by Lucy Ellis
Alejandro did his best not to collapse on top of her, and when his back hit the mattress he anchored her to him. He found himself holding her—something he never did. Which was when he became aware that Lulu was hiding her face against his shoulder. He remembered the way he’d dismissed her in the car, the way she’d hidden her face as he’d said those words to her. He hadn’t understood anything. He felt a blade of self-revulsion sink deep as he wondered if he’d hurt her.
‘Dulzura…’ he said, bombarded by feelings he was damn sure he didn’t recognise or want. He thought he’d made it good for her.
She lifted her head, her eyes bright as stars through those silky black curls. He was a little mesmerised by them and he’d underestimated her. She didn’t look unhappy at all.
‘That was amazing,’ she breathed. ‘When can we do it again?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
LULU’S BACK HIT his forearm, between herself and the wall, and she heard something smash on the floor.
Oh, dear.
Only Alejandro was already lifting her, and with her legs locked around his waist he was filling her so absolutely all she could concentrate on was how good it felt.
She wasn’t sure if a woman with as little sexual experience as she currently had should be so adventurous right off the bat, but it was hard to argue with something that felt so amazing.
Thump, thump—her shoulder nudged at the framed cross-stitch on the wall.
She whimpered, sliding her mouth against his neck as he built their pleasure.
It was all extraordinarily illuminating, if at times a little overwhelming. Nothing he did failed to bring her pleasure.
Now, as she came apart around him, her legs wound tight around his waist, the little picture fell off the wall and she didn’t have it in her to care.
In the aftermath he tumbled her onto the bed and sprawled beside her, breathing heavily.
Lulu lay on her back, feeling the cool air rush over her overheated body, and wondered at this new world opening up to her.
Her body felt replete. Her heart was still pounding, but it was from excitement and exertion, not anxiety, and her mind seemed to be pumped full of happy chemicals, because all she could formulate on her face was a smile.
She turned her head and saw a look of similar satisfaction on Alejandro’s face as he looked at her.
She didn’t feel one bit shy.
‘You must love horses,’ she said.
He began to chuckle. ‘Where has your mind gone?’
She rolled herself onto him and propped herself up on his chest, his chest hair tickling her nipples. He bent one arm behind his head the better to look at her.
‘I want to know all about you,’ she confessed.
Pillow talk. It wasn’t something he usually did, but Alejandro found he really didn’t mind.
‘I’ll tell you about Luna Plateada—the beautiful stallion my great-great-grandfather brought with him to Argentina in the nineteenth century.’
‘Yes, please.’
‘The legend goes that the bloodline of that horse is still alive in our current champion.’
‘It sounds very romantic. Is it true?’
‘Practical. The story enhances the price of the stock we’ve bred from him.’
‘Still, it’s a good story.’
Lulu smiled at him, all big eyes and hot, shiny cheeks. Perspiration had stuck some of her curls to her temples and cheeks. She looked as if she’d had a wild time. He stroked them back.
‘Where did your great-great-grandfather come from?’
‘Curiously enough—here in Scotland. His name was Alexander Crozier—he added the “du” after he became a land baron.’
‘That sounds like another romantic story.’
‘To tell the truth, he was most likely a swindler and a gun-for-hire. I suspect the family legend of him washing up in Buenos Aires and meeting my great-great-grandmother, being hit by a grand passion and winning her by building up a successful ranch has more to do with his ambitions. He probably fought and stole and bribed his way into a position where he could marry into one of Buenos Aires’s oldest families.’
‘Why do you think that?’
‘Let’s just say the du Croziers haven’t been known for their moderation since. It had to come from somewhere, novia.’
‘What does that mean—“novia”?’
‘Sweetheart.’
‘Oh.’
She looked adorably flushed, and the urge to stop talking and delve back into her sweet embrace had him shifting beside her.
But he knew she had to be sore, or would be sore come the morning, because he suspected she’d been a little stretchy with the truth.
He’d never been with a virgin, but he would put money on this being her first time and it made him feel responsible for her in some way—or that was as close to his feelings as he wanted to investigate.
‘So when did you learn to change a tyre?’ He settled back against the headboard, hooking Lulu in against him. ‘You don’t look like the tyre-changing type.’
‘I was ten years old and we got a flat on a motorway. A man stopped and offered to show my mother how to change it. Maman isn’t great with practical things, so he showed me instead.’
‘Where was your father?’
Lulu had been enjoying herself, but now she felt that private part of her crouching in the corner at his question.
She opted for saying, ‘He wasn’t in our lives.’ Which wasn’t exactly the truth. Every day of her young life, even if her father had been absent, his restless, angry presence had always been felt.
‘My grandfather was the one who taught me everything I needed to know,’ Alejandro shared, and she got the impression he was backing off.
She relaxed against him. She didn’t want to think about what was going to separate them in the morning, and besides, she was used to the idea of not involving other people in her problems.
‘My father wasn’t around much either—before or after the divorce,’ Alejandro mused. ‘And when he was it was like being hit by a cyclone of presents and energy. He would make a fuss of the girls and drag me out on some wild excursion that usually ended in someone getting hurt.’
