The Forbidden Cabrera Brother (Mills & Boon Modern)

by Cathy Williams

He wasn’t. Just as she was about to enter her bedroom to pack her bags to leave, he appeared at the opposite end of the corridor. Coincidence or not? Was he intending to continue his interrogation? Hadn’t they both said enough? She desperately wanted a surge of inner strength to accompany those bracing thoughts, but it failed to materialise as he strolled towards her.

  ‘How was he?’ Dante asked quietly. He was holding his laptop under his arm, on his way to the important business of catching up on work, she thought. And it was pure coincidence that they had collided in the wide corridor. She could tell because he was in a rush, stopping only because politeness dictated that he did. That was the feeling she was getting. Their intimate conversation of the evening before had been buried for him. Maybe he felt that too much had been shared.

  ‘Good,’ Caitlin returned. ‘I think he’s going to get bored of being in hospital very soon. Apparently the broken bones are healing nicely. He’ll be hobbling about before you know it. He’s going to go stay with your parents and then, I guess, in due course, he’ll return to London.’

  ‘A single man...’ Dante looked at her as her eyes shifted from his. He’d had time to think overnight. He couldn’t remember a time when he had ever had as open a conversation with anyone as he had had with her and that, he had concluded, wasn’t a good thing. Telling her...about that incident in his past had felt like a weakness, but it was too late to retrieve confidences shared and he wasn’t going to waste time beating himself up about it.

  He’d also had time to think about what she had told him about herself, her startling confession that she had never slept with anyone. She had been neither ashamed nor proud of her virginity. It was as it was, her attitude had implied and, while he admired her for that, he was in no doubt that she wasn’t nearly as casual about her relationship status as she claimed to be.

  She was so...fiery...so full of personality...so opinionated. How could she really be the sort to accept the reality of a relationship that delivered on all fronts except the single one that mattered, which was passion?

  She might kid herself that she had squashed any romantic streak she might have had because of some broken heart back in the day, but she hadn’t, and Dante had firmly made up his mind that, temptation or not, and whether she was now a free woman or not, he wasn’t going to go there. Wasn’t even going to think about it. She lacked the experience to deal with a sex-with-no-strings-attached situation.

  Yet the delicate flush in her cheeks, the nerves she was trying hard to conceal, the intensely feminine smell of her...were all beginning to wreak havoc with his high-minded, well-intentioned resolutions.

  ‘I’m keeping you. I was just about to pack my bags.’

  ‘Pack?’ That felt like a punch to the gut. Wrong reaction on every front.

  ‘I told you, I intend to head back to London and the sooner, the better.’

  That single sentence clarified everything in Dante’s mind. It was one thing to be sensible when temptation wasn’t staring you in the face. It was quite another when...it was.

  She would leave and he wouldn’t be seeing her again. He would be left wondering what if...? whether he liked it or not. The woman had got under his skin, and if she walked away now she would remain under his skin for ever. A burr he would not easily be able to yank free. An annoying itch that he would regret not having tried to scratch.

  ‘Don’t.’

  That single word hung suspended in the air between them. Caitlin marvelled that a single one-syllable word could have such a dramatic effect on her senses. Her heart sped up. Her mouth went dry. Her pulses began to race.

  ‘Yet. Don’t leave yet.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know exactly what I mean.’

  She did.

  ‘There’s no you and Alejandro any more,’ Dante breathed thickly. ‘Once upon a time, there was a convenient charade. That’s over. You’re a free woman.’

  ‘It wouldn’t work.’

  ‘What wouldn’t? Are you telling me that when you look at me...you don’t want to touch?’

  His voice had sunk to a husky murmur that felt like feathers brushing against her skin. She shivered. So many things were going round in her head right now, but top of the list was—I want you... I don’t know why, or how I could feel so attracted to you, but I want you...

  ‘That’s not the point,’ she responded, angry at the telltale weakness in her voice.

  ‘Why?’ All his natural aggression and instinct to pursue what he wanted surged to the surface, wiping out every mental obstacle in its path.

  ‘How could a relationship work between us? Your parents...your friends...your relatives...all those people who had gathered there for the engagement party...what would they think?’

  ‘Why would they know?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’m not talking about a relationship, Caitlin,’ he husked. ‘This would be sex. Pure and simple. I want you and you want me and one and one makes two. I’m not interested in getting involved with anyone with a view to anything other than having some fun. Yes, you have to get back to London, but you don’t have to get back just yet.’

  Every shred of heartfelt romanticism in Caitlin rebelled against the unadorned brashness of his proposition. There was no attempt to wrap it up as anything other than what it was—two people having sex for a few days before they parted ways, a ripple in both their lives, gone before it had had time to become anything bigger.

  Caitlin was an unintentional virgin. She hadn’t been saving herself for the right guy to come along. She hadn’t slept with Jimmy for reasons that had become blindingly clear after he had fallen for the model, and since then she had retreated into herself. No one, not a single guy, had broken through the wall she had erected around herself. She’d pretty much come to the conclusion that she was frigid.

