by Lucy Monroe
“Please, mi hermosa. Do not do this.” He never pleaded, but right now it was his job to equalize things between them.
And if that required him swallowing a tiny bite of his Spanish pride, so be it.
Finally, her head tilted up, her expressive gray eyes clouded with emotion. “Why?”
“You can ask that after last night?” He paused, letting his words sink in. “And this morning?”
“That’s sex. You can get it elsewhere. So can I.”
Chance would be a fine thing. As far as Basilio’s investigators could tell, the woman had been celibate since her last disastrous relationship five years previous.
“Not that kind of sex. Not the mind-blowing, expectation-smashing joining of two bodies.” He moved in on her, pressing her back against her door, watching for denial that never came. “What we experience together is something special.”
“For you?” she demanded with clear disbelief.
“Sí. Do not doubt it.”
Miranda shook her head, her golden-brown hair rubbing against the door. He kissed her before she could say something they would both regret, like that he should leave. Which he would do if she requested.
After her recount of what had happened with Carlos, Basilio refused to do anything that might spark similar fear in her.
But Miranda did not fight the kiss, or even refuse to respond. Her mouth went soft against his with a sound that was very much like surrender. Relief all out of proportion for the situation shot through him.
Basilio reached down to where she held the keys in her hand and gently took them. Without breaking the kiss, he found the proper key for the locks through trial and error, and finally the door swung open behind her.
Miranda stumbled backward and he followed, closing the door behind them. The way to her room was strewn with discarded clothes as they kissed with a passion so much bigger than what he felt with other women. He hadn’t been blowing smoke up her skirt when he said this kind of sex was special for him; it was entirely outside his undeniably sufficient experience.
He’d had enough women in his bed to know that finding one so compatible, so combustible, was extraordinary. So rare, he’d never actually coupled with a woman he was so instantly into, or one whose kiss could have him so close to coming without even a touch to his sex.
By the time they reached the bedroom, Miranda was down to another sexy set of lingerie and he was completely nude.
“As tantalizing as these are, there is no place for any covering between us when we reach that bed.” He pointed to the full-size bed stacked high with colorful pillows and covered in a spread that looked like it might have come from India.
She measured him with her gray gaze. “Then maybe you should take them off.”
He didn’t need a second invitation, reaching out to do exactly as she suggested. In a matter of seconds the final bits of clothing were lying on the floor, and nothing hindered his gaze from consuming her elegant curves, the way her nipples were already taut and flushed with need, the glistening patch of curls at the apex of her thighs.
“You are truly beautiful.”
“English tonight?”
“Probably not for long.” She made him lose his ability to communicate in anything but the most primitive.
A shadow seemed to lift from her, as if his admission had given her some kind of reassurance. He was glad he had allowed truth to speak in that case.
Her bore her back to the bed, her soft thighs a cradle for his hard muscles, her hands coming up to grip the back of his head.
Their kiss went incendiary and the hours that followed were even better than the night before. What sleep they got, they spent wrapped in each other. There was really no choice, not in the double bed that wasn’t really meant for two people.
Especially when one of them was six foot four and broad-shouldered, and showed a heretofore unknown tendency to cuddle.
In the middle of the night, he woke to her touching him and was so damn turned on by her initiating their lovemaking that he didn’t even think of the condom until after he’d climaxed in her tight, wet heat.
He didn’t actually think of it until she started swearing, which so far he’d never heard her do, and then pounding on his shoulder. “Move. Get off me. We forgot the condom! I can’t believe this. It’s not happening. We forgot the condom.”
Despite the urgency in her tone, he was careful as he withdrew from her body. Basilio rolled to his side, but didn’t jump from the bed and held her wrist when it was clear that was what she wanted to do. “Don’t have a fit.”
She yanked her arm away and sat up, turning on the light. “How can you say that? We just had unprotected sex. I’ve never even asked to see test results from you. I can’t believe I didn’t. Kayla keeps reminding me I need to be safe, but I never thought it would come up. I wasn’t even dating anyone!”
“Calm down, bella. You are fine. We are fine. I can show you the results of my latest physical.” He counted it a win that she’d stayed in the bed.
“How long ago was that? More important, how many women? Did you have sex with them without protection?” The questions came fast and furious, her lovely gray eyes wild.
“No. Never before. You have nothing to concern yourself with.”
But she was freaking out, her body strung like a bow, tension emanating off her in stress-filled waves. Her pupils were blown with shock, not pleasure. Unfortunately.
“Of course I’m going to concern myself. I can’t believe I never asked to see anything before. What’s the matter with me?” she practically shrieked. “I totally fail at this modern woman reveling in her independence thing.”
He would have laughed if she hadn’t said the last with such a sense of despondency. “You are getting hysterical for no reason.”
“I’m not hysterical!” She shot him the glare of death. “How can you say that? I don’t get hysterical.”
