From Enemy's Daughter to Expectant Bride (4 page)

Yet now with the madness-inducing arousal sated, embarrassment started to submerge her.

What had she done?

She sank deeper into what she now saw was an oversize, dark green and gold silk brocade couch, acutely conscious of their state of undress, of every inch of his flesh that was still pressed into her most intimate parts.

As if attuned to her needs, as he’d seemed to be from the start, he rose off her, slid to the ground and kneeled beside her. After forcing his unabated erection into his pants, he retrieved her panties. Navigating the high-heeled shoes he’d left on her, he slid the panties over her shaking legs, caressing and kissing his way from her foot up. Her senses had ignited all over again as he fitted the damp garment back on her hips. And that was before he pressed a hot kiss on her core through the fabric, and almost blew out any fuse left intact in her brain.

As she struggled to deal with the new blow, he rearranged her skirt over her legs, then eased her up to a sitting position. He was so tall he was on her same level even on his knees. Before he pulled her bodice up, he cupped her heavy breasts in his large palms and saluted each gloriously sore nipple with a soft kiss. Every string holding her up gave. She slumped forward against his endless chest.

He received her weight with a shuddering groan. Then after a final kneading caress, he scooped her breasts back in her bra, rearranged the bodice over them, reached behind her and pulled her zipper up.

Brushing her hair back, he cupped her jaw and claimed her parted lips. He drew back, pausing for a moment before he came back over her, plundering her lips and body.

Deepening their kiss, he rose and pushed her back against the couch. When he finally tore his lips away, her head was swimming and her body had ignited all over again.

“It’s actually physically painful to stop ravishing you.” His teeth gritted. “I thought taking the edge off would cool us down long enough for us to get introduced. Seems I was wrong.”

“Ellie.” Her name left her in a rush as he moved to gather her to him again. Her heart would burst if he resumed kissing her. “My name is Ellie.”

“Ellie.” He frowned as he sat back, repeated the name as if tasting it. Then he shook his head. “It doesn’t suit you.”

“Why, thanks!”

His lips pursed at her sarcasm, an imperious eyebrow raised in disapproval. “How could your parents see the glorious baby you must have been and give you such a nondescript name? Ellie? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“My parents actually gave me a pretty lofty name. I extracted a nickname from it as everyone thinks it makes me sound like a character from a medieval play.”

“I take back my condemnation of your parents if they gave you a distinguished name. What is it?”

“Eliana.”

His eyes suddenly grew soft. “Eliana. God has answered.”

He understood the meaning of her name. He was the first one to ever do so.

He took her hand, pressed his lips in her palm. “Now,
that
is you. You must have been their every prayer answered. As you are the answer to my every fantasy.”

Her blood blazed as it rushed to her cheeks. “You’re poetic, too? Isn’t it enough you’re...all that?” She made an encompassing gesture, then rushed to splay a hand over his chest as he surged toward her. “We aren’t anywhere near introduced yet, and if you touch and kiss me again I—I...”

“You’ll catch fire again.”

She turned her head against the couch. “I can’t deal with the way I did the first time, so give me a chance to...”

A gentle finger on her chin brought her eyes back to his. “I thought I was imagining it before, but you
are
shy.”

“Pretty laughable, I know, after...after...”

“You went up in flames in my arms?” he completed for her again. “I find your shyness no such thing. But I felt it even through your mind-blowing response.” She hid her face in his chest, felt his chuckle rev below her cheek. “Don’t be even shier now. You affected me the same way, minus the shyness part.
Meu Deus...
the way you surrendered to me, as if you couldn’t help yourself, as if I’d overwhelmed you.”

“No ‘as if’ about it. You more than overwhelmed me.” She burrowed deeper into him, arousal mingling with relief as he crushed her harder in his embrace.

So this was what desire was all about. This was what had been missing all her life. Him. She must have felt him out there, have instinctively known that accepting anything less, with anyone else, would be shortchanging herself.

Out loud, she whispered, “So this is the kind of crazy attraction that drives people to commit insanities, huh?”

His beautiful lips curved. “Delightful insanities.”

She couldn’t have put it better. “Yes.”

“But even in my insanity, some fail-safe mechanism kicked in and pulled me back from possessing you without protection.”

She gaped at him. That hadn’t even crossed her mind!

Then the enormity of the whole situation hit her. Hard.

