He needed a third option.
From the day they’d wed, he’d assigned the same investigator who got dirt on business competitors to keep track of his wife and all her family. Eduardo had burned the angry letters sent by her father, the pleading tearstained cards from her mother. He’d tossed her sister’s bouquet of sappy flowers shaped like a pink baby carriage in the trash.
At first he’d done it because he didn’t trust Callie. Then he told himself he was just trying to protect her. Sure, her father was trying to be nicer now, but even Eduardo’s own parents had had their good days. He wouldn’t allow them access to Callie until he knew for sure they wouldn’t hurt her again.
But deep in his heart, he knew that wasn’t the only reason.
You weren’t even man enough to come and ask me for her hand. The memory of her father’s cold words still rankled in his mind. You might own half our town, but I know the kind of man you really are. You’ll never be a decent husband or father, and you know it.
To Walter, as to many others, Eduardo was just a selfish, demanding tyrant, the foreign CEO that his employees obeyed—but despised.
So be it. Eduardo didn’t need the man’s respect. But he wouldn’t let anyone insult his wife. Or cause them problems that could tear his family apart.
Stroking her back, Eduardo took a deep breath. He was starting to trust Callie again. But he didn’t trust the world. Whenever he let himself care for someone, they disappeared from his life. He wouldn’t let that happen. Not this time.
“Eduardo?”
Callie was looking up at him in the shadowy hallway, her brow furrowed. Her robe had fallen open slightly to reveal her plump breasts, and suddenly he knew exactly what he needed. He pulled her closer, stroking the edge of her neckline as he murmured, “You said something about helping me sleep?”
“Er.” She suddenly blushed. “I just thought …”
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“Yes.” Grabbing her hand, he led her back to the master bedroom. Pulling the robe off her unresisting body, he pushed her back against the bed. His wife looked like an angel in the moonlight, he thought, her light brown hair silver twined with gold, her pale skin luminous. Her breasts were huge, their full rosy tips bright and vivid against her white skin.
Eduardo kissed her hard and deep. He felt her respond, kissing him back with equal fire, and wanted her as if he hadn’t already been satiated that night. He wanted her even more than he did yesterday, and all the year before that. Her small hands roamed his body, stroking his naked chest, caressing his shoulders, his back. He exhaled when she ran her fingers lightly over his backside then groaned aloud as she ran her hand questingly over the hard shaft beneath his drawstring pajama pants. Her face was rapt as she stroked his hard length through the fabric. He grabbed her wrist.
“I do not know—how long I can last,” he groaned.
She gave him a smile full of infinite feminine mystery. “So don’t.”
“Querida—”
She unlaced his pants and pulled them down his hips, to his thighs. His hard shaft sprung free from the fabric, and she looked down at him with awe. Reaching out, she took him fully in her hands.
“Callie,” he breathed. Her touch felt too good, causing him to jerk involuntarily beneath her stroke. His heart was pounding. He wanted to bury himself deep inside her, impale her, fill her to the hilt now—now—now! “What are you—?”
Her eyes were dark and full of need as she pulled him over her onto the bed. “Take me,” she whispered.
A low growl rose in his throat as he looked down at her, spread across the bed for his pleasure. He didn’t even take the time to pull off his pajama pants. He couldn’t. Leaving them across his thighs, he positioned himself and thrust inside her, filling her.
She gasped, gripping his shoulders. Her face filled with anguished ecstasy, and for a moment he thought he’d gone too far, too deep. He started to withdraw.
“No.” Gripping her fingers into his flesh, she started to move beneath him. “More.”
He pushed inside her again, and she moaned. He rode her, harder and faster, until the bed frame rocked loudly against the wall.
“Stop!” she whispered, looking up at him. “Don’t wake the baby!”
He exhaled in a surprised laugh then, leaning forward, kissed her forehead tenderly. Gripping her hips, he slowly thrust inside her in a controlled movement. Somehow the silence just deepened the pleasure. Made it forbidden. He rode her wet and hard until she gripped his upper arms and he heard her soundless scream of pleasure. With a rush of ecstasy, he slammed into her one last time with a shuddering, silent gasp as his whole world shimmered and exploded.
He fell on top of her. It might have been minutes, or an hour, later before he was aware he might be crushing her beneath the weight of his body. He didn’t know how much time had passed, which was strange. For one precious moment, it had almost felt like sleep….
He started to move away from her, but she grabbed his arm. “Stay with me.”
He hesitated. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep beside her. But in this moment, he could deny her nothing. Without a word, he rolled back and pulled her to his naked chest, spooning her smaller body with his larger one.
She turned around in his arms. “I love you.”