His Suitable Bride(115)

They lay like that for a long moment, Isandro pulling Rowan tight in against him, almost as if he wanted to fuse their bodies together. Eventually he pulled free and Rowan lay flat on her back. Isandro propped himself up beside her. She looked at him, still breathless. He just watched her. A fine sheen of sweat made her skin glow. She lifted a hand and traced his jaw. He took it and sucked a finger deep into his mouth.

A pulse throbbed between her legs. How could he have the power to arouse her so easily, so quickly? She knew her eyes had widened.

He frowned lightly. As he watched her expression something crept over him. Could it be possible?

‘You … this frightens you, doesn’t it? The way you are with me here, in bed …’

She just looked up at him, fear and confusion evident in her eyes. He didn’t know how he hadn’t seen it before. Too blinded by lust. By events.

She nodded slowly, and then said shakily, ‘Terrified … I feel like I become someone else … someone I don’t know …’ She whispered the last words. ‘And yet I need it, crave it, and that makes me feel …’

His mouth quirked slightly. ‘Wanton? Lusty? Sexy? Sensual?’

Rowan grimaced. ‘Well … some of those things.’

He moved over her then and let her feel the evidence of his own resurgence of arousal. He found her hand and brought it down, making her encircle his shaft, moving her hand up and down with his.

His voice sounded rough, hoarse. ‘Sex is messy, guttural, wonderful and base … and all I know is I’ve never experienced it with anyone else the way I do with you. You are all those things, Rowan, and more …’

He took his hand away and rested over her on both forearms, his weight deliciously heavy against her. She kept her hand on him, moving up and down, and watched fascinated as passion glazed his eyes and tautened the skin across his cheekbones. Desire flooded her, but she only cared about giving him pleasure.

When his head went back and the muscles in his neck corded she knew he was close. He reached down and stopped her hand, coming close and pressing his mouth to hers, and then he filled her again. She gasped and arched upwards, wanting all of him, every inch. He started to move and, together again, they reached the blazing heights.

The following morning Rowan awoke to find Julia bustling into the room with breakfast on a tray. Her automatic impulse was to sit up, but then she realised she was naked. She pulled up the sheet quickly. Julia appeared not to notice anything unusual in finding Rowan in Isandro’s bed.

She settled the tray beside Rowan and clucked around her like a mother hen, fluffing up the pillows. As she was leaving, Rowan asked her about Zac. Julia told her that Ana-Lucía had already fed him, and that he was downstairs with Isandro.

Rowan sank back. The breakfast looked appetizing, but her stomach lurched. A million things hit her brain at once. She’d spent the night in Isandro’s bed. He hadn’t left her. They’d made love. Or that was how it had felt. Her heart clenched. She was in so deep now that the thought of leaving again, this time through no choice of her own, was filling her with dread.

She heard a noise and the door opened. Isandro. Her mouth went dry and her cheeks flushed at the thought of last night.

His eyes went from her to the breakfast. ‘Not hungry?’

Her mouth tightened as she watched him come in. ‘Not really …’ She couldn’t read his expression. He seemed remote, different from the man who had taken her to heaven and back last night. Who had been so tender.

He stood at the window for a moment before turning around. ‘Look, Rowan, about last night … I’m sorry … I never meant for … that to happen. When I offered to sleep with you I meant just that. Sleep.’

Rowan sat up straight, holding the sheet against her. White-hot pain blanked out the previous night and the urge to self-protect rose up swiftly. She rushed to halt any more words. ‘Oh, no—please don’t worry. I hadn’t expected that either. It was just an effect of the day. The extreme circumstances.’

Her cheeks were crimson, and she looked with despair to where her robe was flung on a chair in the corner. He saw her look, and with a rigid jaw strolled over to get it.

All she wanted to do was get out of there and away from the pity he must feel. He’d been offering comfort; she’d taken complete liberties with that. Hadn’t he made it tacitly clear after the other night that any desire for her had burnt itself out? Her role as his mistress had been laughably short in the end. But last night, she could almost have believed …

He handed her the robe. She glanced up quickly and saw his face was like granite. She sensed anger and felt bewildered. A knife skewered her heart. He regretted it that much? She’d have to make moves to leave the house soon if she couldn’t even be trusted to control herself around him.