But not since she left Rico in Mexico had she worked for a five-star restaurant. Truthfully, when she had first disappeared from his hotel in Mexico, Teresa had worried that he would track her down and find her, so she’d hidden away in small eateries that most people overlooked. But after some time, she had simply gravitated to those places as if she were punishing herself by refusing the opportunity to do what she did best—run a big kitchen.
But today that had changed. She felt terrible that Louis had taken ill, but she also had to admit that she had loved the challenge of stepping into his shoes, however temporarily. She’d worked tirelessly for hours and when the guests had all been served and the ovens shut down, she’d stayed late to supervise the massive cleanup required.
By the time she was ready to go back to Rico’s house and her gilded cage, Teresa was exhausted. And felt better than she had in far too long. She let herself in through the front door and quietly shut it behind her. A smile was still on her face as she headed down the long, slate-tiled hallway toward Rico’s bedroom. As she passed the shadow-filled living room, his voice stopped her.
“Why did you do it?”
“Rico?” The room was dark, save for the pale, watery light spilling in from the night beyond the wide windows. “Why are you sitting down here in the dark?”
She heard a click and instantly, a fire blossomed to life in the gas hearth. Multicolored slate tiles in shades of blues and grays made up the fireplace insert. Leaping flames and fiery light jumped around the room, highlighting the man who stood before it. “I want to know why you helped out in the kitchen, Teresa. You didn’t have to. It wasn’t up to you to prevent a disaster.”
She walked into the room, hardly noticing the brightly patterned throw rugs scattered over the floor. She paid no attention to the oversize brown leather couches and chairs or to the gleaming oak tables between them. She barely glanced through the wide window providing a spectacular view of his yard that swept down to an ocean that frothed with phosphorescent light.
“I wanted to help.”
“I know that. What I don’t know,” he repeated, “what I need to know, is why?”
“Is it really so hard to understand, Rico?” she asked, walking close enough to him to stare up into eyes that were shadowed in the low light, yet danced with the reflections of the flames.
“Yes,” he whispered, gaze locked on her, moving over her features as if he’d never seen her before. “You had no reason to. I forced you to stay here on the island when you had no wish to. I’ve threatened your family with imprisonment and have made you a hostage. So yes, it is hard for me to understand why you would step in during a crisis at my hotel.”
Teresa shook her head sadly. He couldn’t see how much she loved him. Or if he did, he chose to not recognize it. So how could she explain that for her, there hadn’t been a choice at all? “I wanted to help you, Rico. Louis got sick and I was right there, so I helped.”
“What are you trying to do to me?” His voice was low, deep and rough. As if every word had to scratch its way past his throat.
“Do to you?” She huffed an impatient breath. “Nothing, Rico. I’m here for a month. Would it be easier on you if I sat in a corner and cried over being trapped here by a man who clearly can’t stand to be around me unless I’m in his bed?”
“Maybe,” he muttered thickly as he shoved one hand through his hair. “I don’t know anymore.”
Teresa didn’t even know what she was feeling now. Impatience, irritation, a swell of love that was so rich and deep it filled her entire body and throbbed in her heart.
“Rico, would you rather I just sit on your bed naked, awaiting your pleasure? Would that be hostage-like enough for you?”
“Yes. No. Yes,” he ground out, then continued in a ragged voice, “if you behaved as if you were frightened or worried, that would make more sense to me. Instead you make yourself a part of things here, even knowing you won’t be staying.”
“If it would help, I could whimper for a while.”
He snorted. “You wouldn’t know the first thing about whimpering.”
A small smile curved her mouth. “At least you know me that well.”
All trace of amusement drained from his features and his eyes flashed in the firelight. “Once I thought I knew you better than anyone I have ever known.”
Her heart ached at the wistful tone in his voice. How much she had destroyed when she’d left. How much she’d given up, never to find again. How much they had both missed in the last five years because of a twist of fate. If Gianni hadn’t stolen that dagger… If she had told Rico the truth about her family when she first met him…
But ifs were nebulous creatures and changed nothing.
“You did know me, Rico.”
“No.” He shook his head and reached for her, dropping his hands onto her shoulders and pulling her up close. “I thought I did, but you weren’t real. You weren’t mine.”
“I was, though,” she argued, willing him to believe it.
“Not then,” he answered. “Your heart was torn, your loyalties tested too deeply for you to have been mine alone. But tonight, you are mine.”
He was right. In spite of her love for him, she had been torn between Rico and her family. Maybe she’d been too young to appreciate what she had found with him. She only knew that if faced with the same decision today, she would do it all differently. She would tell Rico everything and trust him to do the right thing.
God, she’d been an idiot.
She was in love with her husband and that was the one thing she could never tell him.
* * *
Rico had been waiting for her for hours. Convinced that she had an ulterior motive for offering her help when it was most needed, he’d worked it over and over again in his mind and still was no closer to discovering what her plan might be. She had to know that he hadn’t changed his mind. That no matter how much she integrated herself into life on the island, he would still watch her leave at the end of the month.
