Читать книгу The Prince's Holiday Baby - Brenda Harlen, Brenda Harlen - Страница 7

Nine years later—

Prince Eric Santiago lied when he told his best friend that he had a plane to catch. The truth was, his pilot wasn’t coming to pick him up for the return trip to Tesoro del Mar until the following morning, but after almost two weeks with Scott Delsey and his soon-to-be-wife, Eric needed some space. Spending so much time with the blissful couple and seeing how in love they were only made him more aware of what was missing from his own life.

When he’d accepted the invitation to visit Scott’s ranch in Texas, he’d thought his friend might want to offer him a job at DELconnex, his communications company. On more than one occasion in the past, Scott had mentioned that he could use someone with Eric’s education and experience, though they both knew Eric had no intention of leaving the Tesorian navy.

Now, of course, the situation had changed, and Eric was willing to consider any possibilities his friend presented. It turned out one of those possibilities was to stand up as the best man at Scott’s wedding.

It seemed that everywhere around him people were getting married and having babies. First it was his eldest brother, Rowan, who had been forced by tragedy and tradition to the altar. Luckily for him, he’d managed to fall in love along the way. After six years of marriage, he and Lara were happier than the day they’d exchanged their vows, even with—or maybe because of—the two active young sons who did their best to run their parents ragged.

Three years after Rowan pledged “till death do us part,” their youngest brother, Marcus, had found a woman who inspired him to do the same. Recently, he and Jewel had welcomed their first child into the world—a beautiful baby girl who looked just like her mother and already exhibited the legendary charm of her father.

Both of his brothers had lucked out, and Eric was genuinely happy for them. But the only mistress Eric had ever been committed to was the sea—and she’d tossed him aside, carelessly discarding everything he’d given her and taking away everything he was.

As he drove his rented Mercedes northeast toward San Antonio, he forced himself to acknowledge the truth he’d been avoiding for too long—he wasn’t just alone, he was lonely.

He envied what Rowan had with Lara, what Marcus had with Jewel, what Scott had with Fiona. And he wondered why he’d never met a woman who made him think in terms of marriage and forever. Okay, having spent the better part of the last twelve years on board a ship might have something to do with it. Add to that the uncertainty of never knowing if the women he’d been with were genuinely interested in him or only attracted to his title or his uniform, and it probably wasn’t surprising that he’d reached the age of thirty-six without ever having been in a long-term, committed relationship. Still, the realization wasn’t going to fill his life or keep him warm in bed at night.

The rumble of his stomach finally broke through his introspection and a neon sign announcing Shea’s Bar & Grill snagged his attention.

Despite the fact that the building was smack in the middle of nowhere, there were several vehicles—mostly dust-covered pickup trucks—in the parking lot. His empty stomach again protested his decision to leave his friend’s ranch before dinner and he flicked on his indicator to make the turn.

He parked his shiny rental between an ancient red pickup and a mud-splattered Jeep and sat for a moment, wondering if he would look as out of place in the bar as his vehicle did in the parking lot. A man who’d grown up in the public eye wouldn’t usually worry about such things, but Eric had become more sensitive to the attention—and the speculation that surrounded him—since the accident.

He pushed out of the car, slowly limped toward the entrance. The deliberate, unhurried movements helped ease the stiffness from his hip so that he was walking almost normally by the time he reached the door. His therapist had warned that he might always have the limp and the discomfort—at the time, he’d thought it was a small price to pay for being alive. When he’d had to leave the navy, he’d realized the physical scars weren’t the biggest price.

A sign inside the door invited him to seat himself. He bypassed several empty tables around the perimeter of the dance floor and made his way to the bar. As he slid onto a vacant stool, he forgot about his hip and everything else as he glimpsed a vision that was more impressive than anything he’d seen while sightseeing in Texas.

Hermoso…espectacular…perfecto.

