Enamored

by Diana Palmer

  “To my shame, I believed that at first,” he confessed. “And blamed myself for being so cruel to you that I made you hate me enough to run away.”

  “I never hated you,” she said, loving his face with her eyes. “I never could. I understood, even then. And it was my own fault. The note, the poems, and I gave in without even a fight…”

  “The fault was mine as well, for letting my desire for you outweigh my responsibility to protect you.” He sighed heavily. “So much tragedy, my own, because we abandoned ourselves to pleasure. At the time, consequences were the last thought we had, no?”

  “Our particular consequence, though, is adorable, don’t you think, esposo mío?” she smiled at their sleeping son.

  He followed her glance. “Muy adorable.” His eyes caressed her. “Like his oh-so-beautiful madrecita.”

  Touched by the tenderness in his deep voice, she reached up and kissed him, savoring the warm hunger of his embrace. Matthew stirred, and she sat back down beside him, watching his eyes open sleepily.

  “Feeling better?” she asked gently.

  “I’m hungry,” he groaned.

  “Nothing else to eat just yet, young man,” she said, smiling. “You have to make sure your tummy’s settled. But how about some more cracked ice?”

  “Yes, please,” he mumbled.

  Diego got up and took the cup and the spoon from her. “I could use some coffee, querida,” he suggested.

  “So could I. I’ll get it.”

  She left him there after watching the tender way he fed ice to Matthew, the wonder of fatherhood and the pride of it written all over his dark face. Melissa had never felt so happy in all her life. As she left the room she heard his voice, softly accented, exquisitely loving, telling the little boy at last that he was his real papa. Tears welled up in her eyes as she left them, and she smiled secretly through them, bursting with joy.

  It was a long night, but the two of them stayed with the little boy. Melissa curled up on the foot of his bed finally to catch a catnap, and Diego slept sprawled in the chair. Mrs. Albright found them like that the next morning and smiled from the doorway. But Matthew was nowhere in sight.

  Frowning, she went toward the kitchen, where there was a strange smell…

  “Matthew!” she gasped at the doorway.

  “I’m hungry,” Matthew muttered, “and Mama and Papa won’t wake up.”

  He was standing in his pajamas at the stove, barefoot, cooking himself two eggs. Unfortunately, he had the heat on high and several pieces of eggshell in the pan, and the result was a smelly black mess.

  Mrs. Albright got it all cleared away and picked him up to carry him back to bed. “I’ll get your breakfast, my lamb. Why were you hungry?”

  “My supper came back up again,” he explained.

  Mrs. Albright nodded wisely. “Stomach bug.”

  “A very bad bug,” he agreed. “Papa is my real papa, you know, he said so, and we’re going to live with him forever. Can I have some eggs?”

  “Yes, lamb, in just a minute,” she promised with a laugh as they went into the bedroom.

  “Matthew?” Melissa mumbled as she looked up and saw Mrs. Albright bringing Matthew into the room.

  Diego blinked and yawned as Mrs. Albright put the boy back in bed. “Where did you find him?” he asked, his face unshaven and his eyes bleary.

  “In the kitchen cooking his breakfast,” Mrs. Albright chuckled, registering their openly horrified expressions. “It’s all right now. I’ve taken care of everything. I’ll get him some scrambled eggs and toast if you think it’s safe. I’d bet that it is, if my opinion is wanted. He looks fit to me.”

  “You should have seen him last night,” Melissa said with a drowsy smile. “But if he thinks he’s hungry, he can have some eggs.”

  “You two go and get some sleep,” Mrs. Albright said firmly. “Matthew’s fine, and I’ll look out for him. I’ll even call the office for you, señor, if you like, and tell them where you are.”

  “That would be most kind of you.” He yawned, taking Melissa by the hand. “Come along, Señora Laremos, while I can stand up long enough to guide us to bed.”

  “¡Buenas noches!” Matthew grinned.

  “¡Buenos días!” Melissa corrected with a laugh. “And eat only a little breakfast, okay?” She threw him a kiss. “Good night, baby chick.”

