by Olivia Gates
She coughed in disbelief. “You’re telling me you suddenly want to marry me because of the mind-blowing pleasure?”
He tightened his knees around her thighs, winding the pounding between them into a tighter rhythm, licking his lips as his gaze melted over her captive nakedness, making her feel as if he’d licked her all over again. “So it was mind-blowing for you?”
“Are you kidding? I’m surprised my head is still screwed on. But I can’t believe it was for you. I’m not by any stretch hot stuff, not to mention I must have cramped your style, being your first pregnant virgin and all.”
“I admit, I was and am still agonizingly cramped, as you can see. And feel.” He pressed his erection into her belly. Feeling the marble smooth and hard column of hot flesh against hers, the awe that she’d accommodated all that inside her, the carnality of the sharply recalled sensations as he’d occupied her, stretched her into mindlessness made her gasp, arch up involuntarily into his hardness. He ground harder into her as he drove a knee between her thighs, coaxing their rigidity to melt apart for him. “And in case you want to know my style…” His other knee joined in splaying her thighs apart as he leaned over her, teasing her aching nipples with the silk-sprinkled power of his chest. “…it’s a woman who has no idea she’s inferno-level stuff who happens to be a pregnant virgin. Or who was one, until I put an end to that condition.”
She couldn’t wrap her head around this. “So if it isn’t out of duty to Mel, it isn’t something more moronically honorable as doing the ‘right thing’ since you took my ‘innocence,’ is it?”
He chuckled. “Dios, you say the funniest things. First, I don’t equate virginity with innocence. Second, your innocence seems to be almost intact. But don’t worry. I didn’t even scratch the surface of all the ways I plan to rectify that.” He nipped her nipple, had her coming off the bed with a sharp slam of pleasure. He withdrew on a sigh of satisfaction. “Any more far-fetched reasons you can come up with to explain why I’m proposing to you?”
“Why don’t you tell me your not-so-far-fetched ones?” she gasped. “And don’t say because I’m your one and only aphrodisiac. That wasn’t the case up until a few hours ago.”
“Up until a few hours ago, I didn’t know you wanted me.”
“That’s as straight-faced a lie as I’ve ever heard,” she scoffed. “I’m as transparent as the windows Consuelo keeps spotless. I showed you I wanted you weeks ago. Hell, I showed you I wanted you two minutes after I regained consciousness.”
He tasted her nipples in soft pulls as if compelled. “That you did so soon, coupled with your loss of memory, made me wonder if your mind wasn’t scrambled and you didn’t know what you wanted, or why. I thought I might be what you clung to, to reaffirm your life after surviving such a catastrophe, or because I was the one closest to you, or the one you seemed to perceive as your savior.”
She pushed his head away before her breasts-her whole body-exploded. “You are my savior, but that has nothing to do with my wanting you.” She devoured his beauty as he loomed over her, felt her core clench with the memory, the knowledge of what he could do to it. “I remember you had hordes of women you didn’t save panting for you. I think not wanting you is a feminine impossibility.”
The intimacy and seduction on his face turned off like a light, plunging her world into darkness. “So it’s only sexual for you? That’s why you wanted it to be only once?”
“Which part of me lauding your responsibility, dependability, heroism, nobility and honor didn’t you get?”
The mesmerizing heat flared back on like floodlights, making her squirm. “So you like me for my character not just my body?”
“I love you for your character.” That made that smug, male assurance falter, crack. He stared at her, stunned, almost vulnerable. She groaned. “I didn’t intend to say that, so don’t go all noble pain-in-the-derriere on me and find it more reason to-”
He crashed his lips onto hers, silencing her, wrenching keens from her depths on scorching, devouring kisses. He came fully over her body, grinding into her belly, lifting her off the bed, one hand supporting her head for his ravaging, the other at her back holding her for his chest to torment her breasts into a frenzy.
She tore her lips away before she combusted and it was too late to vent her reservations. “Please, Rodrigo, don’t feel you owe me anything. And I can’t owe you any more than I already do.”
