Читать книгу One Night Of Consequences Collection - Ким Лоренс, Annie West - Страница 69
ОглавлениеSUNSHINE WAS SPILLING from the windows, across our naked, intertwined bodies spread across the bed, the white cotton sheets twisted and tangled at our feet. My first thought when I woke was to think it all had been a dream. Then I saw Alejandro, still sleeping in my arms, a soft smile on his chiseled face.
I caught my breath. My heart beat faster, in a rhythm like music, because joy—pleasure—everything I’d ever wanted had all come true at once.
Slowly, Alejandro opened his eyes, and his smile widened. His expression was open, and young, and he, too, seemed to be shining with happiness. “Buenos días,” he whispered, leaning forward to kiss me tenderly on the forehead, “mi corazon.”
“Good morning.” I blushed, looking away, feeling oddly shy.
Reaching out, he lifted my chin and kissed me, until all thoughts of shyness disappeared beneath the mutual hunger building anew between us.
How was it possible? We’d made love three times last night—three times!—and yet he was still brand new. I gloried in his touch, in the feel of his naked, hard-muscled body against mine, his arms holding me as if I were truly the precious names he’d called me. My pleasure, my duchess, my wife. My lover.
And now something more. Something new he’d called me for the first time.
My heart...
We made love once more, hot, hard and fast—and good thing about that last bit, because thirty seconds after we’d both collapsed in a sweaty, gasping heap on top of each other, I heard an indignant cry from the nursery.
We looked at each other and laughed.
“I’ll get him,” I said, starting to rise from the bed.
“No.” He put his hand on my shoulder, pressing me back against the soft sheets, and rose from the bed, pulling on a white terry-cloth robe over his hard-muscled body. “You got up last time. Relax. Go take a shower. Take your time.”
I came out, hot and clean and pink-cheeked and happy. I got dressed in a soft pink shirt and skirt, and fed the baby as my husband had a shower in his turn.
This was just as I’d always dreamed. No. It was better. Just the three of us...
For now.
My hand slowly fell on my belly. I want to fill you with my child. Was I afraid? Yes. But did I also want, desperately want, another baby? Also yes.
So much had changed since the last time I was pregnant. Instead of being a fearful fugitive, I was married now. Settled. With a home.
Would it be so wrong to just let myself be happy? Alejandro was a good father. He was proving to be a good husband. He wanted to take care of me forever. He wanted us to be a family. And the way he made love to me... I shuddered at the memory of ecstasy.
Would it be so forbidden, so foolish, to trust my husband with my heart?
If only I knew the lie he was telling me, or had told, or would tell. He said he’d been faithful to me for a year, that he’d never be disloyal.
Of course, that could be the lie....
My lips pressed together, and I grimly pushed the thought away. I told myself that, since he’d shared so much of his body, surely he’d soon find it irresistible to share the secrets of his heart. And then I forced myself not to think about it.
Denial is a beautiful thing. A woman in love can be very good at focusing on the rose and ignoring the thorn—at least until it draws blood. Over breakfast, I kept smiling at Alejandro over my plate of eggs and jamón, my coffee diluted with tons of cream and sugar. And instead of treating me like a lovesick fool, as I no doubt looked like, Alejandro, the dark, dangerous, ruthless duke, did the unthinkable.
He kept smiling back.
“I’d like to take you around the estate today,” he said, sipping his black coffee and reading the morning newspaper, “to meet my tenants.”
“What?” I nearly dropped the baby rattle I’d been holding out for Miguel, who was sitting in my lap. Chortling, the baby grabbed it in his fat little fist and triumphantly began to shake. “I thought I’d meet them at the wedding reception.”
“Abuela told me it will take her two months to plan the reception. We cannot wait that long.” His eyes met mine. He seemed to sense my fear, because he gave me an encouraging smile. “You are my wife. It is right that I introduce you to the tenants on the estate. That is the merest good manners.”
“But...”
“Besides. Knowing Abuela, the reception will be a lavish affair, to impress acquaintances and friends. I want the first introduction to be private. Personal.” He paused. “Many of them have been farming this land for generations. They might have heard rumors. They might think that having a baby first, and getting married second, is a little...”
“Modern?” I supplied.
“Yes. Modern. I don’t want them to wonder if this is a real marriage, or if we’ll stand the test of time.”
“Will we?” I whispered.
“We will,” he said seriously, looking straight into my eyes. “And I want them to have no doubt you are here to stay.” Leaning forward, he took my hand in his own. “I want them to think well of you, as I do.” He looked at me. “Will you meet them?”
