He was right. This wasn’t about what either of them wanted.
At his quick nod, she grabbed his wrist. The hair on his forearms tickled her fingers. “I appreciate your support since I...since we found out about the—” she needed to stop choking on the word baby “—the pregnancy. You’ve been...great about it, and I...well, I haven’t.”
His gaze moved to her mouth and lingered. The need to feel his mouth on hers, the need to touch him, rose inside her.
It wasn’t the blaze of lust that had driven reason from her head a few weeks ago. Now it was more of a slow, soft burn that always smoldered beneath her skin. It was an insidious longing more dangerous than pure lust.
He extracted his hand from hers as though he couldn’t wait to get away. Her heart sinking to her toes, she suddenly realized she wanted his company. Just for a few more minutes. Even if it meant prolonging her own torment.
So she said the first thing that popped into her head. “What happened to Miguel’s face?”
He stopped and turned around, surprise flickering in his gaze. Was her interest in the teenager, in what went on in Diego’s life, so shocking? Really, she wasn’t the one with corrupt memories of their short marriage.
“It was his initiation into a street-gang last week. With everything else going on I wasn’t able to stop it.”
Because he had been dealing with her. “He’s got the same tattoo as you do. Is it the same street-gang you were a part of?”
For a second the same sensuous memory of that long-ago night flared in his gaze, the pupils turning molten gold. “Yes,” he said, in that clipped whatever tone of voice.
Turning away from her, he grabbed a white tee shirt and pulled it on. It was a silent version of show over, move on.
Something within her rebelled. His calm dismissal was beginning to annoy the hell out of her. Before he could walk away she moved closer to him, effectively blocking him.
“So you got him out of the street-gang?”
“Yes—kicking and screaming.”
“He didn’t want to come with you?”
He shook his head. “What I forced him to leave behind is the only life he knows. And I need to keep an eye on him. Like I said, he won’t harm you. But he’s got a grudge against me.”
She slid to a lounger and crossed her legs. “Now it all makes sense.”
He plunked down on the one next to her. “What do you mean?”
She felt him still and hid a smile. Perverse satisfaction filled her. He wasn’t as unaffected by their situation as he made out. “Of course at first I thought it was...you know...the appeal of the sexy older woman and all,” she said, tongue-in-cheek. She was rewarded by his begrudging grunt. “But now I see it was partly to get back at you. Although I have to admit even with half his face covered in bruises he’s quite the looker. He made me a very interesting offer.”
He pounced on her like a predator on his prey. One minute they were sitting on two separate loungers, the next he was on hers, his muscular thighs on either side of her, trapping her neatly. His broad shoulders filled up her vision. The very air she breathed was filled with the scent of him.
“You said he didn’t say anything.” His words were a low growl.
“I meant he didn’t say anything threatening.”
“What did he say to you?”
Diego had been like this with her before, too. And, for all the time she had spent learning to be self-sufficient, his protective attitude had had her melting like butter under the sun. She smiled, just enjoying the moment. “Stop acting all grouchy caveman over the fact that he talked to me and I will tell you.”
* * *
Diego closed his eyes, gripped the edge of the lounger and counted to ten. On two he remembered her laughing face. Five—her long, bare, toned legs. On eight the silk robe clinging to her skin, ending several inches above her knees. The luscious picture she made was etched onto his retinas.
Meu Deus, the temptation she presented—walking around his home, making his space her own—was more than he could handle tonight. Even though it was exactly what he had asked her to do.
His trip to Rio de Janeiro, seeing his half brother in the clinic—just a shell remaining of the boy he had once been—it beat down on him like a relentless wave determined to drown him. He knew what to expect, and yet every time the sight of Eduardo kicked him in the gut.
Now he had Miguel to contend with, too. He really couldn’t afford to make mistakes in handling the teenager.
And throw in his enticingly sexy wife—parading in a swimsuit, no less—he knew where he would slip up.
He must have truly misplaced his marbles to have suggested that she move in, to think that he could keep his libido in check with her under the same roof.