But for once in his life his ardour had overcome the armour he usually had no problem keeping around his emotions. Only this witch of a woman made him weak. He dropped his dark gaze down to her firm, full breasts and involuntarily his hand moved, but firmly he shoved it in the pocket of his robe.
When he had walked through the connecting door he had fully intended joining Liza in the bed. But, seeing her lying there, her beautiful face frowning in sleep, he had bent to gently kiss away the worry from her brow, hoping she would wake. But, hearing her sigh, seeing her relax back into a deep sleep, he was content to do nothing more… Turning, he left the room.
CHAPTER SIX
LIZA shivered, feeling the chill in the air, her long eyelashes fluttering over half-open eyes. A watery sun illuminated the room in a blue haze, and she pulled the cover up to her neck and shifted sleepily. For a moment she did not know where she was, then memory returned. Of course—Spain; it was not as hot in winter here as Lanzarote.
Oh, God! Nick!
Liza twisted around and a dozen unfamiliar aches and pains in places she never knew she had made her groan. What had she done? Suddenly the erotic memories of the night before suddenly overwhelmed every other thought in her head. Had she really made love with Nick on the plane? Just the thought made her temperature rise. Nick was every woman’s fantasy lover. Her whole body blushed as she recalled her own feverish abandonment to the power of his lovemaking, and she no longer felt in the least chilled.
She pushed the coverlet back down to her waist, and drew in a deep, steadying breath. So they had made love, and she was now a fully paid-up member of the mile-high club. Not something she had ever aspired to, but, being honest, she did not regret it… But it was only a holiday affair, she reminded herself quickly.
Perhaps not even that; Nick had quite happily accepted her ‘No’ to making love in his mother’s house, and now, with the memory of the passion and the pleasure fresh in her mind, she wondered if she had been too adamant in her refusal to share his room.
She was a grown woman and perfectly entitled to explore her own sexuality, live for the moment if she wanted to, and, dear heaven, she wanted to, she thought wryly. There was no point in denying it, and, reaching her arms above her head, she stretched languorously, relishing the new sensually aware woman Nick had made her.
‘Now, that is a picture worth preserving.’ A deep, husky drawl shattered the silence.
Liza froze at full stretch, her gaze winging to the tall man entering the room, a tray in his hands… Nick. She studied him with helpless appreciation as he approached the bed, obviously fresh from the shower—his black hair was brushed severely back from his brow and his incredibly attractive face radiated vitality. A white towelling robe covered him from shoulder to knee, but afforded a glimpse of a hair-roughened chest. Her heart lurched at the sight of him.
‘I wish I had a camera,’ Nick murmured, studying her tousled appearance. With her long blonde hair tumbling around her shoulders and her arms above her head, the smooth, creamy lift of her perfect breasts was enough to make him harden. The dusky peaks tightening as he watched didn’t help.
Suddenly Liza realised she had parted with the towel some time in the night, and she was naked from the waist up, and Nick’s gaze was fixed on a certain part of her anatomy. Making a mad grasp for the coverlet, she pulled it up and tucked it firmly over her breasts, her face flaming.
What did you say to a man that you had had sex with on a plane? It was not a scenario she was familiar with, and her stomach cramped with nervous tension, but before she could think of a flip reply to fling back he added, ‘You’d make a great centrefold.’
His words underlined her secret fear; Nick had wanted only one thing from her, and he had got it with remarkable ease. She had no one to blame but herself. She had looked at him, wanted him, and foolishly imagined she could play him at his own game, and indulge in a sophisticated love affair with no strings attached. What had been an incredible experience for her, probably ranked as an easy lay for him…
The knowledge hurt, but also stiffened her shaky resolve. If an experienced woman of the world was what Nick wanted, then that was exactly what she would be. Calling on a lifetime of ingrained good manners, she said, ‘Good morning, Nick.’
Stopping at the side of the bed, Nick drew his brows together in a brief frown. He was used to a more enthusiastic welcome from the woman in his life. Why Liza was trying to appear cool when the blush in her cheeks declared otherwise, he had no idea. If he hadn’t shared the most incredible sex with her, he would have said she was embarrassed. But that wasn’t possible… He was not the first man she had slept with and he was not absolutely convinced she was innocent in the other matter either.
