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Admittedly, she was uniquely attracted to Mateo Celeca; he had a presence, a confidence that was difficult to ignore. But how did she feel about him beyond the physical? Yesterday, after he’d tried to degrade her over the money she’d loaned, she’d thought him little more than a self-serving snob. And yet, tonight, when she’d met his friends … had been his date …
Her stomach looped again.
After that episode with Emilio, the last thing she wanted was to get caught up in a man. Any man. Even when he gave generously to the orphanage where he’d spent his earliest years. Even when she felt as if she’d found a slice of heaven in his arms.
Since that dance, the air between them had crackled with a double dose of anticipation and electricity. If, when they got home, they started talking, got to touching, she didn’t know if she’d want to stop.
After they pulled into the garage, Mateo opened her door and helped her out. Their hands lingered, the contact simmered, before his fingers slipped from hers and he moved to unlock the internal door and flick on the lights. Gathering herself—straightening her dress and patting down her burning cheeks—Bailey followed into the kitchen.
“Care for a nightcap?” he asked, poised near the fridge.
Bailey clasped the pocketbook Natalie had loaned her under her chin and, resolute, made a believable excuse.
“I’m beat. Practically dead on my feet. Think I’ll go straight up and turn in.”
As she headed out, Bailey laughed at herself. He might not even want to kiss her. She could be blowing this awareness factor all out of proportion. But prevention was always better than cure. She’d accepted his invitation to stay a couple more nights. She didn’t want to do something they both might regret in the morning. And if they got involved that way, there would be regrets. Neither was looking for a relationship. She certainly didn’t want to get caught up in a man who, only yesterday, had as good as called her thief. A man who might set her pulse racing but who could never get serious about a woman in her situation.
And yet, he had asked her to France….
When Mateo reached the foot of the staircase, he stopped and turned to face her. Standing there, simply gazing at one another in the semi-darkness, she had this silly urge to play down the scene, stick out a hand and offer to shake. But, given past experience, probably best they didn’t touch.
“Thank you for the lovely evening,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
Still, he didn’t move.
“Well …” Clutching her pocketbook tighter, she set a foot onto the lowest stair. “Good night.”
“Good night, Bailey.”
When she began to climb, he started up too. They ascended together until they hit a point where the stairs divided into separate branches. A fork in the road.
Her stomach twisting with nerves, she chanced a look across. He was looking at her too, a masculine silhouette a mere arm’s length away.
Swirling desire pooled low in her belly and she frowned. “You’re not moving.”
“Neither are you.”
Rolling back her shoulders, she issued a firm and final, “Good night.”
She hiked the rest of the stairs, right to the top. But before she could head off down to her suite, curiosity won out again. She edged a gaze over her right shoulder, to where she’d left Mateo standing seconds ago. What she saw sent her heart dropping in her chest.
He was gone. And wasn’t that what she’d wanted? What she knew was best for both their sakes?
Still, she stared at that vacant spot a moment more, feeling strangely empty and no longer so pretty in her pink designer dress. Shifting her weight, she finally rotated back … and ran right into Mateo’s solid chest.
Her heels balanced on the edge of the stairs, Bailey toppled back. But before she could fall, his arm hooked around her waist, pulling her effortlessly against him. Déjà vu. With the bodice of her dress pinned to his chest—with every one of her reflexes in a tailspin—she worked to catch her breath before croaking out, “I thought you were tired.”
“You said you were tired.” His dark eyes gleamed. “I’m wide awake.”
When she felt his hardness pressed against her belly, she gulped down another breath only to feel him grow harder still. Any doubts she may have had were blown away. The way her own blood was throbbing, taking this steadily growing attraction further seemed frighteningly inevitable.
“Maybe …” She wet her suddenly dry lips. “Maybe we should have that nightcap after all.”
His gaze dropped to her lips. “What kind of nightcap?”
“What would you like?”
His mouth came to within a whisper of hers.
“I’d like you.”
