A Taste of the Forbidden

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘I can understand a little.’ Grace nodded. ‘I know it isn’t quite the same.’ She grimaced. ‘But—I was eight when my parents adopted five-year-old Beth, and decided to tell me that I was adopted, too.’ She gave a shake of her head. ‘Oh, they did it the usual way, explained how special I was, that they had chosen me as their daughter. But after that I—I began to look at the people I met, couples I would see in the street, and in restaurants and hotels, and wonder if they might be my birth parents,’ she admitted gruffly.

  Cesar moved his hand up to smooth back the tendrils of hair at her temples. ‘It would seem that we are more alike than we might ever have realised,’ he murmured ruefully.

  Grace’s choked laugh was completely spontaneous. ‘Oh, yes, we’re very alike! You’re Cesar Navarro, the successful businessman and billionaire,’ she explained at his questioning look. ‘And I’m Grace Blake, the cordon bleu chef who currently can’t even get a job in a London hotel or restaurant!’

  ‘Those things are what we are on the outside, Grace.’ The darkness of his gaze held hers captive. ‘Inside, we are both of us searching for an elusive something we believe might help to complete us.’

  The air around them had become so tense in the last few minutes, so heavy with emotion, that Grace found she was still crying. And she couldn’t she look away from the dark intensity of Cesar’s gaze.

  ‘Please do not cry, Grace. I cannot bear to see you cry!’ His thumb moved gently across her tear-wet cheeks before both his hands moved up to cradle each side of her face as he slowly lowered his head and claimed the softness of her lips with his own.

  A kiss so poignantly beautiful that Grace found it impossible not to respond as his lips gently sipped and tasted her own.

  A kiss that didn’t stay poignant or gentle as Cesar gave a groan deep in this throat, his hands leaving the sides of her face as he drew her up into his arms. Grace was now sitting on his muscled thighs as his fingers became entangled in the heavy darkness of her hair and he angled her face to allow him to deepen the kiss with the moist sweep of his tongue across her parted lips.

  Grace groaned low in her throat as she turned fully in his arms, her breasts pressed against the heat of Cesar’s chest she could feel through the thin silk of his shirt, as she finally threaded her fingers into the silky darkness of that dark and tousled hair and returned the heat of those kisses.

  Deep, searching kisses that quickly raged out of control as Cesar turned slightly in the chair and lay Grace back against his arm about her shoulders, the better to allow him to devour the softness of her lips as he drew in her brandy and peaches taste of her tongue duelling with his. Her perfume was an insidious combination of flowers and hot, aroused woman as Cesar’s free hand roamed restlessly across the curviness of her hips and slenderness of her waist before lightly cupping beneath the swell of her breast.

  A full and aroused breast, that allowed him to feel the press of swollen nipple through her blouse and lacy bra. A lacy bra that had driven Cesar to distraction earlier this evening as they talked with his parents and he caught tantalising glimpses of that lace against and beneath her blouse.

  She gasped softly as Cesar ran the soft pad of his thumb across that swollen berry, only to gasp and press up and into him as he repeated that caress, her bottom shifting restlessly against his arousal as he repeated that caress again and again whilst continuing to devour the sweet intoxication of her lips and mouth.

  Grace groaned low in her throat as Cesar squeezed and caressed the aching tip of her breast, wanting—oh, hell, wanting— ‘Cesar!’ she pleaded breathlessly as his lips left hers and moved along the column of her throat and up to latch onto the sensitive lobe of her ear, teeth gently biting, and sending quivers of pleasure to the tips of her breasts and the swollen heat between her thighs. ‘Cesar, please!’ she groaned achingly. ‘Yes!’ That groan turning to a hissing release of satisfaction as he pulled her blouse free from the waistband of her skirt and she felt the warmth of his hand against her own heated flesh, her waist, her ribs, before he finally cupped her lace-covered breast, squeezing gently before pushing the lacy cup downward and under her breast as he bared that turgid nipple to his caresses.

  Grace’s insides turned to liquid fire as Cesar’s lips once again travelled the length of her throat as he rolled that bared and swollen nipple between thumb and finger, lightly and then harder, caressing, squeezing, pulling almost to the point of pain, before repeating that first light caress.

