with juice, and without Buddy or her stick she had no alternative but to rely on Nacho to take her back home. ‘But I don’t want to spoil the evening for you,’ she insisted. ‘Why don’t you come back to the party after you’ve walked me home?’
‘Why would I do that?’ he said. ‘Come on, Grace. We’re leaving.’
She liked that he made no fuss. Nacho just swung her into his arms and lifted her over the side of the vat. Then somehow he was there to steady her on the other side. She paused to straighten her skirt while Nacho found her sandals, but as he began to lead her away she felt disorientated. ‘Where are we going?’
A wooden door creaked open in front of her and cool air hit her face. They were outside and away from everyone, with cobbles beneath their feet. And now they were crossing an open space that had to be big because all sound was lost on the wind.
‘Where is this?’ she said. ‘A hay barn?’ she guessed as Nacho opened another door. ‘What are we doing here?’
‘Even you can’t be so naïve,’ Nacho murmured.
LACING his fingers through her hair, Nacho cupped the back of her head in a way that was both possessive and achingly tender. The brush of his lips against hers was a remembered pleasure—though so much better now she was full of suppressed heat and longing.
She could feel his power flooding through her, mixing with her own to create some new, stronger force. When he tightened his grip, pressing insistently and hungrily against her, she kissed him back with an answering hunger that found its voice deep in her throat. Teasing her lips apart, he deepened the kiss and, finding her tongue with his, stroked it in a way that made intimate pulses throb deep between her thighs.
She moved against him, wanting more … more pleasure … more incredible sensation. Her mind blazed with a fever that no amount of reason could wipe out. She wanted him. And, impossibly, it appeared Nacho wanted her too.
‘Where are you taking me?’ she gasped as he swung her into his arms. She still felt that frisson of uncertainty, and wished beyond anything that she could see.
She had to trust him, Grace realised as Nacho soothed her with husky words in Spanish. She knew something of this man now, and she had to trust him to keep her safe.
Shouldering open another door, he let it bang shut behind them. ‘I’m taking you to the hacienda.’
‘To the hacienda?’ she said.
‘And then to bed.’
‘And Buddy?’
‘I’ll make a call.’
Reassured, and yet terrified, she clung to Nacho as he strode across gravel and cobbles, and finally onto an even path. Another door swung wide, and they were inside again, somewhere quiet and calm and warm, where a clock was ticking reassuringly. She heard marble tiles beneath his feet and then a wide expanse of rug. They were inside the hacienda in a big hallway, Grace realised as Nacho turned and bounded up a flight of stairs. A grand staircase, she registered as they went up and up.
Trust Nacho to have his eyrie at the top of the house, she mused when they reached a thickly carpeted landing. He strode straight on and another door opened. Greeted by the scent of clean linen and beeswax, she guessed this was his bedroom.
The room was big. It ate up several of his strides before Nacho put her down on the bed. The windows were open, and she could feel the breeze and hear the swish of voile billowing.
She heard him switch a light on and smiled. ‘I don’t need the light,’ she said.
‘But I do,’ Nacho argued, lying down at her side. ‘I want to look at you.’
She remained still on sheets scented with lavender and sunshine, her head resting comfortably on a soft bank of pillows. She was trembling with awareness, Grace realised, waiting for Nacho to touch her or to speak.
Grace was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He marvelled that someone so tiny and vulnerable could be so strong. She was all he remembered from the wedding and so much more. He smiled to think she looked even better for being flushed and dishevelled after the grape-treading. Her hair had tumbled down and was wild around her shoulders, while the juice-stained blouse did nothing to conceal the full swell of her breasts. Grape juice streaked her cheek and her neck.
Bringing her into his arms, he kissed it away. She laughed against his mouth, and her laugh was the sexiest thing he had ever heard.
‘Don’t,’ she said.
‘Don’t what?’ He pulled his head back to look at her.
‘Don’t treat me as if I’m made of cut glass,’ she warned him. ‘I’m a woman like any other, Nacho.’
Not like any other, he thought. His hungry gaze swept Grace’s body to find the cotton skirt had wrapped itself around her legs, exposing her elegant thighs. He thought of them spread wide and her legs locked around him … He wanted them joined deep. Moving over her, he teased her, with the weight of his thigh for the pleasure of hearing her groan. Taking his leg higher, he pressed more firmly, rubbing and teasing until she was gasping for breath.
‘Don’t—don’t stop,’ she said. Balling her hands, she pressed angry fists against his chest. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. Nothing. Do you understand?’
‘All I understand is that I want you,’ he murmured, staring down. ‘But what do you want, Grace?’
‘You,’ she said fiercely. ‘I want you. I don’t want you to see a blind woman,’ she added in a voice that tore at his heart. ‘I want you to see me. I want you to see Grace—’
‘I always have,’ he whispered, dragging her close.
And it was the truth. After that first terrible shock he had come to see past the changes in Grace to everything that remained the same, and so much that had grown stronger.
‘There’s no rush. We’ve got all night, Grace.’
‘And this could take hours, I hope?’
He felt her smile against his mouth. ‘At least …’
Happy with his answer, she laughed, and his hunger spiked higher, driving back the ghosts from the past.
She had dreamed of this moment since she first saw Nacho, but never in her wildest dreams had she imagined they would ever be together like this, or that she could have the freedom of his body as he had hers. Nacho had aroused her beyond the point of reason just with his touch, and with the outrageous suggestions he was murmuring in her ear. He was the master of all things sensual, and he had made her want him with a hunger so fierce it frightened her.
‘Enough,’ she complained. ‘Stop teasing me.’ She writhed impatiently beneath him. ‘Please don’t make me wait.’
But Nacho refused to be hurried, and was content to leave her to imagine what might happen next.
‘Please
