Cindy Gerard - [Bodyguards 05]

by Under the Wire

  “Right now,” he caressed her foot, lightly bit her calf, “I have something else in mind for you. And for me.”

  He watched her eyes go dark as he reached for her panties and slipped them down her hips. She hiked up on her elbows so she could see what he was doing. Her expression was one of shock and excitement as he brought the scrap of black lace to his face, inhaled deeply of her intoxicating woman scent and her arousal.

  “Sexy woman.” He breathed deep one last time, then tossed the panties to the floor.

  “Will you open for me, Lily?” He covered her thighs with his hands, caressed. “Will you let me see you? Taste you? Make you come with my mouth?”

  He’d shocked her again. And excited her. Her eyes were so expressive and so telling of her thoughts. Even before she opened her thighs, he’d known she would let him. And even before he draped her legs over his shoulders and gently parted her lips so he could see her lovely pink sex, he’d known she would shiver in anticipation and desire.

  He skimmed his lips along her inner thigh where her skin was velvet soft and damp. “Do not look away. I want to see your eyes when I taste you. Give me that, Lily, and I will give you everything.”

  Her eyes were already glazed over as he lowered his mouth and kissed her there, where she was wet and hot and swollen. She jerked when he made the first sweep of his tongue, sucked in her breath on a gasp when he delved deeper, then, to his great pleasure, dissolved into a quivering mass of raw desire when he held her open with his fingers and gave her clitoris special attention. Tender nips. Slow licks. Lush, long kisses.

  She collapsed back on the bed with a low, keening moan when he sucked her. He closed his eyes and indulged. In the heady taste of her languor, the liquid flow of her quick-trigger release, the indefinable taste of a woman well beyond the edge of control.

  Such need. Such honest abandon. Her response amazed him, humbled him, and took him to a place he’d never been with a woman. Now, as when he’d first seen her, she touched him in ways he didn’t fully understand. Of only one thing was he certain: He could pleasure Lily Campora forever if she’d let him.

  Long moments later, when she’d dissolved into a tangle of limp limbs, he crawled up the bed and covered her, sheathed himself inside her tight, giving heat. Pleasure, profound and pure, rushed through his body. He whispered her name, sank in and out of her…again and again and again, dragging her with him into oblivion.

  And as he spilled himself inside her, drowned himself in her essence, the notion crossed his mind that forever with Lily might not be long enough.

  Lily was naked, in a bed with a stranger, in a room bathed in moonlight and the soft glow of a flickering candle.

  With great effort, she opened her eyes. A soft whisper feathered across her ear.

  “You are awake, sweet Lily.”

  Oh yeah. She was awake. Awake and aware and wasted on the most incredible sex of her life. And despite the lingering flush of back-to-back liquid, electric orgasms, she was having huge second thoughts about the reckless decision that had led her to this bed.

  She glanced up at her lover’s questioning eyes. And melted. Oh my. This man could be addictive. This darkly handsome and very naked man lying beside her, who had hiked himself up on an elbow and was frowning with concern.

  “You are all right, mi amor?”

  She touched her hand to her head. “Apparently. I thought the top of my head might have blown off, but it seems all is well.”

  He chuckled and pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder. The big hand that lay across her abdomen began a sensuous kneading. “You make a joke. That makes me smile. You are in a better place now, yes?”

  She turned her head, looked at his slumberous black eyes, his kiss-swollen lips, and wondered if there was a more beautiful man anywhere on earth.

  She mentally shook herself. A better place, he’d said. That was debatable. She’d forgotten about Kara for a while, yes. He’d seen to that. Lord, had he seen to that. But a better place?

  Her heart and her morality hit her a good one in the chest. This had been a mistake. A huge, huge mistake.

  “I’d better go.” She sat up.

  A gentle but firm tug on her arm brought her to her back again. Dark brows knit together over eyes still filled with concern. “Go? Lily, no. You want to go? You want to leave this bed and my arms when we have barely gotten to know each other? ¿Por qué?”

