SERENA WAS STILL in shock at finding herself in Luca’s arms with his mouth on hers. When he’d woken her at first, she’d had an almost overwhelming instinctive need to burrow close to him, the tentacles of that horrible nightmare clinging like slimy vines to her hot skin.
And then she’d realised just who she was with—just who was precipitating such weak feelings of wanting to seek strength and comfort. Luca Fonseca, of all people? And that dream... She hadn’t had it for a long time—not since she’d been in rehab. And to be having it again, here, was galling. As if she was going backwards. Not forwards. And it was all his fault, for getting under her skin.
Fresh anger made her struggle futilely against Luca’s superior strength even after she’d let the hot tide of desire take her over, revealing how much she wanted him. She pulled back, ripping her mouth from his, mortified to find herself breathing harshly, her breasts moving rapidly against the steel wall of his chest, nipples tight and stinging.
Her body and her mind seemed to be inhabiting two different people. Her body was saying Please don’t stop and her head was screaming Stop now!
‘What is it, minha beleza?’
The gravelly tone of Luca’s voice rubbed along her nerve-endings, setting them alight. Traitors.
‘Do you really think this is a good idea?’
Dammit. She sounded as if she wanted him to convince her that it was, her voice all breathy.
His eyes were like black pits in his face and Serena was glad she couldn’t make out their expression. She half expected Luca to come to his senses and recoil, but instead he seemed to move even closer. His hands slipped down her arms and came around her back, making her feel quivery at how light his touch was—and yet it burned.
‘Luca...?’
‘Hmm...?’
His mouth came close again and his lips feathered a kiss to her neck. Liquid fire spread through Serena’s pelvis. Damn him.
She swallowed, her body taking over her mind, making her move treacherously closer to that huge hard body.
‘I don’t think this is a good idea. We’ll regret it.’
Luca pulled back for a moment and said throatily, ‘You think too much.’
And then he was covering her mouth with his again, and any last sliver of defence or righteous anger at how vulnerable he made her feel drained away. She was drowning in his strength. Mouth clinging to his, skin tightening all over as he coaxed her lips apart to explore deeper with his tongue. His kiss seven years ago had seared itself onto her memory like a brand. This was like being woken from a deep sleep. She’d never really enjoyed kissing or being touched by men...until him. And now this.
Barely aware of the fact that Luca was pulling down the zips of their sleeping bags, she only knew that there was nothing between them now, and that he was pulling her on top of him so her breasts were crushed against his broad chest.
Both hands were on her head, fingers thrust deep into her hair, and Luca positioned her so that he could plunder her mouth with devastating skill. Serena could feel herself getting damp between her legs.
Luca drew back for a moment and Serena opened her eyes, breathing heavily. With a smooth move he manoeuvred them so that Serena was on her back and loomed over her. He looked wild, feral. Exactly the way she imagined the marauding Portuguese conquistadores must have looked when they’d first walked on this land.
He smoothed some hair behind her ear and Serena’s breath grew choppier. Her fingers itched to touch him, to feel that chest, so when his head lowered to hers again her hands went to the buttons of his shirt and undid them, sliding in to feel the dense musculature of his chest.
She was unable to hold back a deep sound of satisfaction as her hands explored, revelling in his strength. She dragged her fingers over his chest, sliding over the ridges of his muscles, a nail grazing a flat hard nipple. Her mouth watered. She wanted to taste it.
His beard tickled her slightly, but that was soon forgotten as his tongue thrust deep, making her arch up against him. He was pulling down the strap of her vest, taking with it her bra strap, exposing the slope of her breast.
When Luca pulled back again she was gasping for breath. She looked up, but everything was blurry for a moment. She could feel Luca’s fingers reach inside the lace cup of her bra, brushing enticingly close to where her nipple was so hard it ached. He pulled it down and Serena felt her breast pop free of the confinement. Luca’s gaze was so hot she could feel it on her bare skin.
He breathed out. ‘Perfeito...’
His head came down, and with exquisite finesse he flicked his tongue against that tip, making Serena’s breath catch and her hips move of their own volition. He flicked it again, and then slowly expored the hard flesh, before placing his whole mouth around it and suckling roughly.
