His lips twitched, then settled into a sensual curve. ‘Erotic?’
‘There’s champagne in the bar-fridge,’ Carly announced inconsequentially. ‘Would you like some?’
‘I’d like you to repeat what you said to me on the phone,’ he commanded gently, and her eyes were remarkably clear as they held his.
‘I love you. I always have,’ she stressed.
‘Grazie amore.’ He reached out and pulled her close in against him. His lips brushed her forehead, then began a slow, tantalising trail down to the edge of her mouth.
‘You’re my life,’ he said huskily. ‘My love.’
There was such a wealth of emotion in his voice; she felt a delicious warmth begin deep within her as a thousand tiny nerve-endings leapt into pulsating life.
‘So many wasted years,’ she offered with deep regret. ‘Nights,’ she elaborated huskily. ‘Dear heaven, I missed you.’
Her eyes widened as she glimpsed the expression in those dark depths mere inches above her own, then she gasped as his mouth moved to cover hers in a kiss that left her feeling shaken with a depth of emotion so intoxicating that it was as if she was soaring high on to a sensual pinnacle of such incredible magnitude that she felt weightless, and totally malleable.
‘Don’t,’ Stefano chastised softly. ‘We have today, and all the tomorrows. A lifetime.’
Her eyes were wondrously expressive as she lifted her hands and wound them round his neck. ‘What time do you have to be back at the office?’
‘I told Renate to reschedule the remainder of the day’s appointments,’ he revealed solemnly.
A delightfully bewitching smile lit her features, and her lips curved to form a teasing smile. ‘We have until two, when I visit Ann-Marie in hospital.’
His hands slid down over her hips, and she gloried in the feel of him as he drew her close and brushed his lips close to her ear. ‘We’ll go together.’ The tip of his tongue traced the sensitive whorls, and she shivered as sensation shafted through her body.
A soft laugh bubbled up from her throat to emerge as an exultant sound of delicious anticipation. ‘Meantime, I have a few plans for the next few hours.’ Leaning away from him, she murmured her pleasure as he loosened his hold so that she could slip the jacket from his shoulders.
His eyes gleamed with humour, and a wealth of latent passion. ‘Do you, indeed?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Her fingers set to work on his tie, then the buttons of his shirt. The belt buckle came next, and she hesitated fractionally as she undid the fastener at his waist and freed the zip. ‘Something wildly imaginative with champagne and strawberries.’ A bubble of laughter emerged from her throat. ‘It’s rather decadent.’
His shoes followed, his socks, until all he wore was a pair of silk briefs.
‘My turn, I think.’
With unhurried movements he removed every last vestige of her clothing, then he leaned down and tugged back the covers from the large bed before gently pulling her down to lie beside him.
His kiss melted her bones, and she gasped as his mouth began a treacherous path of discovery that encompassed every inch, every vulnerable hollow of her body.
By the time his lips returned to caress hers, there wasn’t one coherent word she was capable of uttering, and she clung to him, eager, wanting, needing the sweet savagery of his lovemaking.
A long time afterwards she lay catching her breath as she attempted to control the waywardness of her emotions, then slowly she moved, affording him a similar pleasuring until he groaned and pulled her to lie on top of him.
‘Minx,’ he growled softly, curving a hand round her nape and urging her mouth down to his. ‘Keep doing that, and I won’t be answerable for the consequences.’
‘Promises, promises,’ Carly taunted gently as she initiated a kiss that he allowed her to control. Then she rose up and arched her back, stretching like a kitten that had just had its fill of cream.
The soft sigh of contentment changed to a faint gasp as he positioned her to accept his length, and now it was he who was in command, watching her fleeting emotions with musing indulgence as he led her towards a climactic orgasmic explosion that had her crying out his name as wave after wave of sensation exploded from deep within her feminine core, radiating to the furthest reaches of her body in an all-consuming pleasurable ache that gradually ebbed to a warm afterglow, lasting long after they’d shared a leisurely shower and slipped into the complimentary towelling robes.