Having Alejandro look at me with his deep dark eyes, and hold my hand, and ask me something, in his husky voice, there was no possibility of resistance. No matter how the thought of trying to impress a bunch of strangers and convince them I would make an excellent duquesa filled me with dread. What if they thought I wasn’t good enough? What if they had such deep doubts, Alejandro changed his mind about me and decided to find some other wife more worthy? “All right,” I said hesitantly. “If you think it truly necessary.”
“I do.” Alejandro’s eyes softened as he looked at our baby. “I’d like Miguel to come, as well. Because he is their future. And they are his.”
I bit my lip, trying my best not to look nervous. “Right. Four hundred years on this land, right? So it’s in Miguel’s blood.”
“Something like that.” Alejandro put down his napkin and rose to his feet. “We’ll see the Widow Ramirez first. She was my governess, once.”
The thought warmed my heart. “She taught you as a child?”
“Both me and the...housekeeper’s son.”
“You mean Miguel,” I said softly. “Your friend.”
“Yes. We played together as children, studied together, fought. It didn’t matter that one of us was a future duke and the other just the housekeeper’s son. We studied the same subjects, lived in the same house. We both loved Abuela. We were friends. Until Miguel died that day.”
“And you survived,” I said gently, touching his shoulder.
“Yes. I survived.” He turned away. “I’ll get the keys.”
I finished my breakfast and my orange juice. When Alejandro returned, he said, “Señora Ramirez is no longer as sharp as she used to be, but she still has a lot of influence with the other tenants.”
“No pressure,” I muttered, my heart suddenly cold with fear. I looked down at my pink shirt and floppy cotton skirt. “Maybe I should change.”
He barely glanced at me. “You’re fine.”
“I want them to like me....”
Alejandro laughed. “Fancy clothes won’t make them like you. In fact, if you showed up in a designer dress and five-inch stiletto heels, they’d like you less. The farmers respect honesty, hard work and kindness when it’s called for. Bluntness when it’s not.” His dark eyes gleamed. “You should get along just fine.”
“Oh, all right,” I sighed, sure he was wrong.
A half hour later, the three of us were in his estate vehicle, a black, open-air Jeep, headed over a dirt road that crossed the wide fields and hills belonging to the Castillo de Rohares.
The Widow Ramirez’s house was a snug little cottage on the edge of the estate, where she grew organic peaches and persimmons, aubergines and artichokes, and raised goats that produced milk and cheese. Frail and wizened, barely as tall as my shoulder, when she answered her door she looked at me with critical, beady eyes. But by the end of the visit, she was smiling and pushing more of her homemade butter cookies toward me.
“Eat, eat,” she pleaded. “You must keep up your strength if you are to give your husband more children.”
I felt Alejandro looking at me, and blushed.
“Gracias, Pilar,” he said, putting his hands on my shoulders. “We wish for more children very much.”
“Of course you do,” she said, pouring him tea. “I know it was always your desire to have a larger family, growing up so lonely, up in that huge castle, with your older sister off working in Granada. And your mother,” she sniffed, “working night and day, when she wasn’t distracted by the duke....”
“Sister? What sister? Alejandro is an only child,” I added, frowning up at him. “Aren’t you?”
He cleared his throat, glancing at his old governess. “You’re confused, Pilar,” he said gently. “You’re thinking of Miguel. Not me.”
Her rheumy eyes focused on him. Then she nearly jumped in her chair. “Yes. Yes, of course. That was Miguel. You are El Duque.” She abruptly held out a plate to me. “¿Más galletas?”
“Yes, please.”
She beamed at me. “It makes me so happy you like my cookies. Alejandro—” she looked at him severely “—barely ate one.”
He laughed. “I had three.”
“Hardly any,” she sniffed. She smiled at me. “You should take the example of your wife, and eat four or more.”
“Gracias,” I said happily, and took another one, buttery and flaky and sweet. “I will need this recipe.”
“I’ll be delighted to send it to you!”
Shortly afterward, as we rose to leave, Alejandro hugged the widow’s small frame gently and looked at her with real love. “Take care of yourself, Pilar. We’ll see you soon.”
“You, too, M—Alejandro.” Shaking her head with a wry smile, she reached up and patted his cheek, then looked down and kissed the top of our baby’s head. Looking among the three of us, she said, “I’m so happy for you, my dear. How it’s all turned out. You deserve a happy life.”
Leaving her cottage, we got back into his open Jeep, tucking Miguel into the baby seat in the backseat. As we drove across the bumpy road, I exhaled in pure relief. Closing my eyes, I turned my face up to the warm morning sun, feeling happy that I’d somehow—I had no idea how—passed the first test. Instead of her tossing me out, she’d fed me cookies. And I’d pretty much eaten all of them. What can I say? They were delicious. I really did need that recipe.
