He was smiling now. That slow killer smile which always used to get her. She hadn’t been able to resist it then and it seemed she couldn’t resist it now.
Feeling like someone caught up in a dark spell, Emily obeyed the Argentinian’s wordless command, and opened her arms to him.
CHAPTER SIX
‘GUAU!’ THE WORD escaped from Alej’s lips like a murmured curse as he sank on top of Emily’s soft and eager body and felt the first contact of her breasts. He could feel the hard thrust of her nipples pinpointing into his chest as he pulled her closer, his hands sliding down to reacquaint themselves with her legs. Blood pooled into his groin as he stroked her thighs through the soft cotton of her yoga pants.
‘Alej,’ she moaned as if she was asking him a question, but he didn’t press her to elaborate because it was pretty obvious what she wanted—judging from the urgent way she was circling her hips against the rocky pole of his erection like some kind of wildcat on heat.
Once again the thought of another man doing this to her filled him with a blind rage but, ruthlessly, he drove it from his mind. Because anger and jealousy would detract from his purpose and all he needed to think about was this one thing. Of losing himself deep inside her and riding her to fulfilment. Ridding himself of this damned fever which had lain dormant inside him for too long and been brought to a head when he’d seen her standing with the Argentinian sun bouncing off her blonde hair and her arms around a mangy horse’s neck.
He’d thought that time might have diluted his reaction to her and when he saw her again he would feel nothing but indifference. But he had been wrong. Badly wrong. Because every night since that recent meeting he had dreamt of her. Had imagined doing this to her. Touching every inch of her curvy frame and then plunging into her tight wetness—long and hard and deep. He wanted sex and nothing more, but first he needed to assess whether she wanted the same.
‘Que quieres?’ he demanded roughly.
She shook the head which was slumped against his shoulder, as if words were beyond her, but Alej asked again. He needed to ask it, even if the idea of her refusal was unendurable. But he would endure it. Hadn’t he endured more than most men would have to face in a lifetime? Reaching to turn her face towards his, her shuddered breath warm against his fingers, he asked again, this time in English. ‘What do you want, Emily?’
‘You!’ she burst out, as if an inner floodgate had opened inside her. ‘I want you!’
It felt like a triumph, but only a momentary one because the exquisite ache between his legs was warning Alej that he needed to keep his wits about him or this would be over too quickly. Already he wanted to explode like a teenage boy on his first time and that wasn’t going to happen, for he had waited too long to squander a single second of this.
His mouth found her neck, the tip of his tongue trailing a feather-light path along its surface, which quickly had her wriggling with pleasure. His groin bucked as she circled her hips against him with urgent hunger, which made his heart race. He had forgotten just how responsive she was. How her receptive body thrilled to just about anything he did to her. Maybe that was because the two of them had taken foreplay to a whole new level and then redefined it. There had been long months of denying themselves that final penetration and when they had...
Against her neck, his lips hardened.
When they had...
Bitterness rushed through him but he forced himself to shelve it because nothing was going to detract from this. He could feel her moving against him, turning her head towards his face in silent plea. She wanted him to kiss her, he knew that. But he didn’t want to kiss her—at least, not there. He didn’t want to do anything which might masquerade as true affection and he certainly wasn’t going to give her the pleasure of imagining he felt anything for her other than lust. Because he didn’t. The only thing he wanted from Emily Green was her body. Her sweet and tempting body.
With a low growl he got off the sofa and then bent down to pick her up in his arms. She was heavier than she looked but he liked that. He liked the solidity of her firm flesh as he carried her through the enormous room, past the white piano and colourful displays of flowers. Past the giant picture windows with their views over the Melbourne rooftops and the skyscrapers which were glittering like jewels in the night.
‘Where...where are we going?’ she gasped.
‘Where do you think we’re going? To discuss some of your “clear objectives”?’ he growled sarcastically. ‘I’m taking you to bed.’
Her eyes were huge and dark as she stared up at him. ‘We’ve never...we’ve never actually been to bed before,’ she whispered.
It was both the right thing and the wrong thing to say. It filled him first with fury and then with intent. Because he had only ever been good enough for the stable, hadn’t he? Hidden away like some guilty secret amid the spiky bales of straw. Played with as if he were a puppet. She’d had him on the end of a string and whenever she had tugged it, he’d come running, hadn’t he? The low-born illegitimate son of a servant who had been punching well above his weight by romancing the rich man’s stepdaughter. Well, the tables had most definitely turned, he thought grimly, as he planted his foot in the centre of the door and shoved it open with a forceful kick.
‘No, we haven’t. And right here just happens to be about the biggest and most luxurious bed you can imagine,’ he said as the door swung shut silently behind them and he carried her towards the snowy-covered king-size. ‘Don’t they say the best things in life are worth waiting for?’
A trickle of apprehension ran down Emily’s spine as Alejandro’s words washed over her like dark silk and she wondered if it was just her imagination or whether they were underpinned with danger. For one terrifying moment of clarity she wondered how she had allowed this situation to arise—just as she wondered if there was still a chance to come to her senses and put a stop to it. But the truth was that she didn’t want to, even if such a thing were possible. Because by then he had laid her down on top of the bedcover and was peeling off her vest top and the last of her misgivings were dissolved by the sweet touch of his fingers against her bare skin.
The sexual hunger which he had ignited earlier now began to build to an unbearable pitch as he touched her. Like somebody with a bad fever, she was trembling uncontrollably as he began to explore her skin, murmuring something in Spanish which she’d never heard him say before. Was she imagining that it sounded almost like anger? But by then he was sliding down her yoga pants so she was lying there in just her bra and knickers. Almost thoughtfully he ran his finger around the dip of her navel, circling it ever so slowly before moving it down towards her sensible cotton pants. To make it easy for him, Emily parted her thighs and felt herself stiffen with growing excitement.
‘Oh,’ she said.
‘Oh, what?’ he mimicked lazily as he whispered his fingertip lightly over the already damp gusset.
Her heart started punching loudly in her chest and she felt almost bashful as hot colour flooded her cheeks. But this wasn’t the time or the place for shyness, she told herself. It wasn’t as if they’d never done this before. But the weird thing was that, although she’d been more intimate with him than with any other man, the fact remained that right now he seemed like a very sexy stranger and it was making her a little bit apprehensive.
Stop thinking like that, she urged herself. Concentrate on the pleasure he’s giving you. ‘That feels so good,’ she managed, because surely that was the sort of thing she should be saying.
‘Does it?’ She could hear the smile in his voice. ‘I haven’t even started yet, Emily.’
‘I’d forgotten...’
‘What?’ he prompted softly, his finger still teasing her with those unbearable feather-light little touches.