Serena cried out. Her hands were on his head, in his hair. She’d never felt anything like this in her life. Sex had been something to block out, to endure, an ineffective form of escape...not something to revel in like this.
His hand was on her trousers now, undoing her button, lowering the zip. There was no hesitation. She wanted this with an all-consuming need she’d never experienced before. His hand delved under her panties as his mouth still tortured her breast.
When his fingers found the evidence of her desire he tore his mouth away. She could see his eyes glitter almost feverishly as he stroked her intimately, releasing her damp heat. Serena whimpered softly, almost mindless, her hips jerking with reaction.
‘You want me.’
His words sliced through the fever in her brain.
Serena bit her lip. She was afraid to speak, afraid of what might spill out. Luca was a master torturer. With his hand he forced her legs apart as much as they could go, and then he thrust a finger deep inside, where she was slick and hot. She gasped.
‘Say it, Serena.’
He sounded fierce now, his finger moving intimately against her. Oh, God... She was going to come. Like this. In a tent in the middle of nowhere. Just from this man touching her...
Feeling vulnerable far too late, Serena tried to bring her legs together—but Luca wouldn’t let her. She could see the determination on his face. The lines stark with desire and hunger. One finger became two, stretching her, filling her. She gasped, her hands going to his shoulders.
The heel of his hand put exquisite pressure on her clitoris. She was unable to stop her hips from moving, rolling, seeking to assuage the incredible ache that was building. And then his fingers moved faster, deeper, making Serena’s muscles tighten against him.
‘Admit you want me...dammit. You’re almost coming. Say it.’
Serena was wild now, hands clutching at him. He was looking down at her. She knew what was stopping the words being wrenched from her: the fact that Luca seemed so intent on pushing her over the edge when he appeared to be remarkably in control. The fact that she suspected he just wanted to prove his domination over her.
But she couldn’t fight it. She needed it—him—too badly.
‘I do...’ she gasped out, the words torn from her as her body reached its crescendo against the relentless rhythm of Luca’s wicked hand and fingers. ‘I do...want you...damn you.’
And with those last guttural words she went as taut as a bowstring as the most indescribably pleasurable explosion racked her entire body and broke it apart into a million pieces before letting it float back together again.
Serena had orgasmed before. But never like this. With such intensity...losing herself in the process.
* * *
Luca’s brain had melted into a pool of lust and heat. Serena’s body was still clamping around his fingers and he ached to be embedded within her, so that the inferno in his body might be assuaged.
But something held him back—had held him back from replacing his hand with his erection. At some point he’d become aware that he needed this woman on a level that surpassed anything he’d ever known before.
And, worse, he needed to know that she felt it too. So making her admit it, making her come, had become some kind of battle of wills. She’d confounded him since she’d turned up in his office, just days ago, and this felt like the first time he’d been able to claw back some control. By making her lose hers.
But now, as he extricated his hand and her body jerked in reaction, it felt like an empty triumph. Luca pulled back and gritted his jaw at the way his body rejected letting Serena go. He pulled on his shirt, feeling wild. Undone.
Serena was moving, pulling her clothes together. He saw her hands shaking and wanted to snarl. Where was the insouciant, confident woman he remembered meeting that night in Florence? She bore no resemblance to this woman, who was almost impossibly shy.
Luca lay back, willing down the throbbing heat in his blood. Cursing the moment he’d ever laid eyes on Serena DePiero. She went still beside him, and even that set his nerves on edge. Sizzling.
Eventually she said hesitantly, ‘You didn’t...’
She trailed off. But he knew what she’d meant to say, and suddenly her unbelievable hesitance pushed him over another edge. He’d cursed this woman for a long time for sending his life into turmoil, and yet again she was throwing up another facet of her suddenly chameleon-like personality. The most in control he’d felt around her since she’d come back into his life had been just now—when she’d been surrendering to him even though she’d obviously hated it.
He would have her—completely. In his bed. On his terms. Would reveal this hesitant shyness to be the sham that it was.
