by Kim Lawrence
‘Look, I’m not … there’s something you should know about me—’
This time the distraction was even more severe. Having kicked away his trousers, he was walking to the bed wearing just a pair of boxers that were totally inadequate to disguise the level of his arousal.
A pulse of sexual longing slammed through her body.
‘We have all done things we are not proud of.’
Oh, God, he obviously thought the thing she wanted to get off her chest was more along the lines of ‘my night of passion with a football team’, not ‘I’m actually a clueless virgin’.
He arranged himself beside her, long, sleek and incredible, and slid his hand inside her shirt. ‘No, really—’ The rest of her protest was lost in his mouth, then a second later gone … as his tongue stabbed deep into her mouth and she thought, I can do this!
It felt natural … easy and wildly exciting to kiss him back, touch his skin, taste … ‘Oh, God, I want to taste you.’ Fascinated by the fluid-looking ripple of muscle under his satiny skin, she reached out, spreading her fingers across the ridges of his flat belly, and felt him gasp.
‘Dios Mio!’ he groaned, tipping her onto her back and almost simultaneously slipping the buttons on her blouse with dexterity that suggested a lot of practice.
Just as well one of us has, said the practical voice in her head.
‘You will,’ he promised throatily. He buried his face between the soft swell of her warm breasts, pressing them together as he slid the straps down her shoulders, peeling back the lace cups to expose the rosy peaks of her breasts.
When he applied his tongue to first one rigid nipple and then the next, Lucy pushed her head deep into the pillows, exposing the long line of her white neck as she let out a low keening cry.
Her reaction drew a deep masculine growl of appreciation from his throat. Madre di Dios, she was so exquisitely sensitive!
One hand resting on her rapidly rising ribcage, he removed her bra completely, freeing up her magnificent breasts. The visual impact brought flashes of colour to the high contours of his cheekbones.
His hands were shaking as he removed her skirt and finally the little lace pants underneath. While he did so he was conscious of her passion-darkened eyes watching him from under her half-closed eyelids; the sexual tension crackling in the air around them was explosive.
A muscle in his lean cheek clenched as his hot glance slid over her silky pale curves. She was the epitome of all things feminine, there was not a sharp angle in her lovely body.
‘You are a goddess,’ he breathed.
Lucy shook her head. She did not want to be a goddess—they got put on pedestals. She wanted to be held and touched.
‘No, I’m a woman.’ Your woman, she said silently in her head.
The first skin-to-skin contact was overwhelming, a total sensory overload. Her hand slid to the tight curve of his buttock, hard under the boxer shorts he still wore.
Taking her hands captive, he rolled her onto her back and, pinioning them lightly, he knelt over her.
He released her hands as he moved down her body, touching her with his fingers and lips and tongue until all her skin was burning and tingling. She had no idea how long this sweet torment went on, but he seemed to know exactly where and how to touch her, to bring her to a point where there was only Santiago and mindless pleasure. The two were the same in her head.
‘This is so …’ She writhed, her head flung back, her arms curved above her head as he kissed his way damply down her stomach, still caressing her aching breasts as he moved lower. The hot, liquid throbbing ache between her legs had become almost unbearable when she felt his fingers slide along the silky skin of her inner thigh. She stiffened and felt rather than saw his questioning gaze.
‘Is something wrong?’
Heart thumping a wild tattoo that vibrated through her body, she opened her eyes, her greedy gaze sliding over the gleaming muscled contours of his sleek, powerful body.
She looked at him and thought, Nothing at all. I want this … She had never wanted anything more than she wanted this … him … now.
In reply she shifted slightly and let her thighs part.
The symbolic invitation wrenched a low feral moan from his throat as he slid the shorts down over his hips.
Her awed gasp of, ‘Oh, my goodness!’ drew a fierce grin from Santiago, who kicked away the shorts.
Holding her eyes, he took her hand and curved her fingers around the satiny hard column of his erection.