Six (#ulink_6689aa2c-decc-5be9-9b4b-0625e40dec3d)
He didn’t waste time waiting for her reply. Bailey supposed he saw all he needed to know in her eyes. He angled and, before she could think beyond I need you to kiss me, she was in his arms and he was moving down the hall, away from her suite, headed for his.
The tall double doors of his suite were open. He didn’t bother to kick them shut after he’d carried her through. Nor did he switch on any lamps. What she could make out in the shadows was courtesy of the light filtering in from the hall as well as the moonbeams slanting through a bank of soaring arched windows that looked out over that garden and its statues below.
He stopped at the foot of his bed and his voice dropped to a low rasp.
“This is what you want?”
Instinctively, her palm wove around the sandpaper of his jaw. She filled her lungs with his scent then skimmed the pad of her thumb over the dent in his chin.
“Yes,” she murmured.
His chest expanded, his grip tightened then he lifted her higher in his arms as his head came purposefully down. When his mouth claimed hers, Bailey couldn’t contain the moan of deepest desire the sensation dragged from her throat. She didn’t want to contain anything. And as his mouth worked magic against hers and his stubble grazed and teased her skin, she pressed herself up and in, needing to feel even closer. Needing him as close as it got.
Her fingers wound through his hair while his throat rumbled with satisfaction and the kiss deepened. Even as her mind and body raged with desire, she was lucid enough to recognize the simple truth. Whatever it was that had sparked when they’d met, it had grown to a point where now they were downright hungry for each other. Starving for each other’s touch in a primal nothing-held-back, nothing-taboo, kind of way. She could never get enough of this burn … of the flames that already leapt and blazed nearly out of control.
When his lips gradually left hers, she felt dizzy. Her eyes remained closed but she heard and felt his breathing. At the edges of her mind, she wondered … why was this coming together so intense? So combustible?
He dipped to sit her on the edge of the mattress. With moonlight spilling in, she dragged the dress up over her head then, in her lingerie, watched as he wound the shirt off his shoulders, the sleeves from his arms. When he was naked, he bent near, slid an arm around her waist and drew her up to stand again. Holding her chin, he ran the wet tip of his tongue along the open seam of her mouth while, at her back, he unsnapped the strapless bra with one deft flick. His palm pressed down the dent of her spine and slipped into the back of her panties. She whimpered as her womb contracted and quivered … a tantalizing prelude to the climax she couldn’t wait to enjoy.
His fingertips pressed and seared into her flesh while his mouth covered hers completely again, and all the time her insides clenched and pulsed while her limbs and mind went to mush. She wanted this heaven to go on forever. But even more, she wanted him bearing down on top of her. Inside of her. Filling and fulfilling her now.
Her hands ironed down his sides. When she reached his lean hips, she urged him forward, toward her and the bed. With their mouths still joined, she felt his smile before he broke the kiss long enough to wrench back the sheets. With a determined gleam in his eyes, he crowded until the back of her legs met the cool edge of the mattress. His big hands ringed her waist and her feet left the ground long enough for him to lay her gently down. He followed a heartbeat behind.
Looming above her, everything seemed to still as he searched her eyes in a world of midnight shadows. His deep low voice seemed to fill the room.
“I didn’t ask you to stay here for this.”
She drew an aimless pattern through the hair at the base of his throat.
“I know.”
“Although I’m not sorry you agreed.”
She matched his grin. “I’m not sorry you asked.”
He dropped a tender kiss at the side of her mouth, a barely there touch that shot a fountain of star-tipped sparks through her every fiber.
“Come with me to France,” he murmured against her lips.
She groaned. The temptation was huge. She’d said no and had meant it. She was starting a job Monday. She didn’t want to take more charity. But those considerations didn’t seem quite so solid since he’d carried her to his bed.
Closing her eyes, she sighed. He was kissing the sensitive spot beneath her left lobe.
“What if I say please?”
She bit her lip. He was killing her.
