Determined to Protect, Forbidden to Love

by Beverly Barton

  Why doesn’t he turn around and hold out his arms to me? Why isn’t he telling me how much he wants me?

  When she came up behind him, she thought surely he would turn and embrace her. She stood there for several strained moments. Then unable to bear another moment without his touch, she went to him, pressed herself against his back and reached her arms around him. His muscles went taut.

  “Make love with me, Miguel,” she whispered as she laid her head on the back of his shoulder.

  He sucked in a deep breath, then released it as he turned and took her into his arms. He held her there, close to him, embracing her, one big hand resting across her spine, the other cupping her hip. His mouth raked across her temple and came to rest against her ear.

  “You will not regret giving yourself to me, querida?” he asked, as if his life depended on her answer.

  “Oh, Miguel. No. Never.”

  He grasped her shoulders and forced her to face him. With his fingers biting into her flesh, he said, “This will change nothing. You will leave Nava in the morning. You understand, yes?”

  “Yes, I understand.” She would leave tomorrow morning. She would get on the plane to Caracas, but she would leave behind her heart. And if he honestly thought that their becoming lovers would change nothing, then he was seriously mistaken. It would change everything.

  The tension in his grasp lessened gradually as he lowered his head and brought their lips together. His arms encompassed her again, a forceful yet gentle embrace that claimed her as surely as if he had branded her. She had never before wanted to belong to a man. Body and soul. But she longed to belong to Miguel, in every possible way. And she wanted him to be hers and hers alone. His devouring kiss told her how much he wanted her, how hungry he was for her, as she was for him. But there was a gentleness in the kiss and in the way he held her, as if he wanted her to know that he cherished her, that she was precious to him.

  “I ache for you,” he said as his lips lifted from hers, then quickly made their way down her throat.

  She ran her hands over his naked back, raking her fingernails over his hot, damp flesh. “I ache for you, too.” She pulled away, just enough to gain access to his chest. While he threaded his fingers through her hair, she spread kisses from collarbone to collarbone, then went lower to flick her tongue over first one and then the other of his tiny male nipples.

  Miguel arched his back and moaned, deep and low, the sound guttural, like that of an animal.

  Spurred on by his arousal bulging just below his waist, J.J. dropped to her knees and unzipped his slacks, then eased them and his black briefs down his hips until his jutting sex popped up in front of her. Powerful and pulsating, he was a temptation she could not resist. J.J. caressed him with her fingers and sighed when he growled his satisfaction. Taking the next step immediately, she ran the tip of her tongue down and back up, then repeated the process, tormenting him with a promise of fulfillment. She played with him, taking him into her mouth as he held her head in place, encouraging her eager lips and tongue to pleasure him.

  Lost in the frenzy of giving him what he needed, J.J. became unbearably aroused, her femininity dripping with moisture, her nipples peaked and aching. Unexpectedly, Miguel eased himself from her mouth, then reached down and brought her up off her knees. Breathless and dazed with desire, she stared at him.

  Smiling devilishly, he swooped her up into his arms and carried her to his bed. He placed her on her feet, then reached down to grasp the hem of her silk slip. When he maneuvered the slip up her thighs and over her hips, she lifted her arms into the air, assisting him in undressing her. She stood there on wobbly legs, wearing her white lace bra, bikini panties, silk stockings and garter belt. While she stared pleadingly into his dark eyes, begging him silently to end this torture, he touched her in the center of her chest, between her breasts, with the tip of his index finger, pushing her down onto the edge of the bed.

  She sat there, tingling from head to toe, her feminine core clenching and unclenching with anticipation, as he knelt in front of her. First he undid the tabs on her garter belt, one by one, releasing their hold on her silk stockings. Then he lifted her right leg and slowly peeled off the first stocking, his hands gently seductive. After he rolled the first stocking below her knee, he painted a trail of damp kisses across the top of her thigh. She gasped. What a marvelous sensation. As he took the stocking down her calf, over her ankle and off her foot, his lips followed his hands. He lifted her foot and kissed each toe.

