“Dios, I thought—”
“Shut up,” she said and kissed him happily. “Just shut up and kiss me.” This time when she pressed against him he sank onto the chaise, putting his head on level with her belly.
*
Santiago wanted to attribute the drumbeats of his heart only to his lust for Esmerelda but couldn’t. Oh, he wanted her. That was part of it. But more than wanting, he’d been afraid that she had changed her mind. That she didn’t want him. The thought scared him more than he liked to admit. He pushed the dress up a few more inches so he could kiss the smooth skin of her belly and grinned.
The tiniest strip of golden satin he had ever seen covered her mound and a twinkling blue stone decorated her belly button. The sexy panties and body jewelry were something new. Saturdays and sundresses and sinning. He kissed the smooth skin of her belly, pushed his tongue against her belly button stone and listened to her sigh. Sinning. Dios, it had never felt so good.
“Saint, please,” she said against his mouth. He pulled her into a kneeling position on the chaise and tossed the sinful dress over his shoulder. Santiago caught his breath.
Esmerelda was more beautiful than she had been four years ago. The years had added a few curves to her body that weren’t there before. Instead of skinny legs and narrow hips, he caressed a curvy figure that women paid thousands to reproduce with plastic surgery. Breasts that could cause a man to make all kinds of bad decisions. For today, at least, that body was his. He tilted his head and their gazes met. Were his eyes smoldering the way hers were? Had to be, he thought.
“You’re more beautiful than I thought possible,” he said and pulled her down on top of him. Their lips met again and the fire building inside him pushed to inferno level. He had to have her. Naked on a hammock. He smiled against her face, remembering his thought from a few days ago. Well, this wasn’t a hammock, but he would finally have Esme, his Esme, again.
“One of us is still wearing too many clothes,” Esme said, her voice raspy with passion. Her fingers grabbed the tail of his tee shirt and tugged until his skin met hers and another article of clothing was winging its way across the terrace.
For once Santiago didn’t care that there were no guests. He was happy about it. No guests equaled more time to play with Esme on this one perfect day. She adjusted her position to straddle his legs and then stilled.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
A cold bucket of water would have had a better effect on him than those words said in that quiet voice filled with agony. Her fingers trembled against his ribs and abdomen. His scars. He had forgotten about the scars. Not that he cared about the disfiguring of his body, but he didn’t want or need her pity.
“When you said you crashed, that you. . . I never imagined water could do this to a person.” Esme’s fingers trailed fire over first one scar and then another, tracing lines over his ribs and down the side of his abdomen until the waistband of his shorts stopped her progress.
“Water can’t. Coral did most of that damage, surgeons the rest.” When she drew in another breath, Santiago shoved her hands away and sat up. “It isn’t a big deal. Just a few scars that will fade in time.”
“That sounds like a clinical opinion,” she said drily. “How did this happen, Saint?”
“You saw the news coverage,” he reminded her.
“And you told me just a day ago that it was just water.”
Dios , he hated that he was acting this way. The questions Esme asked were perfectly normal yet he couldn’t stop himself. He didn’t want pity from anyone, especially not her. He had a full life—or he would once the villa was up and running again and he could get out of Vallarta. He had plenty of money, friends. A few scars hadn’t changed anything for him. Esme’s eyes shuttered but not before he saw the flash of pain.
“I’m sorry. I’m not used to anyone not already knowing.” He shoved a hand through his hair, desperate to put distance between them but trapped by Esme sitting on his lap. Gently picking her up, Santiago sat her on the chaise and stood to pace the terrace. “It was water. Everywhere. Burning my throat, beating against my body and pushing me into the coral over and over. Tahiti is vicious when the waves are calm, but that day a storm was brewing to the south. My ankle line caught, battered me around some more. I was under for nearly three minutes. Four broken ribs, separated shoulder, cracked hip, and ripped the hell out of my knee.” She gasped and at her questioning look he continued, “Yes, the scars continue down my leg. So, now you have the full story, why don’t you go back inside?”
