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“Sí,” he agreed. “It was.”
He was taking it a lot better than I’d thought he would. I exhaled. “So we won’t...”
My voice trailed off as, for the first time, I realized someone had been in this bedroom while we’d been bathing Miguel. My eyes went wide.
A fire now crackled in the fireplace. Candles glowed from the marble mantle. And...no, surely it couldn’t be...
Going toward the king-size bed at the center of the room, I picked up one of the scarlet, fragrant petals that had been scattered over the white bedspread.
“Rose petals?” I said dumbly. Turning, I held it up. “I don’t understand....”
He gave a low, sensual smile. “Don’t you?”
I exhaled. “You arranged this.”
“Yes.”
“But you just agreed that our kiss was a mistake—”
“It shouldn’t have happened in the garden. Or the kiss in the coatroom in Madrid, either. I wanted you. I lost control. That was the mistake.” Coming close to me, he shook his head. “But this won’t be.”
“Don’t look at me like that,” I whispered.
“Like what?”
“Like...” I licked my lips. “Like it’s all you can do to keep yourself from ripping off my clothes and sliding me beneath you...”
“Because, querida,” he said, cupping my face, “it is. I’ve dreamed of you for so long....”
“You dreamed of me?” I breathed, remembering all the nights I’d yearned for him, in hot dreams that had made me ache, only to wake up bereft and cold in the morning.
“Yes. But tonight, querida, tonight,” he whispered, lowering his head toward mine, “my dreams come true. Not for duty. Not for convenience. But for pleasure. For need.” He slowly traced his hand down the side of my body. “There’s been no one for me since you, Lena. Did you know that? No other woman I’ve wanted in my bed. Just you. And now you are mine at last—as I am yours....”
As the fire crackled in the fireplace, I saw the shadows of red and orange move across the hard edges and planes of his handsome, saturnine face.
“It can’t be true.”
He pulled me into his arms.
“Tonight,” he said softly, “will be the first night of forever.”
Trembling, I looked up into his dark eyes. I tried to think of something, anything, to send him away from me. I tried to make my body move away, to run. But it was no longer obeying me. My body knew what it wanted. What it had always wanted.
I felt his hands tighten on my back, over the fabric of my blouse, as he pulled me close.
And he lowered his head to mine. I felt the warmth of his breath against my skin. A hard, reckless shiver went up and down my body. Of need. Of desire so great it made me shake.
Because what I wanted now, though beautiful as flowers, could poison my soul, and kill my heart. Just like the oleander...
“Please,” I breathed as I felt the roughness of his jawline brush against my cheek. It was all I could do, to keep from leaning into him, kissing him, pulling him hard and tight against me. I wanted him so badly, I could almost have wept from it.
He traced his fingertip very gently from my earlobe, along my cheek, to my full, aching lower lip. “Please?”
“Please...” I tried to remember what I wanted. Please kiss me. Please don’t.
But he didn’t give me time to gather my senses. Lowering his mouth to my ear, he whispered, “You are mine. Forever and always. My pleasure. My duchess. My wife. My lover...”
“No,” I whispered. “I can’t be....”
“I forgot.” He drew back, his eyebrows an amused slash over his heavy-lidded eyes. “You said you do not want me.”
“I don’t,” I said, praying he would believe such a lie.
“I see.” He ran his hand down the bare skin to my throat. “So you feel nothing when I do this....”
Trembling, I shook my head.
“And this...” His large hand cupped my breast over my blouse, the tip of his thumb rubbing over my nipple, which pebbled, aching and taut beneath the fabric.
I couldn’t speak. I looked up at him, my lips parted, my heart pounding.
“Give in. To me.”
“But I don’t love you,” I choked out, but what that really meant was Don’t make me love you.
“I do not ask for your heart. But your body—sí. Tonight...your body will be mine.”
And he lowered his mouth to mine.
His lips were gentle, even tender. One touch, and I was proved a liar. Of course I wanted him. Of course I did.
I sighed, as his kiss deepened, became demanding, hungry. My arms wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him close.
He slowly lowered me back against the enormous bed covered with rose petals. I gloried in the heavy weight of his body over mine, pressing me deep into the soft mattress.
He pulled off my blouse, kissing down my body as each opened button revealed more of my skin. He lifted me against him, to pull off my shirt. I felt the warmth of his fingertips trailing down my naked arms, down my back. With expert precision, he unlatched my bra with a single flick of his fingers, and my breasts hung free, full and heavy and aching for his touch.
I heard the hoarseness of his breath as he pushed me back against the bed. Cupping my breasts with his hands, he nuzzled between them, lowering his head to one taut nipple, then the other, pulling it gently into his mouth as I gasped with pleasure.
“Wait,” I choked out. “I want to feel you—”
Reaching for his shirt, I yanked it hard from his body. I was definitely not as careful as he’d been about the buttons. At least one ripped off entirely and scattered noisily against the floor in my desperation to feel the warmth of his skin. I exhaled when I could at last run my hands over his naked chest, feeling his hard sculpted muscles beneath the light dusting of dark hair. A low groan came from his lips, and he fell against me on the bed, ravishing my lips with his own.
Ohhhh... Deeper, deeper. The pleasure of his tongue against mine, his lips hard and so sweet, made me burn all over, made me lose my mind....
He kissed slowly down my bare skin, working his way to my belly button, which he flicked with his tongue. Unbuttoning my jeans, he rolled them with my panties down my hips, peeling the fabric inch by inch down my legs, kissing and licking and nibbling as he went, until I was naked and gasping for breath.
He kissed the hollow of my foot, then gently pushed my legs wide. From the base of the bed, he looked up at me, spread-eagled across the bed, naked for his pleasure. I quivered with need. If he tried to leave me now—my lips parted. In that moment, I would have done anything—begged, even—to get him to stay.
But no begging was necessary. With a low growl, he removed his own trousers and then fell hard and naked upon me. I felt the length of him, like steel, pressing between my legs. Looking up at his face in the flickering shadows of the firelight, I realized that he wasn’t in nearly as much control of himself as I’d imagined. In fact, he was barely keeping himself in check.
“You don’t have to hold back,” I choked out, pulling him down against me, my hips lifting of their own volition against his. “Please...”
And this time, there was no question what I wanted. But he would not let me control him or set the pace. Shrugging off my grasp, he slid down my body, then parted my legs with his shoulders at my knees. I felt the heat of his breath against my inner thighs. I gasped, reaching my hands out to grip the white comforter beneath me.
Pressing his large hands against my thighs, he spread me wide. He lowered his head and took a long, languorous taste.
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