And then, when he’d had her, sated himself, he would be able to walk away and leave her behind for good. One thing was certain: he’d wanted her since the moment he’d laid eyes on her, and not even his antipathy for her had put a dent in that need. If he didn’t have her he’d be haunted for ever. And no woman, however alluring, retained any hold over him once he’d had her.
He came up on one elbow and looked down, saw her eyes flash blue as she looked at him. Her mouth was swollen.
Luca forced down the animalistic urge to take her there and then. He was civilised. He’d spent years convincing people that he wasn’t his lush of a mother or his corrupt father.
‘No, I didn’t.’
He saw her frown slightly. ‘Why didn’t you...?’
He finished for her, ‘Make love to you?’
Serena nodded her head, pulling the sleeping bag back up over her body. Luca resisted the urge to yank it back down. Control.
His jaw was hard. ‘I didn’t make love to you, Serena, because I have no protection with me. And when we do make love it will be in more comfortable surroundings.’
He sensed her tensing.
‘Don’t be so sure I want to make love to you, Luca.’
He smiled and felt ruthless. ‘Minha beleza, don’t even try to pretend that you would have objected to making love here and now. I felt your body’s response and it didn’t lie. Even if you don’t like it.’
She opened her mouth and he reached out and put a finger to her lips, stopping her words.
‘Don’t even waste your breath. After that little performance you’re mine as surely as if I’d stamped a brand on your body.’
She smacked his hand away, hard enough to sting. ‘Go to hell, Luca.’
Luca curbed the desire to show Serena in a more subtle way that what he said was true, but it was true that he didn’t have protection, and he knew that if he touched her again he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.
So he lay down and closed his eyes, just saying darkly, ‘Not before I take you with me, princesa.’
The fact that he could sense Serena fuming beside him only made him more determined to shatter her control again.
She would be his.
* * *
The following day Serena was galvanised on her walk—largely by the depth of her humiliation and her hatred for Luca. She glared at his back as he strode ahead of her and mentally envisaged a jaguar springing from the jungle to swallow him whole.
She couldn’t get the lurid images out of her head—the way she’d so completely and without hesitation capitulated to Luca’s lovemaking. The way he’d played her body like a virtuoso played a violin. The way he’d controlled her reactions while maintaining his own control.
His words mocked her: ‘After that little performance you’re mine.’ She felt like screaming. Unfortunately it had been no performance—which was galling, considering that for most of her life she’d perfected the performance of a spoilt, reckless heiress.
But on a deeper level what had happened last night with Luca terrified her.
For as long as she could remember there had been a layer between her and the world around her and she was still getting used to that layer being gone. She’d first tasted freedom when her father had disappeared and they’d been left with nothing. It had been too much to deal with, sending her spiralling into a hedonistic frenzy, saved only by her sister taking her to England and to rehab.
Since then she’d learnt to deal with being free; not bearing the constant weight of her father’s presence. Her job, becoming independent, was all part of that process. Even if she still harboured deep secrets and a sense of guilt.
But when Luca had been touching her last night—watching her, making her respond to his touch—her sense of freedom had felt very flimsy. Because he’d also been touching a part of her that she hadn’t yet given room to really breathe. Her emotions. Her yearning for what her sister had: a life and happiness.
And the fact that Luca had brought that to the surface made her nervous and angry. All she was to him was a conquest. A woman he believed had betrayed him. A woman he wanted to slake his desire with.
A woman he didn’t like, even if he ever conceded that she might be innocent.
She’d known that the night they’d met first. He’d had a gleam of disdain in his eyes that he’d barely concealed even as she saw the burn of desire.
And yet, damn him, since she’d walked into his office the other day it was as if everything was brighter, sharper. More intense. Bastard.
Serena crashed into Luca’s back before she’d even realised she’d been so preoccupied she hadn’t noticed he’d stopped. She sprang back, scowling, and then noticed that they were on a kind of bluff, overlooking a huge cleared part of the forest.
To be out from under the slightly oppressive canopy was heady for a moment. Ignoring Luca, Serena studied the view. She could see that far away in the distance the land had been eviscerated. Literally. Huge chunks cut out. No trees. And what looked like huge machines were moving back and forth, sun glinting off steel.
Forgetting that she hated Luca for a moment, because unexpected emotion surged at seeing the forest plundered like this, she asked, a little redundantly, ‘That’s the mine?’