  Sure, she wanted kids and a family and one day, she had vaguely thought, a guy would come along and she would be attracted to him and things would fall into place. It was a thought that barely registered on her radar, because she was just so busy building a career and, lately, stressing out about her parents. When it had registered, she had assumed the guy who eventually showed up would tick all the usual boxes. Nice, thoughtful, good sense of humour, non-smoker.

  And yet here was Dante, all dark and dangerous, and definitely not Mr Nice and Thoughtful... And she wanted him so much it made her feel weak.

  ‘I’m gathering from the prolonged silence,’ he said wryly, interrupting the frantic racing of her thoughts, ‘that sex without a relationship label attached to it isn’t something you would be prepared to sample.’ He lowered his eyes and her heart raced even faster. ‘Although you’d be shocked at just how much fun it would be...’

  He straightened. Somewhere along the line, they had moved close to the wall and he had been lounging against it, a long, lean, powerful jungle cat prepared to have a bit of fun with the antelope.

  Antelopes, Caitlin thought in confusion, never came off well in any encounter with powerful jungle cats.

  He was strolling away when all of a sudden she was galvanised into action.

  He wanted fun. He wasn’t relationship material and he hadn’t bothered to hide that fact.

  What was so wrong if she wanted a bit of fun, as well? There hadn’t been much of that around for the past few months. She was here and she was only going to be here for a matter of a few days if she decided to stay on. After that, she would return to the reality of life on the other side of the ocean, back to the stress and the worry.

  ‘Dante!’ Crunch moment. She took a deep breath and was suddenly filled with a wave of pure, fizzing excitement.

  He’d stopped, turned round and was looking at her with lazy interest.

  He hadn’t expected her to stop him but now that she had, he was aware of a soaring sense of relief. He hadn’t realised just h
ow much it had meant for her to come to him, and not because he had kissed her or tried to seduce. He hadn’t wanted her to be swept away in the moment. He’d wanted her to make a conscious decision in the cold light of day.

  He looked at the sexy sashay of her rounded hips and banked down the fierce ache of an erection.

  ‘Yes.’ Caitlin cleared her throat and looked at him without flinching.

  Dante didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds, then he reached out and cupped the side of her face, his long fingers soft and tender, stroking the satin smoothness of her cheek.

  When he kissed her, she finally discovered what it felt like for the earth to stop spinning.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THEY MADE IT to his bedroom, fingers entwined. He nudged the door, which was slightly ajar, with his foot and, instead of turning on the overhead light, he just wrapped his arms around her in the gathering darkness in the bedroom and held her close.

  ‘Would you listen to me if I told you not to be nervous?’

  It was the one thing guaranteed to calm her nerves and it did. She visibly relaxed and settled into the embrace, her head resting on his chest so that she could hear the faint beating of his heart.

  She tentatively wrapped her arms around him, then slid them underneath the polo shirt and shivered at the feel of muscle and sinew under her fingers. Very gently, he mimicked what she was doing. Without making a big deal of it, he expertly unclasped her bra.

  Caitlin gave a soft whimper as he curved his big hands under her breasts, stroking the crease beneath them and then, very slowly, working his way up until he was massaging both her breasts, and as he massaged them he rubbed the pads of his thumbs over her stiffened nipples.

  ‘You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this,’ he murmured. ‘I’m hard like steel for you. One touch and I don’t know what the outcome will be. I might embarrass myself by not being able to hold back... If I make you nervous then, rest assured, you make me nervous, as well...’ He wasn’t kidding. The gentle, shyly faltering sweep of her hands along his body made him wonder whether he would be able to last long enough to actually get inside her.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Caitlin breathed. She was hopelessly drifting on a current of such pure, delicious sensation. Her nipples were tingling and, between her legs, her panties were wet. Her clothes felt like an impediment. It was as if, slowly but surely and without attempting to remove a single article of clothing, he was somehow managing to get her to a place where she wanted to rip them all off.

  Dante laughed softly. He looked down at her upturned face and lowered his head to kiss her. It was a long, leisurely, lingering kiss, and he didn’t stop touching her nipples, playing with them, teasing them so that she was squirming, her whole body hot and restless.

  He made no attempt to touch her anywhere else. Just that kiss that went on for ever and the light, lazy caress of her breasts. It was driving her crazy.

  She broke free and began tugging him towards the bed. She could hear her own breathing and then a low laugh from him.

  ‘I’m taking my time,’ he husked.

  ‘You’re driving me nuts,’ Caitlin responded with staccato jerkiness, and he laughed again.

  Through the window, the declining sun was casting long shadows into the bedroom. The open shutters turned the light into stripes. It was still very warm outside, but here in the bedroom it was beautifully cool. Thick walls, she assumed. A fortress of a mansion that could withstand the heat of summer and the cold of winter.

  She was pulling him towards the bed and when she felt the side of the mattress against her knees, she sank down and then looked up at him. He was standing over her and, very, very slowly, he began to undress.

  Nervous? No way could this man ever be nervous when it came to making love but, she thought, he’d been kind to have said so because he’d have known that she would have found it endearing and a little funny and it would have relaxed her even more.

  Everything he was now doing spoke of self-assurance and complete confidence in himself.

