The Secret Mistress

How could anyone not count Elvira Rosa Martinez?

More to the point, it had been totally unconscionable of Luis to remain silent about the young woman designated as his wife; the sweet, convent-raised, beautifully mannered Claudia Gallardo.

His silence had spelled out where Shontelle stood in his life—a handy bit of foreign fluff on the side, out of his mainstream, suitable only for fun and relaxation. But then he hadn’t made any promises, she savagely reminded herself.

“I assume you’re not married, either, since you’re travelling with your brother,” he drawled, each word sounding closer.

He was coming after her.

“I’m here on business, Luis,” she said tersely, wishing she hadn’t raised anything personal. He couldn’t be believed anyway. He’d undoubtedly say—or not say—whatever suited his purpose.

“Do you have a lover tucked away at home, waiting to serve your inclinations?” His voice had the stinging flick of a whip.

“I’m all out of lovers at the moment,” she answered flippantly, disdaining even a glance at him.

“Which is why you came on this trip, mmh?”

The silky taunt hit her on the raw. The urge to swing around and let him have the sting of her tongue almost blew her mind off her purpose here. She gritted her teeth, folded her arms to hold wayward impulses in, and stared fixedly at the myriad of lights beyond the window.

“It looks like a fairyland outside, doesn’t it?” she remarked as lightly as she could.

It was true. La Paz was the highest capital in the world and it appeared to be built in a moon crater. From where she was viewing it from the low downtown area, the lights of the city rose in a great circular curve, going up so high they seemed to be hanging in the sky. Incredible there were actually people living behind them.

“You need a magician to get you out of it,” Luis mocked, standing right behind her now.

“We need a bus,” she said quickly, fighting her intense awareness of his nearness.

“The curfew doesn’t lift until six in the morning.”

Her heart skittered. What was he implying? They had all night to negotiate?

“I don’t like your hair constricted in a plait,” was his next comment, confusing Shontelle further.

Her spine crawled at his touch as he lifted the rope of hair away from her back. She knew what he was going to do but her mind couldn’t accept it. He couldn’t still love her hair. He couldn’t still want her!

Or maybe he didn’t.

Maybe he was playing some cruel cat-and-mouse game.

She wanted to look at his face but she was frightened to. What if he was waiting to feed off her feelings? Pride insisted she deny him the satisfaction of knowing she was rattled. Could he hear the mad thumping of her heart? Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm, she recited feverishly.

He’d worked off the rubber band and was separating the twisted swathes, seeming to take sensual pleasure in the feel of her hair. Impossible to ignore it. Impossible to stay calm.

“What do you want from me, Luis?” she blurted out.

“What I had before.”

Her mind fragmented under the force of her own desire to have him again, and his apparent desire to recall and repeat the passion they’d shared. Some tattered shreds of reason shrieked that he was only playing with her, using his power to make her succumb to him, but she had to know, had to see.

As she jerked around to face him, her arms flew out of their protective fold and lifted into an instinctive plea for truth. “What do you mean?” she cried.

He still held a skein of her hair and he wound it around his hand as his eyes blazed their dark purpose into hers. “I mean to seize the day, Shontelle. Or to put it more graphically...the night. You want a bus. I want one more taste of you.”

Shock waves slammed through her.

One more taste...

Only one...

Payment for the bus.

“Not such a difficult deal, is it?” he taunted. “Just a matter of giving me what you gave of yourself two years ago...in your desire to get what you wanted of me.”

“I didn’t get what I wanted then,” she protested, her voice thin and shaky under the appalling weight of devastated hopes.

A savage fury flared into his eyes. “Was I not all you wanted of a Latin lover?” His mouth curled with cruel intent. “Well, let me try not to disappoint you tonight. We have many hours ahead of us. I promise you a feast of hot-blooded sensuality.”

Hot and hard and ruthless.

The awful part was, Shontelle could not stop her body from pulsing with excitement at what he offered. Only with him had she ever known intense physical ecstasy. She hadn’t even felt a twinge of attraction towards anyone else in the past two years. Just the thought of touching Luis again, feeling him...quivers of anticipation shot through her.

But he was treating her like a whore, laying it out that she could only get the bus in return for sex.

Sex...not remotely connected to love. Not even the slightest semblance of love. It was wrong, wrong, wrong! Her heart twisted in torment as he twisted her hair more firmly around his hand and tugged her closer to him. Then his other hand slid over her breasts, his palm rotating caressingly, his eyes glittering their triumphant knowledge of what had pleasured her in the past, and to prove him right, her nipples instantly stiffened into begging prominence.

“Stop it!” she hissed, hating his power to arouse her even as she revelled in the sharp sensation that stimulated a host of nerves, arcing from her breasts to the innermost core of her sexuality.

One black eyebrow arched mockingly. “You no longer like this?”

He was the devil incarnate, tempting her. The truth was, she didn’t want him to stop. She didn’t want him to ever stop. But he would. This was only to be one more taste. Unless...

Something deeply primitive stirred in Shontelle.

He wasn’t married, so he said.

And he still wanted her.

He also wanted a payback for his wounded pride.

Well, so did she. So did she!

“I don’t normally go for one night stands,” she said.

“But these are special circumstances,” he returned silkily.

“Just let me understand you clearly, Luis...”

With her heart thumping to a wild beat, Shontelle flicked open the shirt button over his chest curls and slid her hand inside, seeking and deliberately tweaking one of his nipples. His sharply indrawn breath was music to her ears. She had power over him, too. It wasn’t a one-way street.