by Abby Green
‘Tell me something about yourself—like your name. How did you get it?’
She tensed all over. Every instinct within her was screaming to resist this far more dangerous Cruz. ‘What are you doing? You’re not interested in who I am...you don’t have to ask me these things.’
‘You were the one,’ he pointed out reasonably, ‘who said we need to learn to get along.’
And look how that had ended up—with him kissing her and demonstrating just how weak she was. What could she say, though? He was right.
Hating it that she was exposing her agitation, but needing space from his focus on her, Trinity stood up and walked over to one of the windows, holding her glass to her chest like some kind of ineffectual armour.
Looking out at the view, she said as lightly as she could, ‘I was called Trinity after the church where I was found abandoned on the steps. The Holy Trinity Church in Islington.’
She heard movement and sensed Cruz coming to stand near her. She could feel his eyes on her.
‘Go on,’ he said.
Night had descended over Madrid, and the skyline was lit up spectacularly against the inky blackness.
‘They think I was just a few hours old, but they can’t be sure, and it wasn’t long after midnight, so they nominated that date as my birthday. I was wrapped in a blanket. The priest found me.’
‘What happened then?’
Trinity swallowed. ‘The authorities waited as long as they could for my biological parent, or parents, to come and claim me. By the time I was a toddler I was in foster care, and there was still no sign of anyone claiming me, so they put me forward for adoption.’
‘But your file said you grew up in foster homes.’
Trinity was still astounded that he’d looked into her past. She glanced at him, but looked away again quickly. ‘I did grow up in foster homes. But I was adopted for about a year, until the couple’s marriage broke up and they decided they didn’t want to keep me if they weren’t staying together.’
She shouldn’t be feeling emotion—not after all these years. But it was still there...the raw, jagged edges of hurt at the knowledge that she’d been abandoned by her own mother and then hadn’t even managed to persuade her adoptive parents to keep her.
‘Apparently,’ she said, as dispassionately as she could, ‘I was traumatised, so they decided it might be best not to put me through that experience again. That’s how I ended up in the foster home system.’
‘Were you moved around much?’
‘Not at the start. But when I came into my teens, yes. I was in about six different foster homes before I turned eighteen.’
‘Your affinity with Mateo and Sancho... You have no qualification in childcare, and yet you obviously know what to do with small children.’
Trinity felt as if Cruz was peeling back layers of skin. It was almost physically painful to talk about this. ‘For some reason the small children in the foster homes used to latch on to me... I felt protective, and I liked mothering them, watching over them...’
But then the inevitable always happened—the babies and toddlers would be taken away to another home, or put up for adoption, and Trinity would be bereft. And yet each time it had happened she’d been helpless to resist the instinct to nurture. Of course, she surmised grimly now, a psychologist would undoubtedly tell her she’d been desperately trying to fulfil the need in herself to be loved and cared for.
And the twins were evidence that she hadn’t learned to fill that gap on her own yet.
‘Did you ever go looking for your parents?’
Trinity fought to control her emotions. ‘Where would I start? It wasn’t as if they’d logged their names anywhere. I could have investigated pregnant women on record in the local area, who had never returned to give birth, but to be honest I decided a long time ago that perhaps it was best to just leave it alone.’
The truth was that she didn’t think she could survive the inevitable rejection of her parents if she ever found either one of them.
She felt her glass being lifted out of her hands, and looked to see Cruz putting it down on a side table beside his. He turned back and took her hand in his, turning it over, looking at it as if it held some answer he was looking for. The air between them was charged.
‘What are you doing?’ Trinity asked shakily.
Their eyes met and she desperately wanted to move back, out of Cruz’s magnetic orbit, but she couldn’t.
‘You’re an enigma,’ he said, meeting her eyes. ‘I can’t figure you out and it bothers me.’
Feeling even shakier now, she said, ‘There’s nothing to figure out. What you see is what you get.’
Cruz gripped her hand tighter and pulled her closer, saying gruffly, ‘I’m beginning to wonder if that isn’t the case.’
It took a second for his words to sink in, and when they did Trinity’s belly went into freefall. Was he...could he really listen to her now? And believe her?
But Cruz didn’t seem to be interested in talking. His hand was trailing up her arm now, all the way to where the chiffon was tied at her shoulder.
With slow, sure movements, and not taking his eyes off hers, Cruz undid the bow, letting the material fall down. He caressed her shoulder, moving his hand around to the back of her neck and then up, finding the band in her hair and tugging it free so that her hair fell down around her shoulders.
Trinity was feeling incredibly vulnerable after revealing far more than she’d intended, but Cruz was looking at her and touching her as if he was burning up inside, just as she was, making her forget everything. Almost.
She couldn’t let him expose her even more...
It was the hardest thing in the world, but she caught his hand, pulling it away. ‘We shouldn’t do this...’
He turned her hand in his, so he was holding it again, pulling her even closer so she could feel every inch of her body against his much harder one.
‘Oh, yes, we should, querida. It’s inevitable. The truth is that it’s been inevitable since we first kissed.’