  Grace was held captive by the dark heat in Cesar’s eyes as he deftly unfastened the buttons of her blouse before pushing it to one side, his gaze lowering as he revealed the full swell of her breast tipped with that deep rose nipple.

  ‘Beautiful...’ he groaned, his hand capturing and holding that creaminess as his head slowly lowered.

  Grace lay back and watched in fascination as the warmth of Cesar’s lips moved across that swell, tasting, licking, but never quite touching the ache of her throbbing nipple. ‘Please, Cesar!’ She arched her back and lifted up to him when she couldn’t bear the teasing torment any longer, and was instantly rewarded as he parted his lips over that pert nipple before suckling her into the moist heat of his mouth, and sending waves of that heat deep between her throbbing thighs.

  Cesar suckled hungrily on Grace’s sweetness, pulling her ever deeper into the heat of his mouth, tongue rasping that aroused nipple, teeth gently biting to the throb of his aroused and pulsing shaft against the pertness of the bottom he had touched and so fleetingly squeezed earlier tonight. He realised that Grace’s hands hadn’t been idle as he felt the caress of her fingers against his own bared chest. Fleeting, light caresses as she traced the hard contours of his muscled shoulders and chest.

  He became lost in the pleasure of those caresses as her fingers lightly grazed his sensitive flesh before moving lower, those rousing fingertips dancing over the muscled contours of his stomach, following that line of dark hair, which formed a perfect V down beneath the waistband of his trousers, before she cupped the length of his aroused shaft in the palm of her hand.

  Cesar raised his head reluctantly as Grace would have unfastened his trousers, his ragged breathing sounding harshly in the otherwise silence of the room. ‘We must stop now, Grace.’ He placed a kiss on each ruby-red nipple before gently straightening her bra and pulling the two sides of her blouse together to cover her nakedness.

  ‘What?’ Grace looked up at him with dark, unfocused eyes, her lips full and swollen from their kisses, her cheeks flushed with arousal.

  ‘The security camera—’ He broke off as she gasped before sitting up abruptly.

  Grace’s eyes were wide with shock as she scrambled off Cesar’s thighs and stood up, holding her unbuttoned blouse tightly across the swell of her breasts, her face pale as she looked across the room at the security camera.

  The security camera!

  All the time she had been in Cesar’s arms that damned security camera had been recording everything they did. When Cesar had unbuttoned her blouse, bared her breasts, kissed her breasts, and suckled her nipples!

  And someone—Raphael?—would have been watching all of those things as they happened.

  She turned back to Cesar as he sat forward tensely in the armchair, the darkness of his hair even more sexily tousled than usual from where her fingers had threaded through it earlier, his eyes dark and unfathomable, his cheeks flushed, his unbuttoned shirt revealing the bronzed skin of his bared chest with its covering of silky dark hair.

  Her angry gaze flashed back to his face. ‘How could you do that to me?’ she choked out.

  He frowned darkly as he stood up quickly. ‘Grace.’

  ‘How could you?’ Her breasts—breasts that still ached from Cesar’s ministrations—quickly rose and fell in her agitation as she quickly refastened her blouse.

  His mouth tightened. ‘I simply forgot the camera was there.’

  ‘You forgot?’ she repeated incredulously. ‘You live with those damned camera
s twenty-four hours a day, but tonight you just forgot about them?’

  ‘Yes, Grace, I forgot.’ A nerve pulsed in the tightness of his jaw as he ran an agitated hand through the tousled darkness of his hair. ‘The moment I kissed you everything else went out of my head.’

  ‘Really?’ Grace scorned, knowing she was being unreasonable, unfair even, but too embarrassed, by the thought of Raphael or one of the other security guards watching her and Cesar together, to think of anything else at that moment.

  ‘Yes, really,’ Cesar bit out harshly, those dark eyes glittering dangerously. ‘I accept it was a serious omission on my part, Grace...’ his voice softened ‘...but you are behaving irrationally—’

  ‘No, Cesar, I’m behaving exactly in the way any woman would at the thoughts of someone—some—some voyeur!—watching the two of us—the two of us— I want that security disc destroyed, Cesar!’ She was shaking with humiliation as she glowered across at him. ‘Snapped in half, quarters—tiny little pieces!—and then incinerated. Do you hear me?’

