by Dani Collins
“My sister, Ellie,” Scarlett said, mortified at what he must have overheard. “Mum couldn’t make it. Ellie, this is Javiero.”
“I didn’t want the train ticket to go to waste.” Ellie swanned across to shake his hand. “And I fancied a taste of London’s nightlife. Sounds like you two were about to enjoy some yourselves. Mind if I tag along? I haven’t caught up with Scarlett in ages.”
“Of course,” Javiero said as Scarlett opened her mouth.
“I’ve booked Ellie into a hotel,” she hurried to assure him. “Our tame, early dinner isn’t what she had in mind for nightlife.”
“Oh, it’s definitely a start,” Ellie said. “Get dressed while I chat up your fiancé?”
Scarlett had never zipped herself into a dress faster.
When they got to the restaurant, she could have cried. It was exclusive and intimate and obviously a careful choice by Javiero for its air of romance. There was a small dance floor and a live trio playing swoony tunes. If they had come here alone, it would have been a perfect evening.
Instead, it was an uncomfortable meal, with her sister asking pointed questions about Javiero’s properties while making not-really-kidding suggestions that he introduce her to his rich friends. All the while she swallowed back one fancy cocktail after another.
Scarlett was dying to end the night, but didn’t want a scene.
“Have you had many bites on doing hair and makeup for the movies? I thought you were planning a trip to California?” Scarlett tried to keep Ellie talking so she wouldn’t swill her drinks.
“Oh, yes. So generous of you to pay for my cosmetology courses. Not sure why I have to work at all when you’re rolling in dough the way you are. She always plays it like she made such a great sacrifice,” Ellie said to Javiero. “Getting a cushy job working for your old man, traveling all over the world with him, talking him into giving us our own house. Where are you in Spain? Do you have a beach house I could visit?”
“Ellie,” Scarlett muttered.
“What? This sort of life is only for you? Not the rest of us lowlifes?”
“I told you, things have been difficult. I’ll see what I can arrange for you in way of a holiday if you behave yourself,” she said through her teeth.
“Ooh, sounds like someone will be getting lucky tonight,” Ellie said with a smirk at Javiero.
He had barely said a word all evening, and Scarlett was so appalled she couldn’t meet his gaze. She cut things short before dessert, insisting she had to get back to Locke.
“I’ve tried to pull off your innocent act, but never had the success you have,” Ellie said in a slur as Scarlett poured her into a cab to her hotel. “Trading up from a Sugar Daddy to a Baby Daddy and being all like, What? I got pregnant by accident.” Ellie clutched her hands beneath her chin and blinked her eyes, then saluted her. “My hat is off.”
“I am so sorry,” Scarlett said when she and Javiero were in his car. “Ellie was thirteen when I left for uni. It was only a few years later that I went to Greece. I’ve never spoken frankly to her about how that came about. To her mind, I’ve made a habit of running away from our problems and had everything easy while she struggled in school and felt saddled with Mum.”
“Are you going to see your mother tomorrow?” he asked stiffly, making it clear he didn’t want to listen to her defend Ellie.
“She has an appointment.” The despondency ringing through her made it impossible to admit where her mother was going. “We could come to New York with you?”
“Unnecessary.” His flat refusal dashed any glimmer of hope that he wasn’t thoroughly repulsed by her family.
I tried to warn you, she wanted to say as she twisted her engagement ring.
“I’ll join the London team leaving on the charter in the morning. You can have my jet to fly back to Madrid when it suits you.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, because what else could she say? Don’t go?
The thick silence stayed fixed between them when they returned to the flat. She said she would check on Locke and Javiero said, “I have an early start. I’m going to bed.”
He was still awake when she crawled in beside him, though.
“Javiero, I’m really sorry. I wanted tonight to be…” She hesitated to say special, afraid it would be too revelatory. She didn’t want to come off as insecure and needy, even though she definitely was. “Are we okay?”
“Of course.” He sounded brisk, though.
She searched the dark, trying to read his expression. They had been so attuned a few hours ago, but that accord had been snuffed as quickly as blowing out a candle.
“I was…” She swallowed, certain she would have to make the moves here if she wanted to bridge the divide. “I was looking forward to making love with you,” she confessed in a whisper. She wanted him to love her, but she knew that wasn’t something she could force. She didn’t even know how to inspire it.
His silence made her shrink into herself.
“We don’t have to rush it,” he finally said in a strained voice.
“You don’t want to?” She dared to slide her hand across the mattress and find his arm. She went farther, to his bare chest, where the fine hairs prickled and his beaded nipple poked her palm.
“I’m sure you could persuade me, if you set your mind to it.” She couldn’t read his expression, but his voice sounded faintly bitter. Self-deprecating, perhaps?
Her hand jerked, but she left it on his chest, where his heart was thumping steadily. She knew all the filthy things that Ellie had said must be ringing in his head, but they weren’t true! She wanted him for him, not his money or his father’s.
“Are you saying I should, um, seduce you?” Her voice thinned on the last words.
