The Spaniard's Inconvenient Wife (5 page)

It was Ramón’s reaction that she couldn’t even begin to predict.

‘One condition,’ he echoed now and the words were full of total disbelief darkened by an undercurrent of angry rejection. ‘But, Estrella, you know what that condition was. He wanted—’

‘He wanted you to marry me,’ she finished for him when he broke off, shaking his dark head in disbelief. ‘My father said that he would only sell you the company if you would agree to marry me.’

‘Are you saying that you’re agreeing to that? That you’d go along with his demands?’

Was she saying that? Was she really prepared to go through with this? She’d thought so when she’d come here. It was what had been in her mind.

Estrella drew on all the strength she could find.

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

‘You want me to marry you?’

‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

‘R
AMÓN
—please!’

It was all that she could manage. She could read the rejection of everything she had said in his eyes, in every set, hard muscle in his face. If he had flung the suggestion right back at her then, he couldn’t have made it any more plain that he wanted nothing to do with the idea at all.

‘This is a joke, right?’

‘N-no.’

The confidence that had buoyed her up was ebbing, leaving her feeling lost and desperately deflated. She’d staked all her hopes on one thing, played the only card she had in her hand, and it seemed that she had lost everything.

‘No joke.’

‘You mean it?’

He flung himself to his feet and, as he had done that day in the castle, he whirled away from her, pacing across the room to stand by the big windows, staring out at the rapidly darkening sky, the lights of the city coming on below. Then just as abruptly he turned and strode back, the sound of his steps on the polished wooden floor echoing the uneven, jerky beats of her heart.

‘Why the devil would you even suggest this? What sort of madness—?’

‘It’s not madness.’

Desperation made her insert the words into his angry speech, making him break off and stare at her as if she had suddenly grown two heads.

Needing to be able to meet him more equally, eye to eye
rather than feeling overpowered by the way he towered over her, she forced herself to her feet, actually took a couple of steps forward, towards him.

‘It’s not madness, Ramón! It could work—you’d get what you want and I…’

‘That’s the part I don’t understand. Just what will you get out of this?’

‘My freedom.’

Just two simple words but they meant so much.

‘Freedom?’

‘Yes. You’ve seen how it is. You’ve seen what my father’s like—how he’s desperate for me to be married—to restore the good name of the family that he thinks I sullied so badly.’

‘You seem to be dealing with that just fine from what I can see. You’re just turning down everyone who asks.’

‘But you can’t see everything.’

Her legs suddenly feeling weak beneath her, Estrella moved back to the big leather chair by the fireplace and perched on one thickly padded arm. Ramón watched her go, leaning back against the doorjamb and folding his arms across his broad chest.

‘You’re not there when I’m alone with him; when I have to listen to his lectures, put up with his rages. When he tells me what a disappointment I am to him, how I’ve shamed him—shamed the family. And he won’t give up. He’ll just keep on trying to get me married, getting these men to propose to me—paying them. And you’re not there when they come to propose. When they eye me up like a horse at an auction, wondering if my breeding stock is worth putting up with my appalling reputation. I’m so tired of it, Ramón. It’s humiliating. I hate it.’

‘Then do something about it.’

‘That’s what I want to do.’

She tried a smile but there was no softening of the hard cast of his features.

‘I want it to stop. And as far as I can see the only way to make it stop for good is to give my father what he wants. He wants me married. So if I get married—if I have a ring on my finger and the respectable name that goes with it, then people will forget the past. My father will forget the past.’

‘But you’ll have to live with the present.’

‘I know. Do you think I haven’t thought about this? That I haven’t gone over and over it in my head until I thought I was going completely mad? Do you think I haven’t tried to come up with some other solution?’

‘But why me?’

‘I told you…’

But he wanted more. She could see that in his face. There was more but she wasn’t at all sure she could tell him that now. Not now, with the space of the room between them, the expanse of the floor seeming to stretch out like some wide, gaping chasm with each of them on a different side of it.

She couldn’t tell him now.

‘I told you…’ she repeated forlornly.

‘Tell me again.’

Ramón pushed himself away from the wall and covered the space between them in five swift strides. He came to where she was sitting and leaned over her, one hand on the high back of the chair, the other on the padded arm where she sat. His position enclosed her completely, trapping her; she was unable to move.

