning. In pleasure. The pleasure of this man’s kisses. The man she’d met only minutes before.

But it was okay to drown. Since this had to be a dream.

In the waking world, it was unthinkable for her to lose her head at the sight of a man, let alone her sense of self at his touch. Perfect pleasure like this couldn’t possibly exist. Not for her. She was the last woman on earth to get zapped by attraction at a literal hundred paces. And then came this man. He was what proved this must be a dream. He couldn’t be real.

No real man could have compelled her like this. Even the way he’d materialized out of the darkness had been unreal.

One thing explained all this. She must be dozing off in her car, lost in the most outrageously erotic dream ever.

Which figured. After two days of continuous work, exhaustion had been another reason she’d hated having to go to that ball. She’d been asleep on her feet by the time she’d dragged herself home at three to throw on “something appropriate,” then driven to that mansion in Armação dos Búzios, the “Hamptons of Brazil.” The damn place was over two hours away. And she’d been lost an extra half hour before finding it.

After she finally did at six o’clock, she had memories of valet parking and walking through the ingeniously landscaped, multilevel gardens into the splendid, four-level edifice sprawling over what she thought was no less than ten thousand square feet. Outside, each spray of indirect illumination enhanced every white-painted arch, column and molding in its neo-Renaissance architecture, giving it the grandeur of a temple or cathedral. Inside, the pervasive, festive lighting came from an abundance of all-crystal chandeliers and antique brass lampadaires, giving the Portuguese-French–style gilded interior the feel of a fairy tale. Then she’d reached the ballroom, which was right out of one.

She remembered pausing at the threshold, wrestling with her dislike for crowds, then finally walking in since braving it was preferable to being subjected to more pleading.

Then as she’d kept to the periphery, avoiding the forced gaiety, she’d felt as if she was hit by lightning. Her eyes had jerked to the bolt’s origin. And she’d met his gaze.

As her heart had stumbled like a horse on ice, he’d raised a hand made of elegance and power, and beckoned.

Breath hitching, she’d looked around to see who he was beckoning to. Once sure he was actually motioning to her, she’d had no thought of resisting. He’d kept receding, and she’d kept moving toward him, no volition involved. Then she had been within touching distance, and nothing had remained in her stalled mind but...wow. Wow.

Even at five-foot-ten with four-inch heels, she was dwarfed by him. Besides his towering height, his shoulders, torso and arms were daunting, his waist and hips narrow, his thighs formidable. And his legs went on forever. And that was what she could see through his slate-gray suit. She couldn’t even imagine what his body would look like out of it.

But one thing she saw clearly. His face.

Ruthless planes and stark angles composed his forehead, nose and jaw. His cheekbones slashed so sharply against his polished teak skin, she felt she could cut herself on them. His lips were sculpted from decadent sensuality. Put together, his features were a standard of male beauty no one would ever come close to measuring up to. Not in her eyes.

But what captivated her went beyond his physical endowments and sexual magnetism. It wasn’t even those stormy eyes, surrounded by lashes as raven-black as the layers of his vital hair, and slanted to the same mysterious angle as his dense eyebrows. It was the entity that looked back at her through them.

Then he’d thanked her, for coming when he’d summoned her.

The dark spell of his voice hadn’t stopped annoyance from registering at his arrogance. Even when nothing else could describe the way she’d walked to him as if in thrall. Then he’d cupped her cheek and the world disappeared.

Nothing was left but his touch, and the building urge for something...more. And he gave her more. Like a hungry panther, he backed her against the wall only to hover over her lips, tantalizing her with the dizzying scent of his maleness and desire.

She started trembling, fearing her heart would stop if he didn’t kiss her. Then he did. And that intensity between them manifested into a literal spark, zapping what remained of her coherence. She looked up into his eyes when he jerked away, confessing her helplessness. And a change came over him.

As overriding as his approach had been up till that point, there’d been restraint in it. But now his eyes explicitly said there’d be none from this point forward. He wouldn’t stop at a kiss. He wanted more. Everything. Then he told her just that.