Smiling, I turned to look at my husband. “She was nice.”
“I’m glad you think so.” He was looking at me with a strange expression, as if he wanted to say something. I frowned, and I parted my lips to ask what he was thinking. Before I could, he looked away.
“We’ll visit the Delgado family next.”
For the rest of the day, as my confidence built, I spoke with all of the tenants on his estate. They seemed relieved and happy that I spoke Spanish, though they took pleasure in teasing me mercilessly about my accent. They adored the baby, and all of them praised my new husband to me, even when he was out of earshot. One after another, they told me stories of his noble character, his good heart.
“The land was neglected, and El Duque brought it back from the brink....”
“My roof was falling apart, but El Duque helped me fix it....”
“When the crop died, I thought I would have to leave. But El Duque gave me a loan, enough for seed and animals. He saved us, and he himself was only eighteen....”
“He gave my son a job in Madrid, when there were no jobs to be had. José would have left for Argentina.” The old woman wiped her eyes. “El Duque kept my son here in Spain, and I’m so grateful. I’ll never forget....”
By the time we visited the last house in early evening, I was no longer even nervous. I was relaxed, holding our baby, laughing and chatting with the farmers, complimenting them on their well-cared-for fields and animals, complimenting their wives on their delicious tartas. And seeing how they admired Alejandro, how they treated him with such respect. His people did love him.
And by extension, I realized, they were willing to love me, for his sake. And for the sake of our child.
On the drive back home over the dusty road, back to the castle at the top of the hill, we didn’t speak in the open-air Jeep. Miguel was sleeping in the back. Finally, I smiled at Alejandro. “That went well, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” he said shortly.
What could he possibly be mad about now? Biting my lip, I looked at the passing scenery. I was already starting to love Spain, especially Andalucía. The air was warm, dusty from our tires on the dirt road. The sun was starting to fade to the west, leaving a soft golden glow across the fields. I felt the warm breeze against my skin, the air scented by honeysuckle and bougainvillea and the jacaranda trees in bloom.
But Alejandro didn’t say a word. He pulled the truck in front of the garage. Getting out, he opened my door. When I stepped out of the Jeep, he pulled me into his arms. I looked up at him, biting my lip. “Alejandro, didn’t I do—all right?”
“All right?” he said huskily. I saw the warmth in his deep brown eyes. They held the same glow as the soft Andalucían morning. “I am proud of you beyond words, mi corazon. You made them love you. As...”
He cut himself off, but as I looked up at his face, my heart started to pound. “They loved me for your sake.”
“No.” He shook his head. “They loved you only for yourself. Your warmth, your smile, your...” Reaching down, he stroked my cheek. Something seemed to stretch tight between us, making me hold my breath. His hand trailed down my hair, down my back. “Come upstairs with me,” he whispered. “Right now...”
“But dinner...”
He lowered his head to mine in a deep, passionate kiss, taut and tender, slow and sweet. I clutched his shoulders, lost in his embrace.
Miguel gave a plaintive whine from the back of the Jeep, and Alejandro released me with a rueful laugh. “But Abuela will be expecting us for dinner.”
“Yes.” I shook my head with a snort. We’d been fed at literally every house we visited. “I won’t be able to eat a bite. I’m not the least bit hungry.”
“Funny. I’m starving.” He gave me a dark look that made my body burn, and I knew he wasn’t talking about food. He sighed grumpily. “But you’re right. Dinner has been arranged. We wouldn’t want to disappoint Abuela....”
“No. We wouldn’t.” I took our baby out of the truck, and we went upstairs to give Miguel his bath. Alejandro left to dress for dinner tonight, as Maurine had requested. I fed our baby, cuddling him in the rocking chair as he drifted off to sleep, plump and adorable in his footsie pajamas, holding his soft blanket against his cheek. I finally tucked him into his crib, then went to the master suite next door.
I felt dusty from the road, and was tempted to take a shower, but feared that would make me late, which would be rude. Especially since Maurine had insisted tonight’s dinner was special somehow. So I just brushed out my hair and put on a long slinky dress and high heels. She’d asked us to dress up for dinner tonight, though what made tonight different from the other nights, I had no idea. I put on some red lipstick and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked so different, I thought. I barely recognized myself. I tossed my hair, seeing the bold new gleam in my eye—and liking it.
Smiling, I went downstairs. But as I walked down the sweeping stairs, voices echoed from the shadows of the stairwell below.
“You should tell her the truth.” Maurine’s voice was uncharacteristically sharp.
“No,” Alejandro answered coldly.
