Stand-In Bride's Seduction

by Yvonne Lindsay

  His knuckles gleamed white as his fists tightened their hold on the bright colored cotton of the bedcover, his head dropped back as if he could no longer bear to watch and feel at the same time.

  Rina pursed her lips and blew cool air where her tongue had been before repeating the action again, tracing her tongue along the veined flesh, relishing the sensation of tender skin over heated rigid steel. She closed her fingers around his base and firmly glided them to his tip, before taking that smooth head into her mouth and swirling her tongue over him.

  He tasted of salt and musk and male, and in all her life she had never savored anything so intoxicating.

  “No more, you’re killing me here,” Rey said, his voice rough and breathless.

  “You don’t like it?” she asked, before drawing him deeper into her mouth.

  “Too much, I like it too much. I want our first time to be together. Every step of the way.”

  Somehow Rey found the strength to withdraw from the heated cavern of her mouth and to sit up. He grabbed Sarina’s hands and pulled her upright and stood, length for length, skin to skin. The texture of her was enthralling and he ran his hands over her body before coaxing her back onto the bed. He grabbed a condom from the pocket of his trousers and tossed it onto the rumpled covers before lowering himself over her body.

  As her long slender legs parted to allow him to settle between them, he fought with the age-old urge to bury himself in her body—to lay claim to her and coax her body to the heights he knew they’d soon scale together. But strangely this joining between them suddenly meant more to him than he’d realized. He wanted to make love to her—to bring her pleasure and delight, to go further than merely indulging in a sexual act. In this moment, it didn’t matter whether she was Sara or Sarina. All the conflicting feelings and emotions of the past three and a half weeks coalesced into one crystal clear thought—she was his woman, at least for tonight.

  Her hair spilled out around her like a halo of tangled copper. Her slender body spread before him, his for the taking. He forced the ravenous demands of his flesh into submission, wanting to take this slowly—to execute every maneuver with intricate care. He smoothed an errant tendril of hair from her forehead and smiled as she turned her face into the palm of his hand and lightly bit the fleshy mound beneath his thumb.

  “Who’s impatient now?” he murmured, as he lowered his mouth to the pert tip of a breast.

  He drew the peachy pink nub into his mouth and rolled his tongue around its peak before nipping lightly with his teeth. She sighed and shuddered beneath him, forcing him to once again take hold of his senses, to focus on giving her some of the teasing delight she’d afforded him.

  He ran one hand over her thigh, to the top of her hip and then along the delicate curve that led to the inside of her groin. His fingers ruffled the neatly trimmed thatch of dark auburn hair at the centre of her body. Already he could feel the waves of heat coming from her core. His fingers dipped lower and were instantly wet with the evidence of her desire for him.

  He parted her sweet flesh and traced his thumb over her clitoris, feeling her jolt beneath him as if he’d sent a surge of ten thousand volts through her body. He eased a finger into her honeyed depths. She clenched around him—tight, so very tight. It was almost more than he could bear.

  He withdrew his hand, laved her nipple with his tongue once more, then pulled away for only as long as it took to sheath himself. Positioning his shaft at her entrance, he linked his fingers in hers, pulling her arms up and settling their hands on either side of her exquisite face.

  She flexed her hips up toward him, her thighs open, her knees wide.

  “Reynard, please. Don’t make me wait any longer,” she begged.

  Her gray eyes were dark and stormy, reminding him of the seas that raged below the castillo on a harsh winter night. A fine sheen of perspiration beaded her upper lip, her forehead, her chest.

  “Please?”

  Her voice fractured as he surged inside her, incapable of holding back for another second. Pleasure already began to flood through his extremities as she closed around him, drawing him deep within her, taking him to the ultimate point of intimacy. He withdrew, relishing the tight clutch of her body, and sank within her again and again until he felt her tremble beneath him, heard her cries of pleasure, felt her body tighten and clench about him until she wrought from him a climax that saw exquisite pleasure radiate throughout his body, leaving his frame shaking and shuddering in its aftermath.

