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As her eyelids fluttered helplessly to a close, Emily thought about telling him the unvarnished truth. She’d forgotten how he could make every inch

of her body feel like a newly discovered erogenous zone. She’d forgotten because she’d made herself forget—along with all the other X-rated memories of the things they’d done together. Like the time he’d once made her come with his fingertip stroking the crotch of her jeans, instantly arousing her despite the barrier of the thick denim—and she had felt so deliciously grown-up and decadent as she’d stood shuddering in a darkened corner of the stable. She’d filed away those recollections because they seemed to have belonged to another time and another person. They certainly bore no resemblance to the sexually barren woman she had become.

‘I don’t remember,’ she breathed.

‘What a pity,’ he mocked. ‘I was waiting with bated breath.’

He stopped touching her and stepped away from the bed to begin removing his own clothes and, although Emily was aware that she was behaving passively, somehow she felt powerless to respond in any other way. Because wasn’t she afraid he’d discover that he was the only man she’d ever had sex with? Wouldn’t that slightly laughable admission display her vulnerability and leave her open to being hurt? Wouldn’t it be like handing him a great big fistful of power, when he already had much more than her? So she said nothing and lay back on the bedcovers, watching him. And, oh, he was definitely worth watching.

She’d only ever seen him removing casual and dusty clothes, either jodhpurs or jeans, not an immaculate lightweight suit which must have cost a small fortune. But the end result was the same—it didn’t matter if he wore denim or silk, it was the body beneath which was the ultimate jewel. Shrugging off his jacket, he unbuttoned his silk shirt to reveal his honed and gleaming chest, and Emily’s heart pounded with delighted recognition as she ran her gaze hungrily over it.

Could any man be as beautiful as Alejandro Sabato? she wondered longingly. His limbs were long and strong and his washboard abs reminded her of the disciplined way he’d always lived. The way he’d exercised his hard body until it was coated with sweat. Her gaze moved further down as he unzipped his suit trousers, letting them fall to the ground before kicking off his suede moccasins, so that he was left standing in nothing but a pair of dark and silky boxer shorts. And how could she look anywhere other than at the tantalising line of dark hair which ran downwards, drawing her attention to the rocky bulge at his crotch?

Did he see where she was looking? Was that why he stroked his fingertips over the steely outline of his erection with deliberate provocation, so that she bit her lip with frustrated voyeurism as colour flooded into her cheeks?

‘Frustrated, Emily?’ he questioned softly, but there was a definite touch of cruelty and control edging his question.

A number of answers sprang to Emily’s mind, though it was difficult to concentrate on anything when she was being confronted by such a glorious sight. She could have asked him not to tease her. Not to use his expertise and mastery to make her feel even more inexperienced than she was. But she needed to grab back some control. She was no longer a nearly eighteen-year-old virgin whose whole world revolved around a dashing young polo player she’d known since she was twelve, but a woman of twenty-six. If she was going to have sex with Alejandro—which she certainly was, or else she wouldn’t have been lying here naked and aching while watching him undress—then shouldn’t it be on as level a playing field as possible?

So she levered herself up onto her elbows, noticing the way his gaze swivelled to the bounce of her breasts as she did so, before fixing him with a steady look. She thought about all those films she’d seen—where confident women smiled, as if it was perfectly normal to have sex and to say exactly what it was you were feeling inside. Or not feeling. Concentrate on the sensation, she told herself—and leave emotion out of it.

‘Yes, I’m a little bit frustrated. Surely you must be, too,’ she answered, with the flicker of a smile as she removed her bra and pants with hands which weren’t as still as she would have liked them to be. ‘So why don’t you hurry up and get over here?’

That shocked him. Of course it did. She suspected he was a little bit old-fashioned at heart and she would never have said anything like that before—not in a million years. She watched his face momentarily darken before he dropped his shorts, walking towards her with supreme confidence in his aroused nakedness, in a way she doubted any other man could match.

‘You mean like this?’ he questioned as he lowered himself down on her.

‘Yes,’ she breathed. ‘I mean exactly like that.’

‘Are you going to tell me how best you like it?’

‘I’ll...’ The word came out in a gasp. ‘I’ll leave that to you.’

Alej positioned himself so that his weight was on his elbows, putting him in a perfect position to see the darkness of her sapphire eyes. Her lips were parting and their moist gleam was enticing but still he couldn’t bring himself to kiss her. So instead he ran the tip of his tongue down her neck and then to her chest, before making a moist path along the hollow between her breasts. He could taste the salt of her sweat and she moaned a little as he moved his head to concentrate on one pert mound, teasing the nipple until it was rose-dark and puckered before turning his attention to the other breast.

‘That’s...’

‘What?’ he prompted huskily as the word was bitten off by her teeth digging into her bottom lip.

‘Amazing,’ she breathed.

‘I should hope so.’ He smiled before sliding his tongue over her belly and as he sensed her growing frustration, that somehow pleased him. Restlessly, she tried to lift her hips in impatient demand but he stilled her by teasing light circles over her skin before tiptoeing his fingers down towards the soft bush at her groin. Her little moans had stopped and he could tell she was holding her breath, wanting him to touch her where she most wanted to be touched. For a while he teased her some more by holding off and when his middle finger alighted on her sweet spot and began to strum, she almost shot off the bed, convulsively clutching him by the shoulders. And as her nails dug into his flesh, Alej felt a brief flare of something he couldn’t define. Maybe it was his own little bit of rebellion which made him wonder how she would deal with it if he calmly removed himself from her body and told her he’d changed his mind.

But he couldn’t. Even though she had betrayed him and treated him like dirt. Even though hers had been the first act in a chain of events which was to darken his life for ever, he couldn’t pull back. Even if he were about to die, he couldn’t think of anywhere else he’d rather be right now, with the warm, potent scent of sex in the air, and the only sound their shuddered breathing as he felt himself grow so hard that he wanted to explode. He’d planned to make her come every which way—first with his finger and then with his mouth. He’d planned to further increase his desire by making himself wait before finally thrusting into her molten heat and driving up to the very hilt of her, but he could see now that wasn’t going to be a possibility. He wanted her now.

‘Oh!’

She made a single syllable of disappointment as he withdrew his finger from her sticky heat.

‘Always so impatient,’ he observed.

Her teeth were digging into her lower lip again and now there was anxious query in her sapphire eyes, as if she’d suddenly realised he’d been having second thoughts. ‘Alej?’

He paused for just long enough to make her anxiety real before he relented. ‘Don’t worry, querida,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll be right back. But first I need to get some protection.’

She nodded. ‘Of course.’

As he removed himself from the bed, Emily was overcome with a rush of remorse and shame. What was the matter with her? Was Alej aware that if he hadn’t intervened she would have happily taken him unprotected into her body, desperate to feel his unsheathed hardness inside her? How insane would that have been—if she’d ended up pregnant with Alej’s child? Yet the idea didn’t fill her with the horror it surely should have done. Instead she got a f


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