He laughed and caught hold of her, dragging her up against his hard, aroused body. ‘Oh, querida, I would if I thought for one minute you meant it. But your body gives you away—see?’ He curved his hand possessively around her breast, his smile mocking as he stroked his thumb lightly across her nipple and it instantly swelled and jutted against the sheer fabric of her dress.
Why couldn’t she feel the same disgust she had felt when Guy had touched her? Lauren asked herself despairingly. But Ramon was no clumsy, drunken boor. He was a highly skilled lover, with a wealth of experience in the art of sex. More than that, he was the man who had stolen her heart, her one love, she acknowledged silently, unable to tear her eyes from his as he slowly lowered his head.
She had expected his kiss to be hard and demanding—a demonstration of his power over her. But the gossamer-soft brush of his lips across hers was so exquisitely gentle that her defences instantly crumbled. Slow and sweet, his mouth explored hers in a sensual tasting that evoked a desperate yearning inside her for him to hold her close and never let her go. He explored the shape of her mouth with his tongue, and there was no thought in her head to resist him when he probed between her lips in a caress that was so intensely erotic that she trembled with need.
And yet she recognised the restraint he had imposed on himself. She was clinging to him, pressing her slender curves eagerly against his rock-solid body, but for some reason he held back, dampening the passion between them to a slow burn rather than allowing it to blaze into a wild firestorm.
She realised that he was giving her a choice. He would not force her into his bed. But she was ashamed to admit that she wished he would sweep her into his arms and carry her into the bedroom. She did not want to think about the implications of having sex with him. She wanted him to seduce her and make love to her with all his considerable skill, so that conscious thought was obliterated and she could lose herself in the sensual mastery of his touch.
He traced his mouth over her cheeks, her eyelids, little teasing caresses that tormented her until with a soft moan she cupped his face with her hands and brought his mouth down on hers. Parting her lips beneath his, she initiated a bold exploration with her tongue.
Ramon’s tenuous hold on his self-control shattered. ‘Is this what you want, querida?’ he growled, tightening his arms around her until she was welded to his hard frame and could be in no doubt of the urgency of his arousal, jabbing insistently between her thighs. She was his woman, and he kissed her with a fierce possessiveness, his hunger for her an unstoppable force that demanded appeasement.
Suddenly, explosively, the barriers shattered into pieces, releasing their mutual desire like molten lava flow from a volcanic heart. Lauren’s lips were swollen when Ramon finally lifted his head and trailed burning kisses down her throat, over the smooth slopes of her upper breasts. Her nipples were tight and hot, tingling in anticipation of his touch, and she gave a shiver of pleasure when he drew the straps of her dress over her shoulders, lower and lower, until her breasts spilled into his hands.
‘Your breasts were always incredibly sensitive,’ he murmured hoarsely as he rolled her nipples between his fingers, squeezing and releasing until she made a keening sound in her throat. ‘I have never wanted any woman the way I want you.’
The admission was torn from him as she tugged clumsily at his shirt buttons and ran her hands over his bare chest and abdomen, her fingers stilling when she reached the waistband of his trousers. His erection was so hard that Ramon feared he would come at any second, and with an impatient growl he reached around her, unzipped her dress, and tugged it down so that it pooled at her feet.
Tiny black lace knickers covered her femininity. He hooked his fingers in the elastic and deliberately held her gaze as he slowly drew them down her legs. ‘You want me, Lauren,’ he told her harshly, and to prove his point he slid his hand between her thighs and discovered the slick wetness of her arousal. ‘You can’t deny your need is as great as mine.’
Lauren could not deny it; she did not even attempt to try. She had missed him so much, ached for him for so many nights, that she simply did not possess the will-power to resist him. Everything seemed strangely distant—Matty, the knowledge that she could never mean anything to Ramon, her colleagues and bosses downstairs. Would it be so wrong to have this one night with him? her mind argued.
Recriminations could come later—but when Ramon dropped to his knees and parted her womanhood with gentle fingers, before closing his mouth around the sensitive nub of her clitoris, she curled her fingers in his hair and sobbed his name.