  Rina lay in the dark, long after the candles had guttered in their holders, long after she’d felt Rey’s heartbeat resume a normal rhythm and long after he’d drifted into sleep.

  Their lovemaking had been everything she’d ever dreamed of and more. He was a generous lover and after that first cataclysmic joining, they’d made love again. The second time had been slow and gentle, taking their time to understand one another’s bodies in intricate detail, yet with a result equally as shattering as the first.

  Her heart expanded and all but burst on the depth of her love for him, on how right they’d felt together. But she’d been unspeakably wrong in allowing their lovemaking to take place. It had been her decision—he hadn’t pushed or coerced her in any way—and in making that decision she’d betrayed the trust of the one person in the world who’d always been her rock.

  How could she face her sister now, having knowingly slept with her fiancé? How could she face Rey, still pretending to be someone else?

  It wasn’t enough to try and tell herself that Sara wasn’t really in love with Rey. Her twin had been asked to marry him, she’d chosen to say yes. It had been her choice to accept a man who offered her the relative safety of a relationship that demanded little beyond peripheral compatibility—plenty of marriages had been based on less—just as it had been Rina’s choice to settle for the predictability that had been Jacob.

  Inasmuch as it was wrong, they’d made their own decisions. Chosen men who’d offered the security they’d craved as children. That Rina’s choice had been proven totally wide of the mark, with Jacob’s eventual defection, only made it clearer to her how wrong it was for Sara to go ahead and marry Rey. But that remained her sister’s choice.

  Rina curled up in a small ball at the edge of the bed, her stomach a tight mass of pain, her chest aching with unshed tears as she tried to come to terms with how Sara would feel when she told her the truth. And she would tell her. There was no way she could hide anything as monumental as what she’d done. She’d made a choice of her own tonight, and again it had been the wrong one.

  She could only hope that her sister would forgive her.

  Rey shifted on the bed beside her, his arm snaking over her body and pulling her into the curve of his stomach. Her bare buttocks nestled against his lower abdomen and she felt his body stir at her touch. Even in sleep, he wanted her.

  Her sister’s forgiveness was one thing, but what would Reynard say when she told him that the woman he’d made love to was not who he’d thought? There was no way she could continue the pretense until Sara arrived home. No way she could look him in the eye and not tell him how much she, Rina, loved him.

  Eventually sleep claimed her and calmed her mind, but not before she'd resolved to face Rey with the full truth when he awoke. As much as her sister's forgiveness was vital to her, his meant so very much more.

  Fourteen

  As cold fingers of light began to poke through the window in the colorless predawn morning, Rina stirred on the bed. Her body was sated but her mind was instantly tumbling with all she had to say today. She slid from the tangled sheets and grabbed a light robe off the back of a chair in the corner of the room. Hers? Sara’s? She didn’t know anymore. She’d blurred so many lines she’d almost lost touch with who she was truly meant to be.

  She went to the bathroom to relieve herself then walked silently to the kitchen, automatically measuring out coffee and water in the percolator and setting the gas burner to heat. She knew it was still ridicu
lously early but by the same token she couldn’t lie next to Reynard another minute with all the guilt that now racked her, body and soul.

  Just inside the front door, on the table where the lamp still burned she spied her evening bag. Inside was her mobile phone. She crossed the room to get it. Now that she’d made her decision, she had to get off her chest what she’d done. Was it too ridiculously early to call Sara?

  She flicked a glance at the wall clock in the kitchen. 6:00 a.m. Probably too early but she had to shed this burden before it crushed her, and that started with Sara.

  As she slid the BlackBerry from its little pouch inside the evening bag, she noticed she had three missed calls already. She’d put the phone on silent mode last night before going out and in the excitement when they’d returned to the cottage, she’d forgotten to change the setting. On checking the log she noted two were last night and one already this morning. All were from Sara.