Yes, my beauty, yes. Everything with me. Now.

On some level, she realized this was insane. But when he swept her up into his arms, she melted in his hold, let him take her wherever he would.

Then he crossed into a semidark room, an opulent study. He set her back on her feet only to press her against the door. Before she could draw another breath, he thrust his tongue deeper in her mouth as he undid her hair clip. Her hair swished down over his hand, and he combed his fingers through it, sending pleasure cascading to every root. Then his other hand found her zipper and slid it down.

She moaned a sound she’d never before produced—the sound of relief-laced shock—as her bodice released her breasts with a rustling sigh. His lips swallowed her moans, drugging her with delight. One thing kept repeating in her brain.

She’d wake up any moment now.

But she didn’t wake up. And now she knew she wouldn’t.

This was just too overwhelming to be a dream.

This was real.

Another shock zigzagged through her as his fingers splayed against her back, and her flesh almost burst into flame. She jerked away from the burning, then pressed back for more. And he took his onslaught to the next level.

He yanked up her skirt, cupped her buttocks beneath her panties and hauled her up against him. She gasped at his grip over her intimate flesh, at his effortless power. Gasps became moans as he ground the steel of his erection against her core, flooding it with another rush of liquid heat.

Something scalding rumbled from him as he tugged one thigh, splaying her around his hips. Then he thrust against her to the same rhythm his tongue plunged inside her mouth. His powerful chest rubbed against her breasts, the friction of their remaining clothes pricking her nipples into pinpoints of agony.

She trembled in his hold as his lips burned a trail from her lips down to her neck, settling there to ravage her with tugging kisses that sent pleasure hurtling through her blood with each savage pull.

It felt as if all existence converged on him, became him, his body and breath, his hands and mouth. She was no longer herself, but a mass of needs wrapped around him, open to him. The flowing throb between her legs escalated to a pounding that needed something to assuage it. When it tipped into sheer discomfort, she cried out.

He shuddered against her, as if her cry electrified him, then he snapped his head up and crashed his lips on her wide-open mouth, thrusting deeply.

She plunged into his taste again as his tongue dueled with hers, as his lips and teeth mastered her. This was nothing like the slow seduction she’d imagined her first intimate encounter would be. This was an invasion, a ravaging. And she wanted it that way.

In unison with her feverish need, he snatched her off her feet again, crossed the room. Lowering her on a massive couch that would accommodate his full length, he straightened and looked down at her. In the dim light coming from somewhere in the spacious room, his gaze reflected the illumination, sparkled silver, devouring her. Hers druggedly luxuriated in gliding over his awe-striking figure.

Then he finally came down over her, his powerful limbs a prison of muscle and maleness.

“Estou louco de desejo por você, minha beleza única.”

I’m mad with wanting you, my unique beauty.

She would have said the same to him, if she could. But all she could do was silently arch up to help him when his hands dipped beneath her to undo her bra. He peeled it off and spilled her swollen breasts into his palms. She lurched as he growled his appreciation, pressing them together, mitigating their ache, heightening her fever. Then he bent and showed her there was more exquisite agony, grazing one nipple then the other with his teeth, swirling them with his hot tongue. By the time he suckled them, she was writhing beneath him as he built to long, hard pulls.

Then he blew his scorching confessions on them. “You made me lose my mind with a look. Then I touched you, tasted you, felt you like this, beneath me, open for me, needing me.”

She could only nod jerkily, her teeth starting to clatter as his hands squeezed her buttocks, then slid her soaked panties off her quivering legs. He then discarded his jacket, undid his shirt and flung it open before pressing back over her. His silky hair-roughened flesh rubbed her into a frenzy, then suddenly...he stilled.

Disentangling their bodies, he rose on extended arms and loomed above her. “You’re trembling all over. Are you afraid?”

Surprise made words catch in her swollen throat. “O-only that my heart might stop...or I might faint.”

