The Blackmailed Bride (17 page)

‘What does it look like?' she replied as she eased the shoe-string straps of her nightgown over her shoulders. Taking a deep breath, she released her grip and let the fabric fall into a silken pool around her feet.

Javier released a long shuddering hiss.

A defiant glint in her eyes she stepped away from the fabric.

His burning gaze held all the distinguishing hallmarks of compulsion as it roamed over her slim pale flesh.
‘Dios mio,'
he breathed in a shaken tone. ‘I do not require a sacrifice.'

‘Actually, Javier, I'm not thinking about what
you
want, but what I want…what I
need,
' she added in a driven, quivering voice. ‘You started something earlier…' God, what are you doing, Kate? a horrified voice in her head asked—
this isn't you!

But it is me, she realised, smiling. I have never been more
me!
Relief and a fresh flood of confidence surged through her.

‘I have not forgotten,' Javier choked, seeing her lovely face through a shimmering haze of heat. His eyes dropped. ‘
Madre mia,
but you are perfect!' he exclaimed with husky, gloating appreciation.

‘Perfect, no, but I am here and I'm getting cold,' she revealed from between chattering teeth—a condition that had nothing to do with the temperature and a lot to do with the trauma of throwing herself at the most gorgeous man in the world with no upfront guarantee he wouldn't laugh in her face.

‘I think I can do something about that.' Off the bed in one lithe bound, he picked her up as though she were a size eight and not a size twelve going on fourteen, and carried her over to the bed.

She closed her eyes, feeling his mouth touch the pulse spot at the base of her throat. She let out a deep sigh as his big, clever hands moved over her heavy, aching breasts then across her stomach. One stayed there, resting softly on the feminine curve of her belly, while the other boldly moved lower, sliding between her legs. For a moment Kate's body stiffened in resistance but then her instincts kicked in and she relaxed, opening herself joyfully to his exploratory caresses.

‘Do you like that?' Kate moaned and pushed against his hand. ‘And that…?' he persisted, reaching deeper inside her.

Kate gasped, eyelids lifted to reveal her dark passion-glazed stare. ‘I don't
like
anything you do,' she told him. ‘I
love
it! I love the way you look, I love the way you sound, I love your smell and most of all I love what you do to me!' she cried.

He kissed her then with a deep, drowning desperation that fired her blood. Lips still attached to his, Kate began to rip at his clothes with feverish haste as she looped one long leg across his thigh.

‘Did I mention that you're absolutely the most beautiful thing I've ever seen?' she gasped as he stopped kissing her—
which was bad
—to assist her frantic efforts to undress him—
which was good!
‘The bits that I've seen, anyhow.'

Javier laughed, a low husky sound that sent shivers of hot anticipation curling down her spine.

When she got to see the rest, Kate got a lot less vocal. She felt weak with lust and longing as she hungrily absorbed the rippling strength of his long, lean, tightly muscled body as he knelt between her legs. She knew the mind-blowingly erotic image of his golden body, with its strategic drifts of dark body hair, glistening with need for her, would never fade from her mind.

‘What's the verdict?'

Kate dragged her eyes upwards. He had room to sound confident; he really was nothing short of spectacular!

‘Don't talk,' she begged, her voice thickening emotionally as she reached for him.

Javier's eyes darkened dramatically as he came down to her, brushing the rosy tips of her trembling breasts with his tongue before sliding down lower over her body.

Back arched, Kate cried out and pushed up towards him, moaning his name, her fingers tangled in his dark hair.

He licked his way back up to her face, reducing Kate to a mindless, mass of inarticulate craving somewhere along the way.

Eyes closed tight, she felt him kiss her paper-thin fluttering lids. A long soundless gasp of anticipation escaped her lips as he parted her legs.

His tongue plunged into her mouth at the same moment he plunged into her body, sheathing himself deeply in her tight, hot wetness.

‘You hold me so tight,' he whispered against her ear.

Her body clenched around him. ‘Oh, God, Javier!' she gasped brokenly, nipping frantically at his neck and shoulders with her teeth. His face above her was a mask of dark, primitive need that fuelled the raw urgency coursing through her blood.

‘Please,' she breathed into his mouth and he thrust carefully into her.
‘Harder…!'