Luca nodded, his face stern when she sneaked an illicit glance.
‘Yes, that’s my family’s legacy.’
And then he pointed to a dark smudge much closer.
‘That’s the Iruwaya tribe’s village there.’
Serena shaded her eyes until she could make out what looked like a collection of dusty huts and a clearing. Just then something else caught her eye: a road leading into the village and a bus trundling along merrily, with bags and crates hanging precariously from its roof along with a few live chickens.
It took a few seconds for the scene to compute and for Serena’s brain to make sense of it. Slowly she said, ‘The village isn’t isolated.’
‘I never said it was totally isolated.’
The coolness of Luca’s tone made Serena step back and look up at him, her blood rapidly rising again. ‘So why the hell have we been trekking through a rainforest to get to it?’ She added, before he could answer, ‘You never said anything about it being optional.’
Luca crossed his arms. ‘I didn’t offer an option.’
‘My God,’ Serena breathed. ‘You really did do this in a bid to scare me off... I mean, I know you did, but I stupidly thought...’
She trailed off and backed away as the full significance sank in. Her stupid feeling of triumph for putting up the tent last night without help mocked her now. She’d known Luca hated her, that he wanted to punish her...but she hadn’t believed for a second that there had been any other way of getting to this village.
All this time he must have been alternating between laughing his head off at her and cursing her for being so determined to stick it out. And then amusing himself by demonstrating how badly she wanted him.
Luca sighed deeply and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Serena, this is how I’d planned to come to the village, but I’ll admit that I thought you would have given up and gone home long before now.’
His words fell on deaf ears. Serena felt exposed, humiliated. She shook her head. ‘You’re a bastard, Luca Fonseca.’
Terrified of the emotion rising in her chest, she turned and blindly walked away, not taking care to look where she was going.
She’d landed on her hands and knees, the breath knocked out of her, before she realised she’d tripped over something. It also took a moment for her to register that the black ground under her hands was moving.
She sprang back with a small scared yelp just as Luca reached her and hauled her up, turning her to face him.
‘Are you okay?’
Still angry with him, Serena broke free. And then she registered a stinging sensation on her arm, and on her thigh. She looked down stupidly, to see her trousers ripped apart from her fall, and vaguely heard Luca curse out loud.
He was pulling her away from where she’d tripped and ripping off her shirt, but Serena was still trying to figure out what had happened—and that was when the pain hit in two places: her arm and her leg.
She cried out in surprise at the shock of how excruciating it was.
Luca was asking urgently, ‘Where is it? Where’s the pain?’
Struggling, because it was more intense than anything she’d ever experienced, Serena got out thickly, ‘My arm...my leg.’
She was barely aware of Luca inspecting her arm, her hands, and then undoing her trousers to pull them down roughly, inspecting her thigh where it was burning. He was brushing something off her and cursing again.
She struggled to recall what she’d seen. Ants. They’d just been ants. It wasn’t a snake or a spider.
Luca was doing a thorough inspection of both legs and then moving back up to her arms. In spite of the pain she struggled to get out, ‘I’m fine—it’s nothing, really.’
But she was feeling nauseous now, with a white-hot sensation blooming outwards from both limbs. She was also starting to shake. Luca pulled her trousers back up. She wasn’t even registering embarrassment that he’d all but stripped her.
She tried to take a step, but the pain when she moved almost blinded her. And suddenly she was being lifted into the air against a hard surface. She wanted to tell Luca to put her down but she couldn’t seem to formulate the words.
And then the pain took over. There was a sense of time being suspended, loud voices. And then it all went black.
* * *
‘Serena?’
The voice penetrated the thick warm blanket of darkness that surrounded her. And there was something about the voice that irritated her. She tried to burrow away from it.
‘Serena.’
‘What?’ She struggled to open her eyes and winced at the light. Her surroundings registered slowly. A rudimentary hut of some kind. She was lying down on something deliciously soft. And one other thing registered: mercifully...the awful, excruciating pain was gone.
‘Welcome back.’
That voice. Deep and infinitely memorable. And not in a good way.
It all came back.
