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.
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