Ruthless but necessary methods to keep his multinational army of employees on their toes, he judged without a qualm.
The lift doors slid open again. Levering himself upright, he crossed the private foyer and unlocked the door. The suite was much like any other hotel suite he had used over the years, with luxurious living space, two bedrooms with en suite bathrooms, and a connecting door which led directly into the all-singing, all-dancing working environment business tycoons expected from their accommodation these days.
His luggage had arrived. Ignoring it, Anton made directly for the drinks cabinet to check that the hotel had provided him with a bottle of his favourite Scotch whisky. He poured himself a measure, added some bottled water to the mix, then took it with him to a pair of French doors which led out onto a terrace beyond.
The moment he stepped outside, the sights and sounds of Rio hit his senses, stirring them to a quickened rhythm only someone with Latin blood running through him would understand.
That quickened rhythm should be filling him with pleasure, but it wasn’t. In fact he resented the hell out of it. It was six long years since he’d last looked out on the Bay towards Sugarloaf, and if he’d had his way it would have been another six years before he’d look out on it again—if ever.
He took a sip of the whisky, the shape of his sensually moulded lips barely altering their grim tilt as they parted to receive the drink. Heat rolled over his tongue and fired up his increased pulse-beat. He’d used to love Rio de Janeiro. This beautiful, exciting city had once been like a home from home to him during his childhood, when he’d used to visit here regularly with his mother, and later, when he’d spent a full year working at the Scott-Lee Bank branch here.
With hindsight, he mused, he would have been better staying put in England, then he would not have met Cristina and spent that whole year in love with a lie.
Another lie.
That hot surge of anger he’d been nurturing for weeks now began to pump through his system. Going back inside, he closed the door on the sights and sounds of Rio, chose a bedroom at random to use, then set about removing his clothes. Ten minutes later he was shutting down the taps gushing water into a huge sunken bathtub.
The tub needed to be big to accommodate a man with his impressive framework. He stood six feet two in his bare feet, and every inch was made up of hard muscled bulk. And lean, he was very lean, but that leanness did not take anything away from the fact that, stripped to his natural golden skin, he presented the kind of masculine sight that could make women gasp. Wide shoulders, long torso, narrow hips, the lot supported on long and powerfully corded legs. Then there was the pelvis that cradled one of the major weapons in his sexual arsenal. He was built to seduce, built to guarantee hours of untold pleasure. He knew it—just as his women knew it.
Not that he cared about any of that right now as he stepped into the bath and sank down into its hot steamy depths. He was tired and fed up and still wishing himself elsewhere. Easing his wide shoulders back against the bath, he closed his eyes on a sigh.
If it wasn’t enough that he’d seen the interior of too damn many transit lounges as he’d criss-crossed the world to get here, he’d spent most of that time obsessively studying every tall dark guy that ventured into his vicinity, hunting for signs that one of them might be related to him.
He hated the not knowing.
He more than hated Rio.
If he’d been given the luxury of choice he’d rather be anywhere else on this earth than here. But choice was something snatched away from him by the simple insertion of a name.
Cristina Marques…
The satin gold muscular formation of his wide shoulders shifted, black silk bars for eyebrows drawing together across the bridge of his nose. Parting the grim tension holding his lips together, he gritted his teeth and wished to hell that other parts of his body would stop responding to that name.
Another sigh had him lifting a wet hand to swipe it over his tired face. The refreshing sting of hot water made his skin tingle, but did nothing to ease the discomfort of a twelve-hour beard growth. He should have shaved before he got in here, he mused grimly. He should have cleaned his teeth.
The second thought sent his hand reaching out in search of the glass of whisky he’d had enough sense to replenish before he climbed in here. Sipping the Scotch was a darn sight tastier than any toothpaste, and did a whole lot more to ease the tension from his aching muscles—though not from other parts.
What he needed was a woman—any woman. He hadn’t had one in way too long. He’d been too busy losing himself in work and bad temper and setting up this trip. A woman right now might just be the medicine he needed to effect the cure for the one woman he did not want to want.
Maybe he should have broken his own rule and taken Kinsella up on her offer, he mused idly. Maybe a slender, sleek, blue-eyed blonde would be the perfect cure for what was ailing him. But—
No. He might have closed the door on the sights and sounds of Rio, but its innate beat was still vibrating through his blood, and the only woman who would satisfy it would have to be one of the warm, dark, passionate kind. One who would know instinctively that all he wanted her to do was to climb naked into this bath with him and seduce him to one of those exquisite near death experiences.
A half smile touched the edges of his mouth, his shoulders beginning to relax as he let his weary mind drift. She would have a pair of decent-sized breasts that would weigh heavy in his hands but still be firm enough to pout. Dark nipples…he loved dark nipples…and a silky, slippery golden body that would arch over him in pleasure as he suckled to his heart’s content.
His mouth received attention from the whisky. It wasn’t nearly the same as the glorious sense-tugging taste of a woman, but he savoured it all the same while behind closed eyelids his fantasy woman began to take real shape.
Dark eyes…she’d have sultry dark eyes the colour of hunger, and sweeping black eyelashes that would half hide the glow of sensual relish she would experience as she aroused him while he lay back and enjoyed. Ebony hair, he decided, with a sexy hint of a twist to it that would trail over his chest and shoulders as she leant down to offer him a kiss from her gorgeous, greedy, voluptuous mouth, practised in the art of pleasing as she took him inside her with the…
‘Hell—’
The curse raked his throat and he sat up so abruptly he spilled whisky into the bath. He’d been describing Cristina. He’d been lying here flirting with fantasy and building himself the perfect replica of the one woman he was supposed to be blocking out!