  He was hurt. She let out a deep breath, stared at the ceiling, avoiding the Latin black eyes that could easily suck her right back into the most lovely delights she’d ever experienced.

  Ever.

  “This was…it was wonderful, Manolo—”

  “No, no, no. You must call me Manny, mi amor. And yes, it was wonderful. But it is only the beginning for us. You will see.”

  It took every ounce of her resolve to shake her head. “Look. I really need to g—”

  She sucked in her breath on a gasp as his big hand slid to her inner thigh, stroked, and sent a tingling shock of arousal along every erogenous zone in her body. It seemed that all he had to do was touch her and she went up in flames.

  “Need…to…” she tried again as blunt-tipped fingers trailed enticingly along her hip point, waylaying her best intentions.

  “Need…to…go,” she finally managed in a voice made faint by his expert distractions and by the wild knocking of her heart.

  “It should be against the law,” he whispered, ignoring her and lowering his head to her breast, “for a body like yours to ever be covered by clothing.”

  Another feeble protest died on her lips when his amazing mouth opened over her nipple.

  “A woman like you,” he continued between eating, biting kisses and long, lush strokes of his tongue, “was made to be pleasured. Your body is so beautiful, Liliana.”

  He lifted his head, studied her glistening nipple as if it were a work of art, then turned to watch her face as he covered her mound with his palm and slipped a finger inside her.

  She bit back a moan when he found her wet again and swollen.

  “Yes, you need to be pleasured. Pleasured by me.” His eyes grew dark, his voice gruff. “I could so easily fall in love with you, Lily.”

  Love, she thought fleetingly, was not on the table—or, in this case, the bed. Love, emotional love, was an illusion she was no longer certain she believed in.

  But love, physical and fine, the way Manolo Ortega interpreted it, was something else. He could make her a believer.

  She should go.

  Instead, she closed her eyes, caught her breath on a gasp as sensations rose and built, and fed on the amazing manipulations of his mouth and fingers.

  She arched sensuously, opened her legs wider. This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be her. It was someone else naked in bed with this extraordinary lover whose deep, seductive voice rode the rhythm of words spoken in both English and Spanish. In either language, they were as thrilling as his touch.

  “Tell me you do not want to leave me,” he urged as he rolled to his back and brought her with him. He lifted her, fit himself to her opening, and, gripping her hips, slowly slid her down until he filled her, full and deep.

  She sighed his name when he started moving inside her. Sweet friction. Amazing heat. Sensation spiked, scattered, and doubled back in on her, purging her of coherent thought. All her senses were tuned to that incredible place where their blood flowed the hottest, where he was the hardest and she…she was lost.

  She felt her eyes roll back in her head, braced her palms on his broad, smooth chest, and rode him thrust for thrust, aching for release yet never wanting this exquisite pleasure to end.

  She came with a breath-claiming burst of the most incredible force. It saturated her sensitive nerve endings, imploded through her body in a series of arching, electric shocks, pulsing through pleasure points she’d never known existed. Clenching her inner muscles, she clung to the rush, crying a little…dying a little…to hold on, to hold off…wishing it would never en
d as he pumped one last time and held her hips tight to his.

  She thought she heard him swear—both in English and in Spanish—but the ringing in her ears muffled the words as she collapsed onto his chest, utterly destroyed.

  He wrapped his arms around her, pressed his face into her neck, and together they drifted down, hearts hammering, breath ragged, stamina drained.

  “Tell me you do not want to leave me, querida,” he whispered urgently into her hair.

  “I don’t want to leave you,” she murmured, obedient, acquiescent, wholly and totally giving up the fight.

  Lily didn’t leave him. Not for a moment during the next forty-eight hours. Manny had been given a week of leave, so she put in for a long overdue weekend off herself. For two days and two nights, they only left the bed long enough to eat—sometimes not even then—to shower, and to shop for food to sustain them.

