Sun God (17 page)

“You won’t kill me,” he said with easy confidence, reaching out and drawing her to him. His hands clasped the sides of her head, holding it in a vise from which she could not escape. He tilted her face up to his. His lips lowering to hers, he murmured, “And I won’t rape you.”

His hot, hard mouth again covered hers, but this time Amy had her guard up. Her lips were tightly shut against any invasion, and she was determined to put an end to his loathsome physical aggression. While his warm lips and wet tongue and white teeth toyed provocatively with her firmly closed mouth, she held her dress up with one hand and with the other she feverishly clawed at his bare back and his chest, raking the smooth bronzed flesh with sharp punishing fingernails.

It did no good.

He was totally indifferent to her scraping nails and to her furious attempts to get away. With single-minded purpose, he continued to kiss her, nipping at her soft lower lip, sucking it into his mouth, drumming his tongue against the barrier of her teeth.

When finally he tired of her unresponsiveness and raised his dark head, Amy threatened, “It’s no use, El Capitán! I will scream and Magdelena and Fernando will come running.”

“No, my dear, they will not,” he said with cool authority.

“Yes, they will! You’ll see, all I have to do is—”

“I have taken care of any interruptions, Mrs. Parnell. The night is all ours and I assure you we will not be disturbed.”

Amy’s uneasiness returned. “You’re lying. They’re just downstairs and I—”

“No.” He gently shook his dark head. “Both your servants are in the east wing of the hacienda.” He smiled then, a satanic smile that caused the white scar on his cheek to pucker and pull. “I have you all to myself.”

She had no doubt he spoke the truth. He had planned the whole thing and now here she was trapped, alone in the silent west wing with a man bent on revenge. Sexual revenge.

She said as much to him. “You can lock me up here for the rest of my life, but it will do you no good! I will never submit to you, never! Your touch is repulsive to me. I hate you! Do you hear me, I hate you!” she exclaimed with a snarl, panic rising. “I will hate you for all eternity!”

“So be it,” he said, shrugging wide, bare shoulders.

“You’re not a man! You’re nothing but an uncivilized animal with no sense of decency and I—I—” The fierce new light that sprang into his dark eyes stilled her sharp tongue and Amy knew she had said too much.

His strong chin jutted menacingly. His long arm shot out. He grabbed the bodice of her torn dress and chemise and yanked both down to her waist. Amy screamed and crossed her arms protectively over her bare breasts.

Passion and hatred flashing in his dark eyes, he wrapped his fingers around her wrists and pulled her covering hands away. Looking only at the firm ivory breasts rising and falling rapidly, he said, “You think me an uncivilized animal?” A hint of pain flickered in his eyes for a second before he added, “Then I shall love as a savage.”

And forcing her arms down to her sides, he wedged a knee between her legs and held her immobile as his lips dropped to her throat. His teeth grazing the soft flesh below her ear, he spread kisses of fire down the side of her throat.

“No!” she pleaded, as his dark face moved steadily down toward her bare left breast. “Noooo,” she cried, when his hot, open mouth enclosed the soft, sleeping crest and he sank down on one knee before her. “No … dear God … no,” she breathed as he sucked and her nipple became an erect point of sensation. Tears of shame and self-disgust slid down Amy’s flushed cheeks as she stood pinned against the door while the final glow from the setting sun tinted the room and both of them in a soft pastel gloaming.

“I hate you,” she whispered, her knees watery, her heart pounding with passion and despair. “I do, I—I … hate … you …” she repeated the words, feeling they were true. But then how could she stand there in her own home and allow a man she detested to kiss her breasts?

Luiz raised his head, looked into her flushed face. Their gazes locked and held.

“I want you to stop,” she said, trying to reason with him. “You have humiliated me enough. Please, let me go.”

Accusingly he touched his forefinger to a stiff nipple. “Your body doesn’t want me to let you go.”

With that he gently eased her trapped hands from the restraining sleeves of her ruined dress. Amy winced when he impulsively kissed her warm, moist underarm.

His mouth returned to her breasts. Amy hated herself as much as she hated him because his teeth raking across her taut nipples, his tongue licking their stiff, sensitive peaks, his lips sucking vigorously, brought a tingling, forbidden pleasure that made the rest of her body feel warm and pliant and eager for his touch.