Okay. Sure. “So, I can see.”
“Don’t patronize me.” She smacked the bed for emphasis, the sheet covering her breasts slipping down.
He reached out and readjusted the bedding, tugging it up and tucking it around her. “You must stop this spiraling. Trust me, you have nothing to fear from me.”
“What about pregnancy? What about that?”
Alarm coursed through him. “You’re not on birth control?” What woman today did not protect herself from unplanned pregnancies?
Maybe a celibate one. He’d read the report; he should have paid attention to what that meant.
“No! I told you, I suck at this!”
“The only kind of sucking you do is very pleasurable and wholly positive.”
“This is not a joke!” She was spiraling again.
“Of course not.” He reached out, going to touch her again, relieved when she didn’t pull away this time. He put his hand against her neck and let it slide down to cup her shoulder. “There is the morning-after pill.”
“Yes. Right. Yes. Where do I get that?” She looked around wildly, like she expected to find one lying on the nightstand or dresser.
He bit back another smile. “At the pharmacy, I would imagine.”
“Oh, right. Of course.” She reached over and grabbed her phone off the bedside table. Soon she was lost to whatever she was reading on the screen. “It says here for the one I don’t need a prescription for, I’ve got three days. That’s good, right?”
“Sí, esta bien.”
“But it also says that even the one that is good for up to five days doesn’t work if I’m already ovulating. What if I am?”
“Do not assume the worst.” He tried to see what she was reading on her phone, but the text was too tiny. “People try for years to get pregnant and don’t manage it. There’s no reason to think one transgression is going to result in you carrying my child.”
The thought of it, though? Was more alluring than alarming.
Ridiculous.
Basilio squashed that train of thought fast. While he knew a great deal more about Miranda than she realized, courtesy of the report he’d had compiled on her, they’d only met the day before. Great sex did not equate to a relationship solid enough to build a family on.
If he’d learned nothing else from his father’s serial infidelity, Basilio knew that to be true.
“It says here... Oh, my goodness... I’m right in the middle of when I should be ovulating.” She looked at him with stricken eyes. “I’m not ready to be a mom. I don’t know if I ever will be.”
A woman who dedicated her life to children didn’t want any of her own? How was that possible? “Stop borrowing trouble. Please. We will go to the pharmacy as soon as it opens in the morning if that will make you feel better.”
“But what good will it do? I’ve probably already ovulated.”
“We’ll call the doctor. Maybe he will have a solution.”
“My doctor is a woman.”
“She, then.”
“Okay, okay, we’ll have to wait for tomorrow.” But she didn’t sound like she was going to survive without losing it during the interim.
“Miranda, mi hermosa.” He waited for her to acknowledge him.
When she didn’t, seeming to be lost in a world of potential unplanned pregnancies, he got up from the bed. She still didn’t act like she even realized he was still in the room, so he went into her bathroom, where there was thankfully a surprisingly large tub. The apartment complex was old and the porcelain tub looked original to the building, deeper and slightly wider than those he’d seen in more modern dwellings of the same caliber.
Basilio ran a bath, pouring some salts into the water from a stash he’d found under the sink. When he went back into the bedroom, Miranda was still sitting on the bed, her slightly out of focus expression filled with dismay.
“I ran you a bath.”
“You think that will help?”
“I do.”
“How? You think the hot water will somehow miraculously render your swimmers inert? Somehow, I don’t see it.”
“You need to relax,” he clarified. “It will help with that.”
She stared at him like she was trying to read something in his gaze. Finally, she nodded.
Miranda allowed him to lead her into the now-steamy bathroom, her hand limp in his. This lost and dispirited Miranda wasn’t one he recognized, and frankly, it bothered him.
Sinking into the hot water, she sighed as if releasing tension, but her mouth remained flat, her eyes still unfocused.
Basilio bathed his beautiful lover, being careful not to let his touches grow sexual, no matter how the sight of her naked body incited his own flesh. Finally, after several minutes of him cupping the hot water and letting it pour down her skin, Miranda collapsed against the angled back of the tub, letting her body slide down so most of it was submerged.
Since there were no bubbles, the submersion did his libido no favors.
Still, he managed to control himself as he spoke to her about everything but sex, babies and her past.
At first, her responses were desultory or disjointed by turns, but eventually she began to share in the conversation, expressing the opinion that autumn wasn’t really autumn without the leaves changing color. It was a throwaway conversation, but her willingness to engage made Basilio nearly weak with relief.
She’d really been thrown by them having unprotected sex and coming to the realization they’d shared nothing of their health status with each other.
Understandable, really. She knew almost nothing about him. He, on the other hand, had walked into this with plenty of information on Miranda Smith, née Weber. The report on her had included her recent sexual activity, or lack thereof, and her health status. The first time they had sex, he’d known he didn’t need to see test results.