“Why would I do that?” Angry, she stalked across the tile to his side.
Santiago shrugged and looked away. She reached out, turning his face to hers. “You think a few scars mean anything to me? You think I’m that shallow?”
He searched her eyes for several minutes looking for something, anything, that would prove she pitied him. Sorrow was there, understanding, but there was no pity. She stood before him, naked, daring him to turn away from the moment. Esme dropped her gaze from his eyes to the scars and traced first one and then another, the touch of her skin searing the wounds as if to stop a heavy bleed. It was Santiago’s turn to draw a heavy breath.
“If you think for one second that a few scars could make me not want you. . . you’re an idiot. I’ve wanted to be with you since I was seven years old. As I grew up, the wanting to play turned into something else. I still want you Santiago. The question is do you want me?”
“Dios, yes. Yes, I want you, my Esmerelda. More than I’ve wanted anything else in my life.”
“Then take me,” she said and raised her arms to him. It was all the invitation Santiago needed.
He lowered Esme to the chaise, tracing her collarbone with his tongue, pressing kisses above and below the delicate line as she arched against him. His fingers found her breasts, the rosy tips hard and waiting. He tweaked one as his mouth lowered to taste the other. Eucalyptus. She not only smelled of the stuff, but tasted slightly spicy, just like the plant.
Esme reached between their bodies, the palms of her hands pressing against his belly. Her smooth fingers trailed over the hard muscles of his abdomen as if reading his body. The board shorts stopped her progress. Santiago started to rise, to stand so he could pull the shorts from his legs, but Esme stopped him.
“Let me,” she said and pushed her hands under the soft cotton. The shorts slid over his hips to drop over his ankles and she drew in another breath. She reached for him, her small hand encircling his erection in fiery silk. Santiago groaned, pressing his forehead against her chest. She squeezed and he felt more blood rush into his lower body.
“If you do that again, I can’t be held responsible for my reaction,” he said before flipping her so that she lay beneath him on the chaise. He took her mouth, his tongue plundering the way the rest of his body begged to. Santiago traced her ribs and abdomen, making Esme shudder. It was a powerful feeling. His hand continued its journey over her smooth hip to her upper thigh where she was wet and waiting for him.
He teased at her lips, pressing his finger into her through the thin silk protecting her mound.
“Oh, God, please. Santiago, please,” she whispered against his mouth.
Santiago wanted to play but realized he was at the brink of out of control himself. He hooked his index finger through the silk and pulled until it disintegrated in his hand. Then she was open and ready for him. He grabbed the board shorts from the floor, taking a condom from the back pocket and sheathed himself before pressing into her.
It was like coming home, Santiago thought. She was tight around him, her heat searing him through the thin condom. Familiar but different. She was no longer the young girl he remembered and yet he still knew her body as well as he knew his own. He gripped her hips, pressing himself farther inside her in a rhythm as old as time and that, too, was familiar. He remembered the pace she liked—steady like the waves in the ocean and just as powerful. He slid in and out for what seemed like eternity.
<
br /> “Santiago. Santiago,” she urged, raking her nails over his back and shoulders. “Now. Now, I need you.”
He quickened the pace and, reaching between them, found her hard nub and pressed. She exploded around him, her body stiffened and then went loose. Her fabulous green eyes dilated until he could see only a sliver of green in the blackness. It was only then he allowed himself to feel, to gallop over the edge and into the surf with his Esmerelda.
*
Esme lay under Santiago, concentrating on her breathing. In. Out. In. Out. She should feel mortified, letting go the way she had. Saying the things she had. Pleading with Santiago the way she had.
She didn’t, because he had said all too revealing things, too. He had let go—at least, he’d let go once she crested the wave of orgasm. And he was still breathing hard, too. So they’d both lost control. No biggie. Now at least they knew there was fire, no an inferno of lust, still boiling inside them. Maybe over the next few weeks they could work that boiling heat into more of a simmer. Maybe she could get him out of her system altogether.