Something more dangerous than anything he’d exposed her to spread on his face. A smile. Predatory, starved, unbearably arousing. “I feel the same. Minus the fainting. My heart might stop if I don’t have you naked beneath me.” But instead of extracting her from her undone dress, he bunched it at her midriff. “Next time, I’ll worship you from your lashes to your toenails. But now I need to be inside you. Say you need me, too. Say you can’t wait. Say it.”

There was no voice left in her. She was coming apart, the pounding in her core rising to a frantic hammering. Her head jerked on a nod, a tear slipping from her left eye.

He swooped down, closed his lips over her earlobe, catching the moisture. With his first nip, she arched up into his arousal with a cry, her legs falling open, giving him license to take, to possess.

His breathing as harsh as hers, he rose to his knees, and in barely suppressed urgency, released himself. Her heart rammed her ribs. With intimidation at the size of him.

Then he took his erection in his hand, and she could only lie there, waiting for him to do whatever it took to satisfy this gnawing hunger. Her heart thundered, expecting him to drive into her, filling that maddening emptiness he’d created inside her, bracing for the pain. But he didn’t, only squeezed his eyes shut on what sounded like a vicious curse. When he opened them, they almost vaporized her. Then pushing her thighs wider apart, his hand slid beneath her, tilting her hips. His gaze swept downward, dragging hers with it. With a stuttering heart, she watched him open the engorged lips of her sex, then, making no attempt to penetrate her, he rubbed the scorching length of his manhood between them.

The pleasure was so acute she bowed up on a shrill cry.

His other hand clenched her buttocks, he bent and clamped her lips in a fierce kiss.

“Do you feel how wet and hot and ready for me you are?”

He glided up, nudging her most sensitive knot of flesh. She shrieked in his mouth, ecstasy almost too sharp to bear. He circled her swollen knot with his crown until everything in the world focused on the point where his flesh tormented hers.

“Please, please...”

She pleaded with him even when she didn’t know if she could accommodate him. But this...this was what she’d been waiting for all her life. This was why she’d never been tempted to share her body with a man. Because she’d never experienced anything like this mind-searing, caution-annihilating lust.

His lips possessed hers again, swallowing her pleas as he thrust against her, prodding her nub over and over.

The pleasure became an unbearable pressure that clamored to unfurl. When she felt she could stand it no more, he quickened his tempo and snapped the tension inside her.

He pinned her beneath him as she bucked and shrieked, release tearing through her. Continuing to pump his hardness against her quivering flesh, he drained her of the last spasm of pleasure her body needed to discharge.

She slumped beneath him, depleted, sated, her intoxicated gaze fixed on him as he rose to his knees between her splayed legs. Pumping his erection, groans gusted from his depths as he climaxed, his blazing eyes never leaving hers.

She’d never known anything as incredible as the sight and sound of him in the grip of orgasm, nor felt anything as fulfilling as knowing she’d given him as much pleasure as he’d given her. Breathing slowing down, she spiraled into a chasm of satisfaction and melted deeper into the plushness beneath her....

Awareness flooded back into her as she felt him gently wiping her belly before he came down over her, claiming her lips in luxurious kisses. It was as if after devouring her, he was now sipping her, savoring her. Each clinging kiss solidified the intimacy they’d shared, and told her the explosive episode had been a prelude to a deeper passion.

When he finally raised his head it was to reach above her. A light burst on. Even though it was soft and soothing, her eyes squeezed shut. When she opened them again, she found him looking down at her indulgently.

“What—what just happened?”

She hadn’t intended to speak. Certainly not to say something that moronic. But she had, her voice deep, husky and nothing like she’d ever heard it.

Expecting ridicule to enter his gaze, his hypnotic eyes only turned serious. “No idea. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. But if I have to guess, I’d say...magic.”

Relief swamped her. He didn’t consider her bewilderment an act, or stupid. And he felt the same way.

She exhaled in relief. “In the absence of any other explanation, I’d have to agree.”