  “Such a small, delicate foot,” he said before placing it on the floor and turning to her other leg.

  He repeated the process of removing her stocking from the left leg. By the time he tossed that stocking on the floor atop the other one, J.J. was quivering, every nerve in her body alert.

  She held her breath when he looked at her breasts with longing and only after he unhooked her lace bra and brought the straps down her shoulders, did she breathe again. Her naked breasts rose and fell, the nipples tight and hard.

  “Beautiful. Very beautiful.”

  He lifted her breasts in his palms, then covered them and squeezed tenderly. When his fingertips circled her areola, she thought she would die. Then when she whimpered, he gave her what she wanted. He flicked her nipples with his thumbs and that action released a firestorm of pure sensation inside her. She cried out.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asked, concern in his golden-brown eyes.

  “No, no. Please, please, don’t stop.”

  He tormented her nipples, with his thumb and forefinger. Then while he pinched one aching point, he brought his mouth down over the other and suckled her until she thought she wouldn’t be able to bear another minute of such intense pleasure.

  Keening, the sound vibrating in her throat, she tossed back her head and thrust her breasts forward. Miguel rose up over her and then turned her in the bed until she lay flat on her back. Looking up at him, she opened her mouth with silent awe.

  “You’re beautiful, too,” she told him. “Very beautiful.”

  And very large and very aroused.

  Smiling at her compliment, he hooked his fingers inside her panties and pulled them down over her hips. When he stopped and nuzzled her mound with his mouth, her hips lifted of their own volition. As soon as he threw her panties on the floor, he joined her on the bed.

  They gazed into each other’s eyes, the tension between them electric. His eyes still on hers, he mounted her, delving deep with the first lunge, taking her completely, filling her to the hilt. For half a second she felt stretched beyond her limits, but her body soon adjusted to accommodate him and then she simply felt complete.

  And so the dance began, Miguel setting the rhythm. Deep, slow thrusts that made her body sing. She couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t touch him enough, kiss him enough, say his name enough. He was on her, around her, inside her and yet she wanted more of him. She wanted her flesh and bones to melt into his.

  He whispered dark, erotic words and phrases, moaning his desire and his intentions against her breasts. Suddenly he increased the tempo. Fast, hard jabs. J.J. shuddered, her core tightened, preparing for release.

  She clung to him, encouraging him with every breath, every movement, every moaned sigh. She repeated his name over and over again, like a worshipful chant. Her climax hit her, releasing the spring on her tightly wound sex, allowing her to come apart completely. She cried and gasped and dug her nails into his back.

  And then he jackhammered into her, giving her a second orgasm when he came. He roared out his pleasure, the sound rumbling from deep inside him. And then, after the aftershocks had rippled through them, he fell to one side and stared up at the ceiling, his breathing hard and fast.

  She lay beside him. Sated. Spent. Deliriously happy. And totally, irrevocably in love.

  Chapter 14

  Dom sat with J.J., off camera, in a small, crowded room, as they waited for the moment the on-air commercial would conclude and the cameras would turn to Miguel. More
nervous than she could remember ever being, J.J. had clasped and unclasped her hands a half-dozen times. She had rubbed her palms up and down her dress slacks until she feared she had thinned the gabardine. And she had glanced at the oval utility clock on the wall every two minutes. When she tapped one foot up and down, Dom reached over and placed his hand on her knee. She stopped immediately.

  “You’re making me nervous, honey,” Dom said. “Calm down. He’ll be all right.”

  Leaning toward Dom, she spoke in English as quietly as possible, hoping not to be overheard. “No, he won’t be all right. He’s aware that by swearing he will run for president, no matter what, he might be condemning other people like Carlos to death.”

  With so many supporters around them—everyone from Roberto and Emilio to Juan, Aunt Josephina and Seina—J.J. felt suffocated. And muffled. She couldn’t say what she wanted to say to Dom, couldn’t vent her frustration and anger at the top of her lungs. If only she could scream. Just once.

  Dom took her hand and gave it a good squeeze, then released it. “God forbid anyone should think I’m flirting with my cousin’s fiancée.”

