by Lynne Graham
He stripped away that last barrier and found the hot moist core of her femininity. Her heartbeat seemed to thunder in her own ears as her body writhed without her volition. There was only wild sensation and overwhelming hunger for anything that would ease the tormenting ache of pressure clawing at her. She could feel him against her thigh, hot and hard and rampantly aroused and just knowing that she could still have that effect on him intensified everything that she felt.
'I can't be gentle...' he groaned, rising over her and parting her thighs with impatient hands to haul her back to him.
'Doesn't matter...'
Nothing mattered then but the driving thrust with which he entered her. Her body was just one gigantic source of longing and then he was there, dominantly male, stretching her with his strength and fullness and there was so much intense pleasure she cried out against it.
'Emily, meu bonita...'
My beautiful one, she savoured in stunned surprise and gazed up at him to register the hard-edged need etched into his lean dark devastating face but saw the concern in his hot golden eyes. 'I hurt you?' he prompted.
She shook her head, beyond speech, and even if she could have spoken she could not have thought of any way to tell him that that much pleasure came close to pain. But it seemed he understood, for a flash of raw male amusement flared in his spectacular eyes arid he came into her again, hard and fast and not to be denied. She arched her hips up to him in helpless encouragement. He set a raw sensual rhythm that heightened her excitement to a level she could not control. There was nothing but him and the wild surging rise of her own excitement, her own primal delight in his erotic dominance. Every pulse racing, his name on her lips, she reached the dazzling instant of release and cried out in ecstasy at the explosive charge of sensation pulsating through her in waves. She clung to him as he shuddered over her and vented a ragged groan of intense satisfaction.
Happiness was bubbling up inside her now. To be so close to Duarte again, to feel so at home, to feel needed, wanted, secure. As he freed her of his weight, she followed him across the bed to stay close. She buried her face in a smooth brown muscular shoulder and drank in the hot, husky scent of him like an addict. One arm sliding round his neck, she lay across him, happy but engaged in frantic thought Intimacy was the foundation stone of any normal marriage. My goodness, what had possessed her when she had briefly believed that she ought to be saying no?
In fact, so strong was her sense of joy and relief that she had not made that foolish mistake, she found herself muttering feverishly, 'You're just so fantastic...'
Part of her cringed for herself even as she said it and then she noticed how rigid he was under her and how silent. Not that in the aftermath, Duarte had ever been exactly chatty. But she also became agonisingly aware that he did not have his arms round her and that she was the one making all the effort to be cosy and close and warmly intimate. About then, she just started wanting to die.
'And you're so affectionate, querida,' Duarte breathed a little stiltedly and then he finally curved an arm round her slim, still length and smoothed warm fingers down her taut spinal cord.
'Stop it...' she whispered.
'Stop what?'
'I can feel you thinking,' she mumbled, sensing his mental distance from her with every atom of ESP she possessed.
'I am thinking that I need a shower,' Duarte said drily.
And why was he thinking that? A shower would get him back out of bed again, away from her, she reflected miserably, a mass of insecurities unleashed inside her again. But he couldn't stay in the shower forever, could he? Slowly she edged away from him again, hoping to be snatched back; it didn't happen. He rolled lithely over and sprang out of bed. All potent male, hair-roughened skin and rippling muscles. Absolutely gorgeous but never hers, never really hers even at the beginning and even less likely to be now after what had happened eleven months ago.
Emily pulled herself up against the tumbled pillows, reading the raw tension in his wide shoulders but unable to silence her own desperate need to be heard. 'Duarte?'
'What?' he growled like a grizzly bear.
He was so volatile, she registered in amazement. How had she never seen that in him before? Had she been so wrapped up in her own self-pity that she'd never appreciated that she was married to a male who literally seemed to boil beneath the surface of that cool front with dark, deep; dangerous emotion?