  So, she’d made her decision.

  Rina’s heart sank. The very fact that her sister had tried so often to reach her meant that she must have made up her mind. Sara had never known restraint. One message would never be enough.

  With shaking hands, she started to dial her voice mail, only to nearly drop her phone when it vibrated in her hand. She gathered her startled thoughts together and hit the talk button.

  “Sara?”

  “Oh, thank goodness I got you this time. Where have you been? Actually, never mind about that. I just wanted to let you know, I’m coming back today—”

  Sara’s voice faded out on a burst of static.

  “Back today? What time?” Rina asked, the weight of guilt in her chest warring with looking forward to seeing her twin again.

  “…so excited… I’ve been so silly but I reached my decision…coming to talk to Rey…getting married…can’t wait to see you—”

  Rina’s heart dropped straight to her feet. She tried to pull words from her mind but nothing would cooperate, and then, on another burst of static, her link to her sister was gone. Rina’s legs turned to water and she sank onto the nearest piece of furniture, a wooden straight-backed chair. The cool of the wood seeped through the light material of her robe and into her skin and a shiver ran through her body. The phone fell from her hand to the tiled floor, the back cover bursting off and the battery scattering a short distance away.

  Sara was coming back to marry Rey. She’d made her decision without knowing that her sister, her twin, had betrayed her in the worst way possible. Rina began to feel her hold on reality slip away. Not only had she done the worst thing imaginable by sleeping with her sister’s fiancé, she would now irrevocably lose them both.

  It was time to come clean. First with Rey, then with Sara when she arrived. What she’d done was monstrous, and she could only hold onto the thin reed of hope that her sister could one day find it in her heart to forgive her for what she’d done. Sara had been clear that she hadn’t loved Rey, but that didn’t make what Rina had done last night any less despicable. Reynard had given her the choice to send him away. She’d chosen not to. Everything—every touch, every sigh, every starburst of pleasure—it was all her fault and it was time she became accountable.

  She forced herself to her feet and went to the kitchen, gathering two mugs and pouring coffee for each of them. It was time to face the music.

  Rey was sprawled over the bed on his stomach, his dark hair endearingly rumpled, his tanned skin a dark contrast to the white sheet that curved lovingly across his buttocks and obscured his legs from view. The fingers of one hand splayed across her pillow, much as they’d splayed across her body in those moments when they’d slept last night. A painful tug in her chest reminded her that he wasn’t hers to view.

  She put both coffees on the bedside table and reached out a hand to wake him. The instant her fingers touched his shoulder, they tingled. Even now, knowing he was forbidden to her, knowing she had to deliver to him the painful truth about what she’d done—how she’d deceived him—her body still responded on an instinctual level.

  She leaned over the bed and gave him a little shake. “Rey? Wake up, I need to talk to you.”

  His dark lashes flickered on his cheek before he opened his eyes, lifted his head and rolled onto his side. The instant his gaze met hers, his eyes began to burn with the hunger she recognized, and couldn’t help but share. He reached out one hand to touch her face, his fingers stroking her cheek and coming to rest on her lips, still swollen from last night’s feverish kisses.

  “Buenos dias.” He smiled and slid his hand around to cup the back of her head and pull her down for a kiss.

  At the tenderness of his touch upon her lips, the burning sting of tears pricked at the back of Rina’s eyes. She squeezed her eyelids shut. She couldn’t cry in front of him. Not now. Somehow she found the strength to pull away and stand at the edge of the bed.

  “Already tired of me?” Rey teased from within the untidy evidence of last night’s passion.

  “No, it’s not that.” She grabbed his mug off the nightstand and passed it to him. “Here, have this.”

  Rey pulled himself upright against the headboard and took the mug from her, his fingers grazing hers.

  “I’d rather have you, querida.”

