by Kim Lawrence
She brought to mind one of the impossibly desirable virgin sacrifices in an old-fashioned horror movie that every dashing hero was determined to rescue and the villain wanted to lay.
As a fist of lust tightened in his groin Seb discovered his sympathies lay with the villain. He dragged a frustrated hand over his hair and reacted to the emotions spilling from her with a sardonic smile. This woman seemed to go from one emotional crisis to another. Did she not understand the meaning of restraint?
He understood it—he valued it because he had seen the sort of selfish excess and chaos that came with it—and yet understanding the meaning of restraint did not prevent his rampant hormones exploding. They overrode his iron control as his dark smouldering stare travelled slowly over her body.
‘So what couldn’t wait until the morning? Where’s the fire?’ He struggled to inject some amusement into his voice, but the combination of vulnerability and sheer unadulterated feminine sexiness had got to him in a place Seb had thought he’d hermetically sectioned, sealed off...when...
He couldn’t remember exactly what age he’d begun to worry he’d inherited his parents’ genes. It had kept him awake nights until he had realised that recognising your weaknesses meant they weren’t going to trip you up; it was all about control.
Control, he told himself, struggling to recall the meaning of the word as he breathed his way through the conflicting needs to comfort her and tear off her clothes and sink into all that luscious softness.
‘Fire?’ she echoed, blinking up at him.
If there wasn’t one, there would be—she looked hot enough to ignite anything within a fifty-yard radius, he decided, dragging his gaze from the plumpness of her trembling lips as he reminded himself that she might be as attractive as sin and twice as tempting, but Mari Jones was not destined to share his bed. Even if it hadn’t been essential that he kept things on a professional footing, she was not the sort of woman he would have entertained having any sort of relationship with.
Even so, it would have been much simpler if she had been unattractive or, for that matter, had one single flaw physically. His eyes moved from the fabric that had begun to cling with an electrostatic charge to the long shapely length of her legs, drawing his attention once more to the suggestion of shadow at their apex, and he forced himself to focus instead on the many flaws she had personality-wise.
The temper, he thought, sweating now, the mulish obstinacy, but most of all the sheer emotional excess in everything she did. She cried, she laughed, she screamed, she fought, and none of these things she did in moderation—he doubted she was even capable of it.
It didn’t matter how pretty the packaging, he pitied the man who eventually tried to domesticate this red-headed witch. It would take a saint or someone equally capable of making a walk in the park a full-blown drama.
The thought triggered an image, a memory he’d thought he’d forgotten. The day his parents had managed to make such a harmless outing a front-page headline. The moment his mother had pushed his father into the lake had been caught on camera for posterity, as had been their making up, but what Seb remembered was the nauseous, churning sensation of shame in his stomach and the desire to vanish.
When he had run away from the scene, his passionately reunited parents had not noticed their three-year-old son was missing until later that night.
The memory enabled him to claw back some semblance of control. He took a step back and stood there waiting.
Her stomach went into free fall as she glanced up at him through her lashes. He looked like the modern-day flesh-and-blood version of some sort of Greek god in his close-fitting boxers that did a very poor job of concealment, his dark hair standing up spikily, his jaw deeply scored with stubble. A primitive thrill shot through her body as she drank him in, in great greedy gulps.
‘I’m sorry. It was a m-mistake.’
‘Probably,’ he agreed huskily. ‘Calm down, you’re shaking.’ He caught her slim hands and pressed them between both of his.
The action might have been meant to soothe, but it did the opposite. Mari reacted to the contact like a cattle prod, throwing her arms wide to break the connection.
‘I was looking for the kitchen. Do I go right or left?’
There was a long pulse of silence. It buzzed in her ears like a cloud of bees. Mari waited until it became unbearable.
‘Did you hear what I said?’
