‘Check,’ she breathed softly and a short while later she trapped his king.
‘Checkmate,’ Sergio conceded, stunned by the level of her brilliance and incensed that she had concealed the extent of her skill during their two previous games.
Kathy snatched in a slow quivering breath. It was over; she was safe. Her skin was damp with stress. Adrenalin was still pumping through her on a high octane charge. Pushing back her chair, she got up.
Dark golden eyes shimmering, Sergio followed suit. ‘You fixed the tie last time we played,’ he condemned.
‘Maybe it was my way of flirting with you.’ Kathy threw her head high, reacting to the electric tension in the air. ‘Guys don’t like being beaten, do they?’
‘Some prefer a challenge,’ Sergio traded.
‘But you’re not one of them,’ Kathy dared with scorn. ‘Your past features a remarkable number of airheads.’
‘Horses for courses,’ Sergio rhymed unabashed. ‘Is this the real Kathy Galvin? Or is there yet another Kathy waiting in the wings? You’re full of astonishing contradictions.’
Annoyed he had not reacted angrily to her taunt when she was keen to keep him at a distance, Kathy was noncommittal. ‘Am I?’
‘A cleaner, when you could be a model. A virgin. A chess player, who could make an Olympic team, and a thief.’ Sergio lifted a hand and laced lean brown fingers into the luxuriant thickness of her amber and copper streaked hair. ‘I don’t like what you are but you fascinate me, cara mia.’
His thumb stroked the delicate skin below her ear and she trembled. He was so close she could smell his cologne, a fragrance that had already acquired an aching familiarity that awakened her senses. The proximity of his lean, powerful body was impossible to ignore. Her mouth knew the taste of him. Her body was already remembering him and wantonly keen to relive the experience. Her breasts felt warm and heavy inside her bra. Her breath fluttered in her throat as she fought the treacherous demon of her own sensuality.
He tipped her head back. Merciless golden eyes assailed hers and forced a connection. ‘You keep the watch…and tonight I keep you,’ he reminded her with ruthless precision. ‘But I don’t want a martyr in my bed.’
Kathy had no intention of playing the victim and she was too proud to try and reason with him again. She knew how he operated. If she ruled the chessboard, he would rule the bedroom. She had made the deal and she refused to let herself think and react with her emotions: she was tougher than that. Life had gone wrong again, but she would handle it just as she had before, she told herself fiercely. He closed a hand over hers and led her into the hall and down a corridor.
The master bedroom suite overlooked a big roof garden. She could hardly credit that something as beautiful as that garden could exist so many floors above street level. She focused on it while he unzipped her dress and spread back its edges. Her heart starting to hammer like a road drill, she watched his reflection in the sunlit wall of glass. He bent his proud dark head and pressed his expert mouth to a narrow white shoulder blade. He found a place she didn’t know existed and triggered a frisson of response that slivered through her, shocking her back into awareness of him.
Sergio laughed softly. ‘I don’t want a woman behaving like an exquisite automaton. I want you wide awake, delizia mia.’
‘What do those words mean?’ she whispered.
‘My delight—and you are. Wildly inventive dreams about you have disturbed my sleep ever since I left London,’ he confided thickly.
‘So my being a thief really didn’t make much difference to you?’
His big powerful frame tensed behind hers. He spun her round to look him. Forbidding dark eyes flared down into hers.
But Kathy was untouched by that silent censure. Indeed she was almost provoked by the anger she could feel contained within him, firmly controlled by self-discipline. ‘You’re more sensitive than you might seem.’
‘Where is your shame?’ he demanded.
‘Are you ashamed that you are using your power over me to get me into bed again?’
Sergio dealt her a fulminating appraisal and then he startled her with a shout of laughter. ‘No,’ he conceded, his strong, hard-boned face spectacularly handsome as grim amusement splintered his usual sombre mien. ‘But then why would I be? You want me just as much.’
‘Don’t men always tell themselves ego-boosting stuff like th-that?’ Her voice succumbed to a slight nervous jerk as he eased her dress down over her wrists and lifted her free of the rich brocade fabric as easily as if she were a doll.
In answer, Sergio bent his arrogant dark head and kissed her. The moist curl and flick of his tongue against the roof of her mouth made her shiver. The emotion she had walled up inside her burst out in a hungry surge. She wanted, wanted, hated wanting him, refused to surrender to it. As her defensive stiffness grew he gathered her close and tasted her soft pink lips with an intoxicating sweetness that was so unexpected it transfixed her. He followed that tantalising assault with a passionate urgency that sent sparks of fire dancing through her veins. With a roughened sound in his throat, he wrenched her bra out of his path and closed a hand over the silken soft curve of her breast. Her knees went weak, her body burning.