Her blue eyes flew wide then as her fingers tightened. Heat spread through her body and she closed her eyes to intensify the tactile sensation.
‘Enough!’ Primitive hunger burning through his blood, Santiago took her hand in his and touched her, sliding his fingers across the engorged nub. Her wild cries of delirious pleasure deepened the level of his arousal.
Unable to resist the primitive fire burning in his blood, he could no longer fight the need to bury himself inside her, to feel her tightness around him.
Kissing her, he settled over her, nudging her thighs farther apart with his knee as he slid between them.
‘Look at me.’
Lucy was looking at him when he drove deep into her.
She was too involved with what was happening to her own body, the incredible sensation of being filled and stretched, to register his hoarse cry of surprise.
She responded instinctively to the slow erotic movement of his body, rising to meet him, pulling him deeper, wrapping her long legs around him to hold him close to her core, sinking into herself with him.
The sensations were incredible, the pleasure so intense, so sweet, that it brought tears to her eyes. They slipped unchecked down her cheeks.
Swept along on a wave of sensation that was both exhilarating and terrifying in its intensity, she hung onto him, loving his weight pressing her down, loving his hardness filling her—loving him!
‘Let go, let go … querida,’ he urged between the kisses he pressed on her parted lips.
Lucy nodded in agreement even though she had no idea what he meant, then she did.
It felt like falling weightless through space. She had no control over the intense pulses of wild pleasure that spread out through her body like golden arrows; she just gave herself up to them and let it happen.
She was in the centre of this firestorm of hot sensation when she felt his hot pulsing release inside her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘THIS isn’t possible?’ Though his skin was still hot and slick with sweat Santiago’s face was very pale as he rolled away.
Not willing to lose the skin-to-skin contact so soon, Lucy looped her thigh across his hip and scooted in closer until they lay side by side again. She lay her head against his hair-roughened chest, running her finger around the flat, pebble hardness of a male nipple.
Lucy lifted her head in protest as he caught her hand and pressed it into the pillow.
‘Lucy, will you stop that? I’m trying to …’ He stopped. She looked like a lovely wanton angel lying there. How the hell was it possible that he had been her first lover …? A frown pleating his brow, he tried to join the mental dots but no matter which route he took nothing became clearer.
‘You’re trying to what? Work out why someone took out an injunction to stop a blackmailing bitch selling her sordid kiss-and-tell story when the bitch in question was a clueless virgin?’
The muscles along his jaw tightened as Santiago ran his hand down her smooth thigh, dragging her in closer. ‘Do not use that word.’
‘Which one—bitch or virgin?’ He did not smile back. ‘All right, it isn’t complicated, but it is long. I won’t bore you with the details.’
‘Bore me.’
His tone did not invite debate so she took a deep breath and launched reluctantly into her explanation.
‘I did a charity catwalk show and I was introduced to Denis Mulville. He was an advertising executive working for one of the sponsors.
‘Long story short, he
made me an offer that he thought I couldn’t refuse—I did.’ She gave a shudder. The man with his horrible wet mouth, fake smile and fake tan had turned her stomach, but she had not realised at that time that he was dangerous.
‘He was persistent, flowers and gifts, et cetera, but I sent them back and ignored him, assuming at first that he’d lose interest. Then things got a bit nasty—nobody says no to Denis Mulville apparently.’ She felt the tension in Santiago’s body and lifted her head. ‘Nothing physical, just texts, emails, that sort of thing. Not threats, just suggestions—it was all quite subtle, not nice.’
Santiago, who had struggled to control his feelings while she had laid bare the bones of a story that made his blood boil, swore savagely under his breath. Not nice, a classic example of British understatement, but he was not British and there was nothing understated about the murderous rage hardening inside him.
‘The man stalked you,’ he said flatly. ‘How was it the injunction was against you?’ The world had condemned her and he had been only too eager to jump on the bandwagon taking her guilt as a given. He sucked in a deep breath, self-disgust tightening like a fist in the pit of his belly as he thought of the things he had said.