Her hair was as dark as midnight and tumbled over her shoulders like a silky waterfall. She was wearing a deep, V-neck shirt that revealed just a hint of cleavage and was tucked into slimfitting jeans that molded to narrow hips and long legs.

His gaze skimmed upward again and locked with hers.

He felt a sharp tug of attraction deep in his belly, an almost painful yearning, and he could tell by the sudden widening and darkening of eyes the color of a clear summer sky that she was experiencing the same sensation. Instantaneous, raw and powerful.

But then she tossed her hair over her shoulder and smiled easily.

“Hey, handsome.” The slow Texas drawl made him think of lazy Sunday mornings spent lounging in bed—and wasn’t that an unexpectedly intriguing image? “What can I get for you?”

She smiled again, and suddenly he was wanting a lot more than he’d come in for, but he forced himself to respond just as casually. “A beer would be good.”

She grabbed a clean mug from the shelf behind her. “Any particular kind?”

He tore his gaze from the stunning face to glance at the labels on the taps. He noted the familiar Amstel, Heineken and Beck’s brands, but opted for one that he guessed would have a more local flavor. “Lone Star.”

She tipped the glass beneath the nozzle to catch the ambercolored liquid that flowed out. “You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?”

“Am I?”

She slid the beer across the bar to him. “Well, you don’t sound like a local, and if you were, I would have seen you before now.”

He didn’t think she was flirting with him exactly. But she seemed, if not interested, at least curious, and he couldn’t resist testing the waters.

“You don’t remember?” he asked, his tone intended to convey both disbelief and disappointment.

She made change for the ten he gave her and leaned across the bar in a way that greatly enhanced his view of her cleavage. “If I don’t remember, you obviously didn’t make much of an impression.”

He grinned at her quick response and lifted his glass to his lips as she moved down the bar to serve another customer.

He’d struck out with the sexy bartender, but it was his first time at bat after a long absence from the plate and, the way he figured it, it was only the top of the first inning. There was a lot of the game still to be played.

Eric ordered a barbecued pork sandwich with a side of spicy fries and washed it down with another draft as he watched the woman who’d eventually introduced herself as Molly Shea check on her customers at the bar. She took a moment to chat with each one as if they were all old friends, and he knew some of them probably were.

“How long have you been a bartender?” he asked her.

She poured a glass of water and squeezed a wedge of lime into it. “Forever.”

“Has it always been your ambition?”

“It’s honest work,” she said.

“I wasn’t implying otherwise,” he told her. “You just seem like a woman who could do so much more.”

“I can make all the fanciest drinks,” she said, deliberately misunderstanding him. “But we don’t have much call for them here.”

“You’re determined not to give away anything about yourself, aren’t you?”

“Bartenders don’t make confessions, they listen to them.”

“I thought that was just a stereotype.”

“I used to think so, too. But I learned quickly that a sympathetic ear and a shot of Scotch whiskey is a lot more successful at loosening tongues than a long couch and a fifty-minute clock.”

His gaze skimmed over her face. “The ears are nice,” he agreed. “But I’ll bet it has a lot more to do with your soft voice and warm smile.” And the idea of this woman on a long couch—minus the fifty-minute clock—was more than a little intriguing.

“Is that why you’re here?” she asked. “Are you looking to unburden your soul?”

“My soul isn’t burdened.”

Her only response was to raise her eyebrows.

“No more than most,” he clarified.

She smiled at that, and he felt a funny little kick in his belly. It was lust, he was certain of it. Certain that what he was feeling for this intriguing bartender couldn’t be any more than that.

Eric picked up his cup and frowned when he found it empty. He’d switched to coffee after his second draft, and he’d already had one refill, making him wonder just how long he’d been sitting at the bar.

“It’s almost eleven,” Molly told him, somehow anticipating his question as she brought the pot over to refill his cup again. “Isn’t there somewhere else you should be?”

“Not anymore,” he told her.

Her eyes were unexpectedly sympathetic as she asked, “Did she kick you out?”

“Who?”

