The man who was clapping stalked slowly, dramatically, into the pool of firelight. His hair was long, untamed, and streaked with silver. It rippled down his back like a lion’s mane.Clap! Clap!His clothing was ragged, but he bore himself as proudly as a king.Clap! Clap!
The music started. The man flung his arms up in an imperious gesture—clap! clap!—stamping his heels slowly in a tense, deliberate rhythm. A hypnotic beat. Bella found herself breathing in time.
He danced for himself alone, this man, tossing his head, his lean body arched like a drawn bow, tense, graceful, and controlled. His boot heels drummed a primeval rhythm. Explosive. Intensely masculine. It caught the beat of Bella’s heart.
The music grew faster and faster. The dancer turned and twirled, like the sparks from the fire whirling in a spiral toward the darkness, building to a crescendo. He arched, his face raised to the sky, his arms braced, erect. His mane of silvered hair rippled down his back as his heels thundered, his hard, powerful thighs pounding like a machine. Bella’s blood pounded, too.
Then a gypsy woman stepped into the pool of light. Dressed in a low-cut red dress, a black bodice tightly laced over it to frame generous breasts, she wore a fringed black embroidered shawl tied tightly around her hips.
She raised her arms high above her head and stamped her feet, twice. Imperiously.
The male dancer flung back his head and stared at her down his long, proud nose.
The woman lifted her skirt coquettishly, rapped a provocative tattoo with her heels, and flung the male dancer a look of pure defiance. Then she, too, started to dance.
The man gave her a long, brooding look, then stalked around her as she continued to dance. His heels stamped out an implacable rhythm. Dominant. Possessive.I am your master.
She sent him provocative looks over her shoulder but continued her defiance. Suddenly he snaked out an arrogant arm and seized her, jerking her against his chest. For an instant, she gazed up at him from under her lashes, then she flung his arm off and twirled away, her heels tapping out a counterpoint to his. He followed, surrounding her.
Bella watched breathlessly.
He seized the woman around the waist and pulled her hard against him. She arched gracefully backward, her head almost touching the ground, her fingers trailing thecobblestones. The guitar moaned and throbbed.
The woman pouted at the man, silently daring him to do more. He bent and brought his lips to her throat, but she wrenched herself out of his grip in a swirl of skirts. But she did not run away, Bella saw. She danced around him, proudly, teasingly, daring him to take her if he could. She was willing to be conquered. But she wouldn’t come easily.
He watched, brooding, following her every movement, his heels drumming in an almost unbearable intensity. How could anyone resist him?
In a sudden movement he seized her again and hurled her to the ground. Bella gasped, but he had the girl safe in his grip. It was a lesson.
The gypsy girl lay sprawled in a pool of light, sultry eyed and proud, but she was his; anyone could see it. Slowly, sensuously, in utter masculine command, he drew her up his body, showing her who was master, promising her ecstasy. She rose as sinuous as a snake, twining around him, possessive, proud. Claimed, but not conquered.
The guitar strummed a long vibrating chord, and it was over. The dancers stood like statues, sweat pouring off them despite the chill of the night. The crowd began to applaud. But it wasn’t over, Bella saw. The two dancers stood motionless, their gazes locked, chests heaving. Then the man threw the woman over his shoulder and they disappeared into the night.
Someone else started singing. Bella barely noticed; she was still entranced by what she had seen. She’d heard about these gypsy dances, but she’d never seen one, never seen anything like it. She felt hot, breathless, liquid, and hollow inside.
Luke pulled her toward him, turning her toward the exit. “Time for bed.” His voice sounded hoarse. He was breathing hard, as if he’d been dancing, too.
“Wasn’t that magical?” she breathed. A warm, delicious shudder rippled through her. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
For a long moment he didn’t respond. He stared down at her, his gaze locked on hers in an echo of the dancers’ performance. Then with a groan he lowered his mouth to hers.
The kiss was so unexpected Bella had no time to marshal her defenses. Itwas neither tender nor gentle, but a bold, confident possession. His mouth was hot, demanding, his blood fired by the dance. As was hers.It ravished her senses and sapped her resistance.
His big hands slid over her body, along her spine, molding her to his hard body, creating a heated, hollow ache deep inside her.
Warnings flickered faintly in her mind. Like fireflies before a storm, they faded under the searing onslaught of his mouth.Intoxicating, the sharp, smoky, hot-buttered taste of him, the scrape of his dark-stubbled jaw against her skin.She couldn’t think, only feel, only taste. And give herself wholly to the moment… and the man.
She gripped the lapels of his coat, pulling him closer, lifting herself greedily for better access to his seeking, hungry mouth. She wanted to climb his body like a gypsy girl, to twine around his hard masculine torso, to be wrapped in his powerful arms and borne off into the night…
A scrape of stone in the alley, footsteps, and the acrid smell of tobacco brought Luke to a sudden, shocked awareness of what he was doing. In one swift moment he broke the kiss and thrust Isabella behind him against the wall, placing himself between her and the rest of the world.
What the hell had he been thinking, kissing his wife in public in a strange Spanish town? Oblivious of everything except the sweet taste of her. Never mind that it was dark and they’d been standing in the shadows. It was criminally negligent. Anything could happen.
Senses on full alert, Luke scanned the surroundings for signs of danger. Behind him Isabella breathed jagged gasps of air.
Two men loitered at the entrance to the courtyard, smoking, speaking in low voices. He watched them, braced for trouble, knife in hand, but they did not move. They continued talking and smoking, then one of them gave a raspy laugh and some of the tension seeped out of him. They had no interest in him and his wife.
He scanned their surroundings again. A rat scuttled along the gutter and disappeared down a drain. Other than that, nothing.