'I've got to say it...I'm sorry,' she muttered feverishly, plucking nervously at the corner of the sheet beneath her hand. 'No matter how bad it looked, I never felt anything for Toby and I never had an affair with him either—'
Duarte swung back to her with the speed of a lion ready to spring. Angry golden eyes struck sparks off hers in a look as physical as a slap on the face. 'Don't you know when to keep quiet?'
Shrinking back into the pillows and pale as death, Emily whispered, 'I need you to listen—'
Duarte threw up both hands in a violent gesture of lost patience and strode on into the bathroom.
She listened to the shower coming on full gush and a sense of defeat engulfed her. It was swiftly followed by the conviction that she was the most stupid woman in existence. Why! Was she always so naive with him? Sex, he had said before she succumbed to her dream of how she wanted it to be. And so lost had she got in that delusion that, in the aftermath of passion, she had swarmed all over him as if nothing had ever been wrong between them, but it had been only sex as far as he was concerned, not making love, not a meeting of minds. Incredibly exciting sex, in her opinion, but then what did she really know about what it was like for him!
Just the slaking of a physical hunger on the nearest most available female body? Well, she'd certainly made herself available. Exactly as he had expected. I can turn you on just by looking at you. She stuffed her hot face into the cooling linen. Her own personal punishment plan, he had said—and what had he meant by that? And why hadn't she asked? Her sated body told her where her mind had been. Lost Wanting him, wanting him much more than common sense. She'd had no restraint. She had so desperately wanted to believe that physical intimacy could fill the terrible emptiness that losing him had filled her with, could provide the first bridge between them, could give her back hope. Her nails raked down the smooth sheet beneath the pillows, self-hatred burning her like poison.
Suddenly, she pulled herself up and back on her knees, thrusting her wildly tangled hair back over her shoulders. Her strained face taut, she leapt off the bed, looked around for something to pull on to hide her nakedness and snatched up his discarded shirt. She came to a halt on the threshold of the bathroom where Duarte was already towelling himself dry.
'I suppose you think everything you ever thought about me has been proven now...I suppose you think I am a whore!' she fired at him jaggedly.
Duarte raked a driven hand through his damp tousled hair and rested dark deepset brooding eyes on her in the tension-filled silence. 'Leave it,' he warned and tossing the towel aside, he strode past her.
Her legs felt horribly wobbly. She leant back against the bedroom wall to steady herself. A tight hard knot of pain was building inside her, threatening to take control of her entirely, no matter how hard she tried to get a grip on herself. 'Sleeping with me was like a power play, was it?' she mumbled sickly. 'A case of finding out how high you could make me jump? And just how desperate I would be to please you?'
'I told you to leave it...' Duarte ground out, the long sweep of his muscular golden back rigid with stormy tension as he hauled on his chinos.
Emily felt she'd already been reduced so low that nothing else could hurt her. However, it belatedly dawned on her that he was getting dressed again and that he wasn't staying the rest of the night and that seemed the lowest blow of all. 'Where are you going?'
Duarte swung back round to face her, his lean strong features ferociously set. 'Any place I don't have to listen to you getting it all wrong—'
'How am I getting it wrong?' she pressed in desperation. 'Duarte?'
B
rilliant eyes grim, he let a harsh laugh escape. 'Do you think this is so easy for me? I'm thinking about you with Jarrett almost all the time. I can't get it out of my head...'
Her tummy twisted, her drawn face tightening.
'So all kudos to me for pulling off a fantastic performance between the sheets.' His derision, whether angled at her or himself made her flinch. 'Two years ago, I was your first lover and that meant something to me. Now it's all gone and I am just so bloody angry with you that I don't know why I brought you back here!'
She felt dead inside because he had killed her hopes. She was being rejected again. 'It was only a kiss and I didn't even like it...' she framed strickenly.
'If you open the subject one more time... Where the hell is my shirt?' he demanded in raw completion.
Realising that he had yet to notice what she was wearing, she peeled off his shut and threw it back at his feet.
Duarte stared at her with pronounced intensity. She stood there like a statue, her hair falling round her like tongues of fire against her fair skin but for once she made no move to cover herself.
