She must have fallen asleep, because when she opened her eyes again, it was to see early stars already beginning to pepper the sky outside the un-shuttered windows. Still sleepy and caught in the half-world between wakefulness and slumber, her mind drifted around tantalising pathways. Was it possible they could make this marriage work? she wondered fleetingly. Could they compromise somehow? Forget about the bad stuff and concentrate on the good stuff and learn to love one another all over again?
‘Are you awake?’ she whispered.
‘I am now.’ Alej rolled over and studied her. Awake and already hard and wanting more—for that was the effect she had on him. The effect she’d always had on him. He ran his fingers over her pale and quivering body, watching her nipples harden as he scratched his nails lightly over the soft fuzz of hair at her groin, before dipping his head to it.
‘Alej?’ she said, in a voice which sounded slurred although he knew she had drunk nothing stronger than water at the reception.
‘I’m not in the mood for conversation right now,’ he ground out.
He parted her thighs gently and began to minister to her with his mouth, hearing her moan as he slowly licked her damp folds. He flicked the tip of his tongue against her tight bud, enjoying her unique taste and the way her nails scrabbled helplessly at the petal-strewn duvet as he quickened the movement. And in a moment of disturbing clarity, he realised he had only ever done this with her. It had been just one of the myriad ways they had pleasured each other without the actual act of penetration, when she had been so young. The memory of that had stayed stubbornly with him and the thought of laying his mouth so intimately against another woman had repulsed him. Yet even that simple fact had maddened him, for he saw it as a weakness and unwanted dependence upon the woman who had rejected him. He wanted to draw his mouth away in order to frustrate her but instead he found himself revelling in the taste of her. Musk and honey, he thought achingly, and he hardened as she began convulsing against his lips.
There was another condom close by but, although he was rock-hard and eager to enter her, something held him back. Instead, he watched until her shuddered breathing had steadied itself and then her eyelids fluttered open, as if she had suddenly become aware that his gaze was on her. He saw the trace of uncertainty which crossed her face and for some reason that gave him pleasure as he lay back against the bed and, with a careless flick of his hand, indicated the throbbing hardness at his groin.
‘Now you,’ he said softly. ‘Your turn.’
Still dazed after her orgasm, Emily felt suddenly wary about what he wanted her to do, yet surely that was completely illogical. After all, she’d done it many times in the past—not just in the stables but outside in the lush pastures, where the fresh Argentinian air had helped provide her with a liberating sense of freedom. But back then they had been close. Young and passionate—with none of all the bad history or hang-ups which had stood between them like a barrier ever since. Suddenly she felt almost shy about what he wanted her to do—and she needed to lose that attitude quickly. She was a grown-up, she reminded herself. And now a wife.
So she wriggled down the bed to position her head close to his groin, running light fingertips over his erect shaft and registering the instinctive shudder which racked through his body as she did so. Up and down, her thumb and forefinger moved with feather-light touch, revelling in the sensation of his silk-encased hardness. She continued with this stealthy rhythm until she saw his eyelids flutter to a close, and only when she was sure she wasn’t being observed did she bend her head to him. He moaned as she took him into her mouth and already she could feel the sticky wetness on his tip as she began to suck him.
‘Emily,’ he groaned, tangling his fingers into her hair and dislodging a stray clip from her bridal headdress, which he plucked out and tossed to the floor.
She danced her tongue over him, tracing little patterns over his pulsing stiffness, enjoying the way he thrust his pelvis towards her, as if silently begging for relief. But Alej didn’t beg, she reminded herself. He’d told her that a long time ago. She opened her mouth wider because he had suddenly tensed and she felt a rush of something like triumph as he flooded into her mouth. She revelled in the salty taste of him as she raised her head and drew the tip of her tongue over her lips to catch a drop she must have missed, realising that he was watching her intently.
But it wasn’t satisfaction she could read in the suddenly stony depths of his eyes, but a dark anger she’d never seen there before. She blinked at him in confusion, feeling out of her depth. ‘You didn’t enjoy that?’
‘Don’t ask disingenuous questions. You know damned well I did.’
Her confusion deepened. ‘Then why aren’t you smiling?’
‘Because I have something on my mind. Do you want to know what it is?’
Actually, she didn’t, because she suspected she wasn’t going to like it—but she wasn’t a child who could simply run away from things which might be hard to hear. ‘Go ahead,’ she said quietly.
Crossing his arms behind his head, he pillowed his head on his elbows. ‘I’d forgotten just how good you were at doing that. But as you were licking and sucking me with such beautiful precision, I couldn’t help but wonder how many other men you have administered to in such a way.’
Administered to in such a way? Emily recoiled with something like indignation. He was making her sound like some sort of perverted nurse! ‘You’re asking me to tell you how many men I’ve slept with?’ she questioned.
He looked momentarily surprised at her candour before quickly recovering himself, but Emily reminded herself that Alej Sabato didn’t have the monopoly on being ‘blunt’. And wasn’t this something which needed to come out anyway? Hadn’t it troubled her for a long time that the erroneous picture she’d once painted of herself was one she deeply regretted?
His voice was harsh. ‘That’s exactly what I’m asking you.’
‘None,’ she said flatly.
He shifted his position slightly, his eyes narrowing. ‘Excuse me?’
‘None,’ she repeated. ‘Would you like me to say it in Spanish for you? Ninguno! You’re the only man I’ve ever given oral sex to! The only man I’ve ever been intimate with! The only one! Do you understand? I told you I wanted to have sex with other men because it was the only way I could guarantee you wouldn’t come after me. I knew it would disgust you and I was right. But I did it because I thought it was for the best all round. I honestly didn’t think we had any kind of future together, Alej.’
Alej sat up, his heart pounding as the meaning of her words sank into his disbelieving ears. She hadn’t slept with another man in eight long years? Could she be speaking the truth? His gaze swept over her. Her cheeks were flushed, her long fair hair ruffled from where he’d been running his fingers through it and her lips darkened by the pressure of his kisses. On the one hand he was pleased—of course he was—because the thought of her so intimately touching another man was like plunging a dagger deep into his heart.
But on the other...
Anger began to well up inside him, like the slow swell of the ocean when a storm was approaching. Because wasn’t this the greatest sin of all—the one committed by every woman he had ever known?
‘So when you told me that you wanted other men,’ he questioned, his voice unsteady, ‘that you had seen other, more suitable men...’
She shook her head as his words tailed off. ‘It wasn’t true. You were the only man I ever wanted,’ she breathed. ‘The only one I could ever contemplate being intimate with. You still are.’
Alej felt a punch of primitive satisfaction but forced himself to ignore it, because sexual exclusivity wasn’t really what