Nacho Figueras Presents (24 page)

G
eorgia ate a quick breakfast, dressed, and went to see the foal. She was absurdly elated, veering between all-out bliss and knee-melting desire. She could feel herself grinning like an idiot, but figured hanging around a newborn in the barn that morning was one place she wouldn't need an alibi for the smile.

Enzo and Noni were already there, leaning over the door to the stall with a groom on either side. The foal was adorable, bright as a new penny with her huge eyes and gawky legs. Georgia stood with her as she began to nurse. Sugar, no longer feeling the ferocious need for privacy, now welcomed Georgia into the stall, nuzzling her little foal with glowing pride.

“What time did she arrive?”

“Oh, around four,” Georgia said.

“You must be exhausted—” Enzo said.

“She doesn't look it.” Noni laughed.

“Alejandro helped,” Georgia said.

“Oh, really?” Noni asked with a quick sidelong glance.

“Guess you're still on the adrenaline,” Enzo said.

Georgia gave the foal the shots it needed, rubbed some iodine on the umbilical cord, and went off to attend to the other ponies. With the end of the season and Gus gone, there were a million details to attend to in the next few days, blood tests and health papers to clear them all for international travel.

She was with Tango, checking his feet, when Alejandro came in. Her insides melted on sight. Looking up at him in all his ridiculous beauty, standing square before her, she was almost undone by the erotic ownership in his closeness. He kept up professional patter for the benefit of the grooms outside, and Georgia, though she thought it would almost kill her, did her best to answer his questions with appropriate replies. When the grooms' footsteps all finally receded, he pressed her against the side of the stall for a kiss so luscious her knees almost gave out.

He grinned down at her. “We should name the foal.”

“She looks so sweet,” she said. “Like her mother.”

“
Dulce
,” he said.

She nodded. “
Dulce
it is.”

He kissed her again. “Georgia.” The way he said her name now was startling. The way he gazed at her was like sex in itself. She could feel the lids of her eyes dip just looking at him. “I'm not ready to tell anyone about us, to share all this yet. Not for a few more days anyway. Will you go home with me?”

She blinked. “Argentina?”

“Yes, we can be there by morning if we leave tonight. Enzo can cover the barn, and we'll get a temporary vet to finish up things here. I want you to myself, I want you in my bed, I want you to see where I come from.”

She stared up into his eyes, her heart throbbing, conscious only of the feeling of surrender. The total certainty she would risk her career, her credibility, her heart, her everything, for another chance at a night in his arms.

G
eorgia threw a few things into a bag—her bikini, a silk slip, jeans, a few T-shirts, a dress from Billy, bless him, and her boots—and waited for the car outside.

The family driver was taking them to the airport, which meant a ride overflowing with unbelievable sexual tension. They kept their distance in the backseat, Georgia gazing out at the passing landscape and trying to ignore the molten heat at the heart of her.

When they reached the airport and settled themselves side by side into the Cessna, Alejandro grinned at her. “I told everyone we were going to Santa Barbara to bid on a pony. Do you think we got away with it?”

“I got a knowing look from Noni maybe, but otherwise all clear,” she said.

“We don't have to worry about Antonia,” Alejandro said. “She saw this coming a long time ago. And she'll keep our secret as long as we want her to. It's not like she's close to my mother.”

“No,” Georgia acknowledged and gazed out the window as the plane started to taxi.

Alejandro reached into a bag at his feet and pulled out a small velvet box. “I got you something.”

Georgia felt herself flush as she took the gift. It was all so beyond her experience—being whisked abroad, the luxurious private plane, the famous, unbelievably sexy man beside her…“Oh, you really didn't need to do that.”

He shrugged. “I wanted to. Go ahead, see what it is.”

She opened the box and gasped: a necklace made up of dozens of amethysts and pearls, the bright silver setting etched with an intricate scrolling design of roses and leaves. It was lovely and extravagant, as if from another time, and it took her breath away.

“It was my grandmother's,” he said. “My father's mother, Victoria. Our team is named after her. She was wild and sweet and strong, and she never listened to anyone.” He reached over and held it up. “She gave it to me before she died, told me to give it to someone who was worth it.”

Georgia reached out to touch it. “Will you put it on me?”

He fastened it at the back of her neck. The coolness of the silver and the weight of the stones around her throat made her shiver in delight.

He gave her a piercing stare that sent fire through her veins. “It suits you,
mi reina
,” he said.

She leaned into his ear, slid her hand up his thigh, and whispered, “When this plane levels out, we are going back to the bedroom, and I am going to wear nothing but this necklace while I do things to you that prove just how worth it I really am.”

