righteningly vivid image of herself cradling a black-haired baby in her arms and she experienced a pang of something which felt like wistfulness. Or regret.
It was only when he turned his back on her to dig into the pocket of his suit trousers that she noticed the scar which snaked across his back—a livid zigzag, dark red and angry against the olive skin. It was the only disfigurement on an otherwise perfect physique but it was big enough to make her gasp out loud.
He must have heard her because he turned around—the glint of the foil condom matching the sudden forbidding glint of his eyes.
‘Oh, Alej. Whatever happened to your back?’ she whispered.
‘I don’t want to talk about it. Especially not right now.’
‘But it’s—’
‘I said, I don’t want to talk about it. Do you want me to repeat it in Spanish?’
The harsh note of finality in his voice was deterrent enough, but by then he was back beside her and suddenly the scar was forgotten. Everything was forgotten and her attention was inevitably drawn to other things as he opened the foil with exaggerated care before stroking it onto the erection which was nudging hard against his belly. A wave of something like shyness washed over her as she saw how aroused he was and Emily’s heart warred with her mind about what it was she was expecting from this. Her body had certainly been brought to life and already she felt poised on an erotic knife-edge, where the slightest thing would send her hurtling over the edge. But something was missing. Something she couldn’t put her finger on.
‘Now,’ murmured Alejandro as he moved over her and she could feel his hardness pressing against her. ‘Where were we?’
She was running her fingertips hungrily over his bare back, her fingertips encountering the raised surface of the zigzagging scar for the first time. But he shifted his position slightly and she said nothing more about the disfigurement, concentrating instead on his husky question. ‘I’m not...sure,’ she answered.
‘Then how about I remind you, Princesa?’
It was a long time since he’d called her that but this time the nickname was underpinned with a harshness which had never been there before, which in any other circumstance might have made Emily think twice about what was about to happen. But it was already too late. He was licking her breasts and her blood was pulsing warm and thick as she felt the experienced flick of his fingers against her clitoris. She heard him murmur his approval and then her thighs were spreading open as if no power in the world could stop them and he was entering her. He was pushing deep inside the slickness which awaited him and filling her completely. Emily moaned and instantly he stilled, his eyes narrowed in question.
‘It’s good?’
Wordlessly, she nodded. Of course it was. It was better than good. Better than anything she’d ever experienced—but it was a shock, too. Alejandro had always been big—not that she had anyone to compare him to, of course—but their first time together had been so loaded with emotion that she hadn’t had time to appreciate it properly in the way she could now. But she couldn’t tell him that. She didn’t want to stir up bad feelings about the past and neither did she want to confess to another possibility—that her body had become unaccommodating and tight in all the intervening years, because it had been so starved of pleasure.
So she put her hands on his shoulders and sucked in a deep breath. ‘Is it good for you, too?’
‘Oh, Emily. You have no idea,’ he groaned in response. ‘Especially when you play the part of breathless little innocent so effectively. Aren’t you a little old to be cast in the role of disingenuous virgin?’
For a moment she scented more danger. He thought she was playing games, or acting a part? That this was just a cynical approach she was adopting to inject a little excitement into their lovemaking? She wanted to tell him the truth—that this was so beautiful that deep down she did feel as innocent as the first time she’d lain with him. But she guessed he would dismiss such an idealistic sentiment and, anyway, her thoughts were blotted out by his next potent thrust.
At first his movements were slow—as if he was determined to emphasise how utterly he filled her—and Emily was taken aback by how intimate it felt. One flesh, she found herself thinking. Was that why those stupid tears began to prick at the backs of her eyes, forcing her to blink them away before he saw them? Why she turned her face to search for his kiss, only to realise that he was far more intent on bending his dark head to lick at her nipple? But then his movements grew more rapid as he shafted up deep inside her and all her doubts were put on the back burner because suddenly Emily was rediscovering sex—big time. His body was hard and powerful. His skin felt like satin against her fingers and she was like a woman possessed as she writhed beneath him, moaning things like, ‘Please...’ and, ‘Oh, yes...’ and, ‘Yes, that... That.’
‘You mean like that?’ he clarified, withdrawing almost completely before driving up deep inside her again.
‘Yes...yes...’ she breathed. ‘Exactly like that.’
And then it happened, almost without her expecting it—that heady rush of promise which morphed into perfect bliss as her world exploded into countless dazzling stars. Emily clung to him, crying out helplessly as her body spasmed around him before she heard his own shuddered moan and felt his driving jerks as he spilled his seed inside her. Spent, he collapsed on top of her and those next few moments were the closest thing to sanctuary she’d felt in a long time. For a while she just lay there, cocooned in his strong arms, feeling as if she were floating on some warm and rippling sea until Alejandro’s words shot into her thoughts and scattered them like a spray gun.
‘I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be quite so easy,’ he remarked.
‘Easy?’ she echoed, wondering if she might have misheard him.
‘Mmm...’ He turned onto his side and stared at her, his green gaze smoky and assessing. ‘But I’d forgotten how hot you were. Hotter than any other woman I’ve ever had.’
Emily didn’t answer straight away. You don’t have to answer, she told herself. You’re not on some game show with the clock ticking away. You can take as much time as you want. All the time you need to get your head around the fact that you have just slept with your boss.
Unwrapping his arm from where it was coiled so comfortably around her waist, Emily rolled away from him. It would be tempting to jump up from the bed. To grab her clothes and rush from the room—maybe even slamming the door behind her so that it echoed through the vast penthouse suite. But that wouldn’t be the behaviour of someone who was mature and responsible, would it? It was difficult to come back from something as dramatic as that, and didn’t they need to move on—or not—from what had just happened? He thought she was easy—and could she really blame him? So why not go along with that? Let him think she was sexually rapacious, just as he was. Especially since the alternative was to wail and wonder why she’d done such a stupid thing, which ran the risk of making her look both reckless and indiscriminate.
So she fanned her face exaggeratedly with her hand. ‘Thanks.’
He looked momentarily perplexed. ‘Thanks?’
‘Mmm... It’s always nice to be described as hot,’ she remarked blandly, seeing his face inexplicably darken in response. ‘Quite literally in this case. Boiling hot, actually—despite the air conditioning. Any chance you could rustle us up a glass of water, Alej?’
He looked outraged—there was no other word for it—but Emily told herself she didn’t care. What good would it do her if she fell back into his arms and told him that she was only ever hot with him? Such an admission would show weakness and she’d already made herself weak enough in his eyes.