“Whoever’s responsible for that lost look in your eyes.”

“No one kicked me out.” Then he smiled at her. “Not yet, anyway.”

She laughed. “You’ve got another hour.”

He was still there at the end of the hour.

And Molly was still as conscious of his presence as she’d been from the minute he walked in the door. Conscious of his attention focused on her as she began tidying up her workspace and wiping down the counters after last call.

She was flattered, of course. The man was sinfully good looking with that dark hair and those smoldering eyes, a mouth that made her think of long, slow kisses and shoulders that looked as if they could carry the weight of the world.

But he didn’t belong there. She’d recognized that fact even before he’d opened his mouth and started speaking in that smoothly cultured voice that spoke of private schools and a wealth of other privileges.

And she wondered what he was doing in Texas or, more particularly, what he was doing in her bar.

She did know that every time she caught him looking at her, her pulse spiked. And when he smiled, her heart pounded and her blood heated. Though her experience with men was limited, she recognized her reaction for what it was: lust, pure and simple. And when a man looked like the one sitting at her bar, she was certain he had more than enough experience being the object of women’s desires.

The stirring of her own desire, however, was unexpected.

She wasn’t the type of woman to fantasize about having sex with a man she didn’t even know. Of course, her lackluster experience with Trevor had pretty much nixed her fantasies about sex—and the few brief relationships she’d had since then hadn’t given her reason to hope for anything different.

But she poured herself a single glass of wine—part of her usual closing up routine—and slid onto the stool beside his. “Are you really waiting for me to kick you out?”

“I’m not in a hurry to go anywhere else.”

“If I’m going to let you stay while I close up, I’ll need to know more about you.”

“Such as?”

“Where you’re from—because we both know it’s not Texas.”

“Tesoro del Mar,” he told her.

“Treasure of the Sea,” she translated.

“You speak Spanish?”

“A little.” She sipped her wine. “And is it—a treasure of the sea, that is?”

“Absolutely.”

“What brought you from there to here?”

“I was visiting a friend.”

“A girlfriend?” she guessed.

“No,” he said, then, “yes, there was a woman.”

She lifted a brow. “Only one?”

He smiled. “My best friend is getting married. His fiancée is the only woman I’ve seen since I’ve been here.”

“How long has that been?”

“Almost two weeks.”

“And why is it that you’re alone in a bar at quarter after twelve on a Sunday night?”

He made a point of looking her over. “I’m not exactly alone now, am I?”

“Alone except for the bartender,” she clarified.

“I would say alone with an incredibly beautiful woman.”

The heat in his gaze added weight to his words, but Molly wasn’t going to let herself get all tongue-tied and weak-kneed just because a handsome man paid her a compliment.

“I’m flattered,” she said. “But you’re going to be disappointed if you think a few smooth words will convince me to go home with you.”

“Since I don’t even have a hotel room booked, I was hoping you would invite me to go home with you.” There was something in his tone that told her he was only half joking.

“Not going to happen,” she told him.

“Is there anyone special in your life?”

She smiled. “There are a lot of special people in my life.”

“I meant a boyfriend,” he clarified. “Since you’re not wearing a ring, I’m guessing there’s not a husband or fiancé.”

She shook her head. “I don’t really have time to date. Too many other things going on.”

“That might be a valid excuse for neglecting to return a phone call,” he noted, “but it hardly explains not dating.”

“Does a broken engagement explain it better for you?”

He nodded. “Broken heart, too?”

She hesitated a moment, then shook her head. “No, and maybe that’s one of the reasons I haven’t been dating. I realized how close I’d come to making a very big mistake, and I needed some time to figure out what I really wanted.”

“And have you?”

“I’m still working on it.”

“Me, too,” he admitted.

“I would have figured you for the type of man who knew exactly what he wanted.”

“I used to be.” His eyes held hers for a long moment, then his gaze dropped to her mouth. “Not only did I know what I wanted, but I knew how to get it.”