She’d let her desire override good sense.
He’d done exactly the same thing when he woke up beside her, his mind filled with the memory dreams he’d been having.
He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t as disturbed by the prospect of her being pregnant as she was, but Miranda was definitely not a woman who took this kind of situation in stride.
Her lack of practical knowledge about the morning-after pill only showed what he’d suspected. Miranda Smith simply did not take risks like the one they’d taken. A very primitive part of him liked knowing she was out of control when they had sex as he’d proved himself to be.
It made no sense in their situation. Their interlude couldn’t last. There was too much standing between them for him to even consider a long-distance relationship with this woman.
Yet he found more satisfaction in bathing her than he did in intercourse with many of his past lovers. Her silky skin. Her soft, modest curves. It was all perfect.
Miranda suddenly rose up from the hot water, leaving him scrambling to his feet.
“I’ll take the morning-after pill, but if I’ve already ovulated, it’s not going to work.” Water glistened on her silky skin.
He had to focus on what she’d said rather than the body he found so perfect. Okay, they were back to unplanned baby prospect for conversation. “Think positive.”
“I’ve learned to be a realist.” She stepped out of the draining water and onto the bath mat.
“But you are naturally optimistic. I hear it in the way you talk about the children you’re trying to help.” He reached out to dry her off with the towel he’d grabbed from the rack.
She took the brightly colored terry cloth from him, stepping as far away as she could in the limited space. “I have hope for them.”
“But not yourself?”
“I’m not unhappy.” She finished drying off and wrapped the towel around her torso, hiding her nudity from him.
The action felt significant.
“No.” He reached for her hand, holding it as he led the way back into the bedroom, inexplicably grateful when she let him. “But you think the worst will happen.”
“Is a baby the worst thing? I guess you’d think so.”
“That is not what I said.” Damn. She was adept at reading meaning into the least word.
“But it’s what you meant.”
“No.”
“So you’re saying that if I’m pregnant, you’ll be part of the baby’s life.”
He didn’t suggest other more definitive answers to an unwanted pregnancy. He could read between the lines, too, and hopefully with more accuracy. Despite what it would surely mean for her life, Miranda wouldn’t consider the baby unwanted.
“I would, yes.” His own child would trump his brother’s sensibilities. It would be a way to keep Miranda in Basilio’s life.
He did his best to quash the foolish thought, but it would not go away.
She stopped beside the bed and faced him. “You’re serious?”
“We may not know each other well, but you are already aware of how loyal I am to my family.”
Tension drained out of her, her lovely face relaxing, her body losing its too-tense posture. “Okay, good. Not that I think I’m pregnant.”
She could have fooled him.
“I mean, what are the chances one time would do it?” she asked like he hadn’t brought up that very point before. “People try for years for children.”
He’d mentioned that, too, but he wasn’t going to remind her. She was finally coming down off the ledge.
“Are you ready to go back to bed?” They had at least a couple of hours before they needed to get up.
She resisted his tug that would have resulted in her sitting on the edge of the bed. “Um, do you have access to your health status on your phone?”
“Of course.” What sexually active person in today’s world didn�
�t?
“Great. Um...can I see it?”
He nearly smacked his own forehead in a moment of realization. Of course she wanted that. He should have thought of it as soon as she mentioned not seeing them earlier. “No problemo. Let me pull it up.”
“Um... I’ve got mine, too.”
“And you will show me and then you will relax, hmm?”
“Maybe?” She got her phone from the charger beside the bed.
It only took a minute for them to look at one another’s phones.
“So you haven’t, um, had other unprotected sex...you know, since your last physical?”
“No.” He would have told her that he’d never had unprotected sex before, because it was true, but that might make her think there was something more between them.
Something beyond sex unlike anything he’d ever known. Something possibly permanent when they could be anything but.
“You don’t regularly engage in high-risk behavior?” She sounded like she was repeating something she’d read.
He answered her regardless. “No, I do not.”
“Okay, good. That’s good.” She gave him a severely uncomfortable look. “You can ask me, too.”
“You would not have freaked out so badly if this was something you were used to.”
Her expression cleared, like she was relieved he wouldn’t be asking her personal questions about her sex life. “That’s true. I’m glad you realize that.”
“You already told me you aren’t easy.”
“I could have been lying.”
“I do not think lying is something you do often, or well.” Which was why Basilio had believed her about the day five years ago and Tiffany’s part in it, as well as Miranda’s claims about his brother’s abhorrent behavior.
“You’re right.” She bit her bottom lip, her manner vulnerable. “I hate dishonesty.”
A frisson of unexpected concern went through him. She was not going to take well to learning that there had been an ulterior motive behind their meeting. If she ever learned it. He couldn’t be naive to the possibility, though. She was too intelligent for him to dismiss the chance.
Danger of exposure or not, he had a job to do.