He plastered her back to the bed, seemingly by the force of his conviction alone. “You owe me nothing, do you hear? It’s been my privilege to see to your health, my joy to have you in my home, and yes, my mind-blowing pleasure to have you in my bed.”
She started shaking again. It was too much. Loving him, needing to grab at him, to take him at his every magnificent word, blocking her mind to the fear that she’d be taking advantage of him, end up causing them both misery and heartache.
She trembled caresses over his beloved face. “I know you’re always right, but you’re totally wrong here. I owe you far more than medical care and shelter. And mind-blowing pleasure. I owe you for restoring my faith in humanity, for showing me what a family could be like, and letting me be a part of yours for a while, for stabilizing my outlook so much that I feel I will at last have a relationship with my own family, not just cynical and bitter avoidance. I owe you memories and experiences that have made me a stronger, healthier person, that will be a part of me forever. And that was before what you offered me today.”
He grabbed her hand, singed it in kisses, all lightness burned away as he, too, vibrated with emotion. “Mel’s debts…”
She rushed to make one thing clear. “I don’t know what hand I had in them, but if I had any, I’ll pay my part, I swear.”
“No, you won’t. I said I’d take care of them.”
“You’d do anything to protect your foster parents, and me, too, won’t you? And this is what I’m indebted to you for. The-the…carte blanche support. And you’re offering it forever now. And I can’t accept. I can’t burden you anymore with my problems. Any more support from you would burden me. Whatever your reasons are for offering to marry me, I have nothing to offer you in return.”
His hands convulsed in her hair, pinned her for the full impact of his vehemence. “You have everything to offer me, querida. You’ve already offered me everything and I want it all for the rest of my life. I want your passion, your friendship, and now that I know I have it, I want your love. I need your love. And I want your baby as mine. I want us to be lovers, to be a family. And the only reason I want all this is because I love you.”
She lurched so hard she nearly threw him off her. He pressed down harder, holding her head tighter to imprint her with every nuance of his confession. “I love you, mi amor, for your character and your body, for being such a responsible, dependable, heroic, noble and honorable pregnant has-been-virgin who had no idea you started a fire in me that can never be put out.”
She broke into sobs. “How can you say that? I was going to leave, and if I hadn’t almost attacked you, you would have never-”
“I would have never let you leave. Don’t you get that yet? I was going to keep shooting down your reasons and demands to leave for months to come, and when I was out of arguments, I was going to make you offers you can’t refuse so you’d have to stay. I would have confessed my feelings to you when I felt secure you could make such a life-changing decision and lifelong commitment, could handle my feelings and my passion. You only freed me from the agonizing wait. Thankfully. I was suffering serious damage holding back.”
Her tears slowed down with each incredible word out of that mouth that sent her to heaven no matter what it did or said. Scary joy and certainty started to banish the agony of grief and doubt.
“You hid that perfectly,” she hiccupped, her face trembling, with a smile of burgeoning belief in his reciprocated emotions.
His sincerity and intensity switched to bedevilment in a flash as his hands and lips started to roam her agai
n. “I’m a neurosurgeon. Covert turmoil is one of my middle names.”
“Another one?” She spluttered on mirth and emotion, finally felt she had the right to reciprocate his caresses, delighting in the silk of his polished, muscled back and swimmer’s shoulders.
But she had to voice her concerns one last time. “This is a major step. Are you sure you considered all the ramifications?”
“The only thing that stopped me from snatching you up the first time you offered yourself was that I thought you were nowhere near aware of the ramifications, had no idea what you’d be letting yourself in for, weren’t ready for a relationship so soon after such a loss and trauma. I, on the other hand, am positive of what I want. What I have to have. You, the baby. Us.”
She cried out and dragged him down to her, surging up to meet his lips, devouring with her own. She was begging when he suddenly rose, swept her up in his arms and strode into her bathroom.