Her ragged plea had an electrifying effect upon him.

Later, as she lay there, her body throbbing with contentment, Kate recalled with a bemused smile the moment something inside her had recognised and instinctively responded to the savagery in his wild possession.

While the sweat cooled on their bodies, she lay there in the darkness, stroking Javier's dark head as it lay nestled between her breasts. She was still awake when he awoke hours later and turned once more to her.

His lovemaking was less urgent but no less sweet the second time and if anything her release, because he delayed it so long, was even more shattering. Afterwards she did sleep and when she awoke it was light and she was alone.

She didn't cry; crying would have been some sort of release and Kate couldn't find that. She doubted she ever would.

T
HE
head of Chambers, a normally morose character, was quite animated when he came across to their table to personally congratulate Kate on the way she'd handled the Benton case.

Kate smiled uncomfortably as she listened to the glowing comments he made about the combination of inspiration and dedication embodied in her attitude that was making her such an extremely valuable member of the team.

‘Another bottle of bubbly, I think,' her date for the night cried as the older man returned to his own table. He lifted his glass to Kate, unable to prevent a shade of jealousy creeping into his bright toast. ‘Who's a clever girl, then? Quite the teacher's pet.'

‘It was a bit over the top, wasn't it? I expect he's had a bit too much to drink.' She smiled, trying to play down the incident. She was well aware that Ian's competitive nature resented her recent successes.

In truth she felt a bit of a fake, receiving the praise; it was not dedication or a desire to outshine her contemporaries that had made her throw herself body and soul into her work, but a need to fill the hours.

In theory, since she arrived at the office long before everyone else and left her desk long after everyone else, usually piled high with briefs, she shouldn't have been left with any time to think. Unfortunately the great yawning gap between theory and practice meant that no matter how hard she worked or how exhausted she was when she fell into bed, Javier was never very far from her thoughts at any time.

The most ridiculous things reminded her of him. She'd never noticed before how many unusually tall men there were in London; as for Spanish accents, she couldn't catch a bus or the Tube without hearing one…! Not that any of them had possessed Javier's incredible velvet drawl.

When one of the secretaries had returned from her holiday in Majorca, waxing lyrical about her experiences there, it had taken Kate half an hour locked in the ladies' room to compose herself…and night time was definitely the worst. Then the memories crowded in, leaving her to toss and turn restlessly all night.

Fortunately her red eyes that afternoon had gone unnoticed, as did the fact she had returned from Majorca a different person to the one who had left. Kate felt sure the very deep differences she felt inside must be mirrored on her face, but amazingly the only thing anyone had commented on was the fact she'd begun to wear her contact lenses almost full time.

‘No, can't blame it on the booze,' her date contradicted. ‘Sampson's a Quaker, teetotal.'

‘Not for me, thanks, Ian.' Kate smiled, quickly placing her hand over her half-full glass.

Though normally an undemanding and entertaining companion, when he had had too much to drink, as he had now, Ian tended to become loud and sulky; neither quality endeared him to Kate. Ian was a barrister, as were most of the other people at the glittering charity gathering organised by the Law Society. It was late and there was an atmosphere of general jollity. They'd been fed well, they'd endured the inevitable speeches from luminaries; now they were all eager to party and Ian was more eager than most.

‘Don't be a wet blanket, Katie,' he slurred. ‘You haven't had a drop all night.'

Sandy, sitting opposite Kate threw her friend a sympathetic look. Though she hadn't said anything, Kate thought
maybe Sandy had her own suspicions about why she was avoiding alcohol.

‘I'll have some of that, thanks, Ian,' she cried cheerfully, pushing her own glass towards him. ‘I think old Sampson must be worried about you being headhunted, Kate.'

Though Sandy's actions achieved the desired purpose of distracting Ian from his determination to fill Kate's glass, they didn't improve his disposition.

‘Then the rumours are true, you have had an offer from Hargreaves and St John!' he exclaimed with a scowl. ‘Must be a big help to climb the greasy pole when Daddy's there to put a word or two in the right ear,' he reflected bitterly.

‘Out of order, Ian, old boy,' the man beside him said quietly. ‘Kate is a damned good advocate and you know it.'