'Take your blasted shirt and get out!' she suddenly gasped.
He flicked it up, the movement all grace and derision somehow perfectly combined. She yanked open the door, spread it wide.
Duarte threw her a sardonic look. 'If you were looking for a guy who turns the other cheek, you shouldn't have married a Monteiro.'
She slammed the door shut on his exit, turned the key in the lock and then ran all the way back to the bed to throw herself facedown on the mattress.
Almost simultaneously it seemed the noise of a sudden jarring crash sent her rolling over in shock to glance back in the direction of the door. She was just in time to see it smash back against the wall. She focused on Duarte, who had kicked it open, with shaken eyes of disbelief. He stood there with clenched fists, breathing heavily, all powerful and quite unashamed masculinity.
'You lock a door against me again and I'll break it down every time!' Outraged golden eyes assailed hers with pure aggressive force. 'Do you understand?'
Very slowly and carefully, she nodded.
CHAPTER SIX
HAVING scarcely slept during a night of emotional turmoil, Emily was up early the following morning and in the nursery with Jamie.
When his nanny found her there, the young woman smiled in understanding and left them in peace. Given lots of cuddles, Jamie was in the sunniest of moods, but soon his big brown eyes turned sleepy again. His every need met, Jamie had an enviable capacity to be as happy in Portugal as he had been in England.
Emily had a shower and put on a denim skirt and tee-shirt. A maid brought her breakfast and she had it out on the balcony—white coffee and wonderful fresh-baked bread served with home-made honey. She was told in answer to her enquiry that 'Don Duarte' had left for his Lisbon office shortly before eight.
It promised to be a glorious day. Surrounded by woods of pine, eucalyptus and oak, the gardens were lush and tropical, full of spiky palms and superb flowering shrubs, the extensive lawns already being industriously watered by the gardeners. Beyond the trees stretched the extensive quinta estate of orange and lemon and olive groves. Against the backdrop of the purple green mountains, the tiny village houses sprinkled the hillside like toys. In every direction the views were breathtaking.
Emily had missed Portugal so much during her absence yet, two years earlier, she knew she'd severely underestimated the challenges of marrying a male who not only did not love her but also whose world and expectations were so very different from her own...
Even their wedding had not been what she had wanted. Duarte had desired neither frills nor fuss and, as she loved him, she'd suppressed her longing for a wedding gown and worn a suit. Lunch had followed at an exclusive hotel but it had been attended only by her family and a handful of Duarte's business acquaintances.
'I'd call it a bit shabby,' her sister Hermione had said with a sniff. 'Are you sure this isn't a shotgun do?'
From the instant she'd told her family that she was marrying Duarte, the humiliating suggestion that he might only be marrying her because she had fallen pregnant had been repeatedly raised. When her denials were received with cynical disbelief, it had done nothing for her self-image.
Duarte had even been too busy for a honeymoon and they had been married for a week before she discovered that she was not his first wife. Studying their marriage certificate with dreamy eyes, she'd finally noticed that he was described as a widower.
'Why didn't you tell me?' she had asked in astonished hurt.
'It wasn't relevant,' Duarte had told her flatly.
Pressing for further details, she had naturally been shocked to learn of the car crash that had killed both Izabel and his twin, Elena. But she'd also noticed that that night, for the first time, Duarte didn't make love to her. Early on, she had learnt that trying to talk about Izabel drove Duarte from her. That same evening, sadly, Jazz, the dog she had adored and whom she had credited with bringing her and Duarte together, had passed away in his sleep and that concluded their stay in England.
Duarte had brought her home to the quinta and that very first day, Victorine had invited Emily to her private sitting room where there were framed photographs showing her late daughter Izabel, glorious in her fabulous wedding gown, Izabel on her Caribbean honeymoon, Izabel entertaining royalty...Izabel...Izabel...Izabel. Emily had learnt right then that she was a second-best wife.
