‘Shut up now, Angie,’ he growled, losing all hint of humour as he lowered his dark head, claimed one nipple in the heat of his mouth, and sucked hard on it through the muslin.
Angie forgot what she had been going to say as she closed her eyes and arched her back, setting free a helpless cry of pleasure. Her fingers dug into his hair. Her thighs sprang apart.
Roque husked out a very masculine laugh. ‘Not very virginal, meu querida,’ he murmured dryly.
‘Shut up.’ It was Angie’s turn to call a halt to talking.
Roque’s answer was the swooping glide of a long-fingered hand down between the hot juncture she’d opened up. He touched her through the muslin and sent her spinning her off into an exotic world she did not come away from for a long, long time.
Afterwards she stared up into the all-consuming darkness enfolding them and hoped—prayed—that in giving him the benefit of the doubt about Nadia she was not making the biggest mistake of her life.
CHAPTER NINE
RESTING her forearms against the rail on the sunny balcony, Angie looked down at the swimming pool situated directly below her, where Roque was currently cutting through the water like a man-eating shark.
The air this early still had a chill to it, and she did not know how he could stand it in the water, but then sharks were cold-blooded, she thought with a smile.
Not that she’d been treated to the cold-blooded, man-eating shark in him over the last three weeks. No, she’d had the very hot-blooded woman-eating shark. The one that circled her like a hunter and would pounce when she was least expecting it to devour her in a fest of passionate lust.
Lust. She pulled a face at the word, because lust was what they shared on this honeymoon. No mention from either of them since the night they’d arrived here of that other word—love.
Watching him cut through the water in a long, bronzed slither of supple male magnificence, she was not in the least bit surprised to feel her lust for him tangle up the sensitive muscles low down inside. Beneath the short slip of a nightdress she was wearing, her thighs shifted against a soft pulsing ache that reminded her just how passionately lustful Roque had been as recently as an hour ago, before he had left her to sleep off the effects while he’d taken himself off to his all-purpose gym before his swim.
Roque possessed vibrant energy enough to drive ten men. He was rarely ever still. If he wasn’t dragging her off somewhere to show her Portugal from a proud native’s perspective, he was using up some of that excess energy in dealing with his many business interests via the fully equipped office on the ground floor. When that failed to hold his restless interest he hunted her down.
As honeymoons went, theirs had been filled with non-stop passion and occasional quick trips out thrown in as respite. He’d flown them in his helicopter to Porto, then down a long stretch of the Douro River, banked by its famed hills and frilled by tier upon tier of wine terraces. And he’d really impressed her by pointing out how many of those terraced hills belonged to him or came beneath the de Calvhos umbrella. Back in Porto they’d boarded his yacht and spent a few days sailing down to the Algarve. And they’d strolled through the smaller vine terraces right here on this estate, when he’d demonstrated what went into producing a wine as exclusive as the coveted d’Agostinho label, and he’d made her drunk from tasting samples directly from the barrel, then laughed when he’d had to carry her back to his car.
He’d been relaxed and fun—a side to him she had rarely glimpsed the last time they been together. Back then they’d both been so busy, reduced to flying in and out of each other’s lives with a speed and frequency that shocked and appalled her when she thought about it now. It was no wonder she’d felt wired up when he was with her and cast adrift when he was not. They’d been more like very intimate strangers, passing briefly in the warm passions of the night, than a real husband and wife. Except.
What they had now was not what she would describe as normal, Angie mused with a small frown. Because they hadn’t—not once—taken a trip into Lisbon, or visited any of their old social haunts. No long leisurely meals eaten in Tavares’ opulent surroundings, nor lively evenings spent with his friends at Club Lux. They had not gone near his city apartment, or strolled the shops on the Avenida da Liberdade. When she’d specially asked if they could go there he’d frowned and murmured some vague promise that they would discuss it later, then suddenly remembered a rush of calls he had to make.
Not that she wanted to shop till she dropped, or hop back onto Lisbon’s social merry-go-round. She didn’t. Her life had changed last year when she’d lost Roque and then their baby. Her wants and needs and ideals had changed. Perhaps his had, too. But this new life they were leading, encapsulated in a bubble, sealed off and protected from the life they’d used to live, was not sustainable. They couldn’t go on for ever locking the rest of the world out.
Angie’s frown deepened as she watched Roque make another looping turn in the pool and then spear back the way he had come. Yesterday Carla had called her with a business proposition that had roused her interest. When she’d told Roque about it over dinner he’d been so uncommunicative about the idea they’d almost had their first fight in three weeks.
She’d pointed out to him that if she was to live permanently here in Portugal then setting up a CGM branch here in Lisbon would be the perfect challenge for her. She’d known that by saying it she had been putting the stamp of permanency on their marriage. She’d also been aware that she was taking a huge step by if not stating it out loud then showing that she was ready to put the Nadia thing aside for good.
Roque had taken that on board, she was sure he had, because his attitude had softened and he’d started firing really impressive and well-informed questions at her about CGM, which had forced her to jump through hoops to answer and to grow quite heated when his opinions differed from hers.
They’d taken the argument to bed with them, and finished it off with a different kind of heat. And now here she was, up out of her bed hours before she normally would be, eager to strike while the idea was hot and convince him to—
Distracted from her thoughts by the familiar sound of his mobile’s ringtone floating up from the terrace below her, Angie broke into an appreciative grin as she watched him haul himself out of the pool in a glorious ripple of water-washed muscle bronzed by the morning sun.
Gorgeous, she thought lushly, peering down at him like a sneaky voyeur—because he had no idea she was up here spying on him.
He picked the phone up off a table, then stood dripping water while he indulged in a sharp question and answer session in Portuguese. It had to be business, she decided, watching how, even wearing only a pair of black swimming shorts, he had taken on a whole new persona—the cold-blooded, man-eating shark kind.
Her grin widened.
Then suddenly died into stark frozen shock when the impatient snap of his voice drifted up to her. ‘Para Deus causa, Nadia, irá você escuta-me!’
For God’s sake—Nadia?
The rest didn’t matter; she would not have been able to translate it anyway. Her grasp of Portuguese was still sketchy at best, and—
Roque was still in contact with Nadia.
Angie took a jerky step back from the rail, then just stood in her flimsy, peachy strip of a nightdress, feeling the slow chilling growth of shock rise up from her feet while she listened to the impatient cut of Roque’s voice fading as he strode into the house.