He smoothed a hand over her flaming cheek. “I only did so for you. Another unprecedented thing for me.”

“You mean you usually don’t consider your...partner?” she croaked, reeling with belated shock at her own folly.

“I usually consider my partner
and
myself. This time I only considered you. This was so out of the blue, progressed with such blinding speed...at the last moment I thought you might not even realize what you were risking. So even though it was beyond me to stop pleasuring you, I had to protect you.”

“Oh...” She found no words to express what she was feeling. This was...huge. He could have just taken his pleasure, but he hadn’t. He’d put her safety before his own carnal needs. Her hands squeezed his arm in gratitude, loving the sheer power her fingers felt beneath them. “Thank you.”

He gathered her tighter to him and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Anything for you,
minha beleza,
anything at all.” He drew away to look down at her. “But now that I’m not about to have a heart attack with arousal, I will procure all precautions, and props.”

Props?
The word ricocheted in her imagination as he leveled the full force of his gaze on her.

“Give me your promise.”

“Wh-what promise?”

“That you’ll spend the night in my arms.”

“Oh...”

She
really
had to stop saying that!

“Then after this night, the next night. And the next.”

Throat closing at his intensity, she murmured, “Wouldn’t you want to see how one night goes before committing to more?”

“I know how this night will go. I will pleasure you to within an inch of your life, make it impossible for you not to crave more.” At her head shake his eyebrow rose again, what she felt certain sent powerful men cowering. “How can you think this won’t happen?”

“Because I have no idea if
I
can make it impossible for
you
not to crave more nights.”

“Have I blown a fuse in there with too much pleasure already?” One finger gently tapped her temple, his smile lazy assurance itself. “It’s the only explanation as to why you’d even consider something so ludicrous.”

“If you say so,” she mumbled.

“I do. Now give me your promise.” At her hesitation, he frowned. “Are you worried I might turn out to be a nutcase?”

She coughed. “That is one thing that didn’t even cross my mind.”

“So you’re saying you trust me?” He dragged his teeth along her neck like a vampire searching for the sweetest spot for a bite. Her head fell back, giving him the exposure he needed to find the best one.

A shudder of acute pleasure shook her whole frame as he took that nip. “I’m saying I couldn’t even think about anything beyond what you made me feel. If you didn’t notice, I haven’t exactly been functioning on any logical level since you...‘summoned me.’”

He raised his head, pure male satisfaction gleaming in his eyes. “No, you haven’t. But neither have I.”

It was so gratifying that he confessed her equal effect on him so openly. “I was and still am operating purely on instinct.”

“And your instincts are telling you to trust me?”

“I can’t explain it—” she dived into him again, nodding against his hot-velvet flesh “—but they do.” She looked up, whispering what felt like a pledge. “I do trust you.”

His eyes blazed in response. “Implicitly?”

She nodded again.

“You won’t freak out when I make unusual demands in bed?”

Her eyes grew wider as his filled with that predator’s gleam that made her pulse race in anticipation.

Still, she had to ask. “Define unusual.”

“Unusual in quantity...not quality.” Before she could tell him that wasn’t much better, he added, “At least, not too unusual in quality.”

“There you go again with unrealistic expectations.”

His lips twisted. “You think I’m false advertising?”

“It’s me who has performance...or rather conformance anxiety. I don’t think I can meet your demands in quantity. It’s out of the question I could in quality.”

“Just leave everything to me. As you’ve done so far.” He took her on his lap, caressing her all over. “Any complaints?”

“Only one.” She fidgeted over the massive hardness beneath her, the simmering inside her flaring up again. “That you seem to have created a monster.”

Those perfect teeth flashed as he pressed her against his arousal. “You want more.”

“I want
you,
” she moaned.

“Not as much as I want you. Ah-ah-ah...” He placed a silencing finger on her lips when she started to protest. “You just have to trust me again on this. Now...your promise.”

She pushed out of his arms, trying to scramble off his lap. “I can’t. My brain feels like I was in a collision and I...”

He let her separate them, his face suddenly chiseled from granite. “Are you regretting it?”

“God,
no.
It was...beyond magical. But...but...”

“It’s too much, too fast.”

She nodded, anxiously probing his reaction. And it felt as if a cool balm had spread over her burning flesh. There was only self-deprecation on his lips, empathy in his eyes.