The sound of the placid old Etonian drawl acted like a red rag to a bull on Ian in his present ugly mood. ‘Shove it, Toby,
old boy!
' he snarled, his complexion deepening to an unattractive red.

Kate was relieved by the fresh distraction afforded when the two women who'd been missing from the table retook their seats. They both looked animated.

‘You'll never guess who we've just seen…!' one cried.

‘I'm only guessing if you narrow the odds,' Kate responded. ‘Give us a clue—actress, politician, royalty…?'

‘Not a
she,
a
he.
'

‘The sort of man you'd find in the ladies' loo…?' Kate pretended to think hard. ‘That doesn't narrow the odds much,' she complained and everyone laughed.

‘We didn't see him in the loo, he was just coming in with the minister of…you know, the politician that wrote that thriller.'

‘Now that narrows the odds even less,' Toby reflected drily. ‘Your lack of political awareness is staggering, dar
ling,' he continued smoothly drawing his pretty partner to her feet and dragging her towards the dance floor.

‘Go on,' Sandy urged the remaining talebearer, once the couple were gone, ‘tell us who this exciting person is before you implode. My money's on let me see…Brad Pitt…' she decided with a lascivious smile.

‘Optimist,' Kate chuckled.

‘Much better than that,' came the smug response. ‘Oh, God, I don't believe it…' she gasped suddenly, her face going pale. ‘Don't look now, but I think…yes,' she hissed, ‘he's coming over here!'

‘Dance with me, Kate,' Ian, who had been watching with a scowl as Toby smooched across the floor gracefully with his pretty girlfriend, said abruptly. ‘That idiot really loves himself, doesn't he?' he brooded irritably to nobody in particular.

‘Thanks, Ian, but I'm not really in the mood…' Not anxious to inflame the situation, Kate softened her refusal with a smile.

His eyes still on Toby, Ian rose unsteadily from his chair. ‘I'll get you in the mood,' he boasted aggressively, grabbing Kate's wrist.

‘I really don't want to dance, Ian,' Kate insisted, trying to pull her hand free from his grip.

Being breathed on by someone whose breath was forty per cent proof was not her idea of fun, and she wouldn't have put it past Ian in his present mood to pick a fight with Toby on the dance floor. She was deeply regretting accepting his invitation, if ‘we might as well go together' could be termed as such. These occasions could be awkward if you went solo.

‘Of course you do…'

A voice of steel and ice from behind Kate softly contradicted this sulky claim.

‘The lady does not wish to dance with you.'

Kate froze, all the colour rushing from her face, only to be replaced seconds later by a flood of colour. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hardly hear her own jumbled thoughts.

An irritated snarl on his face, Ian spun around. Under normal circumstances, his sense of self-preservation would have been immediately activated by the size and character of his adversary, but the alcohol in his veins made him reluctant to back down. Drunk or not, though, he couldn't hold that scornful shimmering blue gaze for more than a nanosecond.

‘What's it to you…?'

Kate deliberately didn't make the same mistake as Ian and look at the intruder. Choice didn't enter into the decision; she simply didn't trust her body not to betray her in some weak shameful way if she permitted it a glimpse of what it had been too long starved of. His voice, the faint familiar scent of his cologne that made her nostrils flare was already doing some very alarming things to her nervous system. Any second now someone was going to notice she was shaking like a leaf. What unkind twist of fate had brought him here tonight…?

‘Ian, leave it,' Kate breathed urgently. In considerable agitation she rose unsteadily to her feet. She forced her lips to smile and clutched the table with her free hand for support. ‘Leave it alone; I'll dance with you.'

Still she didn't look at him. She was desperately trying to compose her traumatised thoughts.

Think…think…
As tempting as the idea was, she couldn't follow her first impulse and hide under the table—up and coming barristers in slinky strapless ball gowns did not scrabble about on the floor without exciting unwanted attention. No, somehow she had to deal with the fact this wasn't one of her fantasies; Javier really was here in the flesh…
Don't think flesh, Katie!

Her resolve weakened and she couldn't resist the overpowering desire to turn her head and risked a furtive peek from under her lashes—the pit of her stomach vanished into a black hole. Caution and self-respect forgotten, she stared hungrily.

He looked exactly how she remembered, only
more…!