Yet now with the madness-inducing arousal sated, embarrassment started to submerge her.

What had she done?

She sank deeper into what she now saw was an oversize, dark green and gold silk brocade couch, acutely conscious of their state of undress, of every inch of his flesh that was still pressed into her most intimate parts.

As if attuned to her needs, as he’d seemed to be from the start, he rose off her, slid to the ground and kneeled beside her. After forcing his unabated erection into his pants, he retrieved her panties. Navigating the high-heeled shoes he’d left on her, he slid the panties over her shaking legs, caressing and kissing his way from her foot up. Her senses had ignited all over again as he fitted the damp garment back on her hips. And that was before he pressed a hot kiss on her core through the fabric, and almost blew out any fuse left intact in her brain.

As she struggled to deal with the new blow, he rearranged her skirt over her legs, then eased her up to a sitting position. He was so tall he was on her same level even on his knees. Before he pulled her bodice up, he cupped her heavy breasts in his large palms and saluted each gloriously sore nipple with a soft kiss. Every string holding her up gave. She slumped forward against his endless chest.

He received her weight with a shuddering groan. Then after a final kneading caress, he scooped her breasts back in her bra, rearranged the bodice over them, reached behind her and pulled her zipper up.

Brushing her hair back, he cupped her jaw and claimed her parted lips. He drew back, pausing for a moment before he came back over her, plundering her lips and body.

Deepening their kiss, he rose and pushed her back against the couch. When he finally tore his lips away, her head was swimming and her body had ignited all over again.

“It’s actually physically painful to stop ravishing you.” His teeth gritted. “I thought taking the edge off would cool us down long enough for us to get introduced. Seems I was wrong.”

“Ellie.” Her name left her in a rush as he moved to gather her to him again. Her heart would burst if he resumed kissing her. “My name is Ellie.”

“Ellie.” He frowned as he sat back, repeated the name as if tasting it. Then he shook his head. “It doesn’t suit you.”

“Why, thanks!”

His lips pursed at her sarcasm, an imperious eyebrow raised in disapproval. “How could your parents see the glorious baby you must have been and give you such a nondescript name? Ellie? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“My parents actually gave me a pretty lofty name. I extracted a nickname from it as everyone thinks it makes me sound like a character from a medieval play.”

“I take back my condemnation of your parents if they gave you a distinguished name. What is it?”

“Eliana.”

His eyes suddenly grew soft. “Eliana. God has answered.”

He understood the meaning of her name. He was the first one to ever do so.

He took her hand, pressed his lips in her palm. “Now, that is you. You must have been their every prayer answered. As you are the answer to my every fantasy.”

Her blood blazed as it rushed to her cheeks. “You’re poetic, too? Isn’t it enough you’re...all that?” She made an encompassing gesture, then rushed to splay a hand over his chest as he surged toward her. “We aren’t anywhere near introduced yet, and if you touch and kiss me again I—I...”

“You’ll catch fire again.”

She turned her head against the couch. “I can’t deal with the way I did the first time, so give me a chance to...”

A gentle finger on her chin brought her eyes back to his. “I thought I was imagining it before, but you are shy.”

“Pretty laughable, I know, after...after...”

“You went up in flames in my arms?” he completed for her again. “I find your shyness no such thing. But I felt it even through your mind-blowing response.” She hid her face in his chest, felt his chuckle rev below her cheek. “Don’t be even shier now. You affected me the same way, minus the shyness part. Meu Deus...the way you surrendered to me, as if you couldn’t help yourself, as if I’d overwhelmed you.”

“No ‘as if’ about it. You more than overwhelmed me.” She burrowed deeper into him, arousal mingling with relief as he crushed her harder in his embrace.

So this was what desire was all about. This was what had been missing all her life. Him. She must have felt him out there, have instinctively known that accepting anything less, with anyone else, would be shortchanging herself.

Out loud, she whispered, “So this is the kind of crazy attraction that drives people to commit insanities, huh?”

His beautiful lips curved. “Delightful insanities.”

