Chapter Five #2
Their lips brushed together across the table.
Closing his eyes, Xavi breathed her in. The heat from the sun enhanced the soft scent of her skin, which was a smell like nothing else on this earth.
If its uniqueness could be captured, he’d get his perfumers to bottle it.
They would make a fortune. But it couldn’t be captured, and so it was a scent that belonged only to him, and in two days, Beth would belong only to him, too.
After pulling his mouth away, he gently tucked a lock of her English autumn-coloured hair behind one of her pixie ears.
He’d longed to touch her since she’d stepped off the plane, but had resisted.
Beth’s kisses were just too potent for sensibility.
He could still feel the effect of the kiss they’d shared in the study, had carried her taste on his tongue since she’d left to pack up her life in England.
‘We need to get ready for my mother’s dinner party. ’
Those incredible crystal-clear eyes pulsed. ‘Is this where we go to the bedroom?’
He kissed her again, a longer, deeper fusion. Rubbing his cheek to hers, he murmured, ‘Patience, mi vida. We need to leave soon.’
Her hand clasped the back of his head, her lips parting, her tongue darting into his mouth to dance with his. ‘You’re going to make me wait?’
‘You’ve made me wait for two weeks. Consider this payback.’
‘I thought we were all mature now,’ she teased seductively before sliding her tongue back into his mouth.
He returned the kiss… Dios, she tasted so damn good…
and threaded his fingers deeper into her hair.
‘Only until you kiss me, and then I am twenty-four again.’ And when he was twenty-four, he’d been insatiable.
The six months he’d spent with Beth had been the most hedonistic months of his life. He’d wanted her constantly.
He would not allow himself to fall back into that lust-blinded state again.
This time, he would keep firm control of his libido and create clear demarcations between his work and his home, lines that had blurred beyond recognition when they’d first been together.
Professionalism and propriety had gone out the window.
Eight years on, and Xavi was still unable to look at the left side boardroom window without remembering how Beth had sat on its ledge with her skirt hitched up to her waist and her legs wrapped around him as he’d pounded into her.
They’d barely straightened their clothes before his grandfather’s executive assistant had strolled in with pastries for the imminent meeting.
Beth had stripped him of his self-control and professionalism, and the result had been the near destruction of everything. He’d spent years waking with cold sweats from dreams of his father shaking his head and sorrowfully saying, ‘You promised to step up, Xavi.’
The first time that dream had struck him had been his first night in Milan after the meal where his grandfather and Raul had driven home how badly he’d taken his eye off the ball and screwed up.
He’d woken in his hotel bed with a chest like ice and his skin clammy cold, and known there was no alternative. He had to end things with Beth.
When Xavi threw himself into something, it took all his attention.
His feelings for Beth had consumed him and stolen his attention from the business and imperilled it.
If he wanted to fulfil the destiny fate had set for him and step into the legacy his father had never been able to fulfil, it would have to be without her.
‘If you were twenty-four again, you’d have screwed me in the back of the car on the drive here,’ she said into his mouth. ‘You didn’t even try to kiss me.’
‘That was deliberate. You, mi vida, are irresistible. One kiss is never enough. I didn’t want our first screw in eight years to be a quickie in the car…’
‘You screwed me nearly as many times in a car as you did in a bed.’
‘That was then.’ And he would never be that man again. The intervening years had taught Xavi the needed art of separation. ‘When we make love again, we’re going to do it properly. When I take you, you will be naked in my bed.’
‘I can get naked now, if you want?’ she breathed.
Desire a heavy thrum in his veins, he groaned into her wet, hot, pliant mouth. Dios, he wanted to slide his hand beneath her plain cream top and cup the breasts that were anything but plain, lower his head and take a pale pink nipple into his mouth.
Her fingers dipped beneath the neck of his T-shirt. Her touch scorched his skin. ‘Are you only kissing me now because there’s a table between us?’
‘Damned right.’ Summoning all his control, he wrenched his mouth away and hauled himself to his feet.
One look at Beth’s flushed cheeks was enough to make him suppress another groan. ‘I’m going to take a cold shower in a guest room. Isabel will have unpacked your clothes by now—she will show you around our bedroom suite. Anything you need, she will provide it. We leave in an hour.’