She risked one swift glance up into the dark, shuttered face, the ice of his eyes, and couldn’t take any more. Dropping her own gaze, she tried to stare down at her knees but only succeeded in making herself sharply, painfully
aware of the way that his body was surrounding hers, putting her into a cage made of the long, powerful limbs, the hard, solid wall of his torso. His arms were braced against the chair, long muscles stretched taut to take his weight. His body was so close to her face, the heat of his skin, the tangy scent of some lime-based cologne tormenting her nostrils.

His hips were against her knees, the narrow leather belt at his waist within inches of the hands that rested on her thighs. If she was just to reach out, ever so slightly, she could touch him…

But even as the thought slid into her mind Ramón’s hand came under her chin, forcing her face up with a rough, jerky movement.

And this was so much worse. Because now, if she looked up, she was drowning in the silvery pools of his eyes. If she tried to drop her gaze then it rested on the beautiful, sensual shape of his mouth. On the lips that had kissed her only once but that she had dreamed of ever since. That kiss had driven her insane with wanting and it was the wanting that surfaced, hot and hungry now, just remembering.

‘Tell me what you’ll get out of this,’ Ramón commanded, the harsh, grating tone slicing through the sensual haze that clouded her mind.

‘I told you—my freedom. I’ll get my freedom.’

‘And that’s enough? Enough to make you tie yourself to a stranger?’

‘Not just any stranger—you.’

Ramón’s breath hissed in through his teeth in a sound that expressed his struggle for control.

‘And why me? I’ve asked this before, Estrella, and I’ll keep on asking it until you give me an answer. Why me?’

Why me?

Oh, how did she answer that? With the truth. It was the only way. So although her stomach quailed deep inside, her
nerves twisting into tight, agonising knots, she swallowed hard, forced herself to meet his eyes, and told him.

‘Because of what you said earlier. Because you weren’t going to ask me when my father wanted you to. You walked out on the deal you wanted—that’s why. And—and…’

‘And?’ Ramón prompted when she couldn’t go on, the words refusing to come past the blockage in her throat. ‘And what?’

‘And this.’ Estrella sighed. ‘And this…’

Raising her head, she pressed her mouth to his, kissing him softly.

Just for a second she felt his shock, the hardening of his body in resistance, and a terrible arrow of fear streaked through her brain at the thought that maybe she’d got this completely wrong. That her memories of that first kiss on the day they had met had been all wrong, a mistake, a delusion she had dreamed or her imagination had created out her own longings. But a moment later she heard his sigh and his mouth softened against hers, taking the kiss and returning it easily and lightly.

It was nothing like that first kiss. In fact it was the exact opposite of that hard, almost cruel taking of her mouth, but gentle as it was it woke the same feelings, the same burning hunger as that moment. In the space of a heartbeat it was as if the first, faint smoulder of awareness had ignited, flaring into an all-encompassing flame that swept through her, carrying her into another world. One of heat and hunger and pure sensation that made her head spin wildly.

Oh thank heaven, was the only thought that slid through the burning haze in her mind before her thought processes closed down completely. Thank heaven that she hadn’t got it wrong. That she hadn’t been imagining things and the wild, fierce hunger really was there between them. The wild, fierce hunger that she remembered, that she had dreamed of
knowing again. The hunger that had driven her into this crazy scheme in the first place and that she prayed would see them through.

And this…

The words were still sounding in Ramón’s head when her lips first touched his but they were the last reasonably coherent idea he was capable of forming. From the moment that he felt Estrella’s mouth on his, tasted her on his lips, on his tongue, it was as if some huge explosion in his brain had short-circuited all his thought processes, turning them into a blazing, molten mess that could register nothing but heat.

His body was hot. His thoughts were hot. His hunger was hotter than any of them.

His fingers closed around the tops of her arms, encircling them almost totally as he hauled her up from her seat on the chair and crushed her tight against him. Adjusting his position a little and angling his head just so, he managed to change the emphasis of the kiss so that instead of her kissing him, now he was kissing her, taking her mouth with all the force of the passion that had him in its grip.

The heat in his veins made his blood pound until the sound of his own pulse was like thunder raging at his temples. There was only one thing he was aware of in the world and that was Estrella. Estrella with her smooth skin and her slender body. Estrella with the long, flowing black hair.