She couldn’t have put it better. “Yes.”

“But even in my insanity, some fail-safe mechanism kicked in and pulled me back from possessing you without protection.”

She gaped at him. That hadn’t even crossed her mind!

Then the enormity of the whole situation hit her. Hard.

He smoothed a hand over her flaming cheek. “I only did so for you. Another unprecedented thing for me.”

“You mean you usually don’t consider your...partner?” she croaked, reeling with belated shock at her own folly.

“I usually consider my partner and myself. This time I only considered you. This was so out of the blue, progressed with such blinding speed...at the last moment I thought you might not even realize what you were risking. So even though it was beyond me to stop pleasuring you, I had to protect you.”

“Oh...” She found no words to express what she was feeling. This was...huge. He could have just taken his pleasure, but he hadn’t. He’d put her safety before his own carnal needs. Her hands squeezed his arm in gratitude, loving the sheer power her fingers felt beneath them. “Thank you.”

He gathered her tighter to him and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Anything for you, minha beleza, anything at all.” He drew away to look down at her. “But now that I’m not about to have a heart attack with arousal, I will procure all precautions, and props.”

Props? The word ricocheted in her imagination as he leveled the full force of his gaze on her.

“Give me your promise.”

“Wh-what promise?”

“That you’ll spend the night in my arms.”

“Oh...”

She really had to stop saying that!

“Then after this night, the next night. And the next.”

Throat closing at his intensity, she murmured, “Wouldn’t you want to see how one night goes before committing to more?”

“I know how this night will go. I will pleasure you to within an inch of your life, make it impossible for you not to crave more.” At her head shake his eyebrow rose again, what she felt certain sent powerful men cowering. “How can you think this won’t happen?”

“Because I have no idea if I can make it impossible for you not to crave more nights.”

“Have I blown a fuse in there with too much pleasure already?” One finger gently tapped her temple, his smile lazy assurance itself. “It’s the only explanation as to why you’d even consider something so ludicrous.”

“If you say so,” she mumbled.

“I do. Now give me your promise.” At her hesitation, he frowned. “Are you worried I might turn out to be a nutcase?”

She coughed. “That is one thing that didn’t even cross my mind.”

“So you’re saying you trust me?” He dragged his teeth along her neck like a vampire searching for the sweetest spot for a bite. Her head fell back, giving him the exposure he needed to find the best one.

A shudder of acute pleasure shook her whole frame as he took that nip. “I’m saying I couldn’t even think about anything beyond what you made me feel. If you didn’t notice, I haven’t exactly been functioning on any logical level since you...‘summoned me.’”

He raised his head, pure male satisfaction gleaming in his eyes. “No, you haven’t. But neither have I.”

It was so gratifying that he confessed her equal effect on him so openly. “I was and still am operating purely on instinct.”

“And your instincts are telling you to trust me?”

“I can’t explain it—” she dived into him again, nodding against his hot-velvet flesh “—but they do.” She looked up, whispering what felt like a pledge. “I do trust you.”

His eyes blazed in response. “Implicitly?”

She nodded again.

“You won’t freak out when I make unusual demands in bed?”

Her eyes grew wider as his filled with that predator’s gleam that made her pulse race in anticipation.

Still, she had to ask. “Define unusual.”

“Unusual in quantity...not quality.” Before she could tell him that wasn’t much better, he added, “At least, not too unusual in quality.”

“There you go again with unrealistic expectations.”

His lips twisted. “You think I’m false advertising?”

“It’s me who has performance...or rather conformance anxiety. I don’t think I can meet your demands in quantity. It’s out of the question I could in quality.”

“Just leave everything to me. As you’ve done so far.” He took her on his lap, caressing her all over. “Any complaints?”

“Only one.” She fidgeted over the massive hardness beneath her, the simmering inside her flaring up again. “That you seem to have created a monster.”

Those perfect teeth flashed as he pressed her against his arousal. “You want more.”

“I want you,” she moaned.