Beth stood beneath the waterfall shower of the most stunning bathroom she’d ever been in and lathered herself with the gel Xavi’s staff had unpacked for her, trying to breathe normally rather than just inhale tight, shallow snatches of air.
Her heart was still thumping manically, her skin still so fevered it was hot to the touch.
There was a pulsing ache between her legs she’d not felt in eight years.
The closest had been two weeks ago in the de la Rosa study.
Before that, she might as well have been dead from the waist down for all the sensation she’d felt there.
She wondered what Xavi would do if she were to seek out the guest room he’d hidden himself away in and stand before him naked.
In their first incarnation, he’d never resisted an opportunity for sex.
He’d been her slave for sex as much as she’d been his, but just as she was different from the Beth of old, he was different from the Xavi of old.
She knew he still wanted her—she’d seen the hunger in his eyes and tasted his desire in his kisses—but in their first incarnation, he’d never hidden from it, had let his desires control him.
The Xavi of today was a man who never relinquished control of himself.
Ellen’s beautiful, spiteful face flashed into her vision. Ellen, who’d enjoyed Xavi’s incredible lovemaking while Beth was still pregnant with his baby.
How many women had come after Ellen? Obviously, the appendage lady had, but how many others that she didn’t know about? A handful? A baker’s dozen? A score? Two score? More?
Beth had long ago learned not to torture herself with these nausea-inducing thoughts, but as she dried herself off, she refused to push them away.
Tonight she would share Xavi’s bed. They would have sex.
Her heart would be at its most vulnerable.
She needed to shield it. She needed to shield it through all the nights she would share his bed.
The bed they would be sharing was enormous and sinfully inviting.
The bedroom itself, with its high ceiling, abundance of mirrors, seductive artwork and blue velvet soft furnishings, was sinfully inviting, and she forced herself to wonder how many other women had been invited into it.
How many other women had made use of the shared dressing room?
How many other women had sat at this dressing table and applied their makeup?
How many of those women had he lost control with?
By the time she was dressed, her hair dried and smoky eye makeup done, Beth’s stomach churned so badly with self-inflicted nausea she doubted she’d be able to eat anything that evening.
Breathing as slowly and as deeply as she could, she took stock of her reflection.
When she came back to this room later that evening, she would enjoy Xavi’s gorgeous body and let him enjoy hers.
She would let him take her as many times as he wanted…
and he always wanted more. As the weeks of their marriage passed, she would shamelessly use sex as her weapon of choice to break his defences and drive him wilder and wilder until she was buried as deeply in his head and heart as he was buried in hers, but through it all she would be full in control of herself with her heart shielded.
The only control that would be broken would be Xavi’s.
And then she would destroy him.
When Beth joined him with two minutes to spare in the living room, Xavi’s heart doubled in size with just one beat.
Glass of whisky in hand, he got to his feet and drank in the stunning, colourful vision before him.
Wearing a floral sleeveless maxi dress that cinched at the waist and emphasised her voluptuous feminine curves, its autumn colours perfectly complemented her long red hair, loose and gleaming under the last rays of the setting sun penetrating through the windows.
The dark tan of her wedged sandals perfectly matched the handbag slung over her shoulder.
As confident in her skin as a catwalk model, she strode towards him with a wide smile. ‘You look good!’
Before he could respond, her arms hooked around his neck, and he was engulfed in a cloud of freshly showered and perfumed Beth.
‘This is where you tell me that I look beautiful,’ she reminded him brightly, her face straining up to his for a kiss.
‘You always look beautiful,’ he assured her truthfully before pressing his mouth to hers. He allowed himself only the smallest taste before breaking the kiss and removing her hands from his neck. He took a step back and laughed at her pout. ‘Later, mi vida.’
She tilted her head and pouted again, but her eyes were dancing with a knowing that made his veins thicken and loins tighten, and when the crystal glass was prised from his hand and she tipped the remaining liquid down her throat and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand with a flourish, he shook his head and laughed.
Dios, Beth made even the stealing of his drink sexy.