  “Yes, God forbid.” Knowing he had hoped to gain a smile from her, J.J. failed him. The best she could do was to stop frowning for a brief moment.

  “You’ve gotten in over your head on this one, haven’t you?” Dom said.

  She pinned him with a be-quiet glare. “You have no idea,” she whispered. Both Roberto and Emilio spoke some English and although both men knew who she really was, she didn’t want to share her private feelings with either of them.

  Lowering his voice, Dom said, “I never in a million years thought you’d fall for a guy like Ramirez.”

  J.J.’s mouth curved into a self-deprecating half smile. Thinking what a fool she must seem to Dom, she replied, “I didn’t see it coming. It caught me totally unaware. Attraction is one thing, but…”

  “You’re in love with him.” Dom looked at her, sympathy in his black eyes.

  She didn’t respond. She didn’t need to.

  “It is time.” Emilio signaled to the group by fluttering his hands. “Quiet everyone. The future president of Mocorito is about to speak to us.”

  J.J. said so softly she wasn’t sure Dom heard her, “Take care of him when I’m gone.”

  Dom mouthed the words. “I promise.”

  Mario Lamas, the Nationalist Party sympathizing owner of Nava’s television station faced the in-house and at-home audience. First he cleared his throat. Then in a loud, distinct voice he announced that tonight Miguel Cesar Ramirez would be speaking to the people, speaking to them from his heart. Mario went on to praise Miguel, to recount his humble beginnings and brag about him as a teacher might a favorite student. As Mario’s introduction continued, J.J.’s thoughts escaped from this place, from this moment in time, to the most glorious two hours of her life. Two hours spent with Miguel in his bedroom suite, shut off from the rest of the world. For those one hundred and twenty minutes, she had been in heaven. The heaven she and Miguel had created together.

  These next fifteen minutes would be pure hell for Miguel and if they were that agonizing to him, then they would be to her. His pain was her pain. But once the deed was done, once he had made his stand, drawn his line in the sand, there would be no turning back. All they could do was wait for Hector Padilla and his Federalist cohorts to make their next move. Her instincts told her that they would strike again and soon.Another murder? The death of someone else near and dear to Miguel? But when would it happen?And to whom?

  Hating the helpless feeling of knowing there was nothing she could do to prevent another tragedy, J.J. stood and paced around the room. As she passed by Aunt Josephina and Seina, the two women flanking Juan, she offered them a weak smile, doing her best to reassure them that all was well. What a damn lie!

  This small room at the studio was filled with people who loved, admired and respected Miguel. Having realized upon their arrival tonight what a perfect time this would be to kill those closest to Miguel in one fell swoop, she and Dom had thoroughly searched this room and then Dom had excused himself and gone over every inch of the television station.

  “Mind if I take a couple of your security guards with me to check things out?” Dom had asked Mario. “I just want to make sure my cousin is safe tonight for the broadcast.”

  Mario had not only given Dom his permission, he’d sent four security guards with him and given them orders to follow Señor Shea’s every command.

  “Best I can tell, this whole place is clean,” Dom had told her. “If the bad guys are planning something, I don’t think they’re going to blow this place sky-high. At least not tonight.”

  “They must know what Miguel plans to say tonight. Whoever the traitor in Miguel’s camp is, he or she must already have shared the information with Padilla.”

  “You said he—or she. Do you think the traitor could be female?”

  “I don’t know. If it is, we can rule out Dolores, of course. So that leaves only Ramona and Aunt Josephina and both of them seem devoted to Miguel.”

  The moment Miguel appeared on screen, everyone congregated in the small room at the station broke out in applause. J.J. clapped the longest and the loudest, a part of her wanting to whistle and stomp her feet and shout, “Viva Ramirez! Viva el presidente.”

  God, what love could do to a woman!