  She followed Diego into his bedroom and got into the bed while he locked the door. She hardly felt him removing her dress and hose and shoes and slip. Seconds later, she was asleep.

  * * *

  Sunshine streamed lazily through the windows when she stretched under the covers, frowning as she discovered that she didn’t have a stitch of clothing on her body.

  Diego came into the bedroom from the bathroom with a towel around his lean hips and his hair still damp.

  “Awake at last,” he murmured dryly. He reached down and jerked the covers off, his dark eyes appreciative of every soft, pink inch of her body as he looked at her openly for the first time in five years. The impact of it was in his eyes, his face. “Dios mío, what a beautiful sight,” he breathed, smiling at her shy blush.

  As he spoke, he unfastened his towel and threw it carelessly on the floor. “Now,” he breathed, easing down beside her. “This is where we meant to begin last night, is it not, querida?”

  She knew it was incredible to be shy with him, but it had been five years. She lowered her eyes to his mouth and looped her arms around his neck and shifted to accommodate the warm weight of his muscular body. She shivered, savoring the abrasive pleasure of his chest hair against her soft breasts, the hardness of his long legs tangling intimately with hers.

  Tremors of pleasure wound through her. “Sweet,” she whispered shakily, drawing him closer. Her mouth nipped at his, pleaded, danced with it. “It’s so sweet, feeling you like this.”

  “An adequate word for something so wondrous,” he whispered, smiling against her eager mouth. He touched her, watching her eyes dilate and her body stiffen. “There, querida?” he asked sensuously. “Softly, like this?” He did it again, and she shuddered deliciously and arched. A sensual banquet, after years of starvation.

  “You…beast,” she chided. Her nails dug into his shoulders as she watched the face above hers grow dark with passion, his eyes glittering as he bent to her body.

  “A feast fit for a starving man,” he whispered as his lips traced her soft curves, lingering to tease and nip at the firm thrust of her breasts, at her rib cage, her flat belly. And all the while he talked to her, described what he felt and what he was doing and what he was going to do.

  She moved under the exploration of his hands, her eyes growing darker and wilder as he kindled the flames of passion. Once she looked directly into his eyes as he moved down, and she saw the naked hunger in them as his body penetrated hers for the first time in more than five years.

  She cried, a keening, husky, breathless little sound that was echoed in her wide eyes and the stiffening of her welcoming body. She cried in passion and in pain, because at first there was the least discomfort.

  “Ah, it has been a long time, has it not?” he whispered softly, delighting in the pleasure he read in her face. “Relax, my own.” His body stilled, giving hers time to adjust to him, to admit him without discomfort. “Relax. Yes, querida, yes, yes…” His eyes closed as he felt the sudden ease of his passage, and his teeth ground together at an unexpected crest of fierce pleasure. He shuddered. “Exquisite,” he groaned, opening his eyes to look at her as he moved again, his weight resting on his forearms. “Exquisite, this…with you…this sharing.” His eyes closed helplessly as his movements became suddenly harsh and sharp. “Forgive me…!”

  But she was with him every step of the way, her fit young body matching his passion, equaling it. She adjusted her body to the needs of his, and held him and watched him and gloried in his fulfillment just before she found her own and cried out against his shoulder in anguished completion.

  He shudder
ed over her, his taut body relaxing slowly, damp, his arms faintly tremulous. She bit his shoulder and laughed breathlessly, feeling for the first time like a whole woman, like a wife.

  “Now try to be unfaithful to me,” she dared him, whispering the challenge into his ear. “Just try and I’ll wear you down until you can hardly crawl away from my bed!”

  He nipped her shoulder, laughing softly. “As if I could have touched another woman after you,” he whispered. “Querida, I took my marriage vows as seriously as you took yours. Guilt and anguish over losing you made it impossible for me to sleep with anyone else.” He lifted his damp head and searched her drowsy, shocked eyes. “Amada, I love you,” he said softly. He brushed her mouth with his. “I do not want anyone else. Not since that first time with you, when I knew that your soul had joined with mine so completely that part of me died when you left.”