She’d become friends with his cousin and his wife. The hotel staff was in love with her and he couldn’t even walk into his own damned home without catching her scent. The memory of her laugh. The hush of her sighs.
When she left, it would tear a gaping hole in his life, but she would leave. That was their bargain and he would hold up his end. He would give her the divorce she had paid for five years ago and he would never again trust his heart to a woman.
Because even now she was keeping something from him. He didn’t know what, but it was easy to read in her golden-brown eyes that she was deliberately not telling him everything. What her secret might be this time, he had no idea. And it bothered him more than he wanted to admit that she was still hiding things from him.
But through the frustration and the irritation, one thing continuously rang true. He hungered for her. He wanted her now more than ever. And the whole time he’d been here, in the dark, waiting for her, his mind had devised all manner of things he wanted to do with her when she returned. Now that she was here, in front of him, smelling so good, he drew in breath after breath just to taste her scent…Rico didn’t want to wait even the length of time it would take to get to the bedroom.
“You’re driving me insane, Teresa.” His hand cupped her cheek, then slid around to the back of her head.
“You’re not alone in that,” she told him and went up on her toes.
He kissed her, hard, taking her mouth in a rush of desire and all-encompassing need. She tangled her tongue with his, leaning into him for support and wrapping one leg around his hips, pulling him closer. He ground his body against hers, letting her feel the hard, hot, demanding part of him, and she groaned into his mouth, feeding the frenzy.
The staff was gone for the night. The house was theirs. And in the dancing, firelit shadows, he shoved the hem
of her T-shirt up so that he could cup her breasts. Through the fragile lace of her bra, he stroked his thumbs across her nipples, eliciting a moan of pleasure from Teresa’s throat.
That soft sound stoked the fires inside him into a blaze that quickly engulfed him. Rico could hardly breathe for the need crouched in his chest. He flicked her bra open and cupped both of her breasts in his palms.
She held on to him, fingers grasping at his shoulders as she pushed herself into his touch. “Rico, more. I want more.”
So did he. But he wanted her naked.
“Clothes,” he murmured, letting her go briefly. “Off. Now.”
“Oh, yes.” Nodding, she pulled her T-shirt up and over her head, then tossed it aside. He watched her step out of her shorts, displaying the lacy, pale pink thong she wore beneath them.
His mouth went dry and his pulse skyrocketed. He kept his gaze locked with hers as he quickly tore off his own clothing and threw it to the floor. When he was naked, her gaze dropped to his erection and she sighed in anticipation.
She reached out one hand to curl her fingers around him and he hissed in a breath at the first touch of her hand. She smiled up into his eyes and stroked, rubbed and caressed him until his eyes were rolling back in his head and he had to fight for every breath.
Body taut, tension coiled, he was so close to exploding he couldn’t risk her fingers on him another minute. He caught her hand in his and shook his head. “Enough.”
“No,” she said breathlessly with a shake of her head. “It’s not nearly enough.”
He had to smile. His Teresa was a passionate one and he loved that about her. No simpering, coy females for him. Rico appreciated that his woman wanted as hungrily as he did.
His woman.
That thought echoed in his mind until he deliberately shut it down.
He pulled her up against him, enjoying the feel of her lush, curvy body pressed to his. Again, she hooked her leg around his waist and he felt the heat of her core against his hard length. He groaned tightly and backed her up until she bumped into the arm of the leather couch. When she went to fall back onto it, he caught her, turned her in his arms and eased her down until she was bent over, her luscious, beautiful behind displayed to him.
She propped herself up on her elbows and looked back at him over her shoulder. She wiggled her hips suggestively, licked her lips, took a breath and said, “Touch me, Rico.”
Her welcome, her passion undid him. He reached down and tugged that thong from her and rubbed her tender flesh with strong strokes. She moaned again and pushed her hips up, bracing her feet apart on the floor, giving him easy access to drive them both over the edge.
His brain splintered, thoughts dissolving under an onslaught of pure sensation that tore through him. Rico had never lost control of himself this way. Never allowed a woman to reach past his well-built defenses to glimpse the man he was beneath the sophisticated veneer. But Teresa did it without even trying.
Rico’s finely honed control simply snapped. He couldn’t wait another minute. Couldn’t be denied the ecstasy of being surrounded by her wet heat. He bent over her, letting her feel how badly he wanted her. She turned her face to him and their tongues met in a fast, delving exploration, then he straightened and positioned himself behind her.
Her breath came fast and hard. She threw her hair out of her face and turned her head to watch him. Her eyes gleamed and she licked her bottom lip with a long, slow swipe of her tongue.
He ran his hands up and down her back, following the line of her spine and the curve of her behind until she was groaning with need and twisting beneath his grip.
His thumbs swiped down into the heat of her and spread her inner core to his gaze. She was hot and damp and as he stroked her she moaned, “Rico, please. Touch me. Touch me.”
He did, stroking her inside and out as his own body screamed for him to enter her. To claim her as his.
