fixedly at the myriad of lights beyond the window.
“It looks like a fairyland outside, doesn’t it?” she remarked as lightly as she could.
It was true. La Paz was the highest capital in the world and it appeared to be built in a moon crater. From where she was viewing it from the low downtown area, the lights of the city rose in a great circular curve, going up so high they seemed to be hanging in the sky. Incredible there were actually people living behind them.
“You need a magician to get you out of it,” Luis mocked, standing right behind her now.
“We need a bus,” she said quickly, fighting her intense awareness of his nearness.
“The curfew doesn’t lift until six in the morning.”
Her heart skittered. What was he implying? They had all night to negotiate?
“I don’t like your hair constricted in a plait,” was his next comment, confusing Shontelle further.
Her spine crawled at his touch as he lifted the rope of hair away from her back. She knew what he was going to do but her mind couldn’t accept it. He couldn’t still love her hair. He couldn’t still want her!
Or maybe he didn’t.
Maybe he was playing some cruel cat-and-mouse game.
She wanted to look at his face but she was frightened to. What if he was waiting to feed off her feelings? Pride insisted she deny him the satisfaction of knowing she was rattled. Could he hear the mad thumping of her heart? Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm, she recited feverishly.
He’d worked off the rubber band and was separating the twisted swathes, seeming to take sensual pleasure in the feel of her hair. Impossible to ignore it. Impossible to stay calm.
“What do you want from me, Luis?” she blurted out.
“What I had before.”
Her mind fragmented under the force of her own desire to have him again, and his apparent desire to recall and repeat the passion they’d shared. Some tattered shreds of reason shrieked that he was only playing with her, using his power to make her succumb to him, but she had to know, had to see.
As she jerked around to face him, her arms flew out of their protective fold and lifted into an instinctive plea for truth. “What do you mean?” she cried.
He still held a skein of her hair and he wound it around his hand as his eyes blazed their dark purpose into hers. “I mean to seize the day, Shontelle. Or to put it more graphically...the night. You want a bus. I want one more taste of you.”
Shock waves slammed through her.
One more taste...
Only one...
Payment for the bus.
“Not such a difficult deal, is it?” he taunted. “Just a matter of giving me what you gave of yourself two years ago...in your desire to get what you wanted of me.”
“I didn’t get what I wanted then,” she protested, her voice thin and shaky under the appalling weight of devastated hopes.
A savage fury flared into his eyes. “Was I not all you wanted of a Latin lover?” His mouth curled with cruel intent. “Well, let me try not to disappoint you tonight. We have many hours ahead of us. I promise you a feast of hot-blooded sensuality.”
Hot and hard and ruthless.
The awful part was, Shontelle could not stop her body from pulsing with excitement at what he offered. Only with him had she ever known intense physical ecstasy. She hadn’t even felt a twinge of attraction towards anyone else in the past two years. Just the thought of touching Luis again, feeling him...quivers of anticipation shot through her.
But he was treating her like a whore, laying it out that she could only get the bus in return for sex.
Sex...not remotely connected to love. Not even the slightest semblance of love. It was wrong, wrong, wrong! Her heart twisted in torment as he twisted her hair more firmly around his hand and tugged her closer to him. Then his other hand slid over her breasts, his palm rotating caressingly, his eyes glittering their triumphant knowledge of what had pleasured her in the past, and to prove him right, her nipples instantly stiffened into begging prominence.
“Stop it!” she hissed, hating his power to arouse her even as she revelled in the sharp sensation that stimulated a host of nerves, arcing from her breasts to the innermost core of her sexuality.
One black eyebrow arched mockingly. “You no longer like this?”
He was the devil incarnate, tempting her. The truth was, she didn’t want him to stop. She didn’t want him to ever stop. But he would. This was only to be one more taste. Unless...
Something deeply primitive stirred in Shontelle.
He wasn’t married, so he said.
And he still wanted her.
He also wanted a payback for his wounded pride.
Well, so did she. So did she!
“I don’t normally go for one night stands,” she said.
“But these are special circumstances,” he returned silkily.
“Just let me understand you clearly, Luis...”
With her heart thumping to a wild beat, Shontelle flicked open the shirt button over his chest curls and slid her hand inside, seeking and deliberately tweaking one of his nipples. His sharply indrawn breath was music to her ears. She had power over him, too. It wasn’t a one-way street.
Her eyes flirted challengingly with his as she spoke through the provocative, physical teasing. “...If I stay with you the night and let you have your...” She lowered her gaze to his mouth, regarding it assessingly. “...taste of me...” She let the words linger for a moment, then flicked her gaze up, raising her eyebrows in pointed questioning. “...I get the bus? Is that the deal?”
“Yes,” he hissed at her.
“Then make your calls now, Luis. Let me hear you arrange the delivery of an appropriate bus to The Europa Hotel as soon as the curfew is lifted tomorrow. When you’ve done that, I’ll call Alan to assure him everything’s all right and I’ll be staying with you until morning.”
His jawline tightened. His eyes narrowed. He didn’t like her calling the shots, but he’d dealt her the cards, made the rules of the game, and Shontelle figured he couldn’t fault her over playing them. A sense of triumph poured a burst of adrenalin through her veins. No one was a victim unless they allowed themselves to be.
She pursed her lips into a considering little smile. “A feast of hot-blooded sensuality sounds good. I do hope you’re up to it, Luis.”
The moment the words were out, she felt a swell of danger—a dark and fierce emanation from him swirling around her, sending shivers down her spine. He smiled right back at her as he released her hair—a smile that promised himself a deep well of satisfaction. He plucked her hand from