“I’ll tell you what.” She filed her fingers up over his burning ears, through his hair. “I promise not to say no again if you promise not to ask.”
He moved lower to nuzzle the arc of her neck. “I don’t like when you say no.”
“To everything but that, Mateo …” She hooked her leg around his hip and drew him close. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Mateo couldn’t stop to think about how his unexpected encounter with Bailey Ross had come to this. How they’d gone from strangers to opponents to lovers in less than two days. As he tasted a leisurely line along the perfumed sweep of her shoulder, he only knew these sensations were too intense to analyze. More intense—more vital—than he’d ever had before.
When her heel dug into the back of his thigh, letting him know again she was on the same page, he ground up against her but then grit his teeth and blocked that insistent heady push. Tonight would be sweet torture. He’d need every ounce of willpower to keep this encounter—his pleasure—from peaking too soon.
Working to steady his breathing, his pace, he sculpted a palm over the outside of one full breast as he shifted lower. His mouth covered that nipple before his teeth grazed up all the way, tugging the tip of the bead. Her hands had been winding through his hair but now she dug in and held on as she shuddered and moaned beneath him. He heard her desperate swallow and listened, pleased that her breathing sounded more labored than his own. Savoring the way her breasts rose and fell on each lungful of air, he twirled his tongue around that tip and tried to ignore the fact his every inch was ready to explode.
With her leg twined over the back of his, her pelvis began to move in time with the adoring sweep of his tongue. She murmured something he didn’t catch. But he wouldn’t ask and stop the bone-melting rhythm their bodies had fallen into. He didn’t want to interrupt for a moment the feel of her body stirring beneath his. He could lie here all night, doing precisely this.
If only his erection wasn’t begging for more.
He repositioned again, higher to savor the honey of her lips at the same time his touch wove down: over her ribs, the curve of her waist, the subtle flare of a hip, then up over the same terrain. He was performing a repeat descent, stroking and playing—anticipating the added treasures he’d discover this time around—when she grunted, shifted and pushed against his chest.
He froze. Then, eyes snapping open, he rolled away. What was wrong? Had he hurt her?
When she slid over too—on top of him—he held his brow and almost laughed with relief.
“What are you doing?”
Crouched on his lap, she slid her hips one way and the other then tossed back the hair fallen over her face. “What do you think?”
She slid up a little this time then down over his throbbing shaft. That sent him reeling way too close to the edge. He was thrilled she was so completely in the zone that she wanted to take the reins, but any more of that kind of maneuvering and he’d reach the finish line way too soon.
He flipped her over so she lay on her back again, him firmly on top. While she peered up at him, a saucy glint in her eyes, his hand burrowed between them, down the front of her panties, and his erection grew heavier still. She was warm and moist. When his touch curled up between her folds and pressed against a woman’s most sensitive spot, she let out a time honored sound that told him she was ready.
Leaning over, he opened his bedside drawer, found the pack then tore a single foiled wrap with his teeth. As he rolled on protection, her fingers sluiced up and down his sides. Oh, he wanted to take this slower. Make it last. But this time, with this lady, that wasn’t going to happen.
Sheathed, he positioned himself, took a long slow kiss from her welcoming mouth then eased inside. Her walls clamped around him at the same time her hips lifted and she opened her mouth wider, inviting him deeper.
With one arm curled around her head, he drove in and clenched every muscle as a mind-tingling burn hardened him more. He felt as if he was drowning in a lake of fire. All exposed nerve endings and profound sizzling need.
Bailey trailed her fingers down his neck, felt the cords bulging and pulsing, and melted more. The way he moved with her left her breathless while his mouth on hers raised her up. She wanted this moment to go on forever. Never wanted the steep waves of pleasure to wane or fade. And yet they both needed to go that bit further. Needed to be thrown up to the stars and explode on their way back down.
He was snatching slow kisses from her brow, from her cheek, holding her hip securely as his strokes grew ever stronger and longer. The friction was scolding, the pleasure beyond what she could take.