After the way she’d surrendered to him, another man would have accused her of leading him on, then playing hard to get. A few men had even called her a tease.

But he wasn’t like those men. He was like no other.

She wanted to kiss him for being so wonderful. But a kiss might destroy his control, the only thing that stopped
her
from getting in over her head. More than she already had, that was.

“It isn’t too much or too fast, not for me,” he said, his voice a dark caress. “Every second with you is how I’ll define perfection from now on. But I will slow down—for you.” He swept her into his arms again and she succumbed on a ragged sigh, sank back into the luxury of his embrace. “But there are so many more intimacies I need to share with you, many untold pleasures. I need to keep kissing and touching and talking to you. So when everyone goes away, you’ll stay.”

“Yes.” Then she frowned. “But what do you mean
stay?
”

“The night. In my bed. In my arms.”

“I got that. But stay where?”

“Stay here, of course.”

“
You’re
staying here?”

“I should think so. I own the place.”

And suddenly, all the details she’d missed—in him, in what he’d said, which should have made sense before now but hadn’t—coalesced. Into one big wrecking ball.

It swung into her so hard, it knocked her out of his arms again. “You’re...
him?
”

Three

E
llie gaped at the man who’d given her her life’s most intense experience. He was...he was...

“I’ve been referred to in some extremely unflattering ways before,” he drawled. “‘Him’ wasn’t among them.”

“I mean
you’re...
that man?”

“‘That man’ is also not what I want to hear on your lips.”

“God...it’s just... Okay, stop! Let me breathe.” Shaking her head, she splayed her hand on his chest as if to ward him off, but really to steady herself. “You’re...Moreno Salazar?

He took her fluttering hand to his lips. “To you...I am only Rafael.” He punctuated his words by suckling each finger. “You will moan my name into my lips...scream it against my flesh...all through the night.”

She was a molten mass by the time he pulled her other hand, wound her arms around his neck. But she still had to say...something. Anything.

“But you said you won’t make love to me.”

That wasn’t the issue here. Or what she’d meant to say.

He kissed the arms hanging limply around his neck. “I think I proved there are other ways of pleasuring you.”

“But I thought you understood, agreed that I need to—to...”

“Regroup? Yes, I know. And I won’t do anything to cross your comfort zone anymore.”

This man seemed to be reading her hectic mind, defusing her agitation, saying just the right thing.

But... “That’s still not it.”

“Then what is it?”

“You even have to ask? It’s who you are. It changes everything.”

His lips stilled on the sensitive flesh of her inner arm, then he raised his head, a spectacular frown descending over his leonine brow. “It changes nothing. I’m still the man you lost your mind over, the man you wanted with every fiber of your being. And that’s the man I’ll remain to you.”

“Yes, but you’re also Rafael Moreno Salazar, and I’m here attending your ball because my...boss is here to court your favor. And this complicates everything.”

“This complicates nothing, I tell you.”

“Oh, but it does. It tangles business with pleasure in a way I couldn’t have expected in my wildest dreams. Now I can’t spend the night with you. I don’t even know how everything will be affected by what we’ve already shared.”

Ellie’s arms slid off his shoulders and she slumped back. She felt as if he’d hurtled out of her reach when just minutes ago she’d felt he was closer to her than anyone had ever been.

She pitched forward, dropped her head in trembling hands. “Oh, God, why couldn’t you have just turned out to be just another guest here, just a regular man?”

“Well, I’m not.” He pulled her back into the cradle of his arm. “Which is why I can have you. A regular man wouldn’t dream of coming near you.” Before she could scoff at the exaggeration he’d said with such conviction, he went on just as seriously, “But I don’t care that business interests are involved. I’m even thankful they are, since they brought you here. I’m in your boss’s eternal debt for being the reason I met you. So if he is any good, I’ll do business with him. And that will have nothing to do with us.”

She squirmed to put some distance between them. “How can you say that in the same breath you say you’d do business with my boss for me?”

“I did stipulate he be at least ‘any good’ at what he does. I won’t prove my interest in you by gambling on a losing proposition. I’m into winning and would go to any constructive lengths to win you.”

“Constructive lengths.” A giggle escaped her. “Now, that’s an innovative way of putting it. Though you didn’t have to go to any lengths, constructive or otherwise. You stood there and cast your spell, and I ran and flung myself into your arms.”

“You neither ran nor flung yourself. But you will.”