Cruz wrapped both hands around her upper arms. Trinity’s world was reduced down to the beats of her heart and the heat prickling all over her skin. Surely his mention of that cataclysmic night should be breaking them out of this spell? But it wasn’t...
A dangerous lassitude seeped into her blood, draining her will to resist. Cruz bent his head close to hers, his breath feathering over her mouth.
‘Tell me you want this, Trinity. At least this is true between us—you can’t deny it.’
She was in a very dangerous place—feeling exposed after her confession and the tantalising suggestion that Cruz might be prepared to admit that he was wrong about her... All her defences were snapping and falling to pieces.
As if sensing her inner vacillation, Cruz touched her bare shoulder with his mouth and moved up to where her neck met her shoulder. He whispered against her skin. ‘Tell me...’
Unable to stop herself, she heard the words falling out of her mouth. ‘I want you...’
He pulled back, a fierce expression on his face. Triumph. It made her dizzy. She didn’t even have time to think of the repercussions before Cruz’s mouth was on hers and suddenly everything was slotting into place. She didn’t have to think...she only had to feel. It was heady, and too seductive to resist.
The intimacy of his tongue stroking roughly along hers made blood pool between her legs, hot and urgent. Pulsing in time with her heart.
Time slowed down as Cruz stole her very soul right out from inside her. A fire was taking root and incinerating everything in its path.
His hands landed on her waist, hauling her right into him, where she could feel the solid thrust of his arousal just above the juncture of her legs. Any warning bells were lost in the rush of blood as her own hands went to Cruz’s wide ch
est and then higher, until she was arching into him and winding her arms around his neck.
When his mouth left hers she gasped for air, light-headed, shivering as he transferred his attention to her neck, tugging at her skin gently with his teeth before soothing with his tongue.
Air touched her back as the zip of her dress was lowered. The bodice loosened around her breasts and she finally managed to open her eyes. Cruz’s short hair was dishevelled, his eyes burning, as he pulled the top of her dress down, exposing her bare breasts to his gaze. The cut of the dress hadn’t allowed for a bra.
‘So beautiful,’ he said thickly, bringing a hand up to cup the weight of one breast in his palm.
Trinity felt drunk...dazed. She looked down and saw her own pale flesh surrounded by his much darker hand. Her nipple jutted out, hard and stark, as if begging for his touch. When he brushed it with his thumb she let out a low moan and her head fell back.
Her arms were weakening around his neck and her legs were shaking. There was so much sensation on top of sensation. It was almost painful. And then suddenly the ground beneath her feet disappeared altogether and she gasped when she realised that Cruz had picked her up and was now laying her down on the nearby couch.
Her dress was gaping open and she felt disorientated yet hyper-alert. Cruz came down on his knees beside her supine body and pulled her dress all the way down to her waist, baring her completely.
She couldn’t suck in enough air, and when he lowered that dark golden head and surrounded the taut peak of her breast with sucking heat her back arched and she gasped out loud, funnelling her hands through his hair...
She ignored the part of her whispering to stop this now...she couldn’t stop. She wasn’t strong enough. She’d never felt so wanted and connected as she did right in that moment, and for Trinity that was where her darkest weakness lay. Still...
* * *
Cruz was drowning...in the sweetest, softest skin he’d ever felt or tasted in his life. The blood thundering through his veins and arteries made what he’d felt for any other woman a total mockery. It was as if he’d been existing in limbo and now he was alive again.
One hand was filled with the flesh of Trinity’s breast, the hard nipple stabbing his palm, and he tugged the sharp point of her other breast into his mouth, his tongue laving the hard flesh, making it even harder. She tasted of sweet musky female and roses, and she felt like silk.
He wasn’t even aware of her fingers clawing into his head so painfully. He was only aware of this pure decadent heaven, and the way she was arching her body at him so needily.
He finally let go of the fleshy mound of her breast and found her dress, pulling it up over her legs. He needed to feel her now, feel how ready for him she was. He wanted to taste her... His erection hardened even more at that thought.
He found her heat, palpable through the thin silk of her panties, and lifted his head, feeling animalistic at way she throbbed so hotly into his palm.
Trinity stopped moving. Her eyes opened and Cruz wanted to groan when he saw how sensually slumberous she looked, golden hair spread around her, breasts moving up and down, nipples moist from his touch. Mouth swollen from his kisses.
Giving in to his base needs, he moved down, pulling her dress up higher. Her panties were white and lacy and he pulled them off, heedless of the ripping sound, dropping them to the floor.
‘Cruz...what are you doing...?’
She sounded breathless, rough. Needy. And there was some other quality to her voice that Cruz didn’t want to investigate. Something like uncertainty.
‘I need to taste you, querida.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Taste me...? You mean like...?’
Cruz touched her with his finger, sliding it between soft silken folds. She gasped and tried to put her hand down, but he caught it and stopped her. He explored the hot damp seam of her body, pressing into the fevered channel of her body and exerting pressure against her clitoris.
