LITMIR.BIZ

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the first time since the shooting, the stranger’s face softened. His eyes didn’t look quite so ominous, and that mouth which had been a grim line returned to the almost sensuous fullness of before. Around her wrist, his fingers loosened.

      “Look, bella,” he reasoned. “There’s nothing I can say that you’ll believe right now, but think about this. Someone who wanted to hurt you wouldn’t waste time coaxing. If that’s what I wanted, I’d have you over my shoulder and out of sight before you even realized I’d moved.”

      Miranda cringed at the realization of how easy it would be for him to do just that. She could fight him—she would fight him—but kicking and thrashing would not overpower a man of hard muscle and brutal determination, a man who enjoyed a six-inch, hundred-pound advantage. A man who could shoot with a briefcase.

      Toward her, she remembered abruptly. Hawk had fallen toward her. The shots that felled him had come from the opposite direction, not the tall man who looked at her through eyes burning like chips of black ice.

      If I wanted you dead, you wouldn’t be standing here.

      Her thoughts returned to those frenzied moments, but this time, she saw his actions through a different lens. When shots had sprayed the plaza, he’d shielded her with his body. When he’d told her to run, he’d covered her back. Even now, when she’d pulled a knife, he’d simply disarmed her, not using her weapon to teach her a lesson, as her father had warned an attacker would do.

      Hawk had always chided her not to expect a kidnapper to politely ask permission. They would act first, consider damage later. Men who lived on the fringes of civility didn’t show restraint. This man did.

      His actions almost seemed…protective.

      “Look, I appreciate what you did back there,” she said, “but I’ve really got to go.” The rational side of her brain realized he was right; if he’d wanted to hurt her, he would have by now. But he held a briefcase that turned into a semiautomatic. That made him dangerous, her uneasy. “I need to contact the embassy in Lisbon.”

      He frowned, but before he could speak, a nearby door flung open and a middle-aged woman with a baby on her hip stepped into the shadowy alley.

      “Paulo?” she called, then continued speaking in Portuguese.

      Miranda took advantage of the momentary distraction to break away and bolt down the alley. “I need your phone—”

      She only made it two steps. “Bella, bella, bella,” the stranger murmured, taking her arm and drawing her against the hard planes of his body. His voice was drugging, his eyes liquid. “Mi dispiace,” he muttered, pressing the hand with the briefcase against her lower back.

      “Stop it,” Miranda said, struggling against him. She had no idea what he said, but the Portuguese woman’s sappy smile seemed to approve.

      “Anima mia,” he continued, leaning closer.

      Anima mia she recognized. My love. She tried to push him away, but he simply released her wrist and slipped his hand up through her hair. He held her tightly now, securely against his hard body.

      “Tu hai le labbra le piu morbide del mondo,” he whispered, gazing into her eyes. “Baciami.”

      Her heart changed rhythms, from a frantic pounding to a frantic thrumming. Her limbs seemed to thicken. The world around her dimmed, blurred. She didn’t understand the words he spoke, but his glazed gaze gave away his intent. Miranda opened her mouth to protest, to somehow convince the smiling Portuguese woman that the man was playing her for a fool, but the words never had a chance to form.

      The moment her lips parted, the stranger lowered his head and settled his mouth against hers.

      Chapter 2

      “Stop it,” Miranda struggled to say, but realized her mistake too late. In trying to speak, she moved her mouth against his, a sensuous rhythm that felt more like invitation than protest. Her body reacted instinctively, betraying her clear down to the tips of her toes. Her blood heated. Her bones went liquid. She tried to yank away, but her hand settled against his shoulder instead.

      Shock, she told herself. That was all. Nothing more.

      But then his hold on her shifted, tightened. She struggled against the arms that held her like steel bands, but instead of releasing her, he groaned, a sound that rasped from deep in his throat, one that sounded more of pain than pleasure.

      “Dio,” he muttered against her parted lips. He tasted of desperation and brute strength, iron will and…coffee. His hands moved possessively against her back as he changed the angle of his kiss, all the while his mouth moving with relentless slowness, coaxing and promising, persuading.

      Dizzy, off-balance, reeling, Miranda held herself completely still against the onslaught, resisting the temptation to play his dangerous game. She knew she should pull away. She told herself to pull away. Wipe the taste of him from her mouth. This man was a stranger. And he had a gun. But she was desperately afraid that if she moved, she’d be grabbing the damp cotton of his shirt and pulling him closer. Maybe it was leftover adrenaline or the stark realization that she could have been killed, but there was something blatantly masculine about the way he kissed her, and it sent her defenses into complete meltdown.

      Swaying, she lifted a hand to steady herself, but found her fingertips skimming the stubble along his jaw instead.

      And this time, the ragged cry came from her throat, not his.

      He ripped his mouth from hers, staggered back almost violently.

      Miranda groped for a nearby trash can and braced her hand against the cool metal lid. She struggled to breathe, to think, but could do little more than stare at the man who’d just kissed her with a gentle urgency that muddled her senses. His eyes were dark, but somehow managed to glitter. He stood alert, ready, as though face-to-face with one of Portugal’s famous apparitions. If she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn he didn’t know who she was or where she’d come from.

      At the moment, she wasn’t sure she did, either.

      “Dio,” he whispered again, shoving dark hair from his face.

      The thrill streaking through her made absolutely no sense. She sucked in a jerky breath, tried to calm the surge of craziness, but her lungs had other ideas. Her pulse tripped along at an alarming rate. She felt like she’d just run a dead sprint, rather than shared a kiss with a stranger.

      Who held a gun on her.

      That thought jarred her out of the sensual haze and forced her to swing toward the woman with the baby. But she no longer stood in the alley, and her door was firmly closed.

      Panic crawled up Miranda’s throat. The trembling started then, first deep inside, quickly racing to her extremities. She pivoted toward the stranger, only to find he’d recovered from their encounter. He looked taller than before, broader. She couldn’t see the alley beyond him, only the width of his shoulders and the solid wall of his chest. He watched her carefully, the mouth that had kissed her so gently now a hard line.

      Unable to look away, not trusting her voice, she lifted an appallingly shaky hand to her mouth, only to find her lips moist and swollen.

      “I know, bella, it surprised the hell out of me, too.”

      For one of the few times in her life, words failed her. So did movement. Coherent thought. She should do something, she thought wildly. Tell him to go to hell. Slap him. Run from the man whose briefcase turned into a gun. She could, she knew. He’d finally released her. But her legs wouldn’t work. Nothing, it seemed, not Emily Post nor boarding school nor Secret Service training had adequately prepared her for the shock of this man’s mouth moving against hers, the reality of his body pressed to hers. The unmistakable evidence that he reacted to her as strongly as she reacted to him. The regret and desire warring brutally in his midnight gaze.

      The completely misplaced blade of fascination.

      “Who

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