Then he leaned down and kissed her.

And she kissed him back.

She, Molly Shea, who didn’t do anything spontaneous or impulsive, was kissing a stranger in a bar—and thoroughly enjoying every second of it.

Because—WOW—he knew how to kiss.

Her brain scrambled to find an explanation for this inexplicable turn of events. She wanted to blame the wine, though she’d only had half a glass. She might consider the lateness of the hour, except that she was accustomed to working nights and wasn’t at all tired. Or maybe it was just the strength of a purely physical attraction that she hadn’t felt in a very long time.

His tongue slid between her lips and the random thoughts and desperate explanations faded into nothingness as her brain seemed to stop functioning altogether.

His hands slid up her back, drawing her close, closer. Her breasts grazed the solid wall of his chest. Her nipples tightened, her belly quivered. He drew her to her feet, and she pressed herself against him, shocked—and aroused—to feel the hard ridge of his erection against her belly.

He wanted her.

Of course, he was a man and the state of his arousal might have more to do with that fact than the identity of the woman in his arms, but she wasn’t going to worry about that now. She was just going to bask in the knowledge that she was wanted, revel in this affirmation of her feminine power. At least for another minute.

Had she ever been kissed so thoroughly? Until her blood felt like molten lava pulsing through her veins and her knees went weak and everything inside her started to quiver? Never.

Not even Trevor’s kisses had made her feel like this. He was the first man she’d ever been intimate with, and she’d never responded to him the way she was responding now. Of course, her relationship with Trevor had come on the heels of the break-up of her engagement, when she’d been desperate to feel wanted by someone. But even then, she’d never wanted to be with him as desperately as she wanted to be with Eric now.

And the wanting terrified her.

She forced herself to ease away from him and when she spoke, she kept her voice light, careful to give no hint of the churning inside. “You know what? You’re as sexy as sin and when you kiss me, it makes my heart pound like you wouldn’t believe, but I don’t do one night stands with strangers.”

“I don’t, either…as a rule.” He slid his hands up her back, and she shivered as his fingers traced lazily along the ridges of her spine. “But there’s an exception to every rule.”

“And you think you should be mine?” she asked skeptically.

“I think you could be mine.”

She pushed his arms down, stepped away from him and temptation. “I might be a small-town girl, but even I can recognize a big-time con.”

He winced. “Okay, it did sound like a line.”

“You think?” What was even worse than the obvious script was how much she still wanted to give in to the desire thrumming between them.

“What I think is that, for the first time in a long time, I’ve met an interesting woman and I’m not ready to say goodbye to her yet.”

He sounded sincere, but if she’d learned nothing else from her failed relationships, she’d learned that she didn’t have a clue when it came to understanding the motivations of men. “Do you mean that?”

“Yes, I do.”

His voice was sure, his gaze steady, and despite the doubts and insecurities that swirled inside her, she wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet, either.

“I’m not working tomorrow,” she finally said. “If you wanted to meet me back here around ten, maybe we could spend the day together.”

“I’d really like that,” he said. “But I won’t be here tomorrow.”

Disappointment weighed heavily in her belly. “You won’t?”

“My plane’s scheduled to leave at 8:00 a.m.”

“You’re going back to Tesoro del Mar?”

He nodded, and though she regretted that it was true, she knew his leaving wasn’t any reason to throw caution to the wind and do something completely crazy.

“I guess this is goodbye then,” she said.

“I guess it is,” he agreed.

Then he tipped her chin up with his finger and brushed his lips against hers. It was a gentle kiss this time, as fleeting as their time together had been.

“Goodbye, Molly.”

“Goodbye.” She watched him cross the room. She watched as he flipped the lock and pushed on the door, and she felt all of her reason and common sense sweep through the open portal and into the night.

“Wait.” The word sprang from her lips without conscious thought.

He turned back. Waiting.

She could let him go—and always wonder what might have been. Or she could be wildly spontaneous and spend the night with a man whose kiss had singed her right down to her toes.

