The Secret He Must Claim. Chantelle Shaw

wanted to.

      His eyes were the colour of sable flecked with gold, she discovered when she halted in front of him. Set beneath heavy black brows that drew together in a faint frown when she smiled at him.

      ‘You’re supposed to wish me a happy birthday.’ She did not recognise the teasing, flirtatious voice as hers, but then she didn’t recognise anything about herself tonight, especially the heat that blazed inside her and made her yearn for something she could not even explain.

      Something flickered in his dark eyes but his stern mouth did not soften. ‘Happy birthday, Blondie.’

      ‘That’s not my name.’ She hated the nickname the tabloids had given her, with its implication that because she was pretty and blonde she must also be a brainless bimbo. ‘My name is Elin.’

      ‘I know.’

      She tilted her head and studied him. The dimmed lighting in the room cast shadows over the hard angles and planes of his face and emphasised his austere beauty, making Elin long to explore the chiselled perfection of his jaw with her fingertips. As for his mouth... Her heart thudded as she imagined his sensual mouth covering hers. The knot in her belly tightened and every nerve-ending in her body felt fiercely alive.

      ‘How do you know my name?’ She was certain they’d never met before. Dear God, she would have remembered him.

      She wondered if she’d imagined that he hesitated infinitesimally before he shrugged his wide shoulders. ‘I’m here at your birthday party and of course I know your name. There can’t be many people who haven’t heard of Elin Saunderson. Photographs of you falling out of nightclubs are a regular feature in the British popular press.’

      Inexplicably she felt hurt by his cynicism, and she was tempted to explain that she’d deliberately courted scandal to turn the media’s attention away from her brother. But it would mean betraying Jarek and she would never do that, especially to a stranger. Even if he was the most gorgeous man she’d ever set eyes on. Her gaze locked with his and she saw his gold-flecked eyes blaze with a heat that burned her.

      Every one of her heightened senses quivered with the realisation that he desired her. He might not want to want her, but he had no more control over the electricity that crackled between them than she did. He clearly believed she was the goodtime girl portrayed by the press so why shouldn’t she live up to her reputation for one night? Elin asked herself.

      Some part of her recognised that this wild, reckless feeling wasn’t her. She shouldn’t want a complete stranger to cover her mouth with his and kiss her with the savage passion that she sensed he was capable of. She shouldn’t want him, but she did.

      ‘It would be good manners to introduce yourself.’

      His mouth quirked then, not exactly a smile but it was enough to send scalding heat flooding through her. ‘There’s nothing good about me,’ he warned her in his deep, dark voice with a faint undercurrent of a Mediterranean accent. Once again he hesitated before he drawled, ‘My name is Cortez.’

      ‘You’re Spanish?’ His dark olive complexion and that raven-black hair indicated that he spent a lot of time in the hot sun. His name—Cor-tez... She silently repeated it the way he had pronounced it, emphasising the second syllable. It reminded her of a history book she’d read about the Spanish conquistadors who had invaded the Aztec and Inca civilisations in the sixteenth century. The conquistadors were reputed to have been utterly ruthless and she would be happy to bet that he was a descendent of those infamous adventurers.

      ‘Half-Spanish,’ he said after another pause, as if he had been about to say something else but had changed his mind.

      She deliberately trailed her eyes over his chest and continued lower, down to his flat abdomen and lean hips, hugged by his black jeans. ‘Which half?’ she asked innocently.

      He looked startled for a few seconds and then laughed. The sound was warm and golden, like liquid honey, Elin thought. ‘You are wicked,’ he told her. The bright flecks in his eyes gleamed and something almost feral flickered across his hard features. ‘And very, very beautiful.’

      He stretched out his hand and wound a lock of her pale gold hair around his fingers. Elin could feel the frantic thud of her heart, and her breath caught in her throat. He must have heard the faint sound, and although he did not appear to move she sensed a sudden tension in him, as if he truly was a predator stalking its prey. He exuded danger and she should run for the hills, but the reckless feeling that had swept over her tonight made her ignore the voice of caution in her head.

      The heavy bass music pounding in the room stirred her blood with its sensual rhythm. ‘Will you dance with me? You can’t refuse,’ she said when his eyes narrowed, ‘because it’s my birthday and I can have whatever I want on my birthday.’

      He did not laugh now and the liquid honey in his voice was replaced by a harsh tone that sounded like rusty metal dragged across gravel. ‘What do you want, Elin?’

      ‘You,’ she heard herself say in a husky voice she did not recognise as her own. Once again she felt a peculiar sensation that she was floating outside her body and none of this was real. Perhaps it wasn’t, perhaps it was a dream, but it was a much better dream than her usual nightmare about her mother’s death.

      Cortez swore softly. The gold flecks in his eyes glittered and he seemed to be waging an internal battle with himself before he shrugged. ‘So be it then,’ he muttered as he moved towards her. He put his hands on her waist and pulled her against him so that they were hip to hip.

      The effect on Elin was electrifying. The brush of his thighs against hers as they moved with the beat of the music turned the heat inside her into an inferno. Cortez danced with a fluid grace that was entirely sensual, and she gasped when he slid one hand down to the small of her back and exerted pressure to bring her pelvis into closer contact with his.

      Her senses went into meltdown as he clamped her against his whipcord body. He smelled divine, a mixture of spicy cologne and the dry heat of his body that had its own unique scent. She wanted to press her face into his neck and breathe in the essence of him, lick his olive skin and taste him. Her hands were lying flat on his chest and she felt his heartbeat accelerate beneath her fingertips. Startled, she tilted her head to look at his face, and saw a stark hunger in his eyes that made her tremble.

      She’d never felt like this before and she’d certainly never behaved so impetuously. She felt crazily out of control. For the first time in six months she felt alive instead of numb. Life, she’d learned, could be taken away in an instant, in the release of a trigger and a bullet fired from a gun.

      She wanted to grab hold of life with both hands, and more than anything she wanted to be even closer to this dangerously beautiful man who made her feel like no other man ever had. And so she slid her hands up to his shoulders and stretched herself up against him, pressing her breasts with their pebble-hard nipples into his chest. She heard him mutter something in Spanish as he sank his hand into her hair and lowered his face towards hers. His mouth was tantalisingly close and with a low moan she closed the tiny gap between them and pressed her lips to his.

      The world exploded in a firestorm of heat and colour. Cortez hesitated for a fraction of a second but then a shudder went through him and he took control of the kiss and plundered her mouth like a conquistador claiming the spoils of his conquest. It was hotter and wilder than anything Elin had ever experienced before. She felt consumed by his kiss, by him as he moved his hand to cup her jaw and angled her mouth to his satisfaction before he pushed his tongue between her lips and tasted her.

      The kiss went on and on, becoming deeper and ever more erotic, a ravishment of her senses, and Elin hoped it would never end. When Cortez eventually tore his mouth from hers to allow them to snatch air into their starved lungs, he stared at her as if he was trying to figure her out.

      ‘This is madness,’ he grated. ‘I should tell you...’ He broke off when one of the other guests who was dancing wildly stumbled into them. ‘Dios!’ Cortez tightened his arms around Elin and his protective gesture made her melt even more. ‘Is there somewhere we can