California Royale (11 page)

“It must be nice to be happy and quiet.”

“It’s an acquired skill. Come on, let’s practice.”

They walked back to the gazebo and sat down on the lowest step. Duke stretched his long legs out and leaned
back, propping his elbows on the step behind him. Shea hugged her knees and inhaled the rich scent of the forest. It mingled with the musky fragrance of Duke’s body, so close beside hers.

“I’m afraid,” she whispered.

“What are you afraid of. Shea?”

She turned her head and gave him a bittersweet look. “That I’m going to make love to you regardless of what you do about the estate. That nothing’s more important than being with you.” She paused, shivering a little. “I’m not accustomed to feeling that way.”

He sat up, then closed his eyes for a second, as if offering a silent prayer of gratitude. Afterward he looked at her with gentle mock rebuke. “I hope you haven’t ever felt that way before. I want to be the first. And the last.”

She wore jeans and a pink T-shirt. When he put one broad hand on the center of her back and stroked, it was as if she wore no shirt at all. Her skin burned from his caress.

“Come to me,” he urged in a husky tone. Her-soft moan told him that her last shred of resistance had just evaporated.

“Alejandro, my
hombre
.”

She turned toward him, put her arms around his neck, and kissed him deeply. His skin felt hot under her hands; the whole world felt deliciously hot and promising as his tongue thrust into her mouth. He drew back, breathing roughly, and nodded toward the grass nearby.

“Now,” he murmured, his eyes burning into hers.

Shea nodded. “Yes.”

They lay down on the soft carpet, his arms around her, their legs entwined. Shea ran her hands over his bare chest with a greedy abandon she’d never felt before;
he was all muscle and sun-baked skin, and his chest hair was a soft pelt that invited her fingers.

“Here. Touch me here. I’ve dreamed about you doing this to me.” He put her hands on one of his flat brown nipples, and she smiled at him tenderly as she circled first it, then its twin, with her fingernail. He sighed. “You’re even better than the dreams.”

He removed her T-shirt and tossed it aside, then bent his head to kiss her lightly and repeatedly, skimming her mouth and face, then moving down to her neck, her shoulders, and the delicate skin above the cups of her bra. He savored her as if she were fine white chocolate, too wonderful to be consumed hurriedly.

She felt perspiration gathering on her skin. “You’re burning me up inside,” she said in a pleading tone. “And it’s magnificent.”

He whispered several earthy words of praise in Spanish, and her back arched as if he’d stroked her. Shea looked up into his eyes to find admiration there. “I just wanted to see if you’d understand those,” he murmured, smiling tenderly.

“I didn’t grow up sheltered, Alejandro. In my neighborhood, everyone knew those words.”

“I meant them to be loving.”

“I know,” she answered, her eyes never leaving his. She cleared her throat and complimented him in the same frank, gentle way, using words she never thought she’d hear from her own lips. But they were right, because civilized words would never do justice to this lovely, rough-cut diamond of a man. And as she whispered them to him, his eyes glittered and his breath came faster.

“An amazing woman,” he said at last.

They kissed again, and their hands traded explorations, sometimes slow, sometimes hurried, but always
with a sense of wonder. He undid the fastenings that held her hair and ran his fingers through the rich golden strands, calling her Palomino as he did.

Shea trailed her fingertips down the center of his stomach and then to the coarse material of his jeans. He shuddered as she traced the outline of his desire beneath the fabric. When she cupped him, his hips moved reflexively. Chuckling between clenched teeth, he pulled her hand up to his mouth and kissed it.

“Whoa,
querida
. Control is too important, and I’ve almost lost mine.”

She burrowed her head against his throat and licked the hollow of musky skin between his collarbones. “You’re the man who’s chided me for being too controlled.”

“Ah, I remember. And I need to do something about that right now.”

Abruptly he pushed her flat on her back and kissed her roughly, his tongue darting in and out of her mouth, his lips grinding on hers with a calculated force that aroused her without causing pain. He anchored both hands on the straps of her white bra and tugged it to her waist, then reached under her and jerked the snap free.

Shea gasped as he suddenly put his mouth on one of her nipples, his lips and tongue working in unison to delight her. He treated the other nipple just as well, then cupped her breasts in his hands and squeezed them rhythmically.