She’d always believed it was better to regret something she’d done than something she’d left undone, and while it was possible she’d wake up with regrets in the morning, she knew she would regret it more if she let him walk away.

Eric sensed the battle waging inside Molly and it took every ounce of willpower he possessed to keep his hand clamped around the handle of the door to keep from reaching for her again. If they were going to spend the night together—as he very much wanted them to do—it would need to be her decision. And he knew it wasn’t one she would make lightly.

She’d admitted that she didn’t date much, and he knew a woman as beautiful and warm and friendly as Molly didn’t sleep alone unless it was what she wanted. So what made him think that she would break her self-imposed rules to spend the night with him?

Chemistry.

It had crackled between them from the first moment their eyes had locked across the bar and had been building and deepening ever since. The sizzling kiss they’d shared was further proof of it.

His body was still humming from the after-effects of that kiss, or maybe it was almost three years of self-imposed celibacy that had everything inside him churned up. Whatever the reason, he knew what he wanted. He was just waiting for Molly to reach the same conclusion.

She looked at him now, her eyes locked with his, and she said only one more word.

“Stay.”

He flipped the lock on the door and moved back to her.

She met him halfway—her arms lifting to circle his neck, her body pressing against his, her mouth opening for his kiss.

His hands moved over her, hotly, hungrily. She gasped and sighed in response to his touch, and those sexy little sounds nearly snapped the last of his control. She was so eager and passionate, as hungry for him as he was for her, and it was an effort not to tear away her clothes where they stood and bury himself inside her.

The woman had him tied up in knots, desperate and aching with desire.

He cupped her breasts and felt her nipples pebble in response to the brush of his thumbs. She arched against him, a silent plea for more. Even through the layers of their clothing, the erotic friction of her hips pushing against his was almost too much.

She was sexy and sweet, giving and demanding.

And she was his.

The thought came from out of nowhere, the sudden drive to take and claim and possess both unfamiliar and undeniable.

He was leaving in the morning. They both knew they wouldn’t have anything more than this one night together. But he was determined to make it a night neither of them would ever forget.

This was crazy.

Even as Molly led Eric up the stairs to her apartment over the bar, she knew it was outrageously insane to even consider having sex with a man she’d never laid eyes on a few hours before, who would be leaving again in another few hours and whom she would probably never see again after that.

She didn’t care.

Right now all she cared about was getting naked with him.

And he wanted the same thing, if the trail of clothes they left in the hall on their way to her room was any indication. She led him unerringly through the dark to the bed, then pushed him back onto the mattress and tumbled down with him.

She reached for the small lamp on the night table, but he caught her hand and brought it to his lips. He kissed her palm, nibbled on her fingers, and sent sparks of heat zinging through her system.

Oh, yes, there was heat. And Molly gloried in this confirmation that she wasn’t unresponsive or dispassionate, she’d just needed a man who knew how to touch her the right way. And Eric definitely knew how to touch a woman the right way.

She wanted to touch him—was desperate to touch him—too. With limited experience to fall back on, she allowed her instincts to guide her. She ran her hands up his chest, over his shoulders, down his arms. She reveled in the feel of all those hard, tight muscles bunching and flexing in response to her eager touch. His skin was warm and smooth and taut; his body exquisitely carved and sculpted. Everywhere she touched, he was hard and strong, so completely and perfectly male. And for now—for the next few hours that remained of the night—he was hers.

Her fingertips paused in their exploration, hovering over the puckered ridge of skin she’d discovered beneath his lowest rib.

She felt him tense as she slowly traced the diagonal line of the scar toward his hip bone. Her fingers moved lower, finding a wider, longer scar on his upper thigh, and she instinctively knew this was the reason he hadn’t wanted the light.

His perfect body wasn’t quite perfect after all. And yet, the physical scars on his body somehow enhanced rather than detracted from his appeal.

“A recent injury?” she asked softly.