‘His final revenge. I wouldn’t sleep with him so he invented an affair, confided in friends—actually it seemed everyone knew about it except me. He laid the groundwork so when he claimed later that I was trying to blackmail him he was believed.’
Santiago swore. ‘What happened to innocent until proved guilty?’
You did not, he told himself, have to care about a person to care about an injustice—and caring had nothing to do with admiration or respect. After all, how could you not respect someone who had risen above something that would have destroyed many? And she had done so with incredible dignity, not lowering herself even once to the level of the creep who had tried to destroy her.
‘This wasn’t a trial, it was an injunction. The same rules do not apply,’ she told him quietly.
‘Madre di Dios!’ he grated, burying his face in her fragrant hair as he pulled her into his arms, dragging her body across his.
Lucy sighed as she pushed her face into the angle between his shoulder and chin.
‘His identity was protected but not mine—my name was out there, and the best bit was I wasn’t allowed to say a word … It was a total gagging order. I couldn’t defend myself against anything they decided to write about me.’ She rolled onto her back and grabbed a pillow, hugging it to her chest as though it would protect her from the memories.
As he listened to her relate the story in that flat little voice Santiago felt the tightness in his chest increase to the point where he could barely breathe past the outrage he was experiencing. How could she seem so calm, so lacking in bitterness after what had happened to her?
‘But the same order protected his name, though of course everyone knew. You’ve got to hand it to him—it was the perfect revenge … almost poetic when you think about it. Now if I’d really been thinking on my feet I’d have told him I was gay.’
Santiago was not fooled by her laugh. ‘He did this because you refused to go to bed with him.’
‘Like I said, poetic.’
‘Poetic it is … the man is …’ He snarled a savage oath and said a word that was not in Lucy’s vocabulary, one she was guessing she would not find in many dictionaries, either.
‘He’s petty and vindictive and not actually worth wasting my life thinking about.’ Lucy had lost count of the number of times she had told herself this.
‘But when the injunction was lifted …? You were free to speak then …?’ This aspect puzzled him. Why hadn’t she shot the bastard down in flames when the opportunity came to expose him to the world for what he was?
If it had been him he would have served up justice with a smile on his face and a figurative sword in his hand. Never mind a pound of flesh, Santiago would have claimed the whole worthless carcass!
Lucy tilted her head in acknowledgement as she pushed the pillow under her head. ‘Oh, sure, I could have made a fortune with my story.’ Despite her joking tone she had received offers. The mocking smile curving her lips vanished as she added sombrely, ‘What would have been the point of resurrecting it?’
The dull thud pounding like a metronome in his temples, grappling with the information, the knowledge of what she had been through and come out smiling the other end … he felt a fresh stab of shame when he thought of how he had judged her … How many other people had done the same?
‘Besides, everyone that mattered already knew I’d done nothing wrong. My family were great. They stood by me. I know it was hard for them reading that stuff about me, especially since Dad and I hadn’t talked in three years, but when—’
‘You were estranged from your father? I thought that the Fitzgeralds were tight.’
‘We are but that doesn’t mean we don’t have our fallings out. Dad had plans for me but I wanted something different. With Dad there was only one way and that was his so …’
‘He threw you out?’ Santiago frowned. As a father he could never imagine a situation where he would deliver an ultimatum that would run the risk of him losing his daughter.
She nodded, seeming to him remarkably philosophical about the past.
‘That’s why I was modelling to begin with. My dad brought his kids up to be independent and strong, or that’s his version of it.’
‘Not your version?’
The question drew a rueful laugh from Lucy. ‘No, more yours. I sometimes struggled to conform.’ And frequently failed completely.
His dark brows hit his hairline. ‘You’re suggesting I’m like your father …?’
The startled offence in his voice dragged a laugh from Lucy. She ran a hand down his muscled flank and pressed a kiss against the centre of his hair-roughened chest.