Plagued with guilt, led by passion, Amy continued to stand with her back against the door while El Capitán Luiz Quintano, kneeling before her, kissed her swelling, aching breasts as if he could not get enough, would never let her go.

Vainly telling herself that she was going to stop him before he went any further, Amy lifted her trembling hands to his dark head. The slender fingers that had earlier clawed at his scarred back settled almost lovingly into the thick raven locks, forgetting her intent was to tear his burning lips from her breasts.

Luiz raised his head and again their eyes locked in the dim light. Amy saw absolutely no tenderness in the depths of his fathomless black eyes, only an unbridled lust that both frightened and excited her. That fear escalated when his deft fingers found the hooks of her dress, the tapes of her petticoat and underwear.

He swept all her garments down to her hips and his mouth returned to her flesh. Amy felt the involuntary jumping of her thighs as his lips and tongue pressed burning kisses to her quivering stomach. Her face flaming hot, her breasts pinkened from his kisses, Amy was thoroughly confused. How could it possibly be that she was more sexually aroused than she had ever been in her life?

It couldn’t.

She wasn’t.

Reasonable fear was freezing her in place, not unreasonable attraction.

Her head, her heart, and her body all waging battle with each other, Amy stood there, grateful that the summer sun had finally set and that the room would soon grow totally dark and hide her shame and embarrassment.

Amy was unconsciously surrendering to Luiz, although she did not yet realize it. Luiz was slowly, expertly draining away her will and taking over her body.

If Amy did not know it, Luiz did.

While he brushed kisses to her ribs, her navel, her prominent hip bones, he slowly, skillfully eased the tattered clothes down over her flared hips.

As the fabric slipped dangerously low, Amy stirred. Logic intervened and she lamely protested. Luiz changed his tactics. He knew women. No more precious moments spent at gentle seduction, it was time to frighten and excite her again.

Luiz roughly shoved Amy’s torn, twisted garments right down to her knees and paid no mind to her gasps of shock and indignation. Instead he looked up at her and coldly commanded, “Step out of these things.”

Brought rudely back to reality, Amy’s high brow knitted with alarm. She stared at him, shaking her head, attempting to push him away.

“Now!” he ordered fiercely.

Amy, eyes wide, obeyed.

She stepped out of her shoes, then clung to Luiz’s bare shoulders and stepped out of her clothes. He swept the discarded things aside and turned back to peel the white cotton stockings down her shapely legs. Amy could be grateful for only one thing—that the dusky twilight had finally deepened into darkness.

It had grown so dark in the room, she could hardly see him, which meant he couldn’t see her clearly either. She could make out only the dark head, the wide shoulders, as he rose before her, turned, and walked away. Amy took a step forward and heard his deep, cold voice cut through the darkness.

“You hold still.
I’ll
tell you when you can move.”

Amy sank back against the door. She began to tremble. What was he up to now? Where was he going? A match flared across the room and a candle flickered to life, casting soft honeyed light on the harsh planes of Luiz’s bronzed face. He returned to her, carrying the silver candleholder with its brightly burning white candle.

He stood looking down at her, lifting the candle high, allowing his dark, penetrating eyes to slide over her bare, slender body. Amy felt the heated touch of those ebony eyes as if his hands were on her. She shivered and tried to cover herself.

Luiz smiled and set the candleholder on the floor beside her. Waiting tensely to see what he would do next, Amy watched him again walk away. He went straight to the canopied bed, yanked down the spread and covers, and tossed them onto the carpeted floor. He swept all the pillows off the high bed, leaving the mattress free of everything save the ivory silk sheet stretching across it.

Luiz stood beside the bed, his eyes on Amy. He took the wide gold and turquoise bracelet off his wrist and laid it on the marble-topped night table. He lifted the heavy gold medallion up over his head and laid it beside the bracelet. He removed the sharp knife from the waistband of his white trousers. He stood there for a long moment, as if deciding, then came back to her.

Bracing a hand on either side of the door, trapping her, he leaned down and kissed her mouth. He kept kissing her until Amy swayed helplessly to him. Her arms went around him, her hands clinging to his back and her soft, bare breasts pressing insistently against his hard chest.