And then his kisses stopped and his body grew still and hard. She sensed his every tendon stretched trip wire tight, could feel his heart thumping and pounding in his ears. The mind-altering fire at her core intensified, somehow changing in dimension and in shape. Then, in one finite moment, in less time than it took to suck down a breath, all the universe contracted into a single high-voltage speck. Beyond that nothing existed. Nothing but black.
When he thrust again—when he hit that secret wanting spot—she threw back her head, spread her wings and flew.
Seven (#ulink_1c0298b4-35d0-597b-9044-5aa922a844e2)
“Tell me more about France.”
At the sound of Bailey’s voice filtering though the predawn mist, Mateo lifted his head off the pillow and dropped a kiss on her silky crown.
They’d made love well into the night. The first time had been incredible. Incomparable. But over far too quickly. The second time they’d slowed down enough to thoroughly explore each other’s bodies and share their most intimate needs. The third time they’d come apart in each other’s arms might have been the best … the time when he’d truly begun to see that this joining meant more than simply great sex. The connection they shared, the amazing way they fit, was special.
That didn’t mean he’d changed his mind about getting serious. About settling down. Invariably marriage meant children. Children of his own. But his practice was his life. He’d put all he had into doing his best and building a home that was his. He had everything he needed. Everything and more. He felt secure, and that was life’s most valuable gift.
If he were to become a husband … a father … well, he couldn’t think of a more vulnerable place to be. There were concerns over the complications in the womb, worry about childhood disease, not to mention the fact that in this world he had no living family now, other than Mama. If fate stepped in and left his child without parents …
Mateo swallowed against the pit formed in his throat.
This is why he never let himself analyze relationships too deeply, particularly following the “after all she could get” Linda incident. He was a man of influence and means who could choose what course his life should take. Tonight he’d chosen to act on the undeniable chemistry he shared with Bailey. Given she’d asked about France a moment ago, he hoped they could continue to enjoy the attraction a while longer. For however long it might last.
Nestled in the crook of his arm, she twined to rest her chin on her thatched hands, which lay on one side of his chest.
“What’s it like?” She asked, looking beautifully rumpled and sleep deprived but content. “Everyone seems to love Paris. Did you ever get into the city when you were young?”
“As a child?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I didn’t know Paris existed.”
She sat up a little, bracing her weight on an elbow as she searched his eyes in the misty light. Outside, the morning sun peeked over the distant rise, painting a translucent halo around her head.
Her voice softened when she asked, “Were you very lonely there? At the orphanage, I mean.”
Mateo’s jaw tensed. His first instinct was to push her question aside. If anyone, including Alex or Natalie, brought up his childhood, he rarely gave away too much. The past was past … even if it was never forgotten.
But lying here with Bailey after the extraordinary night they’d shared, he felt closer to her this minute than anyone he’d known. That shouldn’t be. He’d loved and respected Ernesto. He adored Mama. He had friends he would do anything for and, he was certain, vice versa.
And yet, he couldn’t deny it. Whatever drew him to Bailey Ross was a force unto itself. He wanted to share more than his bed with her tonight. He wanted to open up … at least this once.
“I wasn’t lonely,” he began. “I had many friends and adults I knew that cared for us all.” He thought more deeply and frowned. “I did feel alone, which is different, but I was too young to understand why. I never knew my parents. No one explained about the ‘who’ or the ‘when.’ I didn’t realize a life outside the orphanage existed until my fifth birthday.”
Sitting up, she wrapped the sheet around her breasts, under her arms. “What happened on your birthday? I don’t suppose you had a party.”
“From what I can recall, the day was pleasant enough. Everyone sang to me after lunch. I got a special dessert along with two friends I picked out.” He searched his memory and blinked then smiled. “I received a gift. People from town donated them. I tore open the paper and found a wooden train. Green chimney,” he recalled. “Red wheels. I thought I was made.” But his smile slipped. “Then my best friend said he was going away. That a mother and father were taking him home.”