‘Hmm,’ Carly murmured as Stefano came to stand behind her and drew her back into the circle of his arms. ‘I’m hungry.’ She felt his lips caress her nape, and she turned slightly towards him. ‘For food, you insatiable man!’
‘Do you want to dress and go down to the restaurant, or shall I order Room Service?’
She pretended to consider both options, then directed him a teasing smile. ‘Room Service.’ She was loath to share him with anyone, and although the time was fast approaching when they must dress and leave she wanted to delay it as long as possible. ‘Besides,’ she teased mercilessly, ‘there’s still the champagne.’
Choosing from the menu and placing their order took only minutes, and afterwards Stefano pulled her back into his arms and held her close.
She drew in a deep breath, then released it slowly. ‘I’ve been giving some thought to going back to work next year.’
His eyes took on a new depth, then assumed a musing speculative gleam. ‘What if I were to make you a better offer?’
‘Such as?’
‘Working from home, maintaining order with my paperwork, liaising with Renate?’
Carly pretended to consider his proposal, tilting her head to one side in silent contemplation.
‘Flexible hours, harmonious working conditions, and intimate terms with the boss?’ she teased.
‘Very intimate terms,’ he conceded with a sloping smile.
‘I accept. Conditionally,’ she added with attempted solemnity, and was unable to prevent the slight catch in her breath. ‘I’m not sure of your stance on employing pregnant women.’
He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then he kissed her, so gently and with such reverence that it was all she could do not to cry.
‘Thank you,’ Stefano said simply, and she smiled a trifle tremulously.
‘If this pregnancy follows the same pattern as it did with Ann-Marie,’ she warned with musing reflection, ‘I’ll begin feeling nauseous within the next few weeks.’ She wrinkled her nose at him in silent humour. ‘How will you cope with a wife who has to leap out of bed and run to the bathroom every morning?’
‘Ensure that you have whatever it is you need until such time as you feel you can face the day.’
Carly blinked rapidly, then offered shakily, ‘Did I tell you how much I love you?’
Room Service delivered their lunch, but it was another hour before they ate the food. Afterwards they slowly dressed and made their way down to the car park.
‘I’ll follow you to the hospital,’ Stefano said gently as he saw her seated behind the wheel of her car. ‘Travel carefully, cara.’
‘We really should stop meeting like this,’ Carly declared with impish humour, and heard his husky laugh. Her smile widened into something so beautiful that he caught his breath. ‘People might get the wrong idea,’ she said with mock-solemnity.
‘Indeed?’
‘Indeed,’ she concurred with a bewitching smile. ‘I think we should limit it to special occasions.’
‘Such as?’
She fastened her seatbelt, then fired the engine. ‘Oh, I’m sure I’ll think of something.’ With a devilish grin, she engaged the gear, then eased the car out of its parking bay. ‘Ciao, caro.’
She felt deliciously wicked as she cleared the exit and slid into the flow of traffic. An exultant laugh emerged from her throat.
Anyone could be forgiven for thinking she was a mistress having an affair with a passionate lover. And she was. Except that the lover was her husband, and th
ere was nothing illicit or furtive about their relationship.
Only mutual love and a shared bond that would last a lifetime.
* * * * *
Now, read on for a tantalizing excerpt of Louise Fuller’s next book,
CONSEQUENCES OF A HOT HAVANA NIGHT
The wild vibrancy of Kitty’s new home in Havana must be infectious. Why else would the naturally cautious rum distiller have succumbed to the sudden desire to seize one night with a stranger? But if it’s shocking to learn that César is actually her powerful, elusive boss, it’s nothing compared to Kitty’s latest bombshell—she’s pregnant!
Read on for a glimpse of
CONSEQUENCES OF A HOT HAVANA NIGHT
CHAPTER ONE
GAZING OUT AT the sun-soaked, shimmering turquoise sea, Kitty Quested held her breath.
