Alejandro bent his head and buried his face in the soft curls of her mound, probing fingers seeking and parting the damp folds between her legs. She was wet, so wet and ready for him, he discovered half-guiltily. Why did he feel as if he was seducing an innocent? Why did he find that innocence so impossible to resist?
Isobel parted her legs almost involuntarily. The sensations Alejandro was arousing made her weak and eager for more. Even the scratch of his stubble against her bare thighs was unbearably stimulating to someone so inexperienced in the ways of sex.
It was difficult to breathe. The atmosphere in the room was hot and sultry. Just like Alejandro’s love-making, the musky scent of his body was more erotic than she had ever dreamed. And when his tongue took the place of his fingers, penetrating those satin folds, she couldn’t prevent the hoarse cry that issued from her lips.
She was on the brink of incoherence, mindless with need, aching to assuage the unfamiliar feelings inside her, when he lifted his head and covered her mouth with his. Then, straddling her thighs, he allowed the blunt head of his erection to nudge her tingling core.
‘Tu queria,’he said thickly. ‘I must have you, cara.’ Then, with an ease she could only envy, he parted her legs and buried his throbbing shaft in her slick sheath.
He heard her catch her breath when his powerful thrust encountered tight muscles. Deus, he thought incredulously; it was almost like making love to a virgin. His contempt for her ex-husband was complete.
But when those same muscles expanded and then tightened around him his own urgent desire made any kind of intelligent thought impossible. Slipping his hands beneath her bottom, he lifted her so that he could encase himself completely. And, amazingly, she accepted him, her slim legs curving sensually about his hips.
When he started to withdraw almost to the point of separation she moved with him, and he heard her fractured breathing with a delight he’d never experienced before. She was the most responsive woman he’d ever made love with, and he wanted to prolong their shared quest for fulfilment as long as he possibly could.
But before long Isobel’s eager response drove him to quicken the pace of his strokes. Her breasts were taut against his sweating body; even the little cries she was making were totally seductive.
He tried to hold onto his control, but he was fighting a losing battle. When the ripples of her climax caused her muscles to convulse around him and he was drenched with her essence, he had to pray she knew what she was doing. He couldn’t hold out any longer, and with a final groan he surrendered to the blissful gush of his own release.
Alejandro’s body had at last stopped shuddering and he rolled to one side so that Isobel could breathe more easily. Then a shrill sound assaulted his ears.
He heard the sound without association. Or maybe he just didn’t want to recognise it, he realised. But as it continued he was forced to identify it as his mobile phone.
His face was buried in the pillows beside Isobel’s head, and he wished with an urgency that bordered on paranoia that someone would just turn the damn thing off. But then he remembered that the phone was still secure in its own little pocket in his suit jacket. The jacket that was lying on the floor in the other room.
Stifling an oath, Alejandro pushed himself up onto his elbows and then jackknifed onto his knees.
Isobel stirred, casting languid eyes in his direction. ‘What is that noise?’ she asked, one hand reaching for his arm. ‘What are you doing? I don’t want you to go.’
‘And believe me, querida, I do not want to go either,’ he assured her huskily, capturing her hand and raising her palm to his mouth. His tongue briefly touched the soft skin, and then he added ruefully, ‘My—how do you say?—my cellular telephone is ringing, nao?’
Isobel frowned. ‘Your mobile?’
‘Sim, my mobile,’ he agreed, reaching for his suit trousers as he scrambled off the bed. Hopping on one foot, he managed to get his leg into one of the openings. ‘You will excuse me, querida? It is no doubt my father, and when he calls and I do not answer he tells my mother and she worries, nao?’ He raised apologetic brows. ‘They both worry. They think London is a dangerous place.’
Isobel’s lips pursed. ‘Not that dangerous,’ she protested, and Alejandro lifted his shoulders in a gesture of resignation.
‘As you say,’ he agreed drily, but, hauling up his trousers, he gave her a smile before striding out of the bedroom.
It was his father, as Alejandro had suspected it might be, but not calling to reassure either himself or Alejandro’s mother that all was well with their son. He rarely rang, and only if the matter was urgent. This time the news he had to deliver caused Alejandro to close his eyes in frustration. It was a week since his father had made his first call on this subject.
Now, although he had hoped to bring his son better news, it seemed the situation had got progressively worse.
‘But can’t Anita handle it?’ Alejandro exhorted impatiently. ‘For God’s sake, Miranda is only nineteen!’
‘Anita says she is at her wit’s end. Your going away at this time has only exacerbated the problem. Miranda will not listen to either Anita or her counsellor.’ His father paused. ‘As I understand it, your final meeting was today, yes? I know you had planned to continue on to Paris, but I really think you should come home, Alejandro. If you care about the girl at all, you owe it to her to try and make her see reason.’
‘I am not a professional, Papa.’ Alejandro pushed agitated fingers through his hair.
‘But you do seem to be the only person Miranda will listen to,’ declared Roberto Cabral heavily. ‘Please, Alejandro. Do not make me have to beg.’
Alejandro was closing the phone when he became aware of Isobel standing in the doorway. She had pulled on her shirt again, but it barely reached her thighs, and her feet were bare.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked, her eyes puzzled, and he wished he had the right to tell her.
‘It was my father,’ he said, slipping the phone into the pocket of his trousers. He pulled a face. ‘Regrettably, I have to return to Rio as soon as I can get a flight.’
Isobel’s stomach hollowed. ‘To Rio?’ she said, feeling an awful sense of abandonment.
‘I am afraid so.’ Alejandro sounded as if he meant it, but what did she know?
‘Is something wrong?’ she ventured cautiously. ‘Is your mother ill?’ She couldn’t think of anything else that might warrant such urgency.
‘Nao.’ Alejandro forced himself to brush past her without taking her in his arms again as he badly wanted to. ‘It is a business matter,’ he lied, going into the bedroom and rescuing the rest of his clothes. And, when she followed him to stand watching his hasty dressing, he added, ‘Although my father retired some time ago, he still takes an active interest in the company’s affairs.’
Isobel bit her lip. ‘I see.’
Alejandro was sure she didn’t see, but there was no way without betraying a confidence that he could reassure her. Instead, he said, ‘Do not look like that, querida. I want to see you again. It is just—’
‘Business,’ Isobel inserted flatly. ‘I know.’ Her lips twisted. ‘You’d better hurry. I wouldn’t want you to miss your plane.’
Alejandro finished buttoning his shirt and regarded her wearily. ‘Do not speak so bitterly, Isobella. If there was any way I could get out of this commitment I would.’
‘Yeah, right.’ Patently she didn’t believe him, and Alejandro desperately didn’t want it to end