A knock on the bedroom door forced Emily from her introspection. Victorine was trying not to look at the lock which Duarte had broken the night before. Emily flushed for naturally the older woman would know that she and Duarte had had a row. The whole household would be buzzing with the sheer shock value of Duarte doing something that much out of character.
'May we speak?' Victorine asked stiffly.
Emily was dumbfounded to see tears glistening in the older woman's shadowed eyes.
'I've seen your son. He is a very beautiful baby...' Victorine told her heavily. 'I feel great guilt that I lied about what you said to me last night and I could not sleep. I told Duarte the truth at breakfast.'
That astonishing confession froze Emily to the spot. At the same time, however, she could not help thinking that if what Victorine was telling her was true, Duarte had certainly not hurtled upstairs to offer her an apology for misjudging her.
'I am sorry for the way I have treated you,' Victorine continued doggedly. 'When I saw your son, who is the future of this family, I asked myself how much my unkindness might have contributed to your separation from Duarte last year—'
'Never mind, it's over...forgotten,' Emily broke in awkwardly, finally recognising that Victorine had indeed faced the results of her resentment and had emerged much chastened from the experience.
In revealing discomfiture, Victorine looked away from the damaged door. 'I've made trouble between you and Duarte but it won't happen again. The maids are packing for me.'
As Victorine turned away, looking old and frail and forlorn in her unhappiness, Emily touched her thin arm in a sympathetic gesture. 'You don't need to leave for my benefit.'
'Duarte said I must. He is very disappointed in me and very angry—'
'He'll get over that,' Emily asserted as Victorine began to sob, her fragile self-control splintering at the prospect before her. 'So you and I got off to a bad start but I just can't imagine this place without you and where are you going to go anyway?'
Two years ago, Duarte said to me, "Emily is so sweet, so kind, you will love her" ...and I hated you before I even met you!' the older woman wept.
Emily took Victorine back to her own rooms, knowing how much she would dislike any of the staff seeing her in tears. She began to understand that it had been her own change in attitude the night before which had ultimately led to the present situation. Unable to bully Emily as she had once done, Victorine had lied to Duarte and had then been horrified by her own behaviour. It was odd how good could sometimes come out of b
ad, Emily was thinking as she went downstairs after calming the other woman down.
It seemed to be a day for surprises: Bliss was in the main hall speaking to the quinta housekeeper. Clad in a simple navy dress that was a marvellous foil for her blonde beauty, Bliss moved to greet her.
'I had no idea you were here!' Smiling, Emily asked the housekeeper to serve coffee.
'Strictly in a business capacity, I'm afraid, so I can't stay for long.' Bliss sank down gracefully on a silk-upholstered sofa in the salon. 'Duarte has a big party arranged for this weekend. I was just checking the final arrangements. I've been acting as your husband's hostess since your departure.'
Unsettled by that news and quick to pick up on the brittle quality of her friend's manner, Emily said in surprise. 'Didn't Victorine object?'
"That hateful old cow?' Bliss laughed. 'Oh, not being a softy like you, I soon settled her! I let her know that her ideas about entertaining were fifty years out of date and an embarrassment to Duarte. Ever since then, when there are guests, she takes an early night.'
That unfeeling explanation filled Emily with uneasy distaste. Victorine had her flaws but Emily would never have dreamt of referring to the older woman in such terms. 'Bliss—'
Bliss merely talked over her. 'Mind you, I never thought I'd see you back here again either. I was very annoyed when you did your vanishing act last year.'
Grateful for that honesty, Emily spoke up immediately. Tm really sorry I didn't keep in touch but—'
That's not what I'm talking about. When I told you about that little chat I overheard between your husband and his lawyer, I was warning you to get your own legal advice instead of sitting on the fence, hoping all that nasty divorce stuff would go away. I wasn't expecting you to flee the country and put everybody into a loop trying to find you!'
Emily paled at that censorious clarification.
'In tipping you off, I felt like I had personally deprived Duarte of his child,' Bliss admitted in no more comforting continuance. 'What on earth possessed you? And now to come back here, regardless of how Duarte feels about you—'