He was so still, his stillness projecting a tension that was evident in the skin taut over his face. The tension emphasised each slashing angle and perfect plane. Even at a moment like this Mari marvelled that a man could be that beautiful, not just aesthetically because of the sculpted outline of his lips or the symmetry of his bold features, but it was the underlying earthy quality that charged the air around him.
‘This has been a long day. I’ll get Tomas to fetch you—’
‘Don’t wake the poor old man, just tell me how to get there!’ She struggled to flatten the panic she could hear in her voice. ‘Please, Seb.’
She shook her head resolutely, too stressed to interpret the strange way he was looking at her, wishing he’d put on some clothes.
‘You’ll get lost. I’ll show you,’ he said, but didn’t move.
‘No!’
‘Yes!’
They both spoke and moved at the same time, colliding.
Maybe he was a bastard; maybe he was just his parents’ son. You couldn’t choose your genes, and why fight nature? he thought as he reached for her. ‘Later,’ he murmured as he pulled her up hard against him and, one hand on her bottom, the other tangled in her hair, he pulled her head back and fitted his mouth to hers.
She melted into him, soft and warm, her arms going up to circle his neck as she gave a little sigh into his mouth, and kissed him back.
The hungry kiss went on and on, until with a groan he pushed her away and turned his back to her.
‘Get out of here,’ he growled. ‘While you still can.’
The sudden rejection left her trembling. She could still feel the strength of his arms, the hardness of his erection against her belly. Mari bit her lip, and thought to hell with pride—she didn’t care if he knew. She didn’t care who knew. She wanted him, and if that meant begging she would, even at the risk of rejection!
‘Let me stay, Seb, please. I don’t want to go.’ She had never wanted anything less in her entire life; she felt dizzy with the sweet hunger that coursed through her veins.
He swung back, took one look at her standing there and with a groan swept her up into his arms and stalked across to the bed with his prize.
He laid her on the bed and knelt beside her, sweeping her wild curls from her cheek and forehead, smoothing them out onto the pillow. The expression of fierce concentration on his face made her stomach flip.
One hand beside her face, he bent down and kissed her softly, running his tongue along the inner surface of her lower lip, tracing the pouting outline before he slid inside, his tongue tasting every inch of the moist interior. His free hand moved to one breast, cupping it through the thin fabric, his thumb running up the lower slope to graze then tease the engorged rosy peak. Then he covered it with his mouth, wetting the fabric and drawing a hoarse cry of pleasure from her aching throat.
Mari arched up to him, tangling her fingers in his hair, feeling his big body curved over her, tensing a little as his hands slid under her nightshirt, up her thighs, then relaxing, her head pushing back into the pillow because it felt so good.
The sensations shooting through her felt like an electrical storm. The frantic feeling escalated until he suddenly levered himself upright.
Her blue eyes flew wide open in protest.
‘You’re overdressed.’ At some point, Mari had no idea how or when, her little shrug had gone, but before she had time to consider how she felt about being naked in front of him he took the hem of her nightshirt in his two hands and pulled. The middle seam parted with a loud ripping sound until the only thing holding it
together was the prissy little bow.
Holding her eyes with a wicked smile, he very slowly undid the bow and peeled the fabric apart, then her insides dissolved some more as she closed her eyes and breathed in his scent. Warm and musky, it was intoxicating.
‘Look at me.’
She did, her dark lashes parting to reveal the blue languid depths.
Lust slammed through him with a force that threatened to stop his heart, and what a way to go, he thought, drinking in the sight of her gorgeous wanton beauty. Her body was perfect, from the fullness of her high, firm breasts to her long, gorgeous legs that he was imagining wrapped around him.
‘Have you any idea how much I want you?’
‘I have some idea,’ she said, daringly running her hand up his hair-roughened chest and belly.
He gave a low laugh and removed his boxers, drawing an ego-enhancing gasp from Mari.
The first skin-to-skin contact caused a flash of heat within her; the burning continued to build as he kissed her while touching her everywhere until she was on fire. She tensed as he parted her legs, then relaxed as the liquid heat flooded through her body, the pleasure bordering pain, it was so intense.
