The Spanish Duke's Virgin Bride(61)

‘You’ve never hurt me—at least, not intentionally,’ Grace said firmly as she rested her cheek on his chest and listened to the erratic thud of his heart. She closed her eyes for a moment and absorbed his strength, her senses flaring at the scent of his cologne. She could stay like this for ever, but she was probably embarrassing him, she acknowledged ruefully—she knew how he hated signs of affection.

She took a deep breath and eased out of his arms so that she could look at him properly. She felt humbled by his admission that he sympathised with her father and now it was time she repaid his honesty with her own. All his life he had believed himself to be flawed in some way. His own mother had told him he was unlovable, and it was little wonder that he had built a protective wall around his heart.

Pride had caused her to deny her feelings for him, and she had cruelly allowed him to believe that she could never love him. How wrong he was!

‘It’s not your fault that you don’t love me,’ she murmured, lifting her chin to bravely meet his gaze. ‘You made it clear from the beginning that you never would, and it’s my own fault that the idea of leaving you…of never seeing you again…breaks my heart.’ She ignored the look of stunned disbelief in his eyes and pressed on while her nerve held. ‘I don’t believe you’re cold and heartless, Javier. You have a heart and as much love inside you as any man—maybe more—but your childhood taught you to bury your emotions and they’re still locked within you, waiting for the right woman to turn the key.’

Suddenly she couldn’t go on and she turned away from him, tears streaming down her face. ‘I wish I was that woman.’ She choked. ‘Because I love you with all my heart. You were right when you guessed the reason why I came to you in Madrid. I couldn’t resist you—but I would never have slept with you if I hadn’t loved you.’

‘Then why were you leaving me?’ In an agony of frustration, Javier spun her round and literally shook her before he dragged her up against the solid wall of his chest. ‘Dios,’ he muttered hoarsely. ‘When I forced the car door open and discovered you slumped over the wheel…’ A shudder ran through him and he closed his eyes briefly as tears burned the back of his throat.

The last time he’d cried he had been eight years old, huddled beneath his mother’s caravan after she’d locked him out—hungry and alone. Since then he’d learned to control his emotions, a self-defence mechanism against getting hurt. But Grace could see into his soul. She’d ripped down his defences one by one, leaving him raw and exposed. The memory of those few seconds after the accident when he’d thought he’d lost her were too much to bear, and he buried his face in her hair as tears seeped from beneath his lashes.

‘All my life I have rejected love, until I believed I was immune to it,’ he groaned as he pressed desperate, feverish kisses over her face and throat. ‘But I love you, Grace—more than I thought it possible to love another human being.’

He threaded his fingers into her hair and tilted her face so that he could stare down at her. His amber eyes blazed with so much emotion that Grace wondered how she could have ever thought him cold. It was as if he was making up for all the years that he had locked his feelings away, and when she caught the gleam of moisture in his eyes she wanted to weep for the lonely boy he had once been.

Reaching up on tiptoe, she took his face between her hands and kissed him with all the pent-up love that she had kept hidden for so long. Incredibly, she felt him hesitate before his lips moved over hers with gentle reverence, slow and sweet, in an evocative caress that made her tremble in his arms.

‘At first I kidded myself that I was in control,’ he admitted when he finally lifted his head. ‘I couldn’t keep my hands off you, but I told myself it was just good sex.’ His mouth curved into a rueful smile. ‘The best sex ever—I had never experienced such pleasure, such joy, as when I made love to you. But afterwards I had to force myself to move away from you in case you realised how weak I was where you were concerned.’

‘I thought it was your way of demonstrating that you only wanted me for sex and nothing else,’ Grace whispered shyly. ‘I longed for you to give me some small sign that I meant something to you, and I was so jealous of the easy familiarity you shared with Lucita. I’m sorry I believed her rather than trusting you,’ she murmured shamefacedly, but when she dropped her head Javier lifted her chin.

‘I had done little to earn your trust, querida. Lucita means nothing to me—you are the only woman I’ve ever loved, and I swear I will love you for the rest of my life. I’m just sorry that it took almost losing you to make me acknowledge that fact.’