She sighed, acknowledging his confidence. “So will you always be the magnet, with me the helpless iron filings, or is there hope of you doing some running yourself?”

“Command me, and I’ll run as long and as hard as you wish.” His fervor felt so real. But why not, when she felt the same? “I
would
have run to you this time, too, but I had to draw you away from the crowd.”

Something slotted in her mind with a thud. “You didn’t intend to make an appearance tonight, did you?”

His shrug was dismissive. “Whatever my intentions, I saw you...and nothing else mattered after that.”

“Same here. But you were going to pull another no-show tonight, right? Do you keep gathering people so you can watch them when they think you’re not around? Is this your method of vetting prospective partners?”

“It’s currently a partner. In the singular.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize you’re looking for only one.”

“I am.” The flare in his eyes said he was no longer talking about a
business
partner.

A thrill darted through her, and she sighed as he gathered her closer, soaking up his warmth and desire. “You do know the moment you touch me you nullify my thought processes, don’t you?”

“Not touching you is like holding my breath. I can only do it for so many minutes at a time. So will you stop pulling away? We can discuss whatever you like, for as long as you like, just with you in my arms.”

Sighing again, she relaxed in his hold, resigned to the fact that she wasn’t strong enough to resist both her need and his.

His lips curved. “So you think I’d judge those I’m considering for such a vital partnership by spying on them in a party? Would I disqualify them for stepping on their partner’s feet or talking with their mouth full?”

“I bet you’d see everything you need to make an accurate judgment in observations like those. Just like you always do.”

His eyebrows rose. “How do you know what I always do?”

“Are you kidding? The past couple of hours are worth a year of intensive...exposure. And I’m connecting what I’ve just learned about you with what I’ve long known of you.”

“And what, pray tell, do you think you know about me?”

“Well, as a virtuoso in your field, you have such nonlinear, multidimensional analytic powers, you have the world begging for your Midas touch. You got where you are by judging every situation and person you’ve dealt with throughout your career perfectly. As perfectly as you judged me from a literal hundred paces.”

He wove his fingers into her hair, wrapped a handful around his wrist and inhaled it. “Get yourself out of any comparison. Nothing with you had anything to do with anything I’ve ever experienced before. There was no judgment involved on my part, not when you zapped me from a literal hundred paces, too. And you did that to me when I had my back to you.”

She blinked. “Really?”

“Really. I was at the mezzanine when your aura lashed me with a thousand volts of delight.” He bent and kissed the tops of her breasts that bulged above the now too-tight bodice. “We’ve already agreed there was magic at work.”

“Yes.” There was no contradicting him on that point. “So you’re not orchestrating events only to watch the attendees, at least to weed out those who prove to be blatantly unsuitable?”

“Don’t you think someone as exceptional as you advertise me to be would let résumés choose for me?”

Suddenly she realized what was going on. They’d moved from blinding passion, bypassing any expected awkwardness in the wake of its temporary sating, and plunged right into delightful banter. The seamlessness of it all had her heart soaring.

She cupped his jaw, luxuriating in the ruggedness that filled her palm. “I would have thought so, if you haven’t just promised to give my boss preferential treatment if he passes the lamentable level of ‘any good.’ Or maybe I just mess with your thought processes, too.”

Blistering intensity suddenly filled his eyes, making her heart falter. Then he covered her hand with his. “Do you realize this is the first time you’ve touched me?”

Her mouth dropped open. “I’ve been touching you nonstop since about a minute and a half after setting eyes on you.”

“No. You didn’t touch me once. You let me touch you. This is your first voluntary touch.”

She gaped at him, everything rewinding and replaying.

And he was right. She hadn’t touched him once!

She’d just stood or lain there and let him do whatever he wanted, inciting him only by total surrender.

“I was too overwhelmed to do anything but let you possess me. But let me compensate both of us.”

Her other hand reached for his face, gliding up his cheek, moaning at the wonder of his feel, before doing what she’d been aching to do. She slipped her fingers into the hair at his nape, and the thick mass slid like living silk between them, urging her to take more. His breath caught as she bunched a handful of his locks, then tugged.

Next second she was flat on her back, with him on top of her, hips driving between her spread thighs, his febrile, wrenching kisses no longer resembling his previous ones.

Her reaction was an even fuller submission. And a deeper madness. Now that she was aware of the risks, she wanted to release him from his promise, tell him to just take her now, come what may.