Lulu frowned and looked up. ‘He hurt you?’
‘Fernando? No, nothing like that. He just never grew up—it was always a Boys’ Own adventure with him. Quad bikes…fast cars when I got older. He crashed everything. I was a man at sixteen. He was—well, more of a buddy than a father.’
‘What did your mother think about all this?’
‘As long as he paid her bills she couldn’t have cared less.’
Lulu flinched at his tone, and the urge to touch him, offer comfort, was strong in her. She hadn’t had a father figure until she was fourteen, but it sounded as if Alejandro hadn’t had either parent. She was so close to her own mother—perhaps too close—that it was difficult to imagine what the lack of one would feel like.
‘I was the bone my parents warred with one another for. They lavished me with attention when it suited them, but when it came to the practicalities of life it was my grandfather who offered lessons.’
‘But you said your father taught you to ride?’
‘He put me on a saddle, smacked the horse’s rump and let me fend for myself. As in riding lessons, so in life.’
He spoke without rancour, but Lulu knew enough about hiding those deepest hurts from her last year of therapy to suspect his big, tough exterior hid the boy he’d once been—longing for his father’s attention and not getting it. The fact he had taken up polo professionally despite this start said a lot about his feelings for his father. She guessed it wasn’t so much about wanting his father’s approval as proving himself a better man.
Lulu wisely kept that observation to herself.
Alejandro ruffled the curls at her neck. He was so tactile, and she noticed he had a thing about her hair. It made her feel all squishy inside.
‘Don’t listen to me, hermosa, it’s the l
ong day talking.’
But it wasn’t, and it made her feel closer to him. She watched him massage the muscle where his thigh joined his knee, stretching out his leg.
‘Torn ligament a couple of months ago,’ he said, following her gaze and answering her unspoken question. ‘I usually patch up a lot faster than this. Must be age and fast living catching up.’
Lulu thought that if he was paying for his sins he must be like Dorian Gray—there had to be a ruined portrait somewhere—because his looks were a hymn to male beauty. He did look tired, though, and speaking about his parents had brought a seriousness into his eyes. She sensed he would not reveal any more.
She could have told him she had no intention of probing any further.
The last thing she wanted to do was rake over the coals of the long-dead bonfire that was her father’s time in her life. She was too busy doing battle with spot fires—the anxieties and phobias that were its fallout—and she knew were waiting for her tomorrow. Because they never went away.
She found her refuge in routine, and she couldn’t have that this weekend.
But she was doing okay, and right now she felt better than okay. She felt something new was possible. In this room. On this night.
There hadn’t been a panic attack and she knew she wouldn’t have one tonight. She had never felt as safe as she did lying in his arms.
She glanced down at herself.
Lulu knew that in the real world she would feel shy, would cover herself up, but as his gaze slid down her naked body she didn’t feel anything but thrilled as his eyes darkened appreciably, and she was glad. She felt free to look at his body—so different from her own. He was hard where she was soft, and even her musculature after years of dance had a different, more rounded shape from the powerful planes and dips of his.
She rolled onto her side and studied the definition of his chest with her hand, gliding her fingers down over his abdomen to make sense of the ridging of muscle under the taut pull of his springy olive-toned flesh. Her hand slid down between his hairy thighs to cup him there.
Alejandro hadn’t been expecting that from her. His semi-maiden.
He drew a breath that hissed between his teeth.
She lifted her head. ‘Am I hurting you?’
‘No…’ he choked.
‘Bon, I’m being as gentle as I can. I know how vulnerable men are in this area.’
He made a sound—half-snort, half-groan. ‘No, you don’t,’ he told her. ‘You don’t know the half of it.’
‘I was once forced to use my knee here. He hit the ground like a sack of potatoes.’
‘I bet,’ he grunted, before the content of what she’d just said hit him. He lifted his head. ‘What do you mean, you were forced to?’
‘I had a date who got rather pushy about where he thought the evening was going.’
Alejandro examined her face for clues as to what ‘pushy’ meant. ‘How did he react?’
‘He howled like a hyena.’
‘No, I mean towards you.’
She bit her lip. ‘After the kneeing he wasn’t good for much.’
‘He didn’t hurt you? Physically?’
She gave an abrupt shake of her head. ‘Just gave me a fright. Said some horrible things.’
Her face contorted painfully and it bothered him a great deal.
He ignored all the conditioning he’d had not to offer comfort and found himself sitting up and pulling her into the shelter of his arms. She looked both startled and pleased.
‘It was over a year ago—I should be over it,’ she mumbled.
‘Why should you be over it?’
‘I don’t know. It shouldn’t be that important. He said I was cold and shallow and needed to loosen up. He said—’ Lulu broke off to take a deep breath. ‘He said some people open a gate to life and let it in, but that I had put a lock on my gate and one day it would be old and rusty and no one would want me.’
‘And you believed him?’
‘No. Yes. I don’t know.’
‘How long had you known him?’
‘Several weeks. I thought we were friends.’
She pressed her lips together and he waited, because he knew there was more.
‘I don’t have a lot of friends.’