When he flipped onto his back and fed her hands onto his body she began to eagerly explore his warm, moist skin, fascinated by the overwhelming masculinity of his body, moving across the hard contours of his chest and down over the ridged muscles of his flat belly, while he lay, one hand hooked behind his head, watching her through gleaming hooded eyes.
It gave her a feeling of heady feminine power to curve her fingers around the hard, hot, silky column of his erection and hear him groan with pleasure. So much so that when he removed her hands and pinned them above her head she gave a cry of protest.
‘I need to save some for you,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Let me give you it all, Mari.’
‘Please, oh, please!’
Her frantic plea ripped a lusty growl from his throat as he kissed her.
‘I didn’t sleep with Adrian.’
He lifted his head, and dark eyes glazed with passion blinked down at her. ‘Good.’
‘Or actually anyone.’
For a moment he lay above her perfectly still, every sinew strained, then she heard him mumble, low and sounding like someone in pain. ‘Too late... Do you want me to stop?’
‘No...no...’ She trembled in anticipation, relaxing at the first shallow thrust, no explosion of pain just a feeling of intense pleasure... She let out a moan as he pushed deeper, his tongue sensually mimicking the more intimate movement of his hips.
Instinct made her wrap her legs around his waist as she arched under him, her body rippling tight around him, her fingers clawing at his back.
She clung to him as though he were the only thing stopping her vanishing into the sensual maelstrom that held her in its core as he was in her core, filling her with each stroke, pushing her higher and higher until— When it came, the fierce explosion drew a low keening cry from her throat. She grabbed hold of him and was saying his name over and over as she felt his hot release inside her, then he shuddered and rolled away.
For a moment she felt lost, then he pulled her to him, her head on his chest. She fell asleep listening to the heavy thud of his heartbeat.
He waited for the postcoital sense of emptiness that was the trigger for him to leave the warm bed. He never consciously acknowledged it, but if he had he would have considered it a perfectly reasonable price to pay for retaining control, keeping part of himself separate.
Instead Seb felt an utterly alien feeling of peace. Before he had a chance to ponder it another realisation hit: for the first time in his life, not only had he lost control, but he had not used protection. It had not been calculated, but some sixth sense told him that Mari was not going to give him the benefit of any doubt.
CHAPTER NINE
IN MARI’S DREAM someone was knocking on the door and calling...not her...not her name...and they were speaking a foreign language. It was fluid and nice to listen to but growing louder. Mari pushed free of layers of sleep and lay there smiling, feeling good, feeling... She stretched and muscles complained.
‘Ouch!’ She lifted a hand to smother a yawn and as the sheet, which was the only thing covering her, slid down she realised that she was naked... Naked, and where was she? The rush of recollection coincided with the door swinging inwards and then a woman’s voice, the voice in her dreams, calling.
‘Sebastian! Sebastian!’
Mari, now fully awake, responded to the emergency in the time-honoured fashion. She buried her head in the literal sense by sliding down to the bottom of the bed and heaving the covers that lay there in a tangled mess up over her unruly curls, tucking in her feet, her knees, her elbows...in an effort to disappear.
And that was it. Too late now to reconsider her actions—she was committed and also very uncomfortable.
In her concealment she held her breath, her heart thudding even faster at the thought of humiliating discovery. The muffled sound of heels on the floorboards got closer and the imperative tapping sound louder and louder. She held her breath in anticipation.
Totally convinced she was about to be discovered, Mari waited with the resignation of a condemned woman, wondering if it would be any less humiliating to reveal herself before her undoubted exposure. Should she test the theory and find out if a person really could die of humiliation, always supposing she didn’t suffocate in the meantime?
Her oxygen-starved brain conjured up several versions of the headlines before she decided there probably wouldn’t be any. Sebastian would hush it up to spare further embarrassment to the family name.