  He winced as her voice rose with each successive word. ‘I believe the whole of Buenos Aires can hear you at this moment.’

  ‘The whole of Buenos Aires is welcome to hear me at this moment!’ Grace was breathing hard in her agitation. In her feelings of humiliation! She hadn’t even been out on a date for over a year, and she had never, ever allowed a man to touch and kiss her as intimately as Cesar just had. ‘Raphael, or one of his cohorts, will have seen all of that,’ she groaned. ‘How am I ever going to face him or them ever again? How?’

  ‘Raphael is the soul of discretion—’

  ‘And I suppose you know that because this sort of situation occurs on a regular basis? Maybe you even have your own private collection of—’

  ‘I advise you to stop right there, Grace,’ Cesar warned softly.

  ‘And if I don’t? What are you going to do to me, Cesar?’ She glared at him. ‘Fire me? Well, let me save you the bother—’

  ‘Do not do or say anything in haste, Grace,’ he warned chillingly.

  ‘It isn’t in haste, Cesar.’ The tears in her eyes made it difficult for her to see him as any more than a hazy outline. ‘I hate the way you live, the security guards, the cameras; I hate it all.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Oh, I understand the reason for them, Cesar.’ One hot, scalding tear escaped down the coolness of her cheeks. ‘I understand completely now that I know why it is you choose to live like this. I just—I like being with people, Cesar. All types of people, the bad as well as the good, and I can’t breathe in this ivory tower you’ve created to keep others out.’ She drew in a shaky breath. ‘I’m not going to just leave you without a cook or a housekeeper—that would be totally wrong. But I am giving you notice now, Cesar, that I won’t be staying on when my one month’s trial is over. That should give Kevin Maddox plenty of time to replace me.’

  Cesar had no idea what to say, what to do—and no doubt Grace would tell him he had already done enough.

  He hadn’t meant to kiss Grace, certainly hadn’t intended to make love to her in the way that he had, but her tears, the taste of her lips, the warmth of her response, had all served to shatter his usual self-control, to the point that he had briefly forgotten everything else.

  With the result that Grace was now angry with him and embarrassed at the thought of having to face Raphael again.

  He drew in a deep breath. ‘I will speak to Raphael—’

  ‘All the talking in the world isn’t going to make him forget what he saw,’ Grace said wearily, pushing back the loose tendrils of hair from her cheeks.

  That same silky sable hair that Cesar had so enjoyed touching such a short time ago. And which his fingers still longed to touch. Instead he put those fingers to work refastening several buttons on his shirt. ‘Perhaps we should discuss this again in the morning, when emotions are not running so high?’

  She shot him a pitying glance. ‘Whose emotions would those be, Cesar?’

  His mouth thinned. ‘Insulting me will do nothing to change the awkwardness of this situation, Grace.’

  ‘No,’ she conceded heavily. ‘I’ll finish clearing away now.’ Her gaze avoided meeting his as she moved to pick up the tray of coffee things.

  ‘Maria can do that in the morning.’

  Grace gave a rueful smile. ‘I made the mess—I clear it up.’

  ‘You are exhausted.’

  ‘And you really think I’m going to be able to sleep after this?’ she demanded.

  No more than Cesar was. Although the reasons for those feelings of sleeplessness were different: Grace was upset and embarrassed; Cesar was still aroused. Too much so to be able to go to his lonely bed and sleep.

  ‘Goodnight, Cesar.’

  He winced at the weary flatness of her tone. ‘Goodnight, Grace.’

  She had paused in the doorway. ‘I—I would like to go out tomorrow and see some more of Buenos Aires before we leave.’ She met his gaze challengingly. ‘Beth didn’t approve of my coming here but—’

  ‘Why not?’

  Grace gave a rueful smile. ‘I don’t think she liked the idea of my going away with a man—even one that’s an employer—I’ve only just met.’

  ‘A disapproval which just now would seem to justify?’

  ‘Yes,’ Grace confirmed huskily. ‘Nevertheless, she would never forgive me if I didn’t take her something back, and at least see some of the city while I’m here,’ she added ruefully.