“Not so recent,” he said, but offered nothing more.

She traced her fingertips over the scars again, as if her touch could ease the strain she heard in his voice, the tension in his muscles. “What happened?”

“A naval training exercise went wrong.”

His simplistic explanation was a clear indication that this wasn’t something he wanted to talk about. But his response had given her another valuable insight about this man. “So you’re a sailor.”

“Was,” he corrected.

“With a woman in every port?” she teased to lighten the moment.

“Never more than one at a time.”

“Good to know.” She kissed him then, deeply, hungrily.

She kissed his lips, his throat, his chest. Her hair spilled over his shoulders, providing a curtain behind which she continued her exploration. She’d never been so aroused, so tempted, so bold. But she let her instincts, and his throaty groans of appreciation, guide her. She nibbled her way down his belly, savored the salty masculine flavor of his skin. Then her lips found the ridge of scar tissue her fingers had recently discovered, and her avid mouth gently feathered soft kisses along the puckered skin.

“If you’re trying to kiss away the pain, where I’m really hurting is just a little bit lower,” he told her huskily.

She chuckled, letting her tongue taste, tempt, tease. She heard the sharp intake of his breath, and knew her bold acceptance of his challenge had surprised and aroused him.

She heard the crinkle of plastic as he unwrapped the condom he’d snagged from his pocket before discarding his pants somewhere in the hall, and was grateful he’d had the foresight to think of protection. She let him sheath himself, then kissed her way back up his body, her taut nipples grazing his chest, her hips rocking against his. His hands skimmed over her thighs, his fingers curled around her buttocks, pressing her closer.

She waited for him to press into her, to take control in search of his own pleasure. But he didn’t seem to be in any big rush to the finish line. In fact, he seemed more than content just to touch her, tease her, taste her.

Molly endured the exquisite torture for as long as she could, then she straddled his hips, positioning herself so that the tip of his erection was at the juncture of her thighs.

Slowly she lowered herself, moving just the tiniest bit, taking only a fraction of an inch inside of her. Then a little more.

His hands were on her hips, his fingers biting into her flesh. She could feel the tension in him and knew he was fighting against the instinct to drive into her. He was bigger than her, stronger, and they both knew she was only in control at the moment because he wanted her to be, but still, the sense of power was exhilarating.

She continued to tease him, taking him a little bit deeper inside, then drawing back again. His eyes were so dark they were almost black, and they were intently focused on her. Watching her as she watched him.

Watching her as his hands skimmed up her sides to her breasts, as his fingers toyed with her nipples, circling, stroking, squeezing.

Desire curled like a fist deep in her belly, tight, tighter, until she cried out with her release.

It was the signal he’d been waiting for, and his hips jerked off the mattress and he buried himself deep inside of her in one powerful thrust that had her crying out again at the shock of the next climax that ripped through her, leaving her weak and breathless and shattered.

But Eric wasn’t finished with her. He held himself perfectly still until her body had stopped shuddering, then he flipped her over, so that she was on her back and he was stretched out on top of her, pressing deep inside of her.

He whispered to her, speaking softly in Spanish. She didn’t understand all of the words, but his tone was as sensual as a caress, and just as arousing. He began to move. Slow and deep strokes that touched her very core. Then hard and fast thrusts. Harder. Faster.

She’d thought she was sated. He’d made certain she was satisfied before he’d pursued his own pleasure, and yet, she could feel the desperate, achy need building inside of her again. Her heels dug into the mattress, her nails bit into his shoulders, and her hips matched his frantic rhythm as her desire escalated again until the world dropped away and there was nothing to hold on to but each other.

He collapsed with his head on her pillow, his arm wrapped around her, and his heart beating against hers.

They made love twice more before exhaustion finally overrode passion, and Molly fell into a deep and blissful sleep in the warm comfort of his arms.

She woke up in the morning, cold and alone, and found herself regretting not the hours she’d spent with Eric but that he was already gone.