“Not as much as I want you. Ah-ah-ah...” He placed a silencing finger on her lips when she started to protest. “You just have to trust me again on this. Now...your promise.”

She pushed out of his arms, trying to scramble off his lap. “I can’t. My brain feels like I was in a collision and I...”

He let her separate them, his face suddenly chiseled from granite. “Are you regretting it?”

“God, no. It was...beyond magical. But...but...”

“It’s too much, too fast.”

She nodded, anxiously probing his reaction. And it felt as if a cool balm had spread over her burning flesh. There was only self-deprecation on his lips, empathy in his eyes.

After the way she’d surrendered to him, another man would have accused her of leading him on, then playing hard to get. A few men had even called her a tease.

But he wasn’t like those men. He was like no other.

She wanted to kiss him for being so wonderful. But a kiss might destroy his control, the only thing that stopped her from getting in over her head. More than she already had, that was.

“It isn’t too much or too fast, not for me,” he said, his voice a dark caress. “Every second with you is how I’ll define perfection from now on. But I will slow down—for you.” He swept her into his arms again and she succumbed on a ragged sigh, sank back into the luxury of his embrace. “But there are so many more intimacies I need to share with you, many untold pleasures. I need to keep kissing and touching and talking to you. So when everyone goes away, you’ll stay.”

“Yes.” Then she frowned. “But what do you mean stay?”

“The night. In my bed. In my arms.”

“I got that. But stay where?”

“Stay here, of course.”

“You’re staying here?”

“I should think so. I own the place.”

And suddenly, all the details she’d missed—in him, in what he’d said, which should have made sense before now but hadn’t—coalesced. Into one big wrecking ball.

It swung into her so hard, it knocked her out of his arms again. “You’re...him?”

Three

Ellie gaped at the man who’d given her her life’s most intense experience. He was...he was...

“I’ve been referred to in some extremely unflattering ways before,” he drawled. “‘Him’ wasn’t among them.”

“I mean you’re...that man?”

“‘That man’ is also not what I want to hear on your lips.”

“God...it’s just... Okay, stop! Let me breathe.” Shaking her head, she splayed her hand on his chest as if to ward him off, but really to steady herself. “You’re...Moreno Salazar?

He took her fluttering hand to his lips. “To you...I am only Rafael.” He punctuated his words by suckling each finger. “You will moan my name into my lips...scream it against my flesh...all through the night.”

She was a molten mass by the time he pulled her other hand, wound her arms around his neck. But she still had to say...something. Anything.

“But you said you won’t make love to me.”

That wasn’t the issue here. Or what she’d meant to say.

He kissed the arms hanging limply around his neck. “I think I proved there are other ways of pleasuring you.”

“But I thought you understood, agreed that I need to—to...”

“Regroup? Yes, I know. And I won’t do anything to cross your comfort zone anymore.”

This man seemed to be reading her hectic mind, defusing her agitation, saying just the right thing.

But... “That’s still not it.”

“Then what is it?”

“You even have to ask? It’s who you are. It changes everything.”

His lips stilled on the sensitive flesh of her inner arm, then he raised his head, a spectacular frown descending over his leonine brow. “It changes nothing. I’m still the man you lost your mind over, the man you wanted with every fiber of your being. And that’s the man I’ll remain to you.”

“Yes, but you’re also Rafael Moreno Salazar, and I’m here attending your ball because my...boss is here to court your favor. And this complicates everything.”

“This complicates nothing, I tell you.”

“Oh, but it does. It tangles business with pleasure in a way I couldn’t have expected in my wildest dreams. Now I can’t spend the night with you. I don’t even know how everything will be affected by what we’ve already shared.”

Ellie’s arms slid off his shoulders and she slumped back. She felt as if he’d hurtled out of her reach when just minutes ago she’d felt he was closer to her than anyone had ever been.

She pitched forward, dropped her head in trembling hands. “Oh, God, why couldn’t you have just turned out to be just another guest here, just a regular man?”