Only then did Luiz release his grip on the doorframe. His hands touched her waist briefly, then his right one moved down to cup her firm, rounded buttock before slipping into the crevice between. Amy flinched when he touched her. She tore her mouth from his and pushed on his chest.

His hand cupped the back of her neck, beneath her long blond hair, and he drew her back to him. He crooked a long arm around her and urged her toward the bed. Amy balked.

She looked at the big, empty bed and realized that if she willingly allowed him to take her there, she would be as vile as he.

Luiz read her thoughts.

“Yes,” he said, his voice a mixture of coaxing and contempt, “if you share your bed with a primitive savage, then what does that make you, my lovely Mrs. Parnell?”

She opened her mouth to answer but the words were swallowed up in his capturing lips. Fiercely, provocatively, he kissed her and his hands lightly, gently caressed her slender, naked body, pressing her to him, molding her soft curves to his tall, hard frame.

A master of passion, Luiz drew Amy toward the bed, not stopping until the backs of his legs touched the mattress’s high edge. Before Amy had time to catch her breath from his kiss, Luiz sat down on the bed, pulled her between his spread knees, but made her remain standing. He turned her so that she stood at a right angle to him and the bed.

With one hand resting on the small of her back, the other on her flat stomach, Luiz said, “You’ve not yet gotten into bed, Mrs. Parnell. Leave now if you must.” He paused, then added more softly, “If you wish.”

Amy stirred and made a move to leave him, but she never got away. Both his hands slipped swiftly, seductively between her legs, one from the back, the other from the front, and met. Within seconds his long, skilled fingers were doing forbidden, marvelous things to Amy that literally set her afire.

“What … what are you doing to me?” she murmured, then drew a long, slow breath through her mouth, her eyes closing with ecstasy.

“Making you mine,” he replied, his fingers gently touching concealed, sensitive female flesh in an intimate exploration that shocked and excited Amy.

“No … Luiz … no …” She breathed raggedly as his fingers daringly stroked and probed, easily finding the pleasure points, making her squirm and sigh in erotic bliss.

When Amy began to writhe uncontrollably and twist and press her pulsing flesh eagerly into Luiz’s gloriously tormenting hands, he stopped, lifted his glistening fingers up before her flushed face, and said, “You are hot and wet and ready for me. Tell me you are. Say it.”

Amy shook her head.

“Say it, Mrs. Parnell. Say the words, ‘El Capitán, I am hot and wet and ready for you. Make love to me.’” His hands gripped her narrow waist and he turned her to face him.

Her breath coming fast, her need for him out of control, Amy said anxiously, “El Capitán, I am hot and wet and ready for you. Make love to me.” She looked into the blazing black eyes and saw a passion that matched her own. “Please. Now.”

His smile of triumph was satanic, pulling the scar on his cheek. Amy didn’t care. This handsome, hawk-faced man had succeeded in making her so hot she had to have him, no matter what he thought about her. Nothing mattered but the fierce hunger he had awakened in her.

Pressing a kiss to the undercurve of her breast, Luiz said, “Take off my boots.”

Immediately Amy fell to one knee before him, tugged on the highly polished tall black boots, and set them aside. Eagerly she rose, wanting—needing—his hands back on her. Luiz drew her to him, sat her down on his left knee, took her hand and placed it directly atop the rock-hard erection straining against his tight white trousers.

Through the fabric, Amy could feel the intense heat and hardness of him. Awed, she awkwardly caressed him and heard him murmur close to her ear, “You want it, it’s yours.” He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “But you must take it.”

“You … you don’t mean …”

“I do. I undressed you. Now you undress me.”

Amy didn’t have to be told twice. A white-hot desire consuming her, she anxiously undid the buttons of Luiz’s trousers, then rose from his knee and ordered him to stand up.

He obeyed.

Amy’s loose blond hair swung into her face. Irritably she pushed it behind her ears and gripped the waistband of his pants. Her large, smoldering eyes following their descent, Amy peeled the crisp white military trousers and linen underwear down over Luiz’s slim hips, automatically pausing when his thrusting masculinity sprang free.

Her hands clinging to the half-lowered trousers, she stared at the surging male flesh rising from a dense growth of raven curls and was afraid.