Afterward, they drifted in the soft bed, their limbs a-tangle, and Georgia smiled, sated. She was exhausted. Her muscles were sore in a deep, pleasant way, and she thought about how magical it was to be skimming through the sky, in this man's arms, heading for somewhere beautiful she had never been before.

Her mother flitted into her mind, and for once, Georgia didn't feel pain when she thought of her. For once, she felt that maybe she actually understood something about her.

This is what she wanted for me. Exactly this. “Polo is the passport to the world.”

She snuggled closer to Alejandro, laying her head upon his chest. He wrapped his arm around her, and she sighed with contentment as she closed her eyes and they soared together through the night sky.

A
lejandro actually felt nervous as they turned down the long, meandering drive through his
estancia
. The chalet was much smaller and more modest than the house in Wellington. Olivia had always wanted to upgrade to something grander, more befitting the family status, as she put it, but he had been stubbornly against moving. This was maybe the first place where he had ever felt truly at home, and he'd held on to it despite her insistence that they needed something bigger. He hoped that Georgia wouldn't be disappointed by its rustic simplicity.

He had called ahead and let the caretaker, Manuel, and his wife, Maria, know that he would be there for the next few days. He had asked them to make sure the house was clean and that the kitchen was stocked, but let them know that, other than that, he would like his privacy.

The sun was just coming up as they drove past the barn, and he smiled to see the lights on and his grooms already busying themselves around the yard.

The two-story whitewashed farmhouse was tucked back on the property, between a dense stand of acacia trees that shielded it from the barnyard and a small, glimmering lake behind it. Beyond the lake was open prairie as far as the eye could see. Just seeing this beloved view made Alejandro's heart soar.

He darted a glance at Georgia. Her eyes were round with excitement. “It's even more beautiful than you described,” she said. “It's perfect.”

As they parked and opened their doors, a huge, white dog came bounding out at them, barking and jumping all over Georgia and practically knocking her over.

“
Hola, Frida, calma
,” said Alejandro. “Sit,
ey
, sit!”

Obediently, the dog, which was almost as big as Georgia, sat, her stubby tail wagging frantically in the dirt.

“This is Frida,” said Alejandro. “Frida, this is Georgia. Be nice to her,
perrita
. We do not want you to scare
mi chica
off.”

The dog panted happily as Georgia rolled her eyes at Alejandro. “I'm a vet, remember?” she said to him. “You think a dog could freak me out?”

Alejandro shrugged. “She's scared bigger men than you.”

Georgia scratched Frida behind the ears and grinned at the big dog. “I'm thoroughly unimpressed with her ferociousness.”

“She must like you,” said Alejandro. He put his arm around Georgia and steered her toward the house. “She has good taste.”

The house was beautiful, thought Georgia. She could see that it fit Alejandro exactly. For all the impressive formality of the
hacienda
in Wellington, it never felt particularly warm, but this house was the kind of place where you immediately felt at home, as if you could kick off your shoes and curl up in a sun-drenched corner and just be at peace.

It wasn't huge. Only four bedrooms, Alejandro told her, but it was open and bright and airy. The walls were of rough, unpainted plaster that seemed to glow with the light that streamed in through the countless windows. There were bookshelves overflowing with well-worn tomes in both English and Spanish, haphazardly ordered and stacked. There were several large paintings—moody and stark nature studies of horses and trees and one vibrant, gorgeous, nude of a woman's back. The floors were a dark, shiny wood, dotted with colorful woolen rugs. There was a huge kitchen, with a red brick floor and a fireplace so big that Georgia could have stood upright inside it. A long, worn, pine farm table held pride of place. There were amazing views from every room, either of the lake or the trees or the rolling prairie, and the whole place even smelled like Alejandro—bright and spicy and masculine.

Alejandro was a different person here. Showing Georgia round the barns, with his extraordinary stable of three hundred horses, he talked her through his breeding program with excited pride, introducing the fillies, the dams, their newest foals. As he took her hand and led her back to the house, the last traces of worry seemed to slide off his face, his posture relaxed, he smiled and laughed easily, and there was a sparkle in his eye that Georgia had never seen before.

“So, do you like it?” he asked as he showed her his bedroom. He seemed appealingly shy, almost worried that she wouldn't approve.

She took in the stunning view of the lake, and the massive, four-poster bed, heaped with bright pillows and decadent-looking linens, along with the simple, clean lines of the room. She smiled and shook her head. “It's wonderful. The whole place just feels like it's…loved, you know?”

Alejandro took her hand. “I'm glad you see it as I do,” he said softly. “I want you to love it, too.”