“Well, I’m not.” He pulled her back into the cradle of his arm. “Which is why I can have you. A regular man wouldn’t dream of coming near you.” Before she could scoff at the exaggeration he’d said with such conviction, he went on just as seriously, “But I don’t care that business interests are involved. I’m even thankful they are, since they brought you here. I’m in your boss’s eternal debt for being the reason I met you. So if he is any good, I’ll do business with him. And that will have nothing to do with us.”

She squirmed to put some distance between them. “How can you say that in the same breath you say you’d do business with my boss for me?”

“I did stipulate he be at least ‘any good’ at what he does. I won’t prove my interest in you by gambling on a losing proposition. I’m into winning and would go to any constructive lengths to win you.”

“Constructive lengths.” A giggle escaped her. “Now, that’s an innovative way of putting it. Though you didn’t have to go to any lengths, constructive or otherwise. You stood there and cast your spell, and I ran and flung myself into your arms.”

“You neither ran nor flung yourself. But you will.”

She sighed, acknowledging his confidence. “So will you always be the magnet, with me the helpless iron filings, or is there hope of you doing some running yourself?”

“Command me, and I’ll run as long and as hard as you wish.” His fervor felt so real. But why not, when she felt the same? “I would have run to you this time, too, but I had to draw you away from the crowd.”

Something slotted in her mind with a thud. “You didn’t intend to make an appearance tonight, did you?”

His shrug was dismissive. “Whatever my intentions, I saw you...and nothing else mattered after that.”

“Same here. But you were going to pull another no-show tonight, right? Do you keep gathering people so you can watch them when they think you’re not around? Is this your method of vetting prospective partners?”

“It’s currently a partner. In the singular.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize you’re looking for only one.”

“I am.” The flare in his eyes said he was no longer talking about a business partner.

A thrill darted through her, and she sighed as he gathered her closer, soaking up his warmth and desire. “You do know the moment you touch me you nullify my thought processes, don’t you?”

“Not touching you is like holding my breath. I can only do it for so many minutes at a time. So will you stop pulling away? We can discuss whatever you like, for as long as you like, just with you in my arms.”

Sighing again, she relaxed in his hold, resigned to the fact that she wasn’t strong enough to resist both her need and his.

His lips curved. “So you think I’d judge those I’m considering for such a vital partnership by spying on them in a party? Would I disqualify them for stepping on their partner’s feet or talking with their mouth full?”

“I bet you’d see everything you need to make an accurate judgment in observations like those. Just like you always do.”

His eyebrows rose. “How do you know what I always do?”

“Are you kidding? The past couple of hours are worth a year of intensive...exposure. And I’m connecting what I’ve just learned about you with what I’ve long known of you.”

“And what, pray tell, do you think you know about me?”

“Well, as a virtuoso in your field, you have such nonlinear, multidimensional analytic powers, you have the world begging for your Midas touch. You got where you are by judging every situation and person you’ve dealt with throughout your career perfectly. As perfectly as you judged me from a literal hundred paces.”

He wove his fingers into her hair, wrapped a handful around his wrist and inhaled it. “Get yourself out of any comparison. Nothing with you had anything to do with anything I’ve ever experienced before. There was no judgment involved on my part, not when you zapped me from a literal hundred paces, too. And you did that to me when I had my back to you.”

She blinked. “Really?”

“Really. I was at the mezzanine when your aura lashed me with a thousand volts of delight.” He bent and kissed the tops of her breasts that bulged above the now too-tight bodice. “We’ve already agreed there was magic at work.”

“Yes.” There was no contradicting him on that point. “So you’re not orchestrating events only to watch the attendees, at least to weed out those who prove to be blatantly unsuitable?”

“Don’t you think someone as exceptional as you advertise me to be would let résumés choose for me?”

Suddenly she realized what was going on. They’d moved from blinding passion, bypassing any expected awkwardness in the wake of its temporary sating, and plunged right into delightful banter. The seamlessness of it all had her heart soaring.

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