“She’s your wife—”
“She cannot know. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. I don’t know if I can trust her.”
“But this is your life we’re talking about!”
“Not just my life. Also yours. And Miguel’s. She could destroy us all if she—”
Then they looked up and saw me. I shaped my mouth into a bright smile, as if I hadn’t heard anything, as if my heart wasn’t pounding.
“You look spectacular, mi esposa,” Alejandro murmured, and held out his arm. He was dressed in a dark tailored shirt and trousers. “May I escort you to dinner?”
I nodded. But as we walked down the hallway toward the banqueting hall, the happiness that had been building inside me all day had suddenly gone pfffft like a balloon.
What was he hiding?
It was growing harder to push the question from my mind. Even denial will carry you only so far. My recent happiness suddenly felt like a house of cards waiting to fall.
I’d felt such incandescent joy, being in his arms last night. Being by his side today, meeting his neighbors and the people who mattered to him. Being introduced, with pride, as his wife.
Every moment I spent with him, I was falling deeper and deeper into an emotion I’d sworn I’d never feel for him again. Especially since I knew he was lying to my face. I was walking straight into heartbreak, only this time, I’d have no one to blame but myself.
Abruptly, I stopped in the middle of the hallway.
He frowned down at me. “What, querida?”
I looked at him, my heart aching. “I need to know what you’re hiding from me.”
Setting his jaw, he shook his head.
“I wish I’d never told you,” he said harshly. Dropping my hand, he looked at me with cold eyes. “Should we spend dinner apart?”
He was ruthlessly ending the conversation. Swallowing back tears, I shook my head. He held out his arm again.
We walked, the only sound our footsteps against the flagstones. “I wonder why Maurine insisted that we dress up for dinner tonight,” I said over the awkward silence. “I just saw her wearing an old cardigan and jeans....”
We entered the banqueting hall, and my voice cut off.
It was completely empty of other people. The only light came from the blazing fire in the enormous stone fireplace. Tall tapered candles lit the table. Beneath the high, timbered ceilings, the shadows and fire made the room breathlessly romantic.
I blinked, bewildered. “This is why Maurine wanted us to dress for dinner...?” Then Alejandro gave me a sensual smile, and it all clicked into place. “You arranged this,” I breathed.
He shrugged. “I spoke with her before we left this morning, and she agreed newlyweds need time alone.”
“But what about dinner for everyone else?”
“They already ate.” He came closer, his dark eyes intent. “And I’m glad,” he said huskily. “I want you to myself.”
I stared at him, still conflicted about the way he’d coldly cut off my earlier question. Going to the table, he poured us each a glass of red wine that sparkled like a ruby in the firelight.
“Manzanilla wine. From my vineyard.”
As we sat next to each other at the end of the long table, near the fire, I felt my anger starting to be melted by his nearness. The dinner was probably delicious, but I ate mechanically, barely tasting it. Alejandro moved his chair closer. He did not try to touch me. He started asking me questions, asking what I thought of Spain, how I liked the estate, how I liked the baby’s nursery. He asked me how I’d first started painting.
“My father taught me,” I said softly. “He always wanted to be an artist. But once he got married and had a family, he had to try to earn a living....” I gave a rueful laugh. “He was never good at earning money. But we loved him, just as he was.”
Alejandro leaned forward, his elbow on the table, his chin resting on his hand, listening to every word. He focused his attention on me, as if nothing and no one else existed.
I knew how this worked. I’d seen it before. And yet I still could not resist. With every breath I felt him seducing me, drawing me in closer. Against my will, my heart started to warm.
The enormous banqueting hall, usually chilly inside the castle even on a hot summer day, was growing increasingly hot. I found myself leaning forward, asking him questions in my turn, and all the while wishing he would kiss me, and hating myself for wanting it. Finally, I could bear it no longer.
“Why can’t you tell me your secret?”
“Put it from your mind,” he said harshly. “Or go.”
“Fine,” I said tearfully. I stood, turning away.
He grabbed me by the wrist.
Slowly, Alejandro rose from the chair, his body grazing mine as he fully stood, towering over me. My head tilted back to look at his face. He was bigger than me, stronger by far. But it wasn’t his strength that overwhelmed me, but the stark vulnerability I suddenly saw in his hard, handsome face.
“This is all you need to know,” he whispered.
He pushed me against the edge of the stone fireplace, holding my wrists above me, kissing my lips, my throat. Closing my eyes, I tilted back my head as waves of desire crashed over me.
“I want you, Lena,” he whispered, his voice husky, his lips brushing my earlobe. “Te deseo.”