“Stop thinking, Esmerelda,” he said, rolling his tongue over the r in her name, drawing the syllables out so that the word was a caress to her ear. “Just stop thinking for ten more seconds and then we can dissect what just happened between us. Ten seconds and I’ll be ready for that.”
She knew she should be incensed at his arrogant assumption that she needed to dissect what had just happened. But she did need to talk to him about it, because being with him now wasn’t like four years ago. Then, she had been head over heels for the rich boy down the beach and gotten her heart shattered. This was an all-consuming hunger she feared might be insatiable. No, she couldn’t talk to him about that. Just the sex. They could talk about sex and a temporary relationship; it was all he had to offer and it had to be all she wanted.
Santiago sat up, pulling her back against the chaise, and pulled the umbrella hood over the chair to shade them from the hot Mexican sun. Esme started to reach for her dress but Santiago stopped her. “It will only get in the way in a few minutes,” he said.
“Says you. I’d like to get dressed before someone sees us naked on the terrace and gets the wrong idea.”
“First, no guests. Second, you sent the workers away so there is no one to get the wrong idea. Besides, seeing you in that sinful dress and me naked wouldn’t exactly leave a lot to the imagination.” Esme tapped her foot against the cushion. “Third, if I’m going to make it through your twenty minute diatribe about how what just happened between us was a one-time thing, it was two old lovers quenching their thirst, I’m going to need a reward at the end. I can’t think of a better reward than doing the old-lovers thing again.” She smiled. He knew her so well. Scary thought.
He curved her body against his chest and Esme couldn’t stop her fingers from playing in the light sprinkling of chest hair. “So, go ahead, tell me how what just happened meant nothing. I’m already working up an appetite for my reward.”
She smacked him lightly, laughed, and cuddled into him. “The problem with sleeping with an old. . . friend is they know you too well. Okay, I was going to give you a million reasons why this happened and why it shouldn’t, but now I think I’ll surprise you. I think we should do this again. As soon and as often as possible and before you run screaming into the Mexican afternoon, I don’t mean I want a relationship with you. We’re business partners so we can approach this as just another partnership. The next six months are going to be intense. We’ll have to blow off steam from time to time. I don’t know about you but I haven’t blown off that much steam in a long time. So, partners with benefits?” There, that sounded like a grown up solution to their mutual attraction issued, didn’t it?
He watched her intently, his brows drawing together in. . . what? Confusion? He ran a finger along her jaw. “You have the most intriguing way of putting things. What happens when our six month business partnership is dissolved?”
Esme’s heart clenched at the thought but she refused to examine the reaction. “We can reevaluate then. I’m guessing you don’t want to live in Vallarta. I do. I’m tired of running businesses for other people. I want to build Casa Constance into a brand not just a single hotel. So I’m staying, Cruz Resorts be damned.”
“Cruz Resorts be damned,” he repeated and kissed her.
“What is it you want, Saint?” She desperately wanted to ask where he planned to go when he left, but just as badly, she didn’t want to know the answer. Esme knew it was ridiculous, but a small piece of her heart wanted to daydream that Santiago wanted to stay with her.
His hands, tugging gently on her hair, stilled for a moment. His index finger drew a circle on her back. Her stomach tightened and her nipples hardened. God, was this what teenage boys felt like ninety percent of the time? Like they had to have sex or die? Thank God she’d been born a woman.
“For now, I’m can’t imagine being anywhere else in the world,” he said, clicked a button on the chair to recline it back, and pulled her body over his once more.
Chapter Eight
“You’re killing me.”
