‘We’re as private here as in the bedroom,’ Joaquin told her, abandoning her toes and turning his attention to her foot, kissing his way from her instep to her ankle. ‘So just lie back and let me pleasure you.’
If the truth were told, he didn’t know if he was pleasuring her or himself, he admitted inwardly as he made his slow, caressing way up her leg, heading for the softer inner skin of her thighs, one of the parts of a woman that he loved most of all. There were times when only the hot, hard rush of fiery passion would do, when speed and urgency were everything. And there were times when the slow, sensual build-up, the piling of delight upon delight, was what it was all about.
And this time was one of those.
This was a time to savour. To enjoy to the fullest the pleasures of the flesh.
But at the touch of his mouth on her thigh Cassie moaned aloud, her hands reaching down, reaching for him, pulling him up to cover her until their mouths met, clashed, clung in a soul-searing kiss that was hotter than the sun in the sky.
‘Querida!’ Joaquin muttered against her lips, the sensation of her naked, sun-warmed body under his pushing all his earlier thoughts of patience, of slow sensuality, right out of his mind. ‘Cassandra, querida, you are all that a man could ever ask for in a woman—in a lover.’
His strong, tanned legs pushed at her slimmer, paler ones, opening her to him so that he lay between them, the essential heat and hardness of him just nudging against her exposed flesh.
‘Joaquin…’
It was a soft, moaning whisper, the sound of his name an enticement, a caress and a reproof all in one.
And the reproof was because she was getting impatient. He could see it in her face, read the gathering storm of hunger in her eyes.
That was what he had always enjoyed so much about this woman.
The fact that she not only matched his desire head-on, but that her own passion often surged ahead, leaving him breathless with the need to equal her, satiate her, appease the hunger her demands woke in him.
He had never had a sexual partner like her. Never known someone who satisfied all his fantasies in one glorious, sensual, physical package, and yet somehow always managed to leave him hungry, looking for more.
Cassie’s clutching hands held him where he was, close on top of her body. The soft, sweet pressure of her breasts against his chest was a torment of sensuous delight, making him harden even more.
With his lips taking delicate, nipping little caresses, he kissed his way down her neck, making her stir and murmur faintly, tilting her head back against the cushions. The movement opened the way to the rest of her upper body, taking his kisses over the slopes of her breasts, one after the other, so she arced ever higher, exposing the hardened, thrusting nipples to tempt him.
A temptation there was no way in hell he could resist.
‘Oh, dear heaven…!’
The uncontrolled cry escaped her as his mouth fastened tight over the pink nub, suckling hard, grazing the skin faintly with his teeth.
‘Oh, Joaquin…’
Her body convulsed under his, her legs opening wider, exposing the innermost core of her, inviting…
With a single, forceful, uncontrollable thrust, he answered that invitation, taking himself into her body and into the realms of pure sensation in the space of a split second.
There was no room for thought in his head. No room for anything but sheer physical delight. Hunger, passion, burning, blazing excitement that exploded inside his brain, took him higher, further…
And Cassandra came with him every inch of the way.
Having been together for a year, their bodies were attuned. Each knew the other’s private pleasure spots, and used that knowledge shamelessly to entice, to tantalise, to arouse even further. And the warmth of the sun, playing over bare flesh, the evening scent of the plants in the garden, the sound of the birds chirping in the trees, were extra enhancements to the erotic pleasure that swamped their thoughts.
They were lost, abandoned. Totally absorbed in each other. Totally given up to each other, the primitive rhythm pulsing harder, hotter, faster, higher. Until it took them right over the edge and into the mind-blowing explosion of perfect ecstasy, falling headlong into an oblivion of delight.
As their breathing gradually slowed, Joaquin buried his face against her neck, under the now-dry, tangled fall of her hair, and kissed away the faint sheen of perspiration from her skin.
‘This is why you’re mine, Cassandra,’ he muttered, his voice thick and rough with satisfaction. ‘This is why we’re together, why we’ve stayed together. Why we’ve lasted this long.’
His breath escaped in a long sigh that stirred her almost-dry hair.
‘You’re mine!’ he declared possessively, making it plain that that was as much as he wanted.
And at that moment, replete and totally exhausted by the blazing, primitive ardour of their lovemaking, Cassandra allowed herself to believe that perhaps, after all, for now that might just be enough for her too.
CHAPTER THREE
THAT comforting delusion stayed with her at least through the rest of the night. The truth was that she didn’t have time to think of anything else.
She had barely recovered from the whirlwind assault on her senses of Joaquin’s lovemaking, her breath still coming raggedly and unevenly, the sheen of perspiration drying on her skin in the cooling sun of the evening, when he had picked her up and carried her into the house.
‘Joaquin…’ she tried to protest feebly, but he blithely ignored her, padding over the tiles in his bare feet as he took her through the hall and up the staircase to the bedroom.
There, he laid her carefully on the bed, coming down beside her, and drawing her close, crushing a hard, impassioned kiss onto her mouth.
And Cassie surrendered all thought of protesting further, or even of trying to talk. She simply melted into the sensual appeal of his embrace, revelling in the feel of his hot, hard body against her own flesh, the scent of his skin in her nostrils.
Tonight, she told herself, for tonight she would forget her worries, put aside her concerns. Tonight she would not think of a tomorrow or ask for a future. Tonight she would simply enjoy what Joaquin offered, and only that. And she would not ask for more.
And right now what Joaquin did offer was good enough for her. More than good enough, she thought on a swooning sense of pleasure, as, muttering a litany of praise in his native Spanish, his lyrically accented voice roughened by growing desire, he kissed his way once more down from her lips to her throat, from her throat to her shoulders, her breasts… And as his mouth closed, hard and hot and hungry, over the tightened tip, still achingly sensitive from his attentions just a short time before, she felt the sting of desire speed along every nerve path, making her writhe restlessly against him.
‘Joaquin…’ she muttered again, but this time in open yearning, hungry demand rather than protest. ‘Oh, dear Lord, Joaquin…’
And it all began again.
She had no idea what time they surfaced from the wild, erotic storm that had raged over them. She only knew that at some point Joaquin left their bed and went downstairs. He came back a short time later, carrying with him a tray laden down with plates of bread, cheese, fresh fruit and a bottle of one of the very best wines from his own vineyard, together with two beautiful, fine crystal goblets.
He fed her by hand, breaking off small pieces of bread or cheese, picking the finest grapes, the freshest apricots, and offering them to her as a mother might feed a child, so that all she had to do was to accept the delicacies from his hands. He held the glass to her mouth, tilting it so that she could sip the rich red liquid, finally kissing away the faint stain that marked her lips