Six feet four inches of mouthwateringly delicious, rampant masculinity. Moreover, he looked perfectly at home in his surroundings and supremely, shockingly sexy in a dark, well-cut evening jacket.

Kate hardly wondered at the awed, open-mouthed silence around the table or the intense level of interest his presence was arousing. A tall, elegant, outrageously
male
figure projecting an effortless air of cool command that was at sharp variance to the younger man's truculent aggression, Javier was always going to attract buckets of attention.

As if he felt her scrutiny, his sapphire gaze suddenly swivelled towards her. The room and everyone in it disappeared as his eyes moved over her face, as if he was memorising every curve. At some subconscious level she registered the ripple as his throat muscles moved convulsively, a deep sigh that juddered through his tense frame.

‘You will not dance with this man, Kate,' he stated emphatically.

As if her obedience was something he took for granted—some things didn't change—he immediately switched his attention back to the younger man. His narrowed eyes moved to the hand still curved around her wrist. ‘Let her go,' he purred softly.

‘Says who…?'

Kate, who had seen the menacing expression in Javier's eyes, decided Ian was a lot more stupid than he looked!

In reply, Javier's hand closed around Ian's own wrist and the younger man paled as his fingers opened in response to the steely pressure. He swore.

‘You will dance with me!' Javier decreed autocratically.

Kate's jaw dropped, even for Javier this was over the top! ‘Your wish is my command and all that…' she breathed shakily.

A humiliated Ian jumped in before Javier could respond to her caustic jibe. ‘Who the hell do you think you are, waltzing in here trying to pinch my girlfriend?'

The danger lurking just beneath the elegant façade of Javier's silken smile, the barely suppressed fury in his expression, finally penetrated even Ian's drunken bravado. The younger man instinctively drew back.

‘Boyfriend?'
One dark brow rose to an incredulous angle. ‘I suppose we are all permitted errors of judgement occasionally,' he acknowledged directing a glance of dismissive scorn towards Ian. ‘As for who I am…' he began forcefully…

Kate gave a horrified gasp, suddenly sure this explanation wasn't going to stop at his name.

‘You're Javier Montero!' Toby, who chose that moment to wander back to the table with his girlfriend, exclaimed. ‘Worth a bundle,' he elaborated to a pale-looking Ian. ‘Several bundles, actually. If you ever need a good legal brain…? The name's Toby Challoner,' he grinned, pumping Javier's hand with friendly fervour.

A flicker of amusement crossed Javier's taut features. ‘I'll keep that in mind,' he promised, before turning his attention to Kate, who was experiencing the bizarre sensation of her two separate worlds colliding.

She looked at his hand, stretched out towards her, and was seized by an overwhelming compulsion to meet it halfway. Not one to submit without a struggle to inevitability, she tucked her tingling fingertips behind her back.

‘I don't care who he is. He can't dance with you, Kate.'

‘For God's sake, Ian, shut up!' she flared, exasperated by his feeble chest-beating. In fact, she was tired full stop
of being told what to do by men! ‘I'll dance with whoever I want to.'

‘And you want to dance with me, Kate?' Javier suggested, tilting her chin with one finger. ‘I can't believe we have never danced together,
querida.
'

The gasp around the table was audible.

‘And I can't believe you're here doing this to me, Javier,' she responded hoarsely.

And, other than the fact he enjoyed any opportunity to throw his weight around, she couldn't see
why
he was here now…unless…? Did he want a divorce…? she wondered despondently.

‘He knows our Katie!' Toby boomed good-naturedly. ‘Kept that quiet, sweet girl.'

‘Sort of,' Kate replied vaguely as she felt the pressure of Javier's strong fingers close about her own.

Javier, his dark head imperiously high, drew her to his side. ‘
Sort of
as in Kate is my wife,' he announced, bestowing a hawkish smile of blinding brilliance upon his stunned audience.

The image left in Kate's mind as she was dragged off was Ian's sickly pale expression of shock.

‘Oh, my God!'
she groaned over and over as he drew her inexorably towards the crowded dance floor. ‘What are you trying to do?'

‘Avoid your toes. Listen to the music,
querida.
'

‘What are you doing here, Javier? Were you just in town and you thought, what the hell, I've nothing better to do, I'll go and ruin Kate's life…that should be good for a laugh!'

‘I am not laughing.'