She turned her head to see Luca looking at her with a small smile on his face. A smile. He was sitting down near the bed she lay on.
She croaked out, ‘What happened?’
His smile faded, and it must have been a trick of the light but she could have sworn he paled slightly. ‘You got stung. Badly.’
Serena recalled the ground moving under her hands and shuddered delicately. ‘But they were just ants. How could ants do that?’
Luca’s mouth twisted. ‘They were bullet ants.’
Serena frowned. ‘Should that mean anything to me?’
He shook his head. ‘Not really, but they deliver a sting that is widely believed to be the most painful on record of any biting insect—like the pain of a bullet. I’ve been bitten once or twice; I know exactly what it’s like.’
Serena felt embarrassed. ‘But I passed out like some kind of wimp.’
Luca had a funny look on his face.
‘The fact that you were semi-conscious till we reached the village and kept fighting to walk was a testament to your obviously high pain threshold.’
She lifted her arm and looked at it. There was only a very faint redness where she’d been bitten. All that pain and not even a scratch left behind? She almost felt cheated. And then she thought of what he’d said and her arm dropped.
‘Wait a second—you carried me all the way here?’
He nodded. There was a scuffling sound from nearby and thankfully Luca’s intense focus moved off her. She looked past him to see some small curious faces peeping around the door. He said something to them and they disappeared, giggling and chattering.
Luca turned back. ‘They’re fascinated by the golden-haired gringa who arrived unconscious into their village a few hours ago.’
Serena was very disorientated by this far less antagonistic Luca. Feeling self-conscious, she struggled to sit up, moving back the covers on the bed.
But Luca rapped out, ‘Stay there! You’re weak and dehydrated. You’re not going anywhere today, or this evening. The women have prepared some food and you need to drink lots of water.’
Luca stood up, and his sheer size made Serena feel dizzy enough to lie down again. As if by magic some smiling women appeared in the doorway, holding various things. Luca ushered them in and said to Serena over their heads, ‘I have to go to the mines. I’ll be back later. You’ll be looked after.’
Weakly, Serena protested, ‘But I’m supposed to be taking notes...’
Something flashed in Luca’s eyes but he just said, ‘Don’t worry about that. There’ll be time tomorrow, before we have to leave.’
‘Before we have to leave.’ She felt a lurch in her belly and an awful betraying tingle of anticipation as to what might happen once they did leave this place.
* * *
The following morning, early, Luca was trying not to keep staring at Serena, who sat at the end of a long table in the communal eating hut. She was wearing a traditional smock dress, presumably given to her by one of the women to replace her own clothes, and the simple design might have been haute couture, the way she wore it with such effortless grace.
A small toddler, a girl, was sitting on Serena’s lap and staring up at her with huge, besotted brown eyes. She’d been crying minutes before, and Serena had bent down to her level and cajoled her to stop crying, lifting her up and settling her as easily as if she was her mother.
Now she was eating her breakfast—a manioc-based broth—for all the world acting as if it was the finest caviar, giving the little girl morsels in between her own mouthfuls. She couldn’t have looked more innocent and pure if she’d tried, tugging remorselessly on his conscience.
A mixture of rage and sexual frustration made Luca’s whole body tight. The remnants of the panic he’d felt the previous day when she’d been so limp in his arms after being stung still clung to him. She’d been brave. Even though he knew he was being completely irrational, he couldn’t stop lambasting her inwardly for not behaving as he expected her to.
Their eyes met and caught at that moment and he saw her cheeks flush. With desire? Or anger? Or a mixture of both like him? Suddenly her significance wasn’t important any more—who she was, what she’d done. Or not done. He wanted her, and she would pay for throwing his life out of whack not once but twice.
Resolve filling his body, he stood up and said curtly, ‘We’re leaving for the mines in ten minutes.’
He didn’t like the way he noticed how her arm tightened around the small girl almost protectively, or how seeing a child on her lap made him feel. All sorts of things he’d never imagined feeling in his life—ever.
Her chin tipped up. ‘I’ll be ready.’
Luca left before he did something stupid, like take up his phone and ask for the helicopter to come early so that he could haul her back to Rio and douse this fire in his blood as soon as possible.