Taming the Last Acosta. Susan Stephens
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Kruz believed her or not, for the moment she had him firmly in check.
‘The solution to this,’ he remarked, ‘is that I take a look at the shots and I decide.’
As he strode away she ran after him. Dodging in front of him, she forced him to stop.
He studied Romy’s elfin features with a practised eye. He interpreted the nervous hand running distractedly through her disordered hair. The camera meant everything to her, and if there was one thing that could really throw Ms Winner he had it swinging from his shoulder now. She was terrified he was going to disappear with her camera. She worked with it every day. It was her family, her income stream, her life. He almost felt sorry for her, and then stamped the feeling out. What was Romy Winner to him?
Actually, she was a lot more than he wanted her to be. She had got to him in a way he hadn’t quite fathomed yet. ‘Is there some reason why I shouldn’t see these shots?’ he asked, teasing her by lifting the camera to Romy’s eye level.
‘None whatsoever,’ she said firmly, but her face softened in response to his mocking expression and she almost smiled.
Testing Romy was fun, he discovered, and fun and he were strangers. With such a jaundiced palette as his, any novelty was a prize. But he wouldn’t taunt her any longer. He wasn’t a bully, and wouldn’t intentionally try to increase that look of concern in her eyes. ‘Shall we?’ he invited, glancing at the press coach.
She eyed him suspiciously, perhaps wondering if she was being set up. She knew there was nothing she could do about it, if that were the case. She strode ahead of him, head down, mouth set in a stubborn line, no doubt planning her next move. And then she really did throw him.
‘So, what have you got to hide?’ she asked him, swinging round at the door
‘Me?’ he demanded.
Tilting her head to one side, she studied his face. ‘People with something to hide are generally wary of me and my camera, so I wondered what you had to hide…’
‘You think that’s why I confiscated it?’
‘Maybe,’ she said, not flinching from his stare.
That direct look of hers asked a lot of questions about a man who could have such prolonged and spectacular sex with a woman he didn’t know. It was a look that suggested Romy was asking herself the same question.
‘Are you worried that I might have taken some compromising pictures of you?’ she said. There was a tug of humour at one corner of her mouth.
‘Worried?’ He shook his head. But the truth was he had never been so reckless with a woman. He sure as hell wouldn’t be so reckless again.
‘Kruz?’ she prompted.
His name sounded soft on her lips. That had to be a first. He smiled. ‘What?’
‘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.