“If you want to.”
She didn’t know how. She lost herself every time he touched her, but it wasn’t a conscious thing. It was pure response and uncouched greed for the feel of him. For the pleasure of being stroked and petted, kissed and caressed. She loved how loved she felt when they were close like that.
She didn’t know how to bring him to that sort of pitch, though. She was thinking, This is it. This is where I lose him, but as she started to withdraw her touch from his chest, she felt the twitch in his arm, as though he wanted to stop her drawing back and only kept himself from it by freezing at the last second.
She could feel the strain in his tense muscles, suggesting his control was being tested.
In a bold move, she circled his nipple with the edge of her thumb and heard his faint inhale. It was incredibly encouraging.
She slid closer, but he stayed on his back, only moving his arm to curl it beneath his head so she could align herself alongside him. When she kissed his jaw, he turned his head, but let her take the lead on teasing him into parting his lips. Although she kept waiting for evidence of his natural inclination to dominate, he stayed almost passive, as though testing her resolve.
Or was his interest that tepid?
Anguished by the thought, she drew back a little, but her hand had shifted to his flat belly and it was rock hard. She smoothed the rippling muscles across his abdomen, traced the line of hair down the center, circled his navel and let her hand slide lower.
He was very hard.
It was the reassurance she had needed. She kissed him again as she stroked him, her own body growing languid and excited. She crooked her knee and rested her thigh across his, lying against him as she kissed and caressed him.
She dipped her head to press her mouth to his chest and the raised line of one of his scars met her lips. Stark fear of loss echoed through her. So close… He had been so close to being out of her reach forever.
She rubbed her lips with more purpose against the scar, trying to kiss it better. Heal it. Trying to tell him how grateful she was that he was here.
His hand came up to her
hair as though to pull her away—something that might kill her when she had such an aching emptiness in her chest. Such an unbearable need to be close to him.
She moved to his nipple and pressed an openmouthed kiss there, teased the bead with her tongue and enjoyed a rush of confidence as he sucked in a breath that swelled his chest.
His response stayed stubbornly muted, however. It was frustrating. She wanted the wildness. She needed to know he wanted her the way she wanted him. She ached for the tenuous connection between them to be forged into steel by white-hot fire.
Had his desire for her been killed tonight? She couldn’t bear the thought.
She slid herself fully atop him, lips tracing from shoulder to shoulder across the smooth skin against his collarbone and over the muscles of his chest.
His hand left her hair and she thought he was going to embrace her; instead, both his arms went up to the headboard, catching under the edge of it so he was one long, straining beast beneath her. Her heart leaped with excitement.
She was having an effect on him. Whatever he was trying to prove to her or himself wasn’t easy for him. With a secretive smile, she danced her open mouth down his torso, following where her touch had strayed, dislodging the sheet as she went.
His musky scent filled her nostrils as she took a blatant taste of his salty length.
His whole body jerked and she pushed at his thighs, making room for herself to explore with her touch and her tongue. Filled with helpless craving, she did everything she could to give him pleasure. She wanted him to fall apart, to feel as vulnerable to her as she was to him.
Just when she thought he couldn’t grow harder or thicker, couldn’t possibly hold on to his control, he said in a rasp, “I need a condom.”
She rose to kneel between his legs. “I’m on the pill.”
“Let’s not take chances.” He rolled and reached into the side table drawer, withdrew one and handed it to her.
Shakily she tried to apply it, but she’d never done that before. He finally brushed her touch away and said, “I’ll do it. Take off your nightgown.”
He sounded distant and implacable. Not nearly as moved and aroused as she was. Her eyes grew damp with helplessness as she threw her nightgown off the bed and stayed kneeling where she was.
“Come.” He finally touched her, guiding her to straddle him. “This is what you want, isn’t it?”
“Is it what you want?”
“I just put on a condom. What does that tell you?”
His hands were on her now and he ran them over her, greedily filling his palms with her breasts and hips and the round cheeks of her butt, as if he couldn’t get enough. One hand rode up the front of her thigh, and his thumb slid inward to part her damp folds. When he found the slick center of her, he made a rumbling noise of satisfaction in his chest.
Here, finally, was the lover who had been generously teasing her past the point of no return each night. She wanted to give that back to him and shifted, rising to guide him to her entrance, then slowly taking him in.
Oh, dear.
“Hurt?” he asked gruffly, making her aware she’d caught her breath.
Had that been the source of his reticence? Worry? Tenderness filled her as she folded herself onto him.
“It feels really good,” she sighed. His penetration wasn’t so much painful as painfully intense. Profound. She hadn’t had a lot of sex and he’d been her only lover in years. Now they had so much between them—not just a son, but history and a tangle of emotions that still remained knotted. They had a very tentative trust that needed protecting, but in this moment, she felt incredibly close to him.
She kissed him with abandon, long and deep, letting the joy of being entwined with him spin her into that depthless space of pure, luxurious passion they always found. The eddies of arousal within her became a deeper imperative. Her hands roamed over every inch of him that she could reach while his own hands molded her back and hips and thighs.