She was fast approaching the point where she had to breathe properly, even if that meant she was discovered. Just as her autonomic nervous system kicked in and she opened her mouth to gulp in air, the sound was muffled by the creak of a door opening.
‘Mamina!’
She huddled down, knees drawn up to her chest, trying to make herself as small as possible, into what she hoped would be mistaken for a bundle of bedclothes by anyone who glanced that way. So long as she didn’t do anything like... Do not think about coughing, Mari, she told herself sternly.
It was hot. Sweat broke out over her skin, making her situation even more miserably uncomfortable, and still they carried on talking... Didn’t he appreciate her predicament? Her teeth clenched, she focused on breathing shallowly while, the longer the conversation went on between Sebastian and the woman he had called Mamina, the worse the skin-crawlingly awful prospect of discovery became.
How humiliating would that be?
Just when she thought it couldn’t get worse, the muscles in her calf bunched, and she had to bite down hard on her lip to stop herself crying out. The torture of the cramp became so intense that she was on the point of revealing herself when the pain in her calf that extended all the way to the arch of her foot began to diminish at the same time she realised the flow of Spanish had stopped and the tapping sound was moving towards the door.
A final word from the strong-sounding female voice and the door closed.
‘You can come out now.’
The pile of bedclothes moved, the sardonic smile on Seb’s face deepening into a broad grin as her head emerged, her hair gloriously tousled, her face deeply flushed a clashing shade of pink. She looked a long way from the sleeping angel with the cut-glass features and perfect profile he had reluctantly left to sleep, and even more touchable.
Indignation aside, Mari felt a lurch in her chest. If he smiled more often she’d be in serious trouble... What was she thinking? She was in serious trouble. She managed to keep her scowl in place as he levered his broad shoulders from the wall.
‘My grandmother.’ Keeping his eyes on her, he nodded towards the door.
‘I figured that part out. What I couldn’t work out was why you kept her talking for hours. You had to know that I was...’
He arched a sardonic brow. ‘Hiding under the covers?’
&
nbsp; When he put it like that...
‘What was I meant to do?’ she fired back. Struggling to retain a modicum of dignity, she held the sheet at shoulder height and eased herself up carefully into a sitting position, keeping her legs tucked underneath. She flexed her toes to ease the discomfort in the leg that had suffered the cramp attack.
‘Well, let me see...how about introduce yourself?’ he drawled.
‘Oh, yes, that would have been fun! I’m your grandson’s wife. I didn’t know if she knew, or what story you’d told her!’ she flung back.
Mari’s bitter thoughts mingled with lustful ones as her wilful gaze roamed over him. He’d obviously stepped straight from the shower; presumably that was why he had not heard the knocking from the adjoining bathroom.
He had paused to pull on a towelling robe. His skin, still dusted here and there with moisture, looked vibrantly gold against the black fabric. Loosely belted around his middle, the robe ended midthigh, and Mari’s glance lingered a fraction of a second too long on the hard, hair-dusted columns of his heavily muscled thighs, triggering a tactile memory that pressed down on her as heavily and as hotly as his thighs had pressed her down into the mattress last night.
His dry voice cut into her carnal recollections. ‘I thought you had a head-on approach towards most situations.’
Mari shook her head, the physical action helping to free her of the last clinging strands of the mind-numbing sensual fog. Adopting a cool expression, she lifted her chin and admitted, ‘What seems a good idea at the time can seem a major mistake in the cold, clear light of day.’
An ice age could not have been more unexpected or as total as the frigid hauteur in his regard.
‘So you have decided to draw a line under last night and call it a...mistake?’ He sketched mocking inverted commas around the word as he bit it out through teeth bared in a hard, contemptuous smile.
Mistake? Wasn’t that a pretty good analysis of the emotions that he’d been struggling not to analyse—his own ‘head under the blanket’ moment—as he’d stood accepting the sharp arrows of an icy-cold shower that had washed the scent of her off his flesh but not the memory of the sex, which seemed to have penetrated to a cellular level?