  When she had to go to work at the clinic on Monday, she couldn’t get back to the apartment soon enough after her workday ended. She was, in a word, enthralled, no matter that she’d been determined not to be.

  Manny Ortega, Lily quickly learned, was the most sensual, giving man she had ever encountered. He was also one of the most beautiful.

  Poster perfect handsome, she thought Monday night, watching him sleep. She lay awake in bed beside him not wanting to wake him but unable to resist fingering the St. Christopher medal he wore around his neck.

  Last night she’d told him how gorgeous he was.

  He’d just grinned his sexy grin and taken it in stride. “As my momma says, my face, it will not break plates.”

  No. His face would not break plates, Lily thought, grinning over his refreshing lack of modesty. Hearts, yes. But not plates.

  Even in sleep, everything about him was dazzling. She resisted the urge to run her fingers through his glossy black hair, full-bodied and lush; she loved touching it, playing with it. Although he kept it short—not military short but neat and well groomed—she suspected it would curl or at the very least wave if he let it grow. His skin was an amazing butter caramel color, as if he had a perpetual tan. Against her pale, prone-to-sunburn coloring, his skin tone was exotic and dark.

  And it didn’t end there. She was fascinated by every physical aspect of her lover—maybe more so because she wouldn’t allow herself to become emotionally attached. Something she’d promised herself she would not do that very first night they’d spent together.

  Beside her his body was hard and hot. He had the conditioning of an athlete, all taut muscle and sinewy lines beneath the skin that she so loved to touch. His chest was satin smooth, free of hair; his shoulders were broad, his waist and hips narrow, and the arms that held her in the night muscular and strong. Here and there were the marks of a soldier…narrow scars, thick scars that said he was all man. All warrior.

  He was both a demanding and inventive lover and yet so sensitive to her needs…and to her pain. Earlier tonight, when she’d returned to the apartment from a memorial service for Kara, he’d taken one look at Lily’s face and then he’d taken care of her.

  He’d drawn her a bath, undressed her, and settled her into a warm tub of bubbles. After she’d soaked and cried, then cried some more, he’d wrapped her in a towel, dried her tenderly, brushed her hair, and taken her to bed.

  Where he’d held her while she told him about Kara. Would have done nothing but hold her if she hadn’t turned to him in the night and begged him to make love to her.

  In his arms, she’d found everything. Everything she needed. For how long, she didn’t know. She only knew that right now, what she had was enough.

  CHAPTER 4

  Sunlight filtered in through a long window as Lily sat at the table in Manny’s sister’s small kitchen the next morning, sipping strong, rich coffee and enjoying the sight of a naked and semiaroused man cooking her breakfast.

  “How did you get like this?”

  Unabashedly free of inhibitions, he glanced over a broad shoulder and grinned at her. “How did I get naked? I believe that was your doing, Liliana.”

  So it was. After all they had done together, she still blushed.

  “Evolved,” she said, picking up a slice of mango that he’d set out for them. “How did you get so evolved? I mean, in your culture…men are very macho, right?”

  He laughed and expanded his chest. “Muy macho, sí.”

  She laughed, too, glad she hadn’t offended him. “What I mean is, a man here takes care of his woman, but not in the kitchen.”

  “Yes, chica bonita, we take care of our women. My mother and my sister, they love me. They fuss over me. But they cannot cook. So in self-defense, I learn. From my father,” he added with a wink.

  He hadn’t talked much about his family. Lily found herself asking him now. “What does your father do?”

  “He is an engineer.”

  “Really? What does he engineer?”

  Manny set a plate heaped with fried plantains and eggs dripping with cheese in front of her. “Bridges. Commissioned by the Sandinista pigs. Bridges which I make certain are blown to bits.”

  He sat down across from her as if he hadn’t just dropped a grenade big enough to blow her out of the kitchen.

  “Excuse me?”

  He glanced up at her, then away. “You should eat, Liliana. Before it goes cold.”

  “Sandinista pigs?” she repeated his words with building dread. “Manny? You’re Sandinista. You wear the uniform.”