Santiago’s mind struggled to stay on track as his lust stirred into life.
‘I suppose you have as much in common as powerful men with principles do.’
‘So you think I have the odd principle.’
‘You’re not all bad,’ she admitted huskily.
‘So what was your father’s version of strong?’
‘Never admitting you’re wrong even to yourself … oh, and tears are definitely out, and, well, actually I think his method of teaching his children to swim about sums up his attitude to parenting.’
Santiago’s brows lifted. He knew the man by reputation obviously, but … ‘Not seriously …?’
‘Yep, he threw us in the deep end of the pool and we either sank or swum.’ Santiago looked shocked so, anxious to dispel any impression that her father had been a monster, she added hastily, ‘Not that he’d have let us actually drown. He threw us a lifeline if necessary.’
‘And was it necessary with you?’ He found himself seeing her as a kid trying to please her father, trying to keep up with her older siblings.
‘No, I got to the side, after a fashion.’
‘And what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger …?’
The reminder of her earlier comment made Lucy grimace and grin.
‘Or in your case fearless.’
Lucy heard the grudging admiration in his voice and thought, If only you knew. If he got to know the real Lucy he would be very disappointed, but no problem because he wouldn’t.
‘I get scared,’ she admitted.
‘When were you scared?’
‘I was scared stiff of being awful in bed.’ This was weird—after years of successfully boxing up her feelings she was leaking information like a sieve.
He ran a finger down the curve of her cheek and felt her tremble. His lips curved upwards into a smile that left his eyes dark and burning. ‘You weren’t.’
She lowered her eyes, suddenly feeling shy, which was crazy after what they had just shared.
‘I get that after the Mulville guy you might have been wary of getting involved, but before surely there were boys … men?’ It still made no sense to him t
hat a woman who was so sensual should come to his bed a virgin.
‘I dated when I was young but my dad scared them off.’
‘The idea of Gabby bringing home boys brings me out in a cold sweat.’
She laughed and tossed a pillow at his head. ‘You want to start worrying when she doesn’t bring them home.’
He grinned back, looking so handsome that her heart flipped and skipped a beat. ‘You have a point.’
‘So didn’t you have men queuing round the block when you were a model?’ His dark glance made a leisurely journey from her soft lips to her full, firm breasts and back. He swallowed. ‘I find that very hard to believe.’
‘Actually you’d be surprised, but, sure, I dated a little. The thing was, it usually turned out that the guy wanted a trophy girlfriend to parade in front of his mates and I didn’t fancy being anyone’s arm candy. In my experience the nice guys assume you are unattainable when you’re a model or brainless. I once thought of seeing …’ She flushed a little as her eyes fell from his. ‘But I chickened out. It all seemed so … clinical. That probably sounds stupid to you.’
Santiago thought of the woman he had shared a bed with this time last year and could not remember her face; she probably couldn’t remember his. For a moment he almost envied Lucy. ‘No, not stupid.’ Just untarnished and idealistic—the sort of woman who could be hurt … He pushed away the thought.
There had been no coercion. She had wanted this as much as he had … so why couldn’t he shift the vague sense of guilt?
‘Besides, it was no problem.’ She had simply assumed she was not highly sexed. ‘Probably because I didn’t know what I was missing.’ Now she did, but it remained hard to imagine doing what she had with Santiago with any other man.
‘And now you do.’
Lucy nodded, her eyes darkened to midnight-blue as she gazed into his face … The emotional ache of longing in her throat increased as she greedily absorbed the strong lines and planes of his proud patrician features.
‘I’ve never been anyone’s first before …’ Cool and spiky on the outside and smouldering and sensual on the inside. The idea of being her second, third and fourth pretty much consumed him. He had never experienced the sort of rampant, relentless hunger he felt when he looked at Lucy in his life before. It was a chemical reaction, quite arbitrary, but it was easy to see why people who found themselves in the grip of such relentless passion mistook these feelings of lust for love.