  She hid her face against him, weeping with joy and pain and pleasure. “I’m sorry.”

  “It is I who am sorry. But our pain is behind us, and now our pleasure begins. This is only the start, this sweet sharing of our bodies. We will share our lives, Melissa. Our sorrow and our joy. Laughter and tears. For this is what makes a marriage.”

  She reached up and kissed his dark cheek. “I love you so much.”

  “As I love you.” He twined a strand of her long blond hair around his forefinger. His eyes searched hers. He bent, and his mouth opened hers. Seconds later she pulled him down to her again, and he groaned as the flare of passion burned brightly again, sending them down into a fiery oblivion that surpassed even the last one.

  Mrs. Albright was putting supper on the table when they reappeared, freshly showered and rested and sharing glances that held a new depth of belonging.

  Matthew was still in his room. They ate supper alone and then went to see him, delighting in the strength of their attachment to each other, delighting in their son.

  “Tomorrow I will bring you a surprise when I come home from work. What would you like?” Diego asked his son.

  “Only you, Papa,” the little boy laughed, reaching up to be held and hugged fiercely.

  “In that case, I shall bring you a battleship, complete with crew,” his Papa chuckled with a delighted glance toward Melissa, who smiled and leaned against him adoringly.

  Diego went to work reluctantly the next morning to find Apollo like a cat with a bad leg and Joyce as cold as if she’d spent two days in a refrigerator.

  “How’s Matthew?” Apollo asked when Diego entered the office.

  “He’s much better, thanks, but his mama and I are still trying to catch up on our sleep,” Diego laughed, and told him about Matthew’s attempt to make breakfast.

  Joyce laughed. “I hope your fire insurance is paid up.”

  Apollo stared at her with unconcealed hunger. “Don’t you have something to do?” he asked curtly.

  “Of course, but I have to work for you instead,” she said with a sweet smile. She was wearing another one of the new outfits, and she looked very pretty in a red-and-orange print that showed off her figure to its best advantage. Apollo could hardly keep his eyes off her, which made for a long and confusing workday.

  When Diego went home that afternoon, Apollo was at the end of his rope. He glared at Joyce and she glared back until they both had to look away or die from the electricity in their joined gaze.

  “You look nice,” he said irritably.

  “Thank you,” she said with equal curtness.

  He drew in an angry breath. “Oh, hell, we can’t go on like this,” he muttered, going around the desk after her. He caught her by the arms and pulled her against him, his mind registering that she barely came up to his shoulder and that she made him feel violently masculine. “Look, it’s impossible to treat each other this way after what happened at the Laremoses two nights ago. I’m going crazy. Just looking at you makes my body ache.”

  She drew in a steadying breath, because he was affecting her, too. “What do you want to do about it?” she asked, certain that he was thinking along serious lines and wondering how she was going to bear it if he wasn’t.

  He tilted her mouth up to his and kissed her, long and hard and hungrily. She moaned, stepping closer, pushing against him. His arms swallowed her and he groaned.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he promised huskily, his black eyes holding hers. “I swear to God, I won’t. I’ll take a long time…”

  She could barely make her mind work. “What?”

  “I’ll get you a better apartment, in the same building as mine,” he went on. “We’ll spend almost every night together, and if things work out, maybe you can move in with me eventually.”

  She blinked. “You…want me to be your mistress?”

  He scowled. “What’s this mistress business? This is America. People live together all the time—”

  “I come from a good home and we don’t live together,” she said proudly. “We get married and have babies and behave like a family! My mother would shoot you stone-cold dead if she thought you were trying to seduce me!”

  “Who is your mama, the Lone Ranger?” he chided. “Listen, honey, I can have any woman I want. I don’t have to go hungry just because my little virgin secretary has too many hang-ups to—oof!”

  Joyce surveyed her handiwork detachedly, registering the extremely odd look on Apollo’s face as he bent over the stomach she’d put her knee into. He was an interesting shade of purple, and it served him right.