  From the very second Miguel spoke his first word, J.J. kept her gaze focused on the television screen mounted on the wall. He looked so handsome. He had chosen his suit, she his shirt and tie. Clasping her hands in her lap to prevent them from trembling nervously, she recalled buttoning his pale blue shirt and wrapping the gray, navy and white striped tie around his neck, then tying it. He had kept kissing her while she knotted his tie and she had laughed as she struggled to keep her mind on the job at hand. What she had truly wanted, just as he had, was to go back to bed and make love again.

  Tonight, she told herself. Tonight when this is over, when we go home, when we are alone in his bedroom suite. They would make love all night long.

  And in the morning she would leave. Tonight might well be the last time she would see Miguel, the last time they would be together. Neither of them knew what the future would hold.

  Diego sat in front of the television in the wood-paneled study of his father’s home. Even though his mother now owned this fine house, which would one day be his, he would always think of it as his father’s home. Reminders of Cesar Fernandez were in every room. Diego’s mother had altered nothing since her husband’s death. His favorite pipes remained on the desk in this room and the smell of his tobacco still permeated the upholstery and drapes. The liquor cabinet contained his preferred liquors and every article of clothing he had owned remained in the closets and chests upstairs. An oil painting of Cesar in his youth hung over the fireplace here in the den and another of him, in his prime, hung over the mantel in the front parlor. And Diego’s mother kept her wedding photograph of a smiling young couple in a silver frame on her bedside table.

  As Diego downed another swig of his father’s aged brandy, he wondered how a man who had been loved so devotedly by a woman such as Carlotta could have lowered himself to sleep with the likes of Luz Ramirez, a gutter whore from the Aguilar barrio.

  Looking at Ramirez on the television screen, Diego saw his father’s fine features. The nose, the mouth, the bone structure identical to their father’s. Yes, damn it—their father. Miguel looked far more like Cesar than either Diego or Seina. Diego had been told by many people that he was a cross between his parents. And who had not heard numerous times that Seina was the image of her grandmother Fernandez, for whom she had been named.

  “I have come to you tonight to pledgemy life to you, the people of Mocorito,” Miguel Ramirez said.

  Diego lifted his glass and saluted him.

  The man had the eyes of a jungle cat. Yellow-brown. Cunning. Dangerous.

  When Diego had arrived home today, his mother had met him at the do
or, ranting and raving about Seina having packed a bag and left home. He had done his best to soothe his mother and assure her that, in time, Seina would come to her senses and return home. He knew better. His sister would never return home. And it was all his fault. His evil deeds had run her off.

  “Everyone in Mocorito is aware that my chauffeur was murdered, but what you do not know is that threats have been made against others, against those closest to me,” Miguel said. “I have no proof against anyone. We do not know who killed Carlos or who might perpetrate other crimes against my family, my friends and my supporters.

  “But I say to you—and to them—if their purpose is to force me to withdraw my candidacy, then they have failed. I will continue campaigning, continue seeking your vote. No matter what happens, I promise I will give you, the good people of Mocorito, the choice between two candidates. Between Hector Padilla and Miguel Cesar Ramirez!”

  “And I’m going to vote for you, you bastard,” Diego saluted Miguel a second time with his now nearly empty glass of brandy. “If you live to election day.”

  Hector Padilla seethed as he listened to Miguel Ramirez address the people of Mocorito. Damn fool, Hector thought. Or was the man a heartless bastard? Yes, that was how they should play this. The man was willing to let innocent people die, murdered by some unknown madman intent on keeping Ramirez from becoming president. Of course he would do nothing himself, say nothing. But his publicity people could spin an ugly little tale and share it with the newspapers, as well as broadcast it from person to person, like juicy gossip.

  He had ordered the chauffeur’s death, had even specified that he wanted it to be particularly bloody. But three deaths had obviously not been enough to convince Ramirez that he should do the right thing. Perhaps another death would be necessary. A fourth death, even closer to home.

  Such a pity that Miguel had feelings for his pretty little American bodyguard. It would be doubly tragic when she was struck down. The country would mourn for Miguel and he would be devastated. Then, if he insisted on continuing his candidacy, the people would know him for the heartless bastard he was. How could he put his own ambition above the lives of others?