That hair was caught up in the pony-tail at the back of her head, frustrating him when he wanted to run his fingers through it. With a swift tugging movement he pulled off the band that held it tight, discarding it somewhere on the floor as his hand combed down the long, silky strands.

The feel of its softness against his face, the faint fragrance of some herbal shampoo, added fuel to the flames of hunger that were building inside him. Tangling his hands in the fall
of her hair, he twisted it slightly, curving his palm against the shape of her skull, holding her where he wanted her, with her mouth locked with his.

‘Ramón…’

It was a gasping cry as she dragged in a much-needed breath, and somehow the sound of her voice acted on him like a trigger, bringing him instantly to the point where kissing was not enough. Where he needed more. So much more.

He needed all of her. All she had to give. And he needed it now.

The linen jacket was tugged off her shoulders, down her arms and dropped onto the floor at their feet. The white, clinging tee shirt followed it swiftly, the sudden rush of the scent of her warm skin, her heady perfume assailing him with a force that made his head swim. His mouth was hungry for the knowledge of her skin, for the feel of its satin texture under his lips, the taste of it on his tongue.

Her hands were on his thigh; at his waist. The lightness of her touch was almost an agony for him when he wanted so much more. He groaned against her skin, kissing his way down from the responsive mouth, along the line of her jaw, her neck. He paused for a second or two at the spot where a pulse throbbed at the base of her throat, kissing there too, stroking it with his tongue, so that he felt under his lips the way that her pulse kicked up again, beating ever faster than before.

‘You taste wonderful…so good.’

He felt her flesh quiver under the words, heard her sighing moan of acquiescence, and couldn’t hold back the laugh of triumph and delight that bubbled up inside him. More kisses took him to where the delicate peach-coloured strap of her bra lay just by the smooth, rounded curve of her shoulder. With his hands busy on her waist, tracing patterns on her
torso, he used his teeth to tug at the silky fabric until it slid down over her arm, the lacy cup of the bra lowering too.

‘Touch me…touch me…’ Estrella moaned in a litany of need, her voice thick with an echo of the aching hunger that suffused every inch of his body. ‘Touch me…really touch me.’

Ramón laughed again, taking those slow, tantalising kisses even lower, across the scented slope of her breast and down, down towards the sensitive spot where her swollen pink nipple pressed against the peach lace.

‘Is this what you want,
querida?
’ he muttered as his mouth grazed the erect tip. ‘Or this?’

This time his tongue slid around it, drawing tiny, erotic patterns that made her shudder in uncontrolled response.

‘Or this…’

His lips closed over the darkened nipple, drawing it totally into his mouth and alternately suckling it and swirling his tongue around it until she was crying aloud in agonised delight.

He’d never known a woman so responsive to him. Never experienced the hot intensity of need that felt as if molten gold were flowing along his veins instead of blood. Estrella’s head was thrown back, her black hair falling in a wild stream down her narrow back, her body arched against the thickly padded arm of the chair.

He couldn’t wait a moment longer. He had to have her now. Had to know what it felt to be inside her, to be connected with her in the most complete, most total, most intimate way.

His hands fumbled blindly at the fastening of her jeans, snapping it open and wrenching down the denim and the slip of satin and lace beneath in one swift, forceful movement. His mouth moved lower too, kissing a line from her breasts, past her navel and into the dark cluster of curls at
the juncture of her thighs, feeling her writhe and tighten beneath him as his kisses reached the most feminine part of her.

Her fingers were in his hair, clutching and tugging, alternately pulling him closer then almost, but not quite, pushing him away as if she just couldn’t take the intimacy or the pleasure any longer.

They were sliding down from the chair, tumbling onto the floor, the polished wood cool against bared skin. And as they went Estrella was tugging at his shirt, yanking it free at his waist, wrenching the buttons open as rapidly as she could. Hunger made her fingers clumsy and he heard the fine fabric tear at one point but couldn’t give a damn. What she wanted, he wanted too and that was the feeling of flesh against flesh, without the barrier of any clothing.

Eagerly helping her, shrugging off the ruined shirt and flinging it across the room, he muttered against her ear.

‘Estrella,
mi estrella.
My beautiful star. Sweetheart—we can’t do this…’