She looked up at him, and she tried to remind herself that it was all going ridiculously fast, that if she had any sense, she would remember that she had really only just met this man and that they were worlds apart in almost every way. But then, he reached down and gathered her to him and kissed her—the kind of kiss that a person might wait an entire lifetime to experience—and she knew that none of it mattered. That what was between them was so rare and miraculous that she would be a fool not to just let herself fall. Fall into his arms, fall into his life, fall into his world…She leaned against him, trying to match every inch of her body to every inch of his. His breath became ragged, and his eyes went dark.

“God. You're a little
bruja
. You make me so crazy. I can't get enough of you. I need you in my bed. Now,” he growled, and he wrapped his arms around her and carried her across the room, placing her on her stomach, stretched across the mattress.

She tried to turn over to face him, but he held her in place, kissing and licking down the back of her neck and reaching beneath the little dress she wore. He slid his hands under her bra, grasping her breasts in both of his hands while he rubbed against her from behind.

She felt herself go slick and wet. He kept one hand on her breast, rubbing and teasing her nipple, and used his other hand to pull at her dress, trying to tug it off until he got frustrated and simply ripped it down the back with a snarl of impatience. She could barely contain her excitement.

“I'll buy you another one,” he breathed as he pulled the dress away from her body and then stripped off her panties and bra as well. “I'll buy you a dozen.”

He grasped her rear and pushed her legs apart, sliding his hand up under her, through her damp curls, and teasing and rubbing her until she thought she'd lose her mind, until she started to beg. “Alejandro, please, please.”

“
Mi cielo
,” he groaned, “you feel so good. I can't wait any longer.”

“Yes,” she moaned, and raised herself up against him.

She heard the unzipping of his pants and the rustle of a condom wrapper being ripped open, and then he sank into her hard, taking her until she felt him in every particle of her being. Hot pleasure rippled through her as he pulled back and thrust in again, and again. Finally, the pressure tipped her over the edge, triggering waves of release so intense that she felt as if she might pass out, and he joined her in her climax, calling her name, speaking to her in a jumble of Spanish and English, telling her how much he loved her, how good she felt, how she was
his
, now and forever. Until the both of them collapsed onto the bed, heaving and spent, slick with perspiration, and throbbing with the magic of it.

Alejandro bathed with her after, both of them climbing into the enormous, free-standing tub and sinking into the hot, steamy water. He soaped a washcloth and tenderly swept it down her neck, over her back, and the length of her thighs. Georgia leaned against his chest, warm and pink, and he wrapped his arms around her and sighed in contentment.

Alejandro loved the freedom he finally had to touch her, relished the novelty of being able to close the space between them anytime he wanted.

“Tell me about your farm,” he said, wanting to lay claim to every hidden part of her.

She shrugged, all at once a little embarrassed and defensive. “It's nothing compared to this place.”

“But it's your home,” he prompted.

“Yes,” she agreed. “It's my home. And it's a little…rundown maybe, but it's beautiful in its own way.”

Suddenly she was off and running, describing the stunningly disparate seasons: the almost tropical, deep green summers; the crisp, vivid autumns; the aching, white cold of winter with its glittering ice, fierce winds, and bright blue skies; and the sudden sweet reprieve of spring.

“I think that's what would be hardest about living somewhere like Wellington all the time,” she said as they climbed out of the bath and toweled off. “The seasons never really change. In the Hudson Valley, you have to pay attention. Every day is different. I'm not sure I would know how to feel time passing if I didn't have the cues I get from the seasons.”

They wrapped themselves in robes and wandered into the kitchen, sitting at the table and making a feast of delicious serrano ham with little hunks of crusty bread and manchego cheese and sipping a rich, red wine while Frida the dog lounged under the table and begged for scraps.

Georgia wiped her lips with a napkin and yawned. “I'm exhausted,” she said. “You've worn me out,” she teased.

They went back to the bedroom. He watched her crawl across the covers and tug the sheet over herself and then came to lie beside her, pushing the hair away from her face.

“You make love the same way you ride—and swim,” she said, laughing. “I'm not sure I can entirely keep up. I'm not the world-class athlete you are.”

“You do just fine keeping up,” he said to her.

She gazed up at him, smiling. “I remember the first time I saw you in the tent. Everyone wanted a piece of you.”

“I saw you first,” he said. “I thought Sebastian and Rory had gotten to you. I'm relieved they didn't.”

“And I'm very relieved you're not in love with Cricket,” Georgia said.

He laughed. “While we're talking about it, I'm quite pleased you're not about to marry your high school sweetheart.”

She cuddled up closer to him and closed her eyes. He continued to stroke her hair until she fell into a deep afternoon sleep.