  A city Cesar had no doubt Grace had no intention of ever returning to. ‘I will see what can be arranged.’ He nodded abruptly. ‘Do not pressure me for an answer on this tonight, Grace,’ he warned harshly as he saw the way her mouth had set in a stubborn line.

  Grace looked at him searchingly, knowing by the dangerous glitter of those dark eyes, and the tensing of his already clenched jaw, that she really had pushed Cesar enough for one night, that his temper, usually so cold and controlled, was as near to the surface as her own, and in danger of erupting with the destruction of a volcano’s hot lava.

  Not that she had any intention of allowing Cesar’s disapproval of her plans to make the slightest difference to her own decision to venture out into the city tomorrow. She was going, and that was an end to the subject as far as she was concerned; she very much doubted she would ever have another chance to see Buenos Aires!

  Grace nodded abruptly. ‘I’ll make sure everything is tidy in the kitchen before I go to bed.’

  ‘I wish you sweet dreams, Grace.’

  She turned back sharply. ‘What did you say?’

  He gave a shrug. ‘When I was a child my mother always said that to me when I was going to bed. Did your mother not say the same thing to you?’

  Her brows rose. ‘Not that I recall, no. Nor is it particularly appropriate between the two of us right now,’ she added ruefully.

  ‘No.’ Cesar grimaced as he thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. ‘I will just wish you goodnight, then.’

  ‘You already did that.’

  ‘Then I must have meant it if I have just repeated it!’ He bit out his frustration with the awkwardness that now existed between the two of them.

  Grace continued to look at him for several seconds before giving an abrupt nod of her head. ‘Goodnight, Cesar.’ She walked out of the room and down the hallway to the kitchen.

  A room that suddenly seemed empty, almost lonely, now that first his parents, and now Grace, had all gone. And Cesar was never lonely. Always alone, but never lonely...

  He moved to the decanter of brandy and refilled his glass before striding restlessly across the room to stand in front of the window, his expression bleak as he found himself thinking of Grace rather than looking at the city of Buenos Aires spread out before him. A city Grace had decided she wished—fully intended, if he had heard her tone correctly!—to explore the following day. Something he could not allow. Unless—

  ‘Cesar?’

  He turned slowly, raising one dark questi
oning brow at Raphael as the other man stood in the shadows of the open doorway.

  ‘Where is Señorita Blake...?’

  ‘Grace has gone to bed, Raphael—as I am sure you are only too well aware,’ Cesar answered him. ‘Join me?’ He held up his glass of brandy in invitation to the other man.

  ‘Gracias.’ Raphael stepped into the room and poured himself a glass of the brandy before strolling over to stand beside Cesar in front of the window.

  The two men were, as Grace had known intuitively, much more than employer and employee, but not in the way she had suspected; it was a bond of friendship only, one that had been forged during their years together at school, and Cesar had been more than happy to offer the other man the post of Head of Security ten years ago when Raphael, having recently left the army, told him how he could not live at his family’s vineyards at Cuyo. The arrangement had worked very well for both men.

  Raphael sipped his brandy. ‘Miss Blake has a temper.’

  Cesar found himself grinning appreciatively. ‘Oh, yes.’

  The other man nodded. ‘I like that about her.’

  ‘So, unfortunately, do I.’ Cesar sighed heavily.

  Raphael quirked a dark brow over piercing blue eyes. ‘Unfortunately?’

  Cesar gave a shrug of his shoulders. ‘She not only has a temper but she is headstrong. She wishes to go and explore Buenos Aires tomorrow,’ he explained impatiently.

  ‘Then let her.’

  ‘Alone,’ Cesar added pointedly.

  ‘Ah.’ Raphael nodded in understanding. ‘I am sure we will be able to accommodate her request.’

  ‘And I am just as sure that Grace will do everything in her power to evade any attempt on your part to follow or have her followed,’ he said knowingly.

  Raphael pursed his lips in thought. ‘Then we must find a way she will find acceptable.’

  ‘I already have.’

  The other man looked at him searchingly for several long seconds before his brow cleared and he gave a firm shake of his head. ‘No, Cesar, I cannot allow—’