‘Good morning. Is that it?’ Black brows rose in sardonic amusement. ‘And here I was, hoping for a kiss at least,’ his dark eyes roamed with knowing sensuality over her luscious body, ‘after all we have shared,’ he concluded silkily and, putting the tray down on the table, he sat on the edge of the bed and reached for her hand.
Liza snatched her hand away, and fixed all her attention on the tray, unwilling to acknowledge the blatant sensuality in his look. There was a silver coffee-pot, a jug of cream, a bowl of sugar and two cups and saucers and a plate of pastries. ‘You’re joining me for breakfast; how nice,’ she said politely, and unwillingly her gaze was drawn back to meet Nick’s.
‘That was the idea. I did not think you would object.’ He noted her small hands clench in the coverlet and realised she was nervous. ‘I thought a woman of your incredible sexual aptitude would naturally share all my appetites,’ Nick teased, a slow, intimate smile curving his firm lips.
‘No—yes…of course not,’ Liza said in confusion, not sure if she should be flattered or furious he had found her satisfactory! Not sure he should even be here in her room, she thought, panic rising in her breast. ‘What about Manuel…? Your mother…?’ Liza heard her voice rising but was unable to control it as the full import of what she had allowed to happen hit her, and she turned red with embarrassment.
‘Take it easy, Liza.’ Nick chuckled. ‘Manuel and Marta always have Sunday morning free to attend church. As for mother, she is at church in Granada, and won’t be back for a while yet. She need never know that you are sharing a coffee with me.’ And with a wicked grin he added, ‘Stark naked beneath that sheet.’
The reminder of her nakedness made Liza blush even more, but his smile surprised her. Nick could amuse her and make her feel wanton at one and the same time. It was a lethal combination that made her even more wary. ‘Oh, just shut up and pour the coffee,’ she snapped.
‘I do adore a woman who can take charge occasionally,’ Nick drawled with a sardonic arch of one ebony brow. ‘Especially in the bedroom.’
‘Just pour the damn coffee,’ she reiterated, her temper rising. ‘I can do without sexual innuendoes first thing in the morning.’
‘Pity,’ Nick opined, but leant forward and filled the two cups from the jug and passed one to her. ‘I guess you’re not a morning person.’
Liza took hers and swallowed it down with unseemly haste, clattering the cup down on the tray with a less than steady hand. ‘Well, you’re wrong. I am once I have my caffeine fix.’ She strove for normality, but it was difficult with Nick sitting so close. She picked up a pastry and took a bite, but she had never felt less like eating, and it was such a struggle to get the food down she didn’t risk another bite, and dropped it back on the plate.
Nick chuckled, a deep, throaty sound, and reached out a long, elegant hand to sweep the tangled mass of her hair from her face. Then settled his arm around her shoulders, trapping her in the arc of his muscular chest. ‘Prove it, Liza.’
His stunningly handsome face was much too close; she could see the curling length of his lashes sweep his high cheekbones, and lift to reveal eyes glinting with amusement, the firm mouth also quirking at the corners with humour.
‘Prove what?’ She stared up at him with a
mixture of fear and anticipation.
‘This.’ And he covered her mouth with his own.
Her startled cry was silenced in her throat; she struggled wildly, lashing out at his great torso with curled fists. She was no man’s push-over…whatever Nick Menendez thought… With a husky laugh he tipped her back against the pillows, and captured both of her flaying hands in one of his and pinned them above her head, his long body pressing her to the bed, and then he was kissing her again with a hard, deep hunger that set her on fire.
Suddenly the reason for her resistance was lost in the chaos he made of her mind. She tried to pull her hands free to hold him and with another husky chuckle Nick lifted his head and stared down into her flushed face.
‘No, my lovely, I am not setting you free. I missed you in my bed last night.’ Instantly she was flooded with an emotion so powerful she nearly told him, she didn’t want to be free of him ever… Surely he could see that. He might be an overbearing, arrogant chauvinist, but she knew deep within her soul that he was everything she could ever want or need in a man.