He took his finger away, even though he wanted to thrust it all the way inside, and brought it to his mouth, taking the wet tip into his mouth. His eyes closed...his erection jumped. For the first time since he was a teenager Cruz was afraid he’d spill before he even got inside her.
The taste of her musky heat on his tongue...
He opened his eyes and she was looking at him, shocked. Two spots of red in her cheeks. A thought drifted across the heat haze in his brain... Why was she looking so shocked? Surely she’d...? But he batted the thought away, not wanting images of what she’d done with previous lovers—his brother—to intrude.
There would only be one lover now. Him. She was here and she was his.
He said in a rough voice, ‘I need to taste you...like that.’
She said nothing. He saw her bite her lip. She looked feverish, and then she gave an almost imperceptible nod. Cruz pushed her legs apart, exposing the blonde curls covering her slick pink folds...slick for him.
There was none of his usual finesse when he touched her. He licked her, sucked and tasted, until he was dizzy and drunk. He thrust two fingers inside her heat, moving them in and out. He felt her hips jerk, her back arch. Heard soft moans and gasps, felt hands in his hair.
Her thighs drew up beside his head and her whole body tensed like a taut bow, just seconds before powerful muscles clamped down tight on his fingers and her body shuddered against his mouth.
She was his.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TRINITY WAS BARELY CONSCIOUS, floating on an ocean of such satisfaction that she wondered if she might be dead. Surely this wasn’t even possible? This much pleasure? For her body to feel so weighted down and yet light as a feather? She could feel the minor contractions of her deepest muscles, still pulsing like little quivering heartbeats...
She finally came back to some level of consciousness when she felt a soft surface under her back and opened her eyes. She was on a bed, and Cruz was standing before her, pulling off his shirt and putting his hands on his trousers, undoing them, taking them down.
She saw the way his erection tented his underwear, and watched with avid fascination as he pulled that off too, exposing the thick stiff column of flesh, moisture beading at the tip.
‘If you keep looking at me like that—’ He broke off with a curse and bent down, hands on the sides of her dress, tugging it free of her body.
Trinity was naked now, and yet she felt no sense of self-consciousness. She was so wrapped in lingering pleasure and so caught up in this bubble of sensuality that she ignored the persistent but faint knocking of something trying to get through to her...
Cruz reached beside the bed for a condom and rolled it onto his erection, the latex stretched taut. Incredibly, as he came down onto the bed and moved over her, she felt her flesh quiver back to life. Her pulse picked up again and she no longer felt like floating...she wanted to fly again.
Cruz’s hips pushed her legs apart and he took himself in his own hand, touching the head of his sex against hers, teasing her by pushing it in slightly before drawing it out again, her juices making them both slick. She felt as if she should be embarrassed, but she wasn’t.
Between her legs she could feel her flesh aching for Cruz, aching for more than his mouth and tongue and fingers...aching for more.
She arched up. ‘Please, Cruz...’
Was that ragged voice hers? She didn’t have time to wonder, because with one feral growl and a sinuous move of his lean hips he thrust deep inside her. His whole body went taut over hers, and the expression on his face was one of pure masculine appreciation.
But Trinity wasn’t seeing that. It had taken only a second for the intense need and pleasure to transform into blinding hot pain. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t make sense of what she was feeling, when seconds ago she’d craved for him to do exactly this...
‘Dios, Trin
ity...’ he breathed. ‘You’re so tight...’
Cruz started to pull back, and Trinity’s muscles protested. She put her hands on his hips and said, as panic mounted through her body along with the pain, ‘Get off me! I can’t...breathe...’
Cruz stopped moving instantly, shock in his voice. ‘I’m hurting you?’
Her eyes were stinging now, as she sobbed while trying to push him off, ‘Yes, it hurts!’
He pulled away and Trinity let out a sound of pain. Cruz reared back, staring at her, and then down at something on the bed between them.
‘What the hell—?’
She was starting to shiver in reaction and she looked down. The cover on the bed was cream, but even in the dim light she could see the spots of red—blood.
Her head started to whirl sickeningly as what had just happened sank in and she scrambled to move, almost falling off the bed in her bid to escape. She got to the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.
* * *
Cruz paced up and down after pulling on his trousers. There was nothing but ominous silence from the bathroom. His mind was fused with recrimination. He simply could not believe what her tight body and the evidence of blood told him. That she was innocent. That she was a virgin. It was like trying to compute the reality of seeing a unicorn, or a pig flying across the sky.
It simply wasn’t possible. But then his conscience blasted him... He’d never been so lost in a haze of lust—he’d thought she was there with him, as ready as he was.
He wanted to go after her, but the sick realisation hit him that he was probably the last person she wanted to see right now. Nevertheless, he went and knocked softly on the door. ‘Trinity?’
Silence.
Just when Cruz was about to try and open the door she said, ‘I’m fine. I just need a minute.’
Cruz’s hand clenched into a fist at the way her voice sounded so rough. He took a step back from the door and then he heard the sound of the shower being turned on. His guts curdled. Was she trying to wash him off her?