I shivered. Then remembered why I was mad at him and tried to pull away. “I—I am dusty and sweaty from the road.” I gave a casual laugh that no one would believe, least of all me. “I rushed downstairs because I didn’t want to be late.” He continued to kiss my face, and I closed my eyes, breathing, “But I should...really...go take a bath....”
“Bien,” he purred. “I’ll join you.”
My eyes flew open. “A shower, I mean, not a bath,” I stammered. “There’s not much room in the shower for two....”
He ran his hands down my back, holding me against him. “Just enough.”
He kissed me, and beneath the sensuality of his embrace, I sighed, and my lips parted. My body melted into his, my soft curves pressing into his hard angles as if his body had been made for mine.
Lifting me into his arms as if I weighed nothing at all, he carried me upstairs to our private, luxurious bathroom, where he gently set me on my feet. His dark eyes never left mine as he slowly pulled off my dress, then my bra, then my panties.
When I was completely naked in front of him, he wrenched me hard against him and kissed me deeply, hungrily. I desperately began to unbutton his shirt, then his trousers, until he, too, was naked.
Pulling away, he turned on the water in the shower. I glanced back longingly at the bed, but it was in the next room and seemed a million miles away. He kissed me again, and I gasped against his lips, his naked body hard against mine. Steam lifted from the hot water of the shower, making the luxurious bathroom of white marble and silver a magical, otherworldly place of ice and snow.
Except for the heat. Every inch of me felt warm, bursting with fire.
Alejandro pulled me into the shower. He pushed me away from him firmly, and I whimpered.
“Patience,” he said, and I could almost hear his smile. He was still in control. Unlike me...
With agonizing slowness, he washed me in the shower, tangling shampoo in my hair, rubbing soap over my body, scrubbing every inch of me. I felt him stroke my full, naked breasts, my waist, my hips, the soft hair between my legs. I closed my eyes, swaying on my feet. I felt hot and unsteady as he caressed my hair, down my earlobes, my neck. I left handprints in the glass wall of the shower, against the white steam.
Turning me around to face him, he ran his hands down my breasts, over my belly, over my hips and thighs. Hot shooting streams of water poured over us both.
And he knelt before me. Gently parting my thighs, he pressed his face between my legs.
I gasped. His lips were tender and sensual and warm. His tongue slid against me, inside me, the merest breath of a stroke, hot and wet beneath the warm water.
I closed my eyes, pressing my hands against the glass wall behind me.
His hands slid around me, holding me firmly against his mouth. He teased me with the tip of his tongue, soft and light against the most sensitive part of me, then spread me wide and lapped me, until I tossed back my head, slapping my long wet hair against the glass as I shook all over. The hot, steamy water poured over us both as I felt his hands—his tongue—slide over my wet, pink skin.
For an intoxicating eternity, he teased me, bringing me almost to an explosion of pleasure beneath the steamy pulse of the shower, then backing away the very second before I would have exploded into bliss. It might have been seconds or hours, that he seduced me with this sweet torment....
When my need was too much to bear, and I was shaking so hard I could barely breathe with desire, Alejandro turned me around, pressing me against the glass, my bottom resting against his hard, thick length.
“You’re mine,” he growled in my ear. “Say it.”
“I’m yours,” I breathed, pressing my arms against the glass.
“Again.”
“I’m yours!”
“Forever.”
“Forever,” I whispered.
He thrust inside me roughly, deep and hard, and I gasped.
I forgot everything in the overwhelming pleasure of having him inside me. Pleasure was not a big enough word for it. I melted, lost myself, found myself, until he exploded inside me, and I soared.
Afterward, both of us were panting and spent, and he abruptly turned off the water. He opened the shower door and toweled me off. Without a word, he lifted me in his arms and carried me to our enormous bed. Looking back, I saw the trail of water he’d left across his stark floor.
Clinging to my husband’s naked chest as he carried me, I felt as if I were in another time or place. I wondered dreamily about other lovers who’d done this, hundreds of years ago, in this very castle, when the sultan ruled.
Setting me down naked on our bed, he looked down at me. I smiled up at him, blinking tears of emotion, of anger and joy all mixed up together.
Climbing beside me, he held me, kissing my temple tenderly. Our bodies intertwined, his wet skin sliding against mine. My hand stroked the hardness of his chest, laced with dark hair. He held me tight. My eyes were heavy, and started to close.
I’d told him the truth in the shower.
I was his.
Now and forever.
Because I love him....
The realization hit like a bolt of lightning, causing my eyes to fly open.
I was in love with him, and there was something he was keeping from me. A reason he was lying. A secret he thought would hurt me.
I was in love with my husband.
But if I knew the secret he hid from me, would that love be destroyed?
