Harlequin Presents January 2015 Box Set 3 of 4(91)

No, worse. With painful honesty, she knew that she had fallen in love with him. For her, this wasn’t just a simple case of lust. No, this was the vast, unchartered territory of absolute love, the one-hundred percent absorption in another human being; the yearning and craving and not being able to envisage a life without them. In a perfect world, this was the sort of intense, soaring feeling that would be reciprocated. In her imperfect world, however, this was the nightmare that couldn’t be contained and couldn’t be ignored. Just thinking about her stupidity made her feel sick.

She had had searing sex with a guy who found her attractive but that was the end of it. She had launched herself down a one way street, had given her heart to a guy who certainly wouldn’t be returning the favour, and it hurt. Gabriel Cabrera didn’t do love. In fact, he didn’t even do anything that remotely bordered on intimacy, or at least what she understood by intimacy. She hadn’t failed to notice that when she asked questions he didn’t want to answer, he abruptly, smilingly but very firmly, changed the subject.

The essence of the man remained hidden. That was the way he liked it, and that was something that was never going to change. How much more foolish could she have been? Against all the odds, against every scrap of common sense she possessed, she had handed over the most precious of emotions into the care of a man who would have run a mile had he but known. A wave of dizziness washed over her and she had to fight her way back to some semblance of normality.

They made it back to the hotel in record time. Dinner was going to be at one of Gabriel’s favourite restaurants in Montmartre, somewhere chilled with an eclectic crowd.

It left them a couple of hours and she knew how those hours would be spent.

In his bedroom, in his bed...

She always made sure to return to her own bedroom, even in the early hours of the morning, but they always made love in his bedroom.

‘I can’t seem to keep my hands off you.’ He pushed her back against the closed door. ‘Touch me,’ he groaned. He unbuttoned his jeans and pulled down the zip to relieve the throbbing in his groin.

The touch of her cool hand as it wormed its way into his boxers was bliss, enough almost to send him over the edge.

‘Let’s make use of the bath...’ He broke away to lead her into the bathroom, which was the last word in indulgence. A ridiculously large bath took centre stage with a walk-in shower to one side and twin sinks on the other side rested on black granite with a huge mirror behind.

He ran the bath, flinging in bath salts, and Alice watched him. He was poetry in motion and she couldn’t get enough of him. He had stripped off her protective layer and the only one blessing was that he didn’t realise that he had done so.

She had made sure to reveal as little about herself as he had revealed about himself, although he knew her thoughts on so many things. They had discussed literature, art, the paintings and sculptures they had seen, the food they had eaten and the wine they had drunk. They had talked about the people they watched, sitting outside and sipping coffee. They had compared notes on music. They had even talked about work and about the accountancy course she was due to embark upon.

‘I can feel you watching me,’ Gabriel said with a grin in his voice.

‘That’s because you’re so egotistic. You think that every woman on the planet’s watching you.’

‘Ah...’ He turned around, still smiling, and slowly got undressed. ‘But you’re the only one I care about.’

If only.

She had shed all her inhibitions in front of him. She had no idea how she was going to return to her role of perfect secretary—not when she was crazy about him, when he had seen her naked, when he had touched her in her most intimate places. But men were brilliant at detaching and she would be as well.

The water was beautifully warm and blissful. The bath was easily big enough for two and she slid between his legs, her back against his stomach, her head tucked against his neck.

He squirted some liquid soap into one hand and took his time massaging her breasts. She could feel him pressed against her, a shaft of steel, proof positive of how much she turned him on.

She sighed and slipped down lower into the water and, eyes closed, she lost herself in pure sensation as his hand moved from her breasts down over her stomach and between her thighs.

‘Don’t...’ she protested as he found the sensitive bud and began rubbing it, eliciting broken, gasping groans.

‘Don’t what?’

‘Stop or I’ll...’ Too late. Her body shuddered as she climaxed. Her breathing quickened and she cried out and turned in the water, thankfully not sending too much over the side of the bath, and she sat on him, but she knew as well as he did that without protection it was too risky.