She wanted back the friend she had missed, the lover she had only just discovered, and the intellectual and emotional strength that he had given so generously to a young girl before the episode that had made him her enemy.
‘Your mother…’ She made a weak attempt to object but her heart wasn’t in it. It was in her mouth as he kissed her again. She couldn’t get enough of his mouth, her tongue seeking his in a dance of desire that met and matched him with ever deeper abandon. She slid her hands over his shoulders removing his robe in the process.
His mighty chest heaved and finally Nick lifted his head, his breathing harsh and his eyes staring into hers with burning satisfaction. ‘Has no one ever told you it is not a good idea to remind a man of his mother at a time like this?’ he husked, the tension holding Nick’s huge, powerful body taut over hers relaxing slightly as he shrugged off the robe completely. His heavy thigh slid over her slender hips and his hand splayed under her bottom, and pulled her into fierce connection with the rigid strength of his erection, sending quivering arrows of exquisite delight up from the apex of her thighs to spread through every nerve in her body.
Lifting his eyes to hers, a gleam of devilment lurking in their depths, he said throatily, ‘But maybe you’re right. You just reminded me of the first pleasure in a male’s life—the joy of suckling.’
Leaning back, he looked his fill of the perfect mounds of her breasts, pale as magnolia with erect, rosy peaks. His hands cupped and shaped them, his thumbs teasing the straining nubs until Liza moaned her pleasure, and only then did he bury his hot mouth against her aching breasts. He laved his tongue over a rigid tip and then drew the tight bud into his mouth and suckled gently.
Helplessly Liza ran her fingers through the thick black hair of his head and urged him to deliver the same ecstasy to its aching counterpart and he obliged.
‘You like that,’ Nick teased and then replaced his mouth with his hands, rolling the distended, dusky nipples between his thumb and forefinger, while he trailed a burning line of kisses down over her flat stomach.
He nudged her long legs apart and, swamped in sensation after sensation, Liza helped him, and when his mouth delivered the most intimate kiss of all she welcomed it. Her slender hands grasped his wide shoulders and tremor after tremor shook her whole body, her nails dug into his flesh as the pressure heightened and heightened, until she thought she would die, and then suddenly it happened.
Nick reared up and, lifting her, plunged into the shuddering heat of her in one driving movement. ‘Dios! You feel fantastic, unbelievable.’
‘So do you!’ Liza cried out as she took all of him, and as he began to move she convulsed and convulsed again in a shattering climax. Her blue eyes flew wide and collided with molten black and his dark head bent and took her mouth in a deep, almost yearning kiss.
Incredibly the pleasure was rising again as Nick moved in a sensual rhythm, a driving urgency that Liza met and matched in a primitive, wild abandon that had her whimpering and crying out with pleasure. Then she felt Nick’s ferocious tension, and one last desperate plunge that seemed to rock her very womb. She climaxed again as his great body shuddered over her. He groaned out something in Spanish but she was too far gone to hear, as his life force poured into her.
He had given her more pleasure than she had ever imagined existed, and yet when it was finally over, and their sweat-slicked bodies lay entwined in exhausted abandon, she felt the chill tendrils of fear snake through her tired mind.
Nick had only to appear for her to collapse into his arms. How on earth was she going to hide her helpless reaction to him? Nick was conceited and arrogant enough already about women if the gossip columns were to be believed. He did not need her adding to his tally.
‘Nick, Nick.’ She pushed at his broad shoulders. ‘Please get up.’
‘What?’ His tousled head lifted and he thrust up off the pillow, releasing her from his weight. ‘Flattered as I am you think I am capable,’ he lay half over her and pushed her tumbled hair back from her flushed face, ‘it is going to take me a little longer to recover,’ he teased with a lazy smile, while his fingers toyed with her long blonde hair, smoothing a few strands down the elegant line of her neck, and over a slender shoulder.
