Chapter Two #2
She curled her arms around his neck and pressed her smile into his throat, then licked the salty skin near his Adam’s apple. “Sí. Take me to your bed, Joaquin.”
He hitched her a little higher and carried her into the bedroom where he set her on her feet. “You’re too short now,” he grumbled.
She moved to kneel on the edge of the bed. “Better?”
“Much.” He aligned himself against her and they kissed again, brushing each other’s jackets away. “I could pet you for days in this,” he said of her cashmere sweater, hands skimming deliciously over her shoulders and back and rib cage and breasts.
For a long time, that was all he did. He petted and kissed her until she was leaning off the edge of the mattress, trying to get closer to him. Seeking the ridge of flesh that she wanted to feel in the cradle of her thighs.
“Wait here.” He steadied her before he walked into the bathroom.
She sat back on her heels, trying to blink herself out of the fog of arousal and the sudden denial of his touch. It could have been a moment to catch her bearings and rethink this, but he was already coming back.
He threw a strip of condoms onto the bed. “I presume I need those.”
“You do.” She was thrown by how little thought she’d given to protection, but she wasn’t on the pill anymore.
He began undressing so she did the same, tilting up the edge of her sweater to ask, “May I? Or did you want me to keep it on?”
“You may.” He granted his permission in a deep tone of authority that should have made her balk. He wasn’t the boss of her, but that hint of dominance was kind of a turn-on.
He wanted to control this moment and she wanted to push back so she took her time peeling up the edge of the ultra-soft knit, revealing one centimeter of skin at a time, stretching tall and holding her arms up to give him a long look at the demicups made from blue-and-gold lace that she wore beneath it.
“You very much may,” he said in a pleased rumble as he pulled the sweater free of her upraised arms and discarded it on the floor. “Dios, that’s pretty.” He traced the edge of the lace along the upper swell of her breast, tickling her skin.
Her nipple peaked against silk. He took care to reward her response with a lingering caress there.
“Take your hair down,” he said as he brought both his hands into play against the bra cups.
He was shirtless now and her hands went to his naked shoulders, wanting to feel all of his satiny skin. Wanting to kiss him and taste the hot plane of his chest.
He dragged her hands from his neck and moved them to the back of her head. “Let me see how long it is,” he insisted.
A helpless protest throbbed in her throat, but she did as he asked, pulling pins that fell willy-nilly to the floor.
As she did, he steadied her with his hands on her waist, watching intently. When the brunette waves fell around her shoulders, he ran his fingers through the length and held her head for a long, hot, ravenous kiss.
She was so lost in that dark, velvety space, she didn’t realize the weight of his hand was tangled in her hair, tugging her head back until his lips moved into her throat and down.
He brushed aside her locket and dislodged the cup of her bra, lifting her breast to capture her nipple with the pull of his mouth.
Lightning streaked into her loins. She clasped at his shoulders, thinking she was about to fall onto her back, but his arm slid to support her as he held her off balance and feasted on her breast, teasing and feeding those fingers of electric heat that lanced through her abdomen and detonated between her thighs.
When she thought she couldn’t stand another moment of those intense sensations, of feeling suspended and helpless and consumed, he moved to her other breast.
“Joaquin,” she panted, shaking with arousal. Her core was drowning in neglect.
He lifted his head. “Too hard? I want to eat you up.”
“I want…this.” She splayed her hand on his abdomen then slid her palm lower to cup the thick ridge behind his fly.
He yanked open his belt and unzipped. She slid her hand inside the heat, behind the waistband of his boxer briefs, and clasped the steely weight of his erection.
He groaned into her mouth as he kissed her again, letting her explore his shape, running his hands over her back and buttocks, nipping at her ear and tugging at her hair again until he made a rough noise of tested restraint and caught her wrist.
“Finish undressing.”
She opened her trousers, then dropped onto her back to work them off her hips and down her legs. As she kicked them away, she arched to reach behind herself and release her bra.
She was still untangling herself from the bra straps when he pressed a hand to her hip, stilling her so he could study the panties that matched her bra.
