Then there were too many long, delicious minutes to count when he took over the seduction, drawing her down through layer after layer of pleasure until she lay, boneless, beneath him.
‘A thousand years from now,’ he murmured as he paused above her, his face a dark gold map of intense desire, ‘I will still remember this night.’
‘Why this night, in particular?’ Evie questioned curiously. They had done this many times before after all.
‘Because of—this,’ he muttered, reaching out to take hold of her hand and bringing it to his mouth. ‘Mine,’ he breathed, taking a biting grip on her wedding ring at the same moment that he entered her.
It was such a possessive, pagan, passionate thing to do that Evie laughed as her long legs wrapped themselves around him so she could draw him in deeper.
‘Barbarian,’ she accused him.
It never occurred to her to question the thousand-year memory he had just laid claim to. But that was because she didn’t need to. Kismet was like that—answered questions that most people would find absurd.
The Spanish Husband
Michelle Reid
CHAPTER ONE
CAROLINE was pacing the floor and becoming more agitated with each step that she took. She arrived at the window which led out onto the terrace, saw nothing of the beautiful view the elegant two-bedroom suite offered her of the famous Puerto Banus, and turned to pace back the way she had come, glancing impatiently at her watch as she did so.
Nine o’clock. Her father had said seven o’clock. He had promised seven o’clock. ‘Just going for a stroll before I need to change for dinner,’ he’d said. ‘To check out the old place and see if it’s changed much since we were here last.’
He loved Marbella. They’d used to spend most of their summers here once upon a time, so she’d understood his eagerness to reacquaint himself with the resort—but not his refusal to let her go with him.
‘Don’t be a pain, Caroline,’ he’d censured when she’d instantly started to get anxious. ‘I don’t need you to hold my hand. And I certainly don’t need a watchdog. Show a little faith, for goodness’ sake. Haven’t I promised to behave myself?’
So she’d showed a little faith—and now look at her, she mocked herself bitterly. For here she was, pacing the floor like a worried mother hen with every nerve-end she possessed singing out a warning of trouble!
He wouldn’t let her down—would he? She tried to reassure herself. He had been so firm, so needy for her to believe in him that he wouldn’t, surely, fall prey to his old weakness when he knew how important it was to them for him to remain strong?
Then where is he? A very cynical voice inside her head taunted. He’s been gone for hours. And you know what he can get up to when left to his own devices for too long.
‘Oh, hell,’ she muttered as the agitation suddenly reached whole new levels, and, in tight and angry surrender to it, she snatched up her little black velvet evening bag and headed for the suite’s outer door.
If she discovered that he had sneaked off to feed his damned habit then she would never forgive him! She vowed as she stabbed a hard finger at the lift call button then stood waiting impatiently for it to come. Things were bad enough already.
More than bad enough, she groaned inwardly. Or she wouldn’t even be here, her father knew that! He knew how much she hated this place now, hated the whole morass of painful emotions it evoked.
Seven years since their last visit, she recalled as the lift doors slid open. Seven years since they had been forced to leave beneath a dark cloud of pride-shrivelling humiliation and soul-destroying heartbreak, vowing never to return again.
Yet here they were, not only back in Marbella but staying in the same hotel. And once again she was having to go and hunt her father out in the very last place on this earth she ever wanted to step foot in!
The casino, she named it grimly as she walked into the lift. The wretched in-house casino, where she was all too aware of the damage her father could do in such a terrifyingly short space of time.
And how long had he been missing? she asked herself as she pressed for the ground floor.
Two hours at least.
Her fingers stood out white against her black evening bag while she waited for the lift doors to shut. In two miserable hours he could lose thousands. Give him a whole night and he would, quite happily, lose his shirt!
Like the last time.
A wave of sickness suddenly washed over her, sending her slumping weakly against the lift wall just as the doors began to close. A hand snaked out, compelling the doors to open again, and she found herself quickly straightening as a tall dark man of Spanish descent, dressed in an impeccably tailored black dinner suit and bow tie, stepped lithely into the cabin with her.