Inflamed by his teasing comment and suddenly aware it was broad daylight, ‘It’s the middle of the morning,’ Liza yelped. He knew damn fine what she meant, and she jerked her head free and wriggled out from under him, and dragged herself up into a sitting position. Nick collapsed down on his back and slanted her a wicked grin.
‘So…’ he drawled. ‘You’re not so innocent as to believe people only make love at night.’ Nick laughed.
It was the laugh that did it. Liza glanced down at him. He looked incredible, she thought, swallowing hard, his tanned torso sleek and vibrant against the blue sheets, his black hair flopping over his brow, and his sinful black eyes glinting with mocking amusement.
‘It’s not in the least amusing,’ she snapped, her temper rising, along with it a great dollop of embarrassment at how easily he had overcome her scruples about making love in his mother’s house, conveniently ignoring that she had wanted him to!
‘What will Manuel, your mother think? They might be back any minute.’ She was getting into her stride. ‘But then I don’t suppose the great Nick Menendez ever needs to consider other people’s feelings, you arrogant swine.’ She was overreacting…being an absolute bitch…but with emotions raw and new tearing at her heart she didn’t seem able to stop herself. Yet she knew it was her own sense of insecurity making her behave so unlike her usual calm self.
Nick jerked up, his lean face strong and taut, and for a split-second Liza saw a flash of raw fury in his dark eyes, and then his sensuous mouth curved in a faint smile.
‘A stickler for propriety, Liza, and this from a girl who had no qualms about rolling around with a man in the stable of this same house,’ he drawled sardonically.
All Liza’s confidence and any attempt at sexual sophistication shrivelled and died. She felt as if he had knifed her in the stomach, the pain was so intense she could not look at him. Nick had never changed his mind about her. He never would, and she had foolishly thought she could have a holiday romance.
Romance! What a joke. Sex with her was just a game to him. A game he wanted to win. The same as he won everything else he set out to achieve.
Nick saw the hurt in her eyes, before she turned her head away, and he immediately wished the mocking words unsaid. He remembered his anger at finding Liza in the arms of that boy, but he had no right to throw it back at her, and especially not when he was lying naked in bed with her. How crass was that? And totally out of character for him. For once in his life he was ashamed of himself. He admired women and prided himself on his courteous treatment of any woman he became involved with.
Was he going mad? No, it was Liza; she was driving him crazy. His usual cool control deserted him as soon
as he got anywhere near her. Volatile emotions were not something he had ever suffered from and it was all her fault. His dark eyes swept over her near-naked figure and he almost groaned.
Pride and anger coming to the fore, Liza made herself look at him. ‘I was sixteen and foolish,’ she snapped, and for a second she thought he winced. No, not the mighty Nick, she told herself. ‘But I have matured and learnt better over the years.’ Head high, her eyes blazing, she added, ‘You obviously have not. You are still the arrogant, chauvinistic devil you always were. You still ride roughshod over any woman if it suits you.’ And with that she flung her legs over the edge of the bed.
There was no way Nick was letting her get away with that; his own anger rising, he grasped her around the waist and hauled her back against him. ‘Damn it, Liza.’ He fell back on the bed with a squirming Liza lashing out at him. He spun her around until she was spreadeagled on top of him. ‘Stop it, woman,’ he growled as her hands scratched his neck and, grasping a hank of her hair, he twisted it around his wrist and pulled her head down to claim her mouth with his. He was not letting her go until her temper cooled. So he kept her where he wanted her, until he felt the fight go out of her, and only then did he let her come up for air and end the kiss.
‘Call me all the names you like, Liza,’ he said roughly, planting a gentle kiss on her throat, ‘but you are wrong— I don’t override all women.’ And he kissed her again, sliding his hands down her spine and holding her close to his mighty body, his hard body… He tilted back her head, and saw the shimmer of sensual awareness she could not hide, and as he brought his hand slowly up her thigh he felt her tremble.
‘In fact I rather like a woman overriding me,’ he drawled throatily, and kissed her again. The next time he set her free and murmured, ‘Care to try it?’ Her hands were on his shoulders and his were around her thighs as he lowered her onto him.
At the Spaniard's Pleasure Page 8