  Of course, she’d seen him in his swimming trunks, but it was different now because, this time, this was going somewhere. She was appreciating the broad, naked chest and the muscled width of his shoulders in an entirely different way.

  He flung the polo shirt on the ground and then his hand hovered for a few seconds on the zipper of his trousers.

  Caitlin’s breath hitched in her throat.

  ‘You’re so perfect,’ she breathed, and he burst out laughing.

  ‘And you’re so honest. I like that.’ He stepped out of the trousers but kept the boxers on. ‘You don’t play games in bed. It’s refreshing.’

  She could see the bulge of his erection and it made her feel faint.

  She was sitting on the side of the bed and he nudged her legs open so that he was standing between them.

  ‘I want to see you.’

  With a few words, her excitement was ratcheted up a few notches and she hooked her fingers under the baggy tee shirt and pulled it over her head, taking the bra with it at the same time.

  Her instinct was to cover her nakedness with her hands, but Dante was far too expert a lover to allow her to hang on to her natural reserve and, with a few adept touches, she shed her nervous apprehension and began to relax.

  Dante stared. He couldn’t help himself. He’d seen some of the most beautiful women on the planet and yet this one...got to him in all sorts of places no one else ever had. That was a mystery to him, but then the circumstances were completely different from any he’d ever been in before and, beyond that, he had shared more of himself with her than with any other woman. Another mystery.

  Her breasts were full, more than a handful and tipped with perfect pale brown discs, large and succulent and inviting.

  He stifled a groan and reminded himself that he had to go slow. It was going to be a feat of willpower.

  He lowered himself, boxers still in place, and knelt between her, urging her to sit up so that he could suckle her breasts one at a time.

  Caitlin arched back, eyes shut, rocked to the very core. She curled her fingers into his dark hair. She needed to get rid of the rest of her clothes. When she’d walked towards him in the corridor, when she’d made that momentous decision to sleep with him, she’d braced herself for all the nerves she’d known would accompany her first time making love, but her nerves had disappeared, overridden by fierce, burning need. It cut through everything.

  He pushed his hand under her skirt and skimmed her thighs. Her skin was satiny soft and smooth. He nudged his knuckles against her crotch and felt her dampness. For a second, he had to empty his head because the whole situation was far too erotic, from her soft moans to the pliancy of her sexy body. She was giving him the gift of her virginity and for a moment he was filled with doubt, then he wiped that clean from his head because they were both adults and choices had been made, eyes wide open.

  And in a way, wasn’t he doing her a favour? As time went on, her virginity would surely become an albatross round her neck, a prize to be given to Mr Right, except would there ever be a Mr Right? Did that person exist? Or would she end up trusting some guy like her ex, only to be let down? Wouldn’t her heartache be a thousand times worse because she would have opened herself up to that person, expecting all the fairy stories peddled by the rest of the world? At least, with him, he wasn’t selling her stories or making promises he couldn’t keep. Theirs was a straightforward arrangement.

  Dante pushed the skirt up and she wriggled so that it was ruched and gathered at her waist. It felt wildly decadent. He was still there, between her legs, and modesty slammed into her when he inserted his finger underneath the stretchy fabric of her underwear, but he gently eased her hand away.

  He linked his fingers through hers and kept her hands still at her sides, then he nuzzled against the damp underwear, breathing in her musky
smell. He tasted her through the silky barrier. He was going to go further, going to feel her wetness on his face, but not yet.

  The need to be gentle, to take his time, to make sure she enjoyed this first experience felt crucially important. She never hesitated when it came to speaking her mind, and she’d had more to say on the subject of him and his lifestyle than anyone else in living memory, but, emotionally, he sensed a curious vulnerability and that vulnerability, now, was bringing out in him a protective streak he hadn’t known he had.

  He unclasped their hands and waited until he knew that she was ready, then he eased the underwear off and parted her legs.

  No underwear now as a barrier and the honeyed sweetness between her thighs was a powerful aphrodisiac. Dante licked and sucked. Easily finding the throbbing nub of her clitoris, he began to tease it until she was writhing with mounting pleasure.

  His own erection was a steady, pulsing ache in his groin. No problem. The second he entered her, he knew that he was going to come very quickly. For the moment, he would devote all his attention to getting her to that place where she was desperate for him to sink into her.

  He continued to feast on her wetness until her cries became more demanding.

  ‘Please... Dante...’ Caitlin said brokenly. ‘I’m going to... I won’t be able to help myself...’ She didn’t want to come against his mouth. She wanted to feel the closeness of him inside her.

  Never in her wildest dreams had she ever imagined that sex could be this good.

  When he stood up, it left a cool void, and in the ever-darkening room she followed his progress to the dressing table, where he found his wallet and very quickly spun round, ripping off the tin-foil wrapping of a condom.

  Protection. Of course. And in his wallet. A man who was not prepared to take chances.

  She sat up and pulled down the skirt just as he did the same with his boxers. She gave a sharp intake of breath and a prosaic thought flitted through her head... Will he fit inside me?

  He was impressively big. She watched as he walked slowly towards her. His eyes were pinned to hers but he was absent-mindedly holding himself with his hand. Watching as he stroked himself was an incredible turn-on.