“You have exquisite taste.” He followed the lace across her hip and into the V it took over her mound.
She bit her lip. Dampness flooded into the flesh that he traced through silk.
“H-how would you know?” she asked in a wicked challenge that was pure audacity.
“Oh, I will find out. Trust me on that, querida.” He peeled her panties down and away before he touched her again, this time letting his fingertip sink into the slippery folds that parted easily under his caress.
“Blond,” he noted of the neatly trimmed thatch. His curious gaze came up to the hair she colored, but she wasn’t capable of conversation. He had found her sweet spot and knew exactly how to incite the most delicious sensations.
She couldn’t keep her eyes open. Climax gathered as tension in her abdomen. Need.
“I want to be inside you so badly, I can hardly breathe,” he said in a rasp, gently invading with a wicked touch.
She stilled his hand. “I’m going to come,” she gasped.
“Then you should.” He pressed deeper and his thumb rolled across the knot of nerves that was already pulsing.
With a harsh groan, she pinned his hand with her own, thighs clamping closed while her body twisted in the throes of acute pleasure.
It should have been embarrassing to lose control with him watching in the full light of day, but it felt so good. Wave after wave rolled through her, each one more gratifying than the last, until she was shaken and breathless and floating.
As the storm receded, he eased his hand away and nudged her thighs open, rolling her onto her back. Her heart was still galloping, her breasts quivering with her uneven breaths.
He finished stripping and kicked away his clothes, gloriously naked from powerful shoulders to defined abs to thrusting erection.
She blindly felt for the condoms and offered them.
“I have promises to keep, querida.” His mouth slanted into a sinfully cruel smile and he bent to steal a wicked, intimate taste between her thighs.
She cried out. And shuddered with fresh longing.
Then she moaned as he pulled her hips to the edge of the bed and mercilessly drew her back to a state of acute arousal.
When her fists were in his hair and she was lifting her hips in a plea for the climax that hovered so elusively, he rose and reached for the condoms.
“As I said. Exquisite.” His expression held carnal intent, but he said, “Now, tell me again what you want. Be specific.”
“You. This.” She caressed the naked column of heat as he moved her up the mattress and used his knee to spread her thighs. She squeezed and sought the places that made him twitch. She was completely stripped of inhibition. “I want to taste you.” She licked her lips.
His breath huffed out as though he’d been punched.
“But I also want to feel you here.” She ran her hand to her own sex, where she was soaked and aching.
“Then you shall have me,” he said through his teeth and rolled on the condom.
As he loomed over her, she guided him into place. He filled her in one firm, perfect thrust that made her arch in glorious abandon.
When he kissed her, she tasted herself and it only made the experience more erotic. Profound. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and urged him to unleash his full power, propelling them both into the volcano.
Coated in sweat and still suffering aftershocks from his powerful orgasm, Joaquin dragged himself free of her. He discarded the condom, then dropped onto his back beside her. His chest continued to heave, striving to catch his breath.
What had started as a pleasant diversion had turned into something that bordered on cataclysmic.
Sex was supposed to be just sex. It was a shared experience in which he gave more than he took.
He was never as generous with his business partners as his intimate ones, but in bed it was a case of wanting the same thing: pleasure.
Giving was as good as getting for him. They were two sides of the same coin.
The encounter was delightful while it lasted and afterward, his appetite was sated. His desire to possess was gone.
So why did he have this prickling sense of loss?
It wasn’t the grief of losing his brother. Not the reduction of assets due to stock market fluctuations or other business cycles. This was the sense of something being taken. Held out of reach.
Which didn’t make sense because she was right here.
And he had no intention of keeping her.
This unsettled sensation was a belated reaction to his father’s attempts to manipulate him, he decided.
He was stuck in the confluence of two crashing forces: his desire to expunge his father from his life and his responsibility to his brother’s wife and children.
He’d taken brief refuge from that mental war in the fleshy paradise that was Siobhan.
He didn’t regret it, but he couldn’t let this respite she’d offered him become more significant than it was.
He couldn’t let desire for her dull him to his duty.