‘Just checking you know I’m still here.’
He gave her a wry look and felt a surge of heat when she tossed one back. He wasn’t an animal. He was still capable of feeling. His brother Nacho had made him believe that when Kruz had been discharged from the army hospital. It was Nacho who had persuaded him to channel his particular talents into a security company, saying Kruz must need and feel and care before he could really start living again. Nacho was right. The more he looked at Romy, the more human he felt.
Did Kruz have to stare at her lips like that? Here she was, trying to forget her body was still thrilling from his touch, and he wasn’t making it easy. She was a professional woman, trying to persuade herself she would soon get over tonight—yet all he had to do was look at her for her to long for him to take hold of her and draw her into an embrace that was neither sexual nor mocking. She had never wanted to share and trust and rest awhile quite so badly.
And she wasn’t about to fall into that trap now.
‘Shall we take a look?’
She looked at Kruz and frowned.
‘The pictures?’ he prompted, and she realised that he had not only removed the key to the press coach from her hand, but had opened the door and was holding it for her.
That yearning feeling inside…?
It wasn’t helpful. Women who felt the urge to nurture men would end up like her mother: battered, withdrawn, and helpless in a nursing home.
She led the way into the coach. Her manner was cold. They were both cold, and that suited her fine.
Romy’s mood now was a slap in the face to him after what they’d experienced together, but he had to concede she was only as detached as he was. He was just surprised, he supposed, that those much vaunted attributes of tenderness and sensitivity, which women were supposed to possess in abundance, appeared to have bypassed her completely. He should be pleased about that, but he wasn’t. He was offended. Romy was the first woman who hadn’t clung to him possessively after sex. And bizarrely, for the first time in his life, some primitive part of him had wanted her to.
‘Are you coming in?’ she said, when he stood at the entrance at the top of the steps.
His senses surged as he brushed past her. However unlikely it seemed to him, this whip-thin fighting girl stirred him like no other. He wanted more. So did she, judging by than quick intake of breath. He could feel her sexual hunger in the energy firing between them. But Romy wanted more that he could give her. He wanted more of Romy, but all he wanted was sex.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE MADE HER way down the aisle towards the area at the rear of the coach set aside for desks and equipment. Her small, slender shape, dressed all in black, quickly became part of the shadows.
‘I know there’s a light switch in here somewhere,’ she said.
Her voice was a little shaky now the door was closed, and the tension rocketed between them. He could feel her anticipation as she waited for his next move. He could taste it in the air. He could detect her arousal. He was a hunter through and through.
‘Here,’ he said, pressing a switch that illuminated the coach and set some unseen power source humming.
‘Thank you,’ she said, with her back to him as she sat down at a desk.
‘You’ll need this,’ he said, handing over the camera.
She thanked him and hugged it to her as if it contained gold bars rather than her shots.
He had more time than he needed while she logged on. He used it to reflect on what had happened over the past hour or so. Ejecting Romy from the wedding feast should have been straightforward. She should have been on her way to Buenos Aires by now, then back to London. Instead his head was still full of her, and his body still wanted her. He could still hear her moaning and writhing beneath him and feel her beneath his hands. He could still taste her on his mouth, and he could remember the smell of her soap-fresh skin. He smiled in the shadows, remembering her attacking him, that tiny frame surprisingly strong, yet so undeniably feminine. Why did Romy Winner hide herself away behind the lens of a camera?
A blaze of colour hit the screen as she began to work. What he saw answered his question. Romy Winner was quite simply a genius with a camera. Images assailed his senses. The scenery was incredible, the wildlife exotic. Her pictures of the Criolla ponies were extraordinary. She had captured some amusing shots of the wedding guests, but nothing cruel, though she had caught out some of the most pompous in less than flattering moments. She’d taken a lot of pictures of the staff too, and it was those shots that really told a story. Perhaps because more expression could be shown on faces that hadn’t been stitched into place, he reflected dryly as Romy continued to sort and select her images.
She’d made him smile. Another first, he mused as she turned to him.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘Do you like what you see?’
‘I like them,’ he confirmed. ‘Show me what else you’ve got.’
‘There’s about a thousand more.’
‘I’m in no hurry.’ For maybe the first time in his life.
‘Why don’t you pull up a chair?’ she suggested. ‘Just let me know if there any images you don’t feel are suitable for the charity.’
‘So I’m your editor now?’ he remarked, with some amusement after her earlier comment about censorship.
‘No,’ she said mildly. ‘You’re a client I want to please.’
He inclined his head in acknowledgement of this. He could think of a million ways she could please him. When she turned back to her work he thought the nape of her neck extremely vulnerable and appealing, just for starters. He considered dropping a kiss on the peachy flesh, and then decided no. Once he’d tasted her…
‘What do you think of these?’ she said, distracting him.
‘Grace is very beautiful,’ he said as he stared at Romy’s shots of the bride. He could see that his new sister-in-law was exquisite, like some beautifully fashioned piece of china. But did Grace move him? Did she make his blood race? He admired Grace as he might admire some priceless objet d’art, but it was Romy who heated his blood.
‘She is beautiful, isn’t she?’ Romy agreed, with a warmth in her voice he had never noticed before. She certainly didn’t use that voice when she spoke to him.
And why should he care?
Because for the first time in his life he found himself missing the attentions of a woman, and perhaps because he was still stung, after Romy’s enthusiastic response to their lovemaking, that she wasn’t telling him how she thrilled and throbbed, and all the other things his partners were usually at such pains to tell him. Had Romy Winner simply feasted on him and moved on? If she had, it would be the first time any woman had turned the tables on him.
‘This is the sort of shot my editor loves,’ she said as she brought a picture of him up on the screen.
‘Why is that?’
‘Because