  “I quit, by the way,” Joyce said with a smile he couldn’t see. She turned, cleaned out her desk drawer efficiently and picked up her purse. There wasn’t much to get together. She felt a twinge of regret because she loved the stupid man. But perhaps this was best, because she wasn’t going to be any man’s kept woman, modern social fad or not.

  “Goodbye, boss,” she said as she headed for the door. “I hope you have better luck with your next secretary.”

  “She can’t…be worse…than you!” he bit off, still doubled over.

  “You sweet man,” she said pleasantly as she paused in the doorway. “It’s been a joy working for you. I do hope you’ll give me a good reference.”

  “I wouldn’t refer you to hell!”

  “Good, because I don’t want to go anyplace where I’d be likely to run into you!” She slammed the door and walked away. By the time she was in the elevator going down, the numbness had worn off and she realized that she’d burned her bridges. There were tears welling up in her eyes before she got out of the building.

  She wound up at Melissa’s apartment, crying in great gulps. Diego took one look at her and poured her a drink, then left the women alone in the living room and went off to play the memory game with his son.

  “Tell me all about it,” Melissa said gently when Joyce managed to stop crying.

  “He wants me to be his mistress,” she wailed, and buried her face in the tissue Melissa had given her.

  “Oh, you poor thing.” Melissa curled her feet under her on the sofa. “What did you tell him, as if I didn’t know?”

  “It wasn’t so much what I told him as what I did,” Joyce confessed. She grinned sheepishly. “I kicked him in the stomach.”

  “Oops.”

  “Well, he deserved it. Bragging about how many women he could get if he wanted them, laughing at me for being chaste.” Joyce lifted her chin pugnaciously. “My mother would die if she heard him say such a thing. She has a very religious background, and I was raised strictly and in the church.”

  “So was I, so don’t apologize,” Melissa said softly. “Let me tell you, I learned the hard way that it’s best to save intimacy for marriage. I’m a dinosaur, I suppose. Where I grew up, the family had its own special place. No member of the family ever did anything to besmirch the family name. Now honor is just a word, but at what cost?”

  “You really are a dinosaur,” Joyce sighed.

  “Purely prehistoric,” Melissa agreed. “What are you going to do, my friend?”

  “What mo
st dinosaurs do, I guess. I’m going to become extinct, at least as far as Apollo Blain is concerned. I resigned before I left.” Her eyes misted again. “I’ll never see him again.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it. Stay for supper and then we’ll see what we can do about helping you get another job.”

  “You’re very kind,” Joyce said, “but I think it might be best if I go back to Miami. Or even home to my mother.” She shrugged. “I don’t think I’ll be able to fit into this sophisticated world. I might as well go back where I belong.”

  “I’ll have no one to talk to or shop with,” Melissa moaned. “You can’t! Listen, we’ll dig a Burmese tiger trap outside Apollo’s office door…”

  “You’re a nice friend,” Joyce said, smiling. “But it really won’t do. We’ll have to think of something he can’t gnaw through.”

  “Let’s have supper. Then we’ll talk.”

  Joyce shook her head. “I can’t eat. I want to go home and have a good cry and call my mother. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, all right? Meanwhile, thank you for being my friend.”

  “Thank you for being mine. If you get too depressed, call me. Okay?”

  Joyce got up, smiling. “Okay.”

  Melissa walked her to the door and let her out. Then she leaned back against it, sighing.

  Diego came into the hall with his eyebrows raised. “Trouble?”

  “She quit. After she kicked your boss in the stomach,” she explained. “I think he’s probably going to be in a very bad mood for the rest of the week, although I’m only guessing,” she added, grinning.

  He moved toward her, propping his arms at either side of her head. He smiled. “Things are heating up,” he remarked.

  “And not only for Joyce and Apollo,” she whispered, tempting him until he bent to her mouth and kissed her softly.

  She nibbled his lower lip, smiling. “Come here,” she breathed, reaching around his waist to draw his weight down on hers.

  He obliged her, and she could tell by his breathing as well as by the tautness of his body and his fierce heartbeat that he felt as great a need for her as she felt for him. She opened her mouth to the fierce pressure of his.