He put her down on the massage table and ran a bubble bath, came back to slide her off it, locking her thighs around his hips, gliding his erection along her core’s molten lips before he leaned forward, pressed it to her belly, undulated against her, filled her gasping mouth with his tongue.
She arched, tried to bring him inside her. He held her down, wouldn’t let her have what she felt she was imploding for.
“You haven’t said yes.”
“I’ve been saying ‘yes…but’ for a while now,” she moaned.
“Didn’t sound like that to me.”
“Is that why you’re punishing me now?”
“I would be punishing you if I gave you what you think you want again tonight. But don’t worry, there are so many other ways I’ll go about erasing that innocence of yours.”
“No, please…I want you again.”
“Let me hear that yes without the but and you can have me. For the rest of our lives.” “Yes.”
And for the rest of the night, she lost count of how many yeses she said.
Twelve
Three months and a half to the day that Cybele opened her eyes in Rodrigo’s world, she was trying not to run down the aisle to him.
She rushed down the path between their guests, his family and friends and colleagues, in one of the plateau gardens overlooking his vineyards on one side and the sea on the other, feeling like she was treading air, forging deeper into heaven.
He’d insisted on scheduling the wedding two weeks after he’d removed her cast, to give time for the physiotherapy to control any lingering discomforts. But he hadn’t insisted on holding the wedding in Barcelona’s biggest cathedral as he’d first planned, succumbing to her desire to hold it on his estate. The land that was now theirs. Their home. And their baby’s home.
That was what completed her happiness. That it wasn’t only she who was being blessed by the best gift the world had to offer, but her baby, too. Only Rodrigo would love as his own the baby of the man he’d loved like a brother.
He stood there looking godlike in his tuxedo, his smile growing more intimate and delighted as she neared him. She only noticed Ramón standing beside him when she stumbled the last steps to grab Rodrigo’s outstretched hand. She absently thought that they could be brothers. Not that Ramón, who was arguably as esthetically blessed as Rodrigo, was anywhere near as hard-hitting. Or perhaps it was she who had terminal one-man-one-woman syndrome.
Ramón winked at her as he kissed her and left them to the minister’s ministrations. He’d come to her quarters an hour ago, where Rodrigo had insisted she remain until their wedding night, and performed the Catalan best man’s duty of giving the bride her bouquet, which he’d picked for her, while reciting a poem he’d written. She’d almost had a heart attack laughing as he turned the poem that was supposed to extol her virtues and that of her groom into a hilariously wicked medical report.
Apart from that, and standing by Rodrigo’s side until she reached him, Ramón’s role had ended. In Catalonia there were no wedding rings for the best man to bear. Rodrigo would transfer the engagement ring from her right hand to her left one.
He was doing that now. She barely remembered the preceding ritual beyond repeating the vows, crying a river as Rodrigo made his own vows to her, lost in his eyes, singed by his love.
She watched their hands entwine as he slipped the ring onto her trembling finger, the ten-carat blue diamond part of the set she was wearing that totaled a breath-depleting fifty carats. He’d said he’d picked them for being a lighter version of her eyes.
Then he kissed her. As if they were now one. Forever.
From then on, everything blurred even more as their guests carried them away to another extensive session of Sardana dances and many other wedding customs and festivities.
At one point she thought she’d had a brief exchange with Mel’s parents. She had the impression that they were doing much better and seemed genuinely happy for her and Rodrigo. Her family was here, too, flown in by Rodrigo. His magic had encompassed them, as well, had infused them with a warmth they’d never exhibited before.
Then the dreamlike wedding was over and he carried her to his quarters. Theirs now. At last.
She’d almost lost her mind with craving these past weeks, as she hadn’t slept curved into his body, or taken him inside of hers.
She was in a serious state by now. She’d die if he took her slowly and gently like he’d done that first night.
She was about to beg him not to when he set her down, pressed her against the door and crashed his lips onto hers.
