Mediterranean Tycoons: Dark & Demanding. Jacqueline Baird

glanced at his wrist-watch, the only thing he was wearing, and groaned. ‘You’re right, Liza,’ he agreed, slanting her a grin. The flush had gone from her face, and her eyes were a little too bright, her smile a little too brittle—not the usual response he got from his women in the afterglow of sex. But he was sure she had enjoyed it as much as he had.

      But it was the middle of the night, he rationalised, and, swiftly bending his head, he captured her mouth in a brief, gentle kiss. ‘You look tired. I’ll take the shower first. I would suggest you join me, but that delight we will have to save for later, or we will never get off the damn plane, and by my reckoning we’ll land in twenty minutes.’

      Liza watched wide-eyed, she couldn’t help herself, as he flung his long legs over the side of the bed and, gloriously unconscious of his nudity, in a few lithe strides he crossed to the far side of the room and disappeared through another door. Moments later she heard the sound of running water, and in her mind’s eye she saw his magnificent tanned body, the washboard belly, the hard, lean buttocks, and with a shake of her head she jumped off the bed, and began gathering up her clothes.

      So she had had sex with Nick; she must remember sex was all it was…she muttered over and over in her head. A short holiday to attend the party of her mother’s friend. Any involvement with Nick had to be light-hearted fun… She could handle it…

       CHAPTER FIVE

      THE headlights of the car swept over the stable block, and Liza suppressed a tiny shiver of revulsion. Old memories she could do without… Instead she recalled the wonder of feeling the length of Nick’s naked body against the heated eagerness of her own, and longed to repeat the experience with a hunger that made her stomach clench. If she closed her eyes she could see the image of their bodies entwined, see the burning desire in his eyes as he captured her mouth in a deeply passionate kiss.

      Stifling a groan, she shook her head to chase away the erotic thoughts. The car was moving through a large stone arch and into the rear courtyard of the Menendez Hacienda and Nick brought it to a silent stop outside a large oak door.

      Liza scrambled out of the car and, standing up straight, she stretched her shoulders back; she was stiff, tired and suddenly incredibly nervous. Her last visit to this house had been a disaster. What on earth had possessed her to come back? A glance at Nick walking around the front of the car towards her, and she had her answer…

      ‘Are you sure we are expected so late?’ she asked with her gaze raking along the long building before them. There appeared to be only a chink of light from beneath what she knew was the rear lobby leading into the large kitchen in the west wing of the hacienda.

      ‘And why the kitchen entrance? Trying to smuggle me in like a thief in the night?’ she teased, turning to look at Nick as with one long, easy stride he stood in front of her. She paused, feeling the tension coming from him in a slight hardening of his jawline, a flicker of something she didn’t recognise in the depths of his enigmatic eyes. As she saw him outlined in the moon’s silver light, the power of his superbly masculine frame and the inescapable pressure of the fingertip he lifted to her chin made her shiver in instinctive response.

      Damn her! She wasn’t far wrong, Nick thought grimly. He did have an ulterior motive, and even with the unexpected help of his mother he knew it would not take much to arouse Liza’s suspicions. But it also reminded him he had been so caught up in the witch’s spell he had forgotten to pass on the information to Carl about Brown’s return, and, appalled at his own lapse in concentration on the crime he was investigating, he lashed out at her.

      ‘And are you a thief?’ he demanded curtly, and immediately wished the words unsaid as he saw the humour flicker and fade from her expressive eyes to be replaced with a wary puzzlement. ‘No, of course not.’ He answered his own question, his mouth curved, as if her comment had amused him. He did not want her getting suspicious of his motive, not now… ‘Except perhaps of hearts,’ he quipped in a damage-limitation exercise, and, tipping her chin a little higher, he pressed a swift kiss to her softly parted lips, before reaching for her hand and leading her towards the door.

      ‘Mamma arranged for Manuel to wait up for us, hence the back door; you remember him and how he loves to sit and watch the television in the kitchen.’

      Liza did remember, and she accepted his explanation, but she couldn’t dismiss the unsettling notion from her mind that he had not been joking when he asked her if she was a thief. She was being ridiculous…it was the middle of the night…she was having spooky thoughts…

      A stream of light suddenly bathed the yard as Manuel appeared, and when he smiled and said her name with obvious pleasure Liza was touched that he had remembered her. But in the next minute she was horribly embarrassed as she heard Nick quite casually tell Manuel to take her luggage to his room.

      Grabbing Nick’s sleeve, Liza pulled him back as he would have stridden along the corridor after Manuel. ‘Wait a minute,’ she spat.

      Nick stopped. ‘No need to whisper, Liza. There is no one in this wing of the house to hear you, only Manuel, and his wife Marta, who has long since gone to bed,’ he drawled, his dark eyes lit with amusement at the furtive look on her lovely face.

      ‘It’s not that,’ Liza muttered, feeling embarrassed and angry. ‘Surely you realise I can’t share a room with you in your mother’s house.’

      His ebony brows rose as he bit out an expletive in Spanish followed by, ‘Damn it to hell!’ How had he overlooked what he now realised was glaringly obvious? He had leapt at the chance to use his mother’s telephone call to get Liza off the island and, being brutally honest, into his bed as well. But Liza was right; if his mother thought for a second he was fooling around with her friend’s daughter she would have him married to Liza in a flash.

      He dragged in a deep, calming breath. Marriage was not on his agenda, and if he ever succumbed it would only be for the production of a child to inherit the Menendez fortune. But not for years yet—he enjoyed his freedom too much, and certainly not to a girl like Liza, who he still was not sure he could trust as far as he could throw her.

      His dark eyes narrowed angrily, and something darker, devious hardened in their depths. He had wanted Liza Summers from the very first moment he saw her again at the café. His thick black lashes flicked down towards the sharp line of his high cheekbones, veiling his expression, and he allowed his gaze to linger on her perfectly formed body, the slightly creased black dress she was wearing a testament to their earlier passionate encounter, and then back to her face.

      Exquisite: the pale skin, the long blonde hair, the lush mouth and the brilliant blue eyes that were shooting sparks at the moment. Sparks that told him she was absolutely determined not to share his bed beneath his mother’s roof.

      He gritted his teeth and had to use all his famed self-control to prevent himself from sweeping her into his arms and carrying her to his bed. He had not had enough of her, not nearly enough, but he knew instinctively talking would not change her mind. He would have to be more subtle. But the irony of it was he knew they could have what was left of the night together, because his mother was spending the night with his uncle and aunt in Granada, attending their own golden-wedding dinner and a blessing in the cathedral on Sunday morning, and that they were all coming back here for lunch and the final huge party in the evening.

      It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Liza, but then again he remembered she had been a very volatile teenager, and if her wildness in bed was anything to go by she hadn’t changed much. She would probably blow her top and land one on him for his treachery, and any hope of resuming what they had started on the plane would be distinctly remote.

      Denying the temptation to reach out to her and take up where they had left off, explore her gorgeous body once more, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers, and turned his head to bark out a quick order to Manuel’s retreating back.

      The blue room. Liza had never heard of it, but then she had not been here for years, and she did not know if she was relieved or reluctant to part