It was an odd thing for her to say. He couldn’t imagine she found it difficult to charm anyone. She was sweet and funny and clearly loyal, going by her friendship with Gigi.
He brushed a finger under her chin and tipped it up so he could look into her eyes. ‘He wasn’t your friend, Lulu. I’ve only known you a day and I don’t see a cold, shallow person.’
‘You don’t really know me,’ she said in a small voice.
No, he guessed he didn’t, and he knew he couldn’t make any false promises to her. The only way he could get to know her was to see her again—and that wasn’t going to happen after this weekend. He only did weekends. Besides, they’d agreed. One night.
But why? murmured a low, persuasive voice. Why not continue over this weekend? Hell, why not fly out to the Mediterranean with her? Forget the wedding.
He could imagine Lulu’s response.
It was part of the reason he was so attracted to her. Any other woman of his acquaintance would fall in with his plans without a squeak.
Lulu wouldn’t just squeak—she’d give him a lecture on the duties and etiquette of being best man.
So he kissed her gently and her lips clung a little, as if she were already afraid he was going to get up out of their bed and walk away.
Nothing short of an earthquake was going to drag him away from her tonight. He already knew he wasn’t going to be able to fly out on Monday and forget about her.
He also knew something else. He wanted to meet the guy who’d frightened her and knocked her confidence like this. Meet him in a back alley and take his balls off.
‘I do know you’re beautiful and giving, and when I’m playing in the Buenos Aires Cup next month I’m going to have a hard time concentrating on my game because I’ll still be thinking about you.’
It sounded like a line, and it had begun as one, but Alejandro recognised with an odd sense of having finally found something worth having that it was also true.
She smiled at him, and while she looked pleased he could see in the flicker behind those beautiful dark eyes that she’d got the message his words were supposed to convey.
Now he just needed to convince himself.
CHAPTER NINE
THE MORNING AFTER came too soon.
Last night her fears had hidden themselves away, but Lulu was well aware that the longer she lay there in that bed in broad daylight the more easily she’d begin to make them out.
They were all coming back, like crows gathering on a wire, waiting to rush in upon her in a frenzy of flapping wings and pecking beaks.
She knew her parents were going to be waiting for her. They’d take one look at Alejandro and then her mother would take him aside and spill all.
Lulu is special. Lulu needs looking after. Are you sure you’re the man for the job?
He’d take one look at the set-up and head in the other direction.
It had happened before. Julien Levolier—dance class, the summer she was almost eighteen. He’d been very keen, until the little ‘talk’ from her mother. At least he hadn’t just hopped on his Vespa and headed off to greener pastures, where the girls were lower maintenance and able to look after themselves. No, he’d taken the time to explain first that he didn’t want the hassle. She’d understood. Sort of.
She sat up and let herself appreciate Alejandro’s striking physical presence as he stood fully dressed by the window, his hair damp from the shower.
He wouldn’t want the hassle. Who would?
She remembered a book she’d once read, in which the hero, after his first night with the heroine, had strewn the bed in red rose petals as the heroine slept, and when she woke up he’d made love to her on those crushed petals.
That wasn’t this
.
They were virtual strangers and it had to stay that way.
As Lulu considered these facts all the bright, unexpected lights he’d lit inside her began to go out, one by one, until she was just anxiety-ridden Lulu again, naked and suddenly cold, with her options few and regimented.
It was time to pull herself together—and, really, she had to get out of this bed and wash and put on clothes.
Feeling a little shell-shocked, despite her best intentions, she slid out of bed, opting to pull the eiderdown around her, and waddled over to join him at the window.
She didn’t know the etiquette in these situations. What people did and didn’t do. She couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to do this so regularly you had a script for it.
He looked down at her with a smile. ‘You need to get dressed, querida.’
Her chest felt oddly hollow. ‘Alejandro, we need to talk.’
‘Sí, we do.’ He reached out and curved a hand around her neck, pressed a kiss to her astonished mouth.
Lulu melted into him and the eiderdown slid to her feet.
When he released her she was trembling.
‘We really need to get a move on, lucero,’ he smiled.
‘Oh, right…yes.’ She stepped away from him, trying not to be too embarrassed about her nakedness as she heaved up the eiderdown, but Alejandro fetched her robe and draped it around her instead.
It was such a lovely gesture her heart contracted.
‘Alejandro, there’s something I need to ask you.’
He looked amused. ‘Go ahead.’
‘Please don’t say anything to anyone at the castle.’
He stilled. ‘Say anything?’
‘About last night. About us.’
‘Why would I say anything?’ he asked slowly.
‘I don’t know. It’s just I don’t want people to know anything happened. It’s private.’
‘Yes, it is private.’
She relaxed a little, moistening her suddenly dry lips. ‘Then we’re on the same page?’
But he was frowning at her. ‘What exactly is the problem here?’
Lulu hesitated. She had known deep down it wasn’t going to be that easy, but putting it into words made her feel so ineffably sad. ‘It’s just that we’re not going to see each other beyond this weekend.’ She looked at anything but him as she said it. ‘I don’t want people speculating about us and what happened last night.’
