‘I didn’t realise they were that bad.’
But Santos wasn’t listening. Instead he had reached under the bench and pulled out the offending shoes, frowning down at them in dark disapproval. The straps looked impossibly delicate as they dangled from his big, tanned hands. It was hard to believe that they could have inflicted such devastation on her feet.
‘What the devil possessed you to wear instruments of torture like these? You must have known they would cripple you.’
‘They were fine when I tried them on. But I’m not used to heels—or all those straps.’
To be honest, she’d never thought to wear them in, and the stress of the day, the tidal wave of events that had overtaken her had made it impossible to dash back to the hotel or find some other, more comfortable footwear.
He was looking down at the shoes that he still held in his hand, the dark frown that had drawn his brows together deepening as he did so.
‘You danced with me …’
‘Yes, I did. But …’
Alexa couldn’t see where he was going with this.
‘You danced with me, wearing these damn shoes. You tore your feet to ribbons …’
‘I …’
I didn’t notice, she had been about to say and it would have been the truth. In those moments she had felt as if she was dancing on air and any discomfort in her feet had just not registered on her pleasure-hazed brain. But to admit that was walking right into a trap. It was just giving him more ammunition for the arrogant assumptions he had been making earlier.
‘They weren’t hurting then. It was only when I came out here. I think that walking across the grass, coming down the steps …’
He didn’t believe her, of course; his expression said that, the look he slanted at her from those pale, gleaming eyes making the words shrivel up on her tongue.
‘Come here,’ he said, holding his hands out to her.
When she hesitated, unsure of what he planned, he muttered something rough and impatient under his breath. Then he stooped towards her, the bulk of his body blotting out the sight of the moon, the scent of him enclosing her, the soft fall of his hair brushing against her cheek in a way that sent a sensual shiver running down her spine. Tucked under the bench, her toes curled in uncontrollable response to his nearness.
What are you doing …? She said the words inside her head, and she tried to speak them aloud but even though she opened her mouth her voice failed her and she didn’t even manage a sound. But then he bent even more, sliding his hands underneath her and lifting her bodily from the seat, taking her high into the air until he held her hard against his chest, his arms like steel bands underneath her, supporting her weight with impressive ease.
‘What are you doing?’
This time she managed the words, feeling them pushed out of her by the rush of shock and confusion, the heated pounding of her pulse in response to this unexpected closeness.
‘Taking you inside.’
He sounded surprised that she had even had to ask. Wasn’t it obvious what he was doing? his tone implied.
‘You can’t walk on those feet, so this is the best way to get you indoors before you injure yourself any more.’
‘But—’
‘Silencio!’ The command was hard, sharp. She would be a fool to ignore it, that was plain. ‘This is what is happening—no argument.’
No argument now, maybe, Alexa thought as he carried her back up the steps towards the house, but when they got back inside she would find plenty of argument.
However, it was a struggle to collect up any rational thoughts to do so as every cell in her body seemed determined to respond to the closeness of Santos’s hard male body, the strength of his arms supporting her, the wall of his chest pressed up against her cheek. Under her ear she could hear the steady, heavy thud of his heart and her own pulse seemed to set up a matching beat so that she wasn’t sure where his heart rate ended or hers began. After a long and difficult day she knew a weak and foolish urge to simply lay her head against his strength, close her eyes and let everything drift. But a strong sense of self-preservation demanded that she should not give in to it. There was something here that she didn’t quite understand, some thread of darkness running through everything Santos said or did. And she needed to get to the bottom of it before she could allow herself to relax—if ever.
‘Here …’
The lights inside the house dazzled after the gathering darkness outside, making her blink and bury her face against his chest once more. So she felt the change in his movements but only registered slowly what it meant, realising too late that he had carried her upstairs.