She cried out her welcome and relief at his fierceness, surrendered to his surging tongue. His hands were all over her as he plundered her mouth, removing the peineta and pins that held her cutwork lace veil in place, shaking her hair out of the imprisonment of her Spanish chignon, undoing the string lacing of her traditional wedding gown’s front.
He pushed it off her shoulders, spilling her breasts into his palms, weighing and kneading them until she felt they would burst if he didn’t devour them. He was looking down at them as if he really would. Then he crushed them beneath his chest, her lips beneath his, rubbing, thrusting, maddening.
“Do you have any idea how much I’ve hungered for you?” he groaned against her lips. “What these past weeks were like?”
“If it’s half as much as I hungered for you, and they were half as excruciating as mine, then…serves you right.”
He grunted a sound so carnal and predatory yet amused, sowed a chain of nips from her lips to her nipples in chastisement as he dragged her dress down. It snagged on her hips.
He reversed his efforts, tried to get it over her head, and she hissed, “Rip it.”
His eyes widened. Then with a growl, he ripped the white satin in two. She lurched and moaned, relishing his ferocity, fueling it.
He swept her underwear down her legs, then stood to fling away his jacket, cummerbund and tie then gave her a violent strip-show shredding of his shirt. Candlelight cast a hypnotic glow to accompany his performance. Passion rose from her depths at the savage poetry of his every straining muscle. To her disappointment, he kept his pants on.
Before she could beg him to complete his show, he came down before her, buried his face in her flesh, in her core, muttered love and lust. When she was begging for him, he rose with her wrapped around him, took her to bed, laid her on her back on its edge, kneeled between her thighs, probed her with deft fingers.
He growled his satisfaction as her slick flesh gripped them. “Do you know what it does to me-to feel you like this, to have this privilege, this freedom? Do you know what it means to me, that you let me, that you want me, that you’re mine?”
Sensation rocketed, more at the emotion and passion fueling his words than at his expert pleasuring. She keened, opened herself fully to him, now willing to accept pleasure any way he gave it, knowing he craved her surrender, her pleasure. She’d always give him all he wanted.
He came over her, thrust his tongue inside her mouth to the rhythm of his invading fingers
, his thumb grinding her bud in escalating circles. He swallowed every whimper, every tremulous word, every tear, until she shuddered apart in his arms.
She collapsed, nerveless and sated. For about two minutes.
Then she was all over him, kissing, licking, nipping and kneading him through his pants. He rasped, “Release me.”
She lowered the zipper with shaking hands. Her mouth watered as he sprang heavy and hard into her palms. He groaned in a bass voice that spilled magma from her core, “Play with me, mi amor. Own me. I’m yours.”
“And do you know what hearing you say this means to me?” she groaned back.
He growled as her hands traveled up and down his shaft, pumping his potency in delight. She slithered down his body, tasted him down to his hot, smooth crown. His scent, taste and texture made her shudder with need for all of him. She spread her lips over him, took all she could of him inside. He grunted his ecstasy, thrust his mighty hips to her suckling rhythm.
His hand in her hair stopped her. “I need to be inside you.”
She clambered over him, kissing her way to his lips, “And I need you inside me. Don’t you dare go slow or gentle…please…”
With that last plea, she found herself on her back beneath him, impaled, filled beyond capacity, complete, the pleasure of his occupation insupportable. “Cybele, mi amor, mi vida,” he breathed into her mouth, as he gave her what she’d been disintegrating for, with the exact force and pace that had her thrashing in pleasure, driving deeper and deeper into her, until he nudged her womb.
Her world imploded into a pinpoint of shearing sensation, then exploded in one detonation after another of bone-rattling pleasure. He fed her convulsions, slamming into her, pumping her to the last abrading twitches of fulfillment.
Then he surrendered to his own climax, and the sight and sound of him reaching completion inside her, the feel of his body shuddering over hers with the force of the pleasure he’d found inside her, his seed jetting into her core, filling her to overflowing, had her in the throes of another orgasm until she was weeping, the world receding as pleasure overloaded her.