The world was falling away from her, lost in a haze of emotion and desire that cleansed her of lingering doubts. She had been waiting for this man all her life. She raised her head and watched the intimacy taking place between his mouth and her skin. Shea sighed with happiness and tried to talk, to be more than a languid
participant in the beautiful drama that was unfolding, but he gently pressed one finger to her lips.

“Enjoy. Let yourself be pleasured. Let yourself be loved,” he crooned.

Her head sank back, and she twined her fingers into his black hair. Her body was so heavy and limp that when he got on his knees and began removing her boots she wondered whimsically how he could lift her feet.

She watched, transfixed, as he undid her jeans and hooked his fingers into the waistband. With infinite care he stripped the last of her clothes away, then knelt beside her again, his eyes roaming over her slowly, as if her body were a map he wanted to memorize at first sight.

“Exquisita,”
he told her gruffly. He put a hand on her flat, quivering, stomach and stroked downward to the golden curls between her thighs. Shea made small sounds of encouragement over the way his touch directed heat and tension to gather low in her body. She stiffened, trying not to lose control completely.

“Don’t hold back,” he whispered hoarsely. “Don’t be a lady. Be
my
woman, and let your body show me how good my touch feels.”

With a low moan of agreement, she arched to meet his gentle, provocative touch. With a suddenness that surprised them both, she shook wildly and tossed her head from side to side. Waves of pure bliss flowed through her, and dimly she heard his voice urging her on. He took her face between his hands and kissed her as she drew deep breaths.

When he sat back on his heels and began fumbling hurriedly with his jeans she raised up, her hair disheveled, her body trembling. “No!” she cried. “Let me. Please, Alejandro, let me.”

He gave her a smile of muted frustration and great
tenderness, then stretched out on his back and shut his eyes tightly. His chest rose in a harsh, deep rhythm as she undressed him, and he clenched his hands into fists. Shea whispered words of praise as she revealed all of him to the summer day and her adoring eyes.

“You’re not a mustang,” she said, and her voice broke with the sweet agony of wanting him. “You’re a Thoroughbred, inside and out, Alejandro.
Amante
.” The word meant “lover.”

He moaned, then pulled her to him. She nestled by his side, her hand caressing his body lightly, almost in a soothing way when it embraced the hard, pulsing length of him. Duke knew that he should make an effort to cool his body down so that there would be no hurry, but he was too far gone. He called Shea’s name and turned her to lay on her back again. He covered her with his body and she slipped both strong, golden legs around his hips. He braced himself over her and deliberately, desperately, kept himself from entering her.

“It’s all right,” she said in an urgent, loving tone. “It will be fast this time, Alejandro. We both know that. Don’t suffer. Come here. Come here, sweetheart …”

The endearment was more than his restraint could bear, and he thrust quickly into her warmth. She bathed him in the damp, tight secrets of her body, and he thrust again, harder. “Oh,
querida
, you feel wonderful,” he said raspily. Duke forced himself to be still and savor the incredible welcome she had given him. He studied her violet eyes, afraid that the first moment had been too rough.

“You feel wonderful too,” she told him breathlessly, and he relaxed. In her eyes he saw happiness and something more—a pure adoration that he’d never found in another woman’s gaze.

He started carefully, using deep, slow movements to
test her reaction and the limits of his control. To his delight and amazement her body writhed and she tilted her head back, gasping in soft breaths. Her hands crept to his shoulder and held fiercely, as if she were afraid that she might fall off the edge of the world.

“Again?” she asked hoarsely, sounding surprised at her response. Then she smiled tremulously, mixed his name in a ragged moan, and whispered, “Oh, yes, again.”

Tears stung Duke’s eyes as he felt her pleasure released a second time, as it encompassed him and made him groan. He was strong and invincible; he knew that he could give this incredible woman as much happiness as she gave him.

He buried his face in her hair and let control slip away from him as he plunged into her with tender wildness. His arms snaked under her and clasped her tightly. She put her cheek against his face and urged him on with small sounds of delight. Shaken to the soul, burned and reborn a much better man than before, Duke called her name as his world exploded in sensation.