When she began to move, he guided her. Moved with her. Let her sit tall while she touched where they were joined. Moments later she was crying out with exaltation, shaken by her powerful orgasm. Breathless, she sank bonelessly onto him.
With her skin damp and her heart still pounding, he rolled her beneath him and said, “My turn.”
“Mmm,” she agreed, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She locked her ankles behind his lower back and groaned with abandon as he began to thrust and withdraw in slow, powerful strokes.
When the tension wound tight in her again, however, and she hovered on the brink, he settled his weight on her, no longer thrusting, and soothed her down from the peak.
“What are you doing?” she panted, confused.
“You don’t like it?”
“No, it feels really good, but…” She made a restive noise and moved beneath him.
“I’m in charge now, Scarlett,” he said, and she felt his will like a force that took hold of her very soul.
He drew her back up to the peak and let it recede again, making her so crazy she wound up scraping her nails down his back and biting into his shoulder.
He laughed and nipped at her jaw. “What’s wrong, querida?”
“Don’t make me beg, Javiero.” She turned her face to the side and one tear leaked out her closed eyes and ran down her temple.
He made a noise of pity and gathered her in. When his lips found the dampness at her temple, he used his thumb to rub the tear into her skin.
“What do you want from me?” he asked.
“This. You.” More. She had wanted to return to what they had had eleven months ago. She had wanted their lovemaking to be a reset. A fresh start.
That had been the fantasy of a fool, but she couldn’t let him go, either.
She held him in a clasp so intimate she could feel the pulse of his heartbeat between her legs, but too much had happened to allow them to go back to that moment of profound pleasure and an unstained history. If she had stayed with him that day, she might have had a chance.
Now here she was, trying to recreate magic that had been an illusion in the first place.
Her heart beat outside her chest, trying to reach his, but his was closed off. How else could he hold her like this, on the brink of ecstasy, and deny them both?
When his mouth touched hers, she poured everything into the kiss, her heart and soul and all the love within her. All of this, what little she had of him, was going to disappear. She knew it. But she quit fighting his agonizing pace and savored it with him, wanting the moment to last forever. She held him deep as they drew out each caress and kiss. It imbued the act with something emotive and profound, until she was shaking under the intensity of this exquisitely powerful joining. A single press of his lips to the point of her shoulder became her world. She traced his crooked lips with her fingertip and it was the most exquisite kiss of her life.
When a frantic desperation closed her fist in his hair, trying to hang on to something she couldn’t grasp, he caught that hand and pressed it to the mattress, linking his fingers through hers.
Then he began to move. For real.
By that time, she was pure, liquid desire, steeped in arousal. The impact of his hips became something so beautiful and pure that the burn of tears hit her eyes again, these ones of veneration. Jubilation.
She loved him, she acknowledged, as the last vestiges of self-possession left her. She loved him with every fiber of her being.
But as the little death of climax overtook her and she faced the fact that nothing was eternal, most especially this brief paradise she had found with him, she felt something break inside her, and her tears squeezed between her lashes to track her cheeks.
CHAPTER NINE
JAVIERO EXTRICATED HIMSELF carefully from Scarlett’s sleeping form.
Waking her to say goodbye would be the decent thing, bu
t she had been up in the night and had come back to make love with him again, wordless and so intense he still felt like she’d stolen a piece of him.
He wouldn’t have touched her again if she hadn’t reached for him. He was still disturbed by the way she’d wept after their first lovemaking, which had followed that atrocity of a dinner with her sister. Given his turmoil after that, he wouldn’t have touched her at all. He’d been feeling riled and newly suspicious.
Was she a master gold digger and he the ultimate fool?
Whether she had set him up or not didn’t change the fact they had a son. But did they have a future?
If he could keep her at arm’s length, he would have done that by now, but she exerted this damned pull on him. He’d resisted it as long as he could, and then she’d taken apart his control piece by piece—which added to the grate of discontent in him.
Then she had cried afterward.
He’d hated himself, feeling like an animal even though she swore he hadn’t been too rough. She had mumbled something about hormones and fallen asleep, then reached for him again a few hours ago.
She hadn’t cried that time. She hadn’t said anything but his name, and that had been a cry of ecstasy while her body had quaked in climax beneath him.
Why had she wanted to make love again? Because they were a potent combination? Or because she wanted to keep him in a sexual stupor so he wouldn’t ask too many questions about her situation with her family?
He didn’t want to deconstruct their lovemaking or her motives and, most of all, wanted to avoid considering how powerfully their lovemaking had impacted him. He was left feeling knocked off his foundation. The entire night, from the first touch of her lips against the scar on his chest to the tender joining an hour ago, had been conducted behind his firewalls. He’d run the gamut of emotions from anger at her and himself, to suspicion and disgust, with impatience and hurt ego following. They all terminated in a greedy desire he hadn’t been able to resist.