Esmerelda snorted. She stopped outside yet another trendy gallery in Viejo Vallarta and Santiago sighed. In the last two hours she’d dragged him from the mercados of Rio Cuale, buying at least a truckload of colorful Mexican blankets and fluffy pillows, enough fresh linens to make up every bed in the villa three times, and two Huichol yarn paintings. Santiago usually left the decorating and designing part of his developments in the hands of professionals. Decorators, architects. People who knew what would look good in a sitting room or bedroom. As much as he didn’t want to be there, a small piece of him liked imagining them working together on each room. Setting it up to create the wow factor that was needed for their future guests.
And that was reason enough to get Esme out of these shops and them back onto his plans. She didn’t need to redecorate the villa when a few cans of paint would do a serviceable job over the next six months. But, seeing the happy look on her face, he couldn’t shut her down. There was more than enough money in the villa accounts now to pay for everything, he reasoned, and most of it could be re-sold when the time came for them to move on.
Them? No, him. Simple translation error. He would move on and so would Esme, but they wouldn’t move on together. No, this friends-with-benefits arrangement had a definite expiration date: six months from now. The band around his heart tightened, threatening to chip away some of the icy layers to the red-blooded heat below. Santiago swallowed hard and clamped down on his emotions. It was better this way, for both of them.
She instructed the gallery vendor to send three sets of hand-blown margarita globes, a score of shot glasses, and fifty wine goblets to Casa Constance by Monday. Her gaze caught on a large glass wall hanging behind the register. Veins of yellow and green ran through the underlying blue glass with tiny waves of cast iron making swells throughout the pattern. She tugged Santiago’s arm, sending a sharp thrill straight to his heart, effectively cracking the piece of him he wanted to be frozen forever.
“Oh, that’s perfect for the entryway, don’t you think?” She was asking him? He didn’t want to be her sounding board. Didn’t want to be part of this process at all. It looked like glass. Beautiful glass, but glass all the same. He looked around as if the few customers in the store would have an answer for him. No one paid them any attention. She looked at him. Expectantly.
“Over the mantle?” Dios, he was an idiot. Walking straight into the pit of partnership. Why couldn’t he just walk away?
She smiled. “Of course, can’t you just see the colors pop against the white walls?” Esme wrote another check—her seventh of the day—and they left the store. They couldn’t need much more from the local artisans. Could they?
“We don’t have white walls. They’re still grey.”
She waved a hand at him. “I caved. The crew you hired should be pushing brilliantly white paint across all that grey as we shop.”
; “Wonderful. Let’s go.”
“Since you’re making me jump out of a plane in a little less than two hours to surf the sky I think you can handle two more shops,” she said and dragged him into the next gallery.
“We have masks for three bedrooms, glass for the entryway, two yarn paintings, and more wooden whatever-you-call-them—”
“Chachkies.” She pushed open the door to a talavera, a business selling tiles for everything from flooring to bathroom sinks.
“We don’t need tile, Esmerelda.”
“We do, Santiago,” she said, mimicking his tone.
“We agreed on sparse. High-end.” Esme was taking this too far. She was renovating like she planned to run the place for years.
Of course she is, she thinks she’ll win because you’ve as much as told her so. Santiago squeezed his fingers over the bridge of his nose. He was setting her up and he couldn’t stop now. He had to win.
She waved the gallery worker over, picked several bowls and another wall hanging. “Do you do sinks here?” At the worker’s nod, Esme asked to be taken to the workroom. As they followed the worker back, she hissed. “You keep throwing this we around like I’ve had any choice. You took all of Constance’s furniture, tried to ruin those beautiful floors, and painted over my red walls. Do you know how empty the villa will look, since you took everything away, without the bare minimum I’m buying right now? We have seven-thousand square feet to fill and I agreed to your all-white furniture idea when I was distracted by the thought of your lips against my neck. White furniture and white walls are too...”
“Hospital ward-ish?” He echoed their conversation from the day before and she shivered.
“Yes. We need color or all the fancy magazine layouts and hot surfers in the world won’t entice guests back through our doors.”
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