Heart racing, his blood thrummed in his veins and urged him on. Teresa looked back at him again, her breath coming harder, faster, and she whispered, “Hurry.”
He grinned at her eagerness. His Teresa had never been shy about lovemaking. When they were first together, they had christened every room in his suite over the Cancún hotel and what they had done on his terrace one memorable morning still woke him up at night, wanting to do it all again.
“Please,” she muttered, bracing herself on the leather cushions and wiggling her hips in invitation. “Now, Rico. Do it now.”
“Now,” he agreed and pushed himself into her depths.
She cried out his name at his entry and everything in him fisted painfully. She was so hot, so tight and felt so right. He rocked in and out of her body, hating every retreat and welcoming every surge as the blessing it was.
Again and again, he pushed them both higher and higher, the rhythm they set breathtaking. The only sounds in the room were their heavy breathing and the hiss and snap of the fire.
He leaned over her, cupped her breasts in his hands and tweaked her nipples as his body continued to plunge into hers. She groaned and rocked back into him, doing all she could to match his movements.
She humbled him, aroused him and left him shaken to the heart of him. Desire pumped like a wildfire through his body even while his mind stood apart and realized how precious she was. How special to him. How his life would be even emptier once she was gone from it.
But Rico didn’t want to think now. Didn’t want to recognize future or past. All that existed was the present. This moment snatched out of time where he and Teresa could be who they were destined to be. Two halves of a whole.
That thought staggered him, so he pushed it aside. He gave himself over to the sensations cresting inside him. Rico looked down at her and saw her bite down on her bottom lip as she fought to claim the release that was so close to each of them.
He felt her internal muscles clench and strain around him and knew her climax was only moments away. He gave her everything he had and when she shrieked his name, he buried himself as deeply as he could inside her and then joined her on that steep slide into completion.
Nine
When he could think again, when he could move, Rico gently disentangled their bodies, then helped her shift position onto his lap as he took a seat on the couch. Wrapping his arms around her, he held her carefully, as if she was fragile and likely to break.
Which, he realized, was ironic, considering what the two of them had just done. But Teresa had always brought out his protective tendencies. It seemed that had not changed. Right now she was warm and trembling in his arms, still reacting to the explosive climax that had shattered them both. And though his body was sated, Rico already wanted her again.
“That was,” she said on a sigh, “incredible.”
“Yes, it was.” He let his head drop to the back of the couch. His eyes closed and a groan lodged in his throat as he realized what had just happened. What he’d done without even thinking about it. But then, that was the problem, wasn’t it? He hadn’t been thinking at all. “It was also incredibly stupid.”
“What?” She looked up at him, her hair a wild tangle around her face, her mouth puffy from his kisses and her eyes still shining with satisfaction. “What do you mean? How was any of that stupid?”
He blew out a breath and met her gaze. “I lost control.”
“I know,” she said, giving him a slow, sexy, very tempting smile. “I liked it.”
“So did I,” he admitted. He lifted his head, stared into her eyes and added, “But I didn’t stop for a condom.”
“Oh. Oh.” She bit her lip, took a breath and said, “All right, that was stupid. But this wasn’t only your fault, Rico. I wasn’t thinking either.”
“Small consolation.” Rico had never lost control like that. But then, only Teresa had ever touched him so deeply tha
t his brain shut off and let his body take over.
“If it helps any, I’m healthy.” She laid one hand on his chest. “I haven’t been with anyone since you.”
Those words rattled around in his mind and then slipped down to center around his heart. He shouldn’t have cared, but he did. Shouldn’t have been pleased, but he was. For five years he had imagined his wife, thinking herself divorced, being with other men. Letting them kiss her, taste her. Giving to them what had been only his. To know that none of those torturous imaginings had been real was a gift he hadn’t expected.
He dropped one hand to the curve of her breast and slowly stroked his fingertips across one hard, dusky nipple. She sighed in reaction and he felt his groin leap to life again. So did she and she smiled knowingly. That small smile touched something inside him that he didn’t want to explore too closely.
It was enough that she was here. With him. For right now. He hadn’t looked to the future since the night she’d disappeared from the hotel in Mexico. Instead, his thoughts had always gone back to when she had been there beside him. Smiling, laughing, giving him a secretive look that told him she wanted him as badly as he wanted her.
Rico had never planned on giving her a confession about their time apart, but since she had been so open with him, he could do no less and still retain any sense of honor in his own mind. If he was honest with himself, he would have to say that he’d enjoyed having her think that he had moved on to other women. But now, especially with what had just happened between them and with her admission, he couldn’t let her go on believing his lie of omission.
Lie. He was only now seeing that as much as he hated being lied to himself, he was as guilty as anyone when it came to convenient untruths.
“I have not been with anyone since you, either.” He watched surprise flash in her eyes and pleasure quickly followed.
“But—” She shook her head. “All of the pictures of you with models and actresses…”
“Things are not always what they seem.” He ran one hand up and down her bare back in long, slow strokes, loving the feel of her skin beneath his palm.
Her Return to King's Bed Page 11