She held him possessively as their breathing slowed, and he would rather have died than leave the harbor of her body. He nuzzled the side of her neck, drew a trail of kisses upward, and touched his lips to her smile. She seemed to radiate light and joy as she looked up at him.

He wanted so badly to say that he loved her, but he thought the words might worry her. Duke winced inwardly with the effort of not revealing what he felt, but he forced himself to smile, to hide his inner struggle.

“I love you,” she whispered. “There’s absolutely no point in denying it any longer. And I don’t want to deny it. I
love
you, Alejandro.”

Duke stared down at her in amazement, wondering
if she could read his mind. Then he grasped her face between his hands. “It took courage to admit that,” he murmured tenderly. “Now you have to let me love you in return.”

“I’ll try, Alejandro, I’ll really try.”

With those heartfelt words as a promise, they hugged each other tightly.

It was so good, better than meditation, even better than a runner’s high, Shea admitted with a dreamy smile. And it was so simple. All she had to do was float here in Duke’s private pool, her body enclosed in his strong, loving arms, her back against his broad chest. He sat on the pool’s lowest step so that the water covered them both from the shoulders down. She lazed in his lap as if he were a luxurious masculine chair.

They’d made certain that the cottage’s atmosphere was conducive to complete relaxation, with soft, slow music on the stereo system. The pool was shadowy, lit only by the light of a small lamp by the bed. Duke’s warm breath touched her cheek and ear as he nuzzled her.

“Sleeping?” he asked softly.

“Hypnotized,” she replied. He chuckled, and his hands returned to the job of stroking her stomach. His chest hair was a tickling, silky delight against her back, and his powerful thighs flexed under her as he shifted. Shea sighed happily. “Now I understand why guests pay such exorbitant amounts of money to rent the
cottages that have pools,” she admitted. “This feels fantastic. You feel fantastic.”

His voice was devilish and seductive. “After last night, I was water-logged. But happy. Incredibly happy.”

“We shouldn’t have stayed in the pool for three hours.”

“Ah,
querida
, but the time flew.”

“Oh, yes.” She twisted her head so that she could look up at him and smiled, for which she received a long, delicious kiss. His hand moved over her breasts, causing the water to undulate around them. He rubbed her nipples until he was satisfied that they could grow no harder. “Me too,” she murmured in a haze of pleasure.

“Hmmm?”

“Incredibly happy. Me too.” She stretched languidly as he ran one hand under her. “You’re quite forward, sir,” Shea teased. “Why, how dare you touch me there?”

He growled with comical lechery. “How about
there
?”

“That’s even more impolite!” Shea slipped a hand behind her. “You see,
hombre
, I can be impolite too.” Her breath paused in her throat as she gently grasped him. He was an amazing man, so tender and unhurried, but always so ready to make love to her.

“So this is the culprit,” she whispered throatily while her fingers explored with wanton intent. “I wondered if perhaps a sea monster had gotten into your pool and was bumping me with its nose.”

“It is a sea monster, and it’s looking for a cave.”

Chuckling, he sank a little and cupped his body further under hers. Shea quivered as the hard, smooth length of him nestled between her thighs.

When he hugged her, she tilted her head back in order to nuzzle his hair, then angled her hips so that it was impossible for their bodies to remain separate. With a quick movement, she surrounded him.

“Why, why, what kind of boy do you think I am?” he
protested in a low, rumbling voice. When she tantalized him by rolling her hips forward and back, he said huskily. “If you don’t stop that, I think … I think I’ll … smile.”

Shea gasped as his body strained upwards, carrying heat and desire to her core. The time for teasing was past. “Alejandro,” she whispered. “I need you so much. I need you again.”

Groaning, he clasped her to him harshly, holding her as if she were a prisoner. With great care he took small bites at the back of her neck, and her legs writhed helplessly against his. “More,” she begged.

Duke knew then that he was the prisoner, not she, because nothing could ever make him leave this sweet, wild woman who arched her back and cried out from the uninhibited pleasure they shared. Seconds later, just as the world fell away from both of them, she grasped his hand tightly and he whispered to her that they were friends as well as lovers.