But to her dismay, Rafael only tore his lips from hers. Flinging himself off her, he sat up and pitched forward, both forearms resting on his knees, hair raining over his forehead to hide his eyes as he struggled to regulate his harsh breathing.

“I thought touching you was mind-altering...but you touching me is insanity inducing.” He slanted her a voracious glance as he took her hands and pulled her up. “Leave the touching to me tonight. Until I train myself to withstand your touch without pouncing on you and ravishing you.”

Trembling all over, she sat up, every cell in her body rioting against his decree. She now wanted nothing but to touch him, craved nothing but his ravishing. Even thinking of the consequences wasn’t deterring her. Which did prove that exposure to him
was
insanity inducing.

But it meant so much, that he’d applied brakes—for her—against the demands of his very...obvious desires. It meant even more that he confessed to a weakness. Something Rafael Moreno Salazar had never exhibited in the eight years of his meteoric rise to the top of a field he’d singlehandedly revolutionized.

The fact that
that
man and
her
man were one and the same was still too much to get her head around. She hadn’t even started to scratch the surface of the implications. No matter what he said, she knew being who he was
would
cause problems.

But for now she had him, in those moments of perfection when she was the world to him. As he was to her. And really, what was the point of looking ahead? She had no illusions there would be a continuation once they exited this magical interlude.

But they were still there now.

Feeling she’d be poking a dragon, yet unable to stop, she slid her hand across his shoulders, caressing her way down his back to his waist, delving beneath his open shirt and repeating the journey up, then down, then lower still. The exquisite pleasure of having this freedom, this privilege, was intoxicating.

He caught her against him, crushing her in his arms, his face set in stark lines of savage hunger. And she did another first. She brought his lips down to hers.

Initiating this kiss made it so different, enabling her to set its taste and temperature, sweet and scalding at once. He let her savor him—for about thirty seconds. Then he pushed out of her arms, exploded to his feet.

He scowled down at her. “If you don’t want to be on your back, naked and with me buried all the way inside you, you better not touch or kiss me again.”

She rubbed the heel of her hand against the itch behind her breastbone. “And you better find a shortcut in your training because now that I’ve touched and kissed you, I don’t want to do anything else.”

“You better stop saying things like that, too. They have the same effect on me.”

Her lids grew heavier as she slumped under the weight of craving. “Whatever you say.”

He took an explosive step toward her, before stopping, vibrating with control. Then he gritted, “Enchantress.”

She sighed, rubbing the itch harder. “Sorcerer.”

Suddenly his lips spread into a wide smile as he sat down, keeping a two-inch no-touching zone between them.

“I’m keeping score of your transgressions, and I’ll get satisfaction for each and every one. But first, I need the subject of business closed permanently.” Seriousness suddenly replaced his intimate teasing. “It won’t be preferential when I give your boss precedence over equally qualified candidates. Personal preference
is
an acceptable decisive factor when all things are equal. He might not land
the
partnership, but for you, I’ll give him something he’s worthy of. I bet he’s way above ‘any good.’ You wouldn’t work for someone inept.”

Giving in to wild impulse, she combed the raven satin away from his forehead, her breath catching as his eyes flared and his whole body tensed. “On what do you base such belief?” Suddenly a suspicion hit her. “You don’t think I rely on something other than my professional skills, do you?”

The darkening of pained arousal in his eyes abruptly became affront. “What?
No.
That’s something I’d feel at a
thousand
paces.” He took her by the shoulders, his face set in adamant lines. “A major part of the judgment you so laud is instinct, and that told me everything I need to know about you. And then, your effect on me transcends my judgment, not nullifies it. Now that I choose to employ it, I can see you’re acutely intelligent but burdened with unwavering integrity. You’d only rely on your personal merits no matter how many more lucrative paths were at your disposal.”

Her eyes glazed over his lips. Everything he said was so lyrical, it kept deepening his spell. And beyond that, and his hypnotic voice, there was that accent she couldn’t pinpoint. And it was the sexiest thing she’d ever heard.

And if that wasn’t enough, and he’d ignite her while reciting the ingredients of a salad dressing bottle, he’d gone and said all those incredible things about her. No one had ever held her in such high regard before. And for it to come from Rafael Moreno Salazar—a man whose analyses governments and giant multinational corporations paid millions for—that was beyond enormous.