until now, but her rational thought process was overtaken by a more primitive reaction to his raw maleness.
He was dressed in black jeans and a fine-knit black sweater that clung to his broad chest. Over it he wore a brown leather jacket which was scuffed in several places and furthered the impression that he lived life on his terms and didn’t give a damn what others thought of him. His black hair was thick and tousled, as if he had a habit of raking his fingers through it, and the black stubble on his jaw and above his top lip added to his smouldering sex appeal.
Something visceral knotted in the pit of Elin’s stomach. So this was what desire felt like. This fire in her blood. Her breasts felt heavy and there was a dragging ache between her legs. She wasn’t a freak, as she’d assumed when her friends had talked about their love lives and she’d had nothing to say.
‘Maybe you’re gay, but you can’t face up to the truth about your sexuality,’ Virginia had suggested when Elin had admitted that she was still a virgin.
‘The truth is I’m not interested in having sex with anyone. I’ve dated a few guys but I’ve never wanted to take things further.’ Elin suspected that a psychologist might blame the traumatic first four years of her life spent at an orphanage in the middle of a war zone for her trust issues. Or maybe she was frigid, as one ex-boyfriend had told her when he’d failed to persuade her to sleep with him.
Her friend had refused to write her off. ‘I reckon you just haven’t met the right man yet. One day you’ll meet a guy who will flick your switch.’
Was this what Virginia had meant? As Elin stared at this modern-day Heathcliff she felt light and heat and energy explode inside her and suddenly she knew what to wish for when she blew out the candles on her cake.
Someone turned up the volume on the stereo and music pounded in the room, echoing the pounding of Elin’s blood in her veins as the crowd around her dispersed and she discovered the man was watching her. He was leaning against the mantelpiece, one foot casually crossed over his other ankle. He gave the appearance of being relaxed but his stillness reminded Elin of a jungle cat preparing to pounce. He did not move his gaze from her when she walked towards him, and it was as if he had taken control of her mind and she could not turn away from him even if she’d 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