IT WAS STRANGE to imagine that this water might one day be curling onto the shingle beach near her home in England. But then, even now, nearly four weeks after arriving in Cuba, everything still felt a little strange. Not just the sea, or the beach—this incredible scimitar of silvery sand—but the fact that for now this was her home.
Home.
Lifting the mass of long, copper-coloured curls to cool her neck, she felt her throat start to ache as she imagined the small coastal village in the south of England where up until a month ago she’d lived out her whole life.
Birth.
Marriage.
And the death of her childhood sweetheart and husband Jimmy.
Pushing back the brim of her hat to see better, she blinked into the sunlight as a light breeze lifted her hair, blowing fresh against her cheek and reminding her of everything she’d left behind.
Her parents, her sister Lizzie and her boyfriend Bill, a two-month tenancy on a one-bedroom terraced cottage overlooking the sea. And her job at Bill’s start-up, distilling what had become their first product: Blackstrap Rum.
She felt a sharp pang of homesickness.
When Miguel Mendoza, director of operations at Dos Rios Rum, had called her three months ago, to discuss the possibility of her creating two new flavours for the brand’s two hundredth anniversary, she’d never imagined that it would lead to her moving four thousand miles across the Atlantic Ocean.
If she’d allowed himself to think about it she would have refused. She’d been flattered to be asked but, unlike Lizzie, she was by nature cautious, and the hand she’d been dealt in life had taught her to be wary. Accepting the Dos Rios job would not just boost her salary, it would mean leaving everything and everyone she’d ever known. But, five years after Jimmy’s illness and death had put her life on hold, change was what she wanted and thought she needed in order to put her grief behind her and start living again.
So, five minutes after putting the phone down, she’d called him back and said yes.
And she didn’t regret her decision. Her new home, a white single-storey villa, was beautiful, and only a short walk from the beach. Everyone was friendly, and after three years in Bill’s cramped stillroom working in the vast state-of-the-art Dos Rios lab felt like a treat. In so many ways it was absolutely the fresh start she’d imagined. She’d made new friends and was building a career. But one part of her life remained untouched—
Her throat tightened.
And it was going to stay untouched.
Reaching up, she captured the dark red hair spilling over her shoulders and down her back. At the airport she’d promised her sister that she would ‘let her hair down’. It was an old joke between them, because normally she tied it up, here in Cuba though she had started to let it hang free.
But her hair was one thing…her heart was another entirely.
Jimmy had been her first love, and she couldn’t imagine feeling about any man the way she had felt about him. Nor did she want to. Love, real love, was both a lightness and a weight, a gift and a burden, one that she didn’t have it in her to give or receive any more. Of course nobody really believed her—her friends and family were convinced that it was just grief talking—but she knew that part of her life was over, and no amount of sunshine or salsa was going to change that fact.
Glancing down into the water, she felt her pulse jump as she spotted a cantaloupe-coloured starfish floating serenely in the gin-clear shallows.
Starfish! What was that in Spanish? she wondered. It wasn’t the kind of word she’d learned in the lessons she’d been taking back home—the lessons that had seemed less like a hobby and more like fate when Dos Rios had offered her this four-month contract.
Star was estrella and fish was pescado, but that didn’t sound quite right. If only Lizzie was here to help. Her sister had studied Spanish and French at university and had a natural affinity for languages, whereas her own dyslexia had made even learning English a challenge.
Pulling out her phone, she was just about to look up the word when it began to vibrate.
Her lips curved upwards. Speak of the devil! It was Lizzie.
‘Are your ears burning?’ she asked.
‘No! But my feet are soaking wet. Will that do?’
Hearing her sister’s burst of laughter, Kitty started to smile. ‘Why are your feet wet?’
‘It’s not just my feet. I’m soaked through. And please don’t tell me that you miss the rain!’
‘I wasn’t going to,’ Kitty protested—although she did, actually.
‘You were thinking it.’
Kitty laughed. ‘It must be quite a downpour if you got that wet going from the house to the car.’
‘The car wouldn’t start so I had to walk to the station. I missed my train, and then the next train was held up, and the waiting room was closed for renovations, so me and all the other poor sad wage-slaves just had to stand on the platform and get wet.’