  He wouldn’t want her again after what she had to say. Rina took a sip of her coffee and instantly wished she hadn’t. The dark brew caught in her throat and she fought to swallow it past the restriction there.

  “Sar—” Rey started. “Is everything all right?”

  Rina couldn’t meet his eyes. Instead she put her coffee cup down and perched on the very edge of the bed.

  “I…I’m not who you think I am,” she began.

  Rey felt the familiar boil of anger start deep in his belly. So, this was it? She had gotten what she was after? That was the only reason he could think of for why now she wanted to tell the truth. It had been foolish of him to give her and her sister the very ammunition they needed by sleeping with her last night. Hell, sleeping? They’d achieved very little of that. The sex had been great.

  A prick of conscience jabbed at the back of his mind. Great? It had been better than great. And it had been so much more than just sex. He’d made love with her, worshipped her, taken and received pleasure such as he had never experienced with another before. Resolutely, he squashed those thoughts. The Woodville sisters had an agenda. When he hadn’t been sexually attracted to the one, they’d delivered on the other—and he’d let them. Did that make him a bastard for taking advantage of the situation?

  Not at all. He’d be damned if he’d let them screw one Euro from his family.

  “I know who you are,” he replied, his voice deadpan.

  Shock flew across Sarina’s face. “You know?”

  “You are Sarina Woodville. Younger twin and sister to Sara Woodville—my fiancée.”

  “How did you…? When?” Her eyes flew to the bed. “Why?”

  “How? Well, you are indeed a perfect replica of your sister but there are some things you cannot fake and your sister’s nature is one of them.”

  “But you never said—”

  “Never called you on it? Why would I? I didn’t have time to deal with your silly games. At the time my first priority was my brother, my second, Abuelo. And then you started helping me at the office at a time when help was badly needed. I suppose I’ve received recompense for at least some of what you and your sister have cost me.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “I realized that you weren’t Sara when I kissed you. I knew instantly you were not the woman I’d asked to be my fiancée.”

  “How?” The word came out in a strangled gasp.

  How? He was not likely to tell her the truth—how kissing her sister had been a pleasant diversion whereas kissing her had been an experience that had blown his mind off the Richter scale.

  He did not want to think of that now. Nor of the delight he’d experienced when they’d danced together at the tapas bar, or of the intell
ectual satisfaction he’d gained while they’d worked together. He especially did not want to think of how she’d made him feel last night.

  “How matters not. What’s important is that I caught onto your deception early enough to stop you when you tried to capitalize on it.”

  “Capitalize on it? I don’t understand. Sara just asked me to—”

  “Just asked you to lie to me? Deceive me? Set me and my family up for scandal and humiliation?” He smiled, although he had never felt any less humor in his life. “You see, the del Castillo family are well versed in the tricks of others. You two are not the first to think you can deceive us into what appears to be a relationship and then subsequently sell our family to the media, or worse, threaten to do so to extort money from us. We are not so dull witted that we will allow this to happen, no matter how much stress we are under.”

  “But it’s not true,” she insisted. Her face had paled, her pupils massively dilated, her hands trembled. “We aren’t trying to extort money from you. Far from it. Sara didn’t want to upset you—”

  He snorted. “Upset me? You two have far from upset me. You disgust me with your avaricious lies. I know she needs sponsorship to continue with her horses, she was at least honest about that while she was here. But clearly that wasn’t all she wanted, nor you. Tell me, when your fiancé broke off your engagement, was it because he’d discovered just how duplicitous you are? Or did you discover that he wasn’t worth the bother and decided to come here for bigger fish to fry?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” she cried, her slender shoulders slumped forward and what appeared to be grief slanted raw and stark across her face.

  Oh, she was a good actress. He’d give her that. Even now, some traitorous instinct wanted to reach out to her, comfort her, pull her into his arms and take away all of her pain. He ruthlessly pushed the urge away. She was manipulating him again. He would not allow himself to fall for it.