  It was an issue she had tried not to let bother her. He was just a man trying to make a living, and here, in Nicaragua, the army was often the best way to do that. For some, it was the only way. She understood. It was a means to an end. But she also understood that the Sandinista government was often cruel and oppressive to the general populace.

  “Manny?” she pressed when he remained silent.

  Finally, he relented. He leaned back, propped the heels of his palms on the table, and met her eyes. “Things are not always as they seem, mi amor.”

  She sat back in her chair as the implication of what he hadn’t said took root. Her pulse rate ratcheted up several beats. “You’re not really Sandinista?” She held her breath.

  He shrugged, forked a mouthful of eggs into his mouth, chewed thoughtfully, and seemed to come to a decision. “No, Lily. I am not one of them—even though I share the same last name with President Ortega, I do not claim him as a relative.”

  Whatever relief Lily felt over knowing that Manny wasn’t committed to Ortega and Poveda and his army of thugs was outweighed by concern. Nicaragua was a place of danger, intrigue, and civil war. And the man sitting before her, looking as if he didn’t have a care in the world, was caught up in the middle of it.

  “If you’re not Sandinista…that leaves only one thing.”

  When he didn’t dispute her, she felt her entire body go stiff with alarm. He was a freedom fighter. And that meant he was a spy against the government.

  Oh God. While many in the world felt the Contra effort was the work of terrorists, her time in Nicaragua had shown her otherwise. The Contras were more than guerrillas attempting to overthrow a harsh and cruel regime. They truly were freedom fighters and they had the heart and the backing of not only the United States, who helped finance their fight, but also the silent majority of the people they were fighting to free.

  And Manny was one of them.

  Which meant he put his life on the line every hour of every day.

  “Do not look so worried,” he said, working on his breakfast as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  Lily pushed out a humorless laugh. He’d infiltrated the communist army to obtain intelligence. That placed him in grave danger if anyone in the Sandinista camp were to find out.

  “Worried? Why would I be worried? It’s not like what you’re doing is dangerous or foolhardy or—”

  He reached across the table, covered her hand with his. Only then did she realize she was shaking.

  So much for not getting emotionally inv
olved.

  “Not foolhardy, Lily. Necessary. You see the way our people are treated by the government? You of all people see the poverty and sickness and despair, yes? A fool would let it continue. I cannot.”

  She turned her palm up and linked her fingers tightly with his. “But Poveda…he’s ruthless with those he considers traitors.”

  “Poveda is ruthless with all.” Manny squeezed her hand, then resumed eating. “Now eat. You will need your strength for what I have in mind for you today, woman.”

  He was smiling, teasing, trying to steer her away from the truth of his perilous existence. But she had to know.

  “How long? How long have you been…” She let the thought dangle, afraid to say it out loud.

  “A spy?” He shrugged. “I joined the army at sixteen.”

  Lily lowered her head to her palm. “You were just a boy.” A boy who had gone to war and become a man under fire. It was a way of life here. One she would never understand.

  “Lily,” he said gently. “It is the way. It is not—how do you say it? A big deal.”

  “The local newspapers are filled with notices every day about the fate of Contra rebels who dared fight the regime. They’re tortured, hung, beheaded—all without trial. Sometimes people just…disappear and are never heard from again.”

  She pleaded with her eyes. “You can’t minimize this. It is a very big deal.”

  He expelled a deep breath, sat back from the table, and evidently felt the need to explain. “It is not like in America here. Here, we grow up as all boys do, yes. With a need to fight. But here, boys do not fight for sport. Not for fun or to show who is the most macho. We fight to protect. We fight to get back what the Sandinistas have taken from us. My father—he is a principled man. He made certain I saw the way of things.”

  “He encouraged you to fight?”

  “With the Sandinistas in control you either become…how do you say it…immune? Yes. You become immune and ignore the suffering or you become a man. You turn your head when your family is robbed of their dignity and possessions or you fight.”