‘I thought you were going to get a new car?’
‘And when we need to, we will.’ Lizzie spoke calmly. ‘So stop fretting and tell me why my ears should be on fire?’’
Kitty felt the tightness in her chest ease. Lizzie and Bill had basically supported her, not just emotionally but financially, for the last four years. When Jimmy had been admitted into the hospice she had moved into Lizzie’s spare room, and after his death Bill had asked her to help him with his latest venture—a micro rum distillery.
It had been an act of kindness and love. They hadn’t really been able to afford her salary, and she’d had no experience and nothing to offer except a degree in chemistry.
She could never truly repay them, but after all the sacrifices Lizzie had made the least she could do was convince her sister that they had been worthwhile and that her new life was fabulous.
‘I wanted to know what the Spanish word is for starfish,’ she said quickly. ‘And I thought you’d know.’
‘I do—it’s estrella de mar. But why do you need to know?’ Lizzie hesitated. ‘Please tell me you’re not adding starfish to the rum? Bill and I ate them in China—on sticks like lollipops—and I really don’t recommend it.’
Kitty screwed up her face. ‘That is gross—and, no, of course I’m not going to put starfish in the rum. I just keep seeing them in the sea.’
She heard her sister groan. ‘You’re looking at one right now, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you be at work? Or have I got my times wrong again?’
Kitty grinned. ‘I’m not in the office, but this is work. I’m doing research.’
Lizzie said a very rude word that her mother had once sent Kitty to her room for saying.
‘Well, I just hope you’re covering up. You know how easily you burn.’
Glancing down at her long-sleeved blouse and maxi-skirt, Kitty sighed. ‘The sun isn’t that hot now, but I’m wearing so much clothing and sunblock I’m probably going to come back paler than when I left anyway.’
‘Who knows? You might not come back at all. Not if that gorgeous boss of yours finally decides to pay a visit to his hometown and your eyes meet across a deserted boardroom…’
Hearing the teasing note in her sister’s v
oice, Kitty shook her head. For all her pragmatism, Lizzie was actually a committed believer in love at first sight—but then she had every reason to be, having met Bill in a karaoke bar in Kyoto on her gap year.
Kitty, on the other hand, had not even had to leave her house to meet Jimmy. He’d lived next door and they’d met before they’d even been able to walk, when his mother had invited her mother over for tea one afternoon when they were just babies.
‘I work in the labs, Lizzie. I don’t even know where the boardroom is. And even if he does come to Havana, I don’t suppose my “gorgeous boss” will even know who I am, much less care.’
After she’d hung up, having promised to call later, Kitty made her way back up the beach to the forest that edged the sand. It was always cooler there than anywhere else.
She wasn’t rushing—and not just because the pine needles were slippery to walk on. It was just how people did things in Cuba. Even at work everyone moved at a pace of their own making, and after a week of replicating her typical English nine-to-five day she’d surrendered to ‘Cuban’ time. It had felt odd at first, but the sky hadn’t come crashing down—and, as Mr Mendoza had told her the first time they’d spoken—she was her own boss.
But as she made her way along a path edged with sea grape and tamarind trees, her cheeks felt suddenly warm. What was she talking about?
Like everything else on this untouched peninsula, these trees, the beach, probably even the starfish, were all part of the Finca el Pinar Zayas estate. A private estate that belonged to el jefazo—the big boss, as his staff referred to him.
César Zayas y Diago.
His name was not so much a name as a spell. Rolling her tongue over the exotic syllables, she felt her stomach tighten nervously, as though even thinking them inside her head might have the power to conjure the man himself to this deserted woodland.
Some hope!
Lizzie might imagine that she was going to cross paths with the Dos Rios boss, but so far she hadn’t even spoken to him on the phone. He’d copied her in on some emails, and she’d received a letter of congratulations allegedly from him when her contract had been finalised, but realistically it was unlikely that he’d even seen it.
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