Read Online At the Spaniard's Pleasure by Jacqueline Baird - Free Book Online Page B

would take care of everything and her boss needed never know she had been away. Which, she thought drily, put it in perspective; a brief affair was all he had in mind, and it was up to her just how much fun it would be.
    Nick considered her thoughtfully; she was nervous and striving to cover it. He had been keeping up a subtle sensual pressure in case she changed her mind, and would like tothink it was his obvious attraction that was making her nervous but he could not suppress the suspicion it was more likely the change in her plans that he had contrived. The cynical side of his nature reminded him that in his experience a really good criminal rarely liked their schedule altered by an outside influence. ‘Let me worry about Mamma,’ he reassured her with a lazy smile. ‘Relax.’
    Easy for him to say, but Liza was on her way back to the house where she’d suffered her biggest humiliation, and she was scared. ‘Will there be a lot of people at this party?’ she asked, lifting guarded blue eyes to his, and there was something about the way he looked at her with a kind of amused sensuality that was incredibly arousing and she could not tear her gaze away.
    â€˜Quite a few. You know Mamma; it is her brother and his wife’s golden-wedding anniversary.’ He was aware that she was staring at him as intently as he was studying her and the amusement vanished from his face as her gaze involuntarily darkened, the tension between them renewing itself with a cosmic force.
    How did she do that? Confuse him… One look from her baby blues, and she made him feel guilty for being economical with the truth, and at the same time turned him on so hard his loins ached.
    â€˜You worry too much,’ he insisted, strain making his tone curt. He leaned back in his seat and circled his shoulders to ease the tension. It had been a horrendously long day; the anger that had sustained him this morning had calmed somewhat after meeting Liza again, and getting the information he required. But he felt as if he had been walking on eggshells for the past few hours. Never forgetting his primary concern was to help Carl catch the criminals, but at the same time endeavouring to protect Liza from the result of her own actions; whether with criminal intent or not, she was involved up to her swan-like neck. But what to do about Liza he still was not sure…
    He knew what he wanted to do… She made him feel like a randy teenager again.
    He cast a sidelong glance at Liza and he saw the uneven rise and fall of her breasts, the subtle scent of her perfume—or was it simply her—fogged his brain and his body tightened another notch.
    Nick dragged an unsteady hand through his hair. They were airborne now; she could not change her mind and getting her out of Lanzarote was for her own good, he told himself. He owed it to the delightful child she had been to protect her. He could not let her go to jail. It should have made him feel better, but it didn’t. Instead beneath his cool exterior he was struggling to contain emotions that were as unwelcome as they were unfamiliar.
    Had he taken leave of his senses? How the hell was he going to explain to Carl that he had taken off with one of the prime suspects? His friend would think he was crazy. Maybe he was. But he knew he would do anything, pay anything to keep Liza out of trouble with the law, and if that made him a fool, so be it.
    Leaping to his feet, he crossed to a cream leather sofa. Slipping off his jacket and tugging his tie loose in the process, he dropped them and his long length down on it, his angry eyes raking over her. Frustration wasn’t the word!
    Liza was a walking, talking sex goddess. Either in trousers and a cheap top with her glorious hair scraped back in a childish pony-tail, as he had seen her this morning, or with her hair a tumbled mass around her shoulders and elegant in black wrap-around dress that was just begging to be unwrapped.