Chapter Seven
XAVI SPLASHED COLD water on his face and took stock of his reflection. He expelled a long breath of relief to find it was the usual face staring back at him. The sensation that something had changed within him had been a delusion born from incredible sex.
Dios, incredible hardly did it justice.
Patting himself dry, he took another moment to compose himself and let his heart rate settle. One last look in the mirror to double-check it really was his face reflecting at him, and then he strolled back into the bedroom.
Beth was propped against the headboard in almost the same pose he’d waited for her in earlier. The difference was that she’d covered herself in the bedsheets.
‘Hello, lover,’ she said softly. There was a gleam in her eye that was so unexpectedly familiar, his throat caught. It was a gleam that only appeared after making love.
Breathing through the tightness, he padded to the bed. She pulled the sheets off with deliberate seduction, exposing her breasts as she welcomed him back.
He’d climbed off her only minutes ago. He shouldn’t be feeling fresh twinges in loins that were still fizzing from the strength of his orgasm. Shouldn’t be, but Beth wasn’t a normal woman. She was a goddess, and her breasts were manna from heaven.
What the hell. He wasn’t losing anything by allowing her to tempt him into taking the manna into his mouth. This was their bedroom, and what they did in it had no effect on his working life or his self-control.
She sighed with pleasure at his sucking of her breast, and arched her back. ‘God, that feels good.’
‘You feel good.’ He licked around the peak before gently biting it. ‘Give me a little time, mi vida. I’m not twenty-four anymore.’
Her grin was sinfully wicked. ‘Define a little time.’
Laughter rose, and he trailed his tongue up her throat and kissed her with a growl before flopping onto his back beside her. Wriggling down, she curled into him with her cheek on his chest.
For the longest time, they just lay there, Xavi stroking her back, Beth’s fingers making circular motions around his nipple.
‘How many men have you been with since we broke up?’ he asked casually. It was a question he’d wondered virtually every day they’d spent apart.
Her fingers stilled. ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Curiosity.’ All the nights he’d had to drive away images of Beth sharing her goddess body with a faceless man. The times she posted a photo of herself out drinking with men… Those nights had been the worst for him.
‘Curiosity killed the cat.’
‘Is that another English saying?’
‘Yep. Let’s just say I’ve spent the intervening years enjoying my life and leave it at that.’
Beth would rather boil her head than tell him the truth.
‘What if I don’t want to leave it at that?’
‘Then tough. I don’t want to know about all the women you’ve been with.’ Bad enough torturing herself with guesses. Having it confirmed…
‘There haven’t been many.’
Feeling like she’d been punched, she sat up and tightly said, ‘I just said I don’t want to know. I had no claim over you, and you had no claim over me, and I don’t ever want to hear about or know which women you’ve shared this bed with.’
He gave a half smile and cupped her cheek. ‘Only you.’
She went to slap his hand away, but ended up clasping it tightly. ‘Liar!’
‘Beth, this place was our dream home. I couldn’t bring another woman here. It would have felt wrong.’
Oh, why was he saying such things? ‘You expect me to believe that?’
‘Why not?’ His eyes didn’t even flicker. ‘We’ve always been honest with each other. I bought this place with you in mind.’
She could do nothing to stop her burst of cynical laughter. ‘Sure you did.’
‘I think I always knew we’d end up back together.’
‘Well, I didn’t, so it’s just as well I’ve been too career-focused to let another man sweep me off my feet, isn’t it?
Fully off my feet, that is,’ she hastened to add.
She would never let him even guess at the truth, and she was angry with herself for letting her jealousy at his other women seep out.
‘Otherwise, you’d have bought this place for nothing and your wish to keep control of the Rosbel Group would have been screwed. ’
He grinned. ‘When you put it like that, I consider myself a fortunate man.’
How she hated his grin. Hated that it made her pelvis melt.
Hated that it made her mouth want to reciprocate into a wide smile of its own.
‘So you should. Who knows what I’d do with the shares if I were already married?
I might feel obliged to sell them to one of those sharks to stop my husband being jealous about our history. ’
He lifted his head, his grin widening. ‘You wouldn’t do that.’
‘Wouldn’t I?’
He palmed the underside of her breast and stretched his thumb to her nipple. ‘You’ve changed in some respects but not in the ways that really matter. You’re not someone who would do anything she didn’t want to do and you would never screw another person over.’
‘Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.’ Oh, why did she keep trying to give him these damned cryptic warnings?
Holding her waist, he sat up and bowed his head to take her nipple into his mouth. ‘I don’t care how many men you’ve been with since me,’ he said between licks and sucks. ‘I know you better and more intimately than anyone.’
Sensation was filling her again, the heat in her pelvis bubbling back to life, and when he trailed a hand down her side to her thigh, she let him gently coax it over his lap so she was straddling him.
This was what she’d wanted when she’d agreed to marry him. Sex. Lots of sex. Not pointless pillow talk that hurt her heart.
What she must not do was allow herself to believe his lies, even if her heart ached for his words to be true. Xavi hadn’t bought this gorgeous baroque building with her in mind. He was just saying what he thought needed saying to protect his interests.
He moved his attention to her other breast. She clasped the back of his head and raised her bottom so she straddled his arousal.
He gazed up at her with glazed eyes. ‘No one could ever compare to you, mi vida. No one.’
Blocking his words out, she sank down on him with a long moan of pleasure.
‘Does this place have a swimming pool?’ Beth asked. Despite making love twice, she was still wide-awake, too many thoughts crowding her head to allow sleep to snake its way into her. Too many thoughts she did not want to let loose.
‘You want to go swimming, now?’
Her cheek on his chest, the beats of his heart a steady, comforting—too comforting—sound, he didn’t see her wistful smile that he still knew her well enough to know that when she asked a question like that, it generally meant she wanted to do it right away, not at some future date.
‘Yes.’ She lifted her chin to gaze into his eyes, and seductively added, ‘But I don’t have a swimming costume to hand so it’ll have to be skinny-dipping.’
He made a groan-like laugh and shook his head before flashing his perfect teeth at her. ‘What the hell. Come on. Let me show you my swimming pool.’
Her nudity wrapped in her silk kimono, Beth happily let Xavi, who’d slung a pair of shorts on, lead her out of the bedroom to a flight of stairs at the end of the corridor.
She climbed them and stepped out into the heady scent of night-blooming jasmine and twilight heat. Enough of the city was asleep for the black sky above them to glitter with stars, a sight that had her gaping—she couldn’t remember seeing a star in the Madrid night sky before.
And then she lowered her gaze and gaped even harder, taking a long moment to soak in all she was seeing. ‘How on earth did you get permission to do this?’
This being the most gloriously spectacular roof terrace.
Its perimeter aglow with soft night-lights, its central pièce de résistance was an enormous swimming pool with a gorgeous mosaiced bottom of dolphins at play.
Around it, plentiful plush seating for sunbathing and dining alike, along with a Caribbean-themed bar and an outdoor cooking area.
It was the panoramic view, though, that really took her breath away. It felt like the city went on forever. The pond-lake at the rear glistened under the lights of the stars like a private oasis of tranquillity, the trees surrounding it dark shadows melting into the night.
Standing behind her, Xavi put his hands on her hips and brushed his lips against her neck. ‘Money and power talk.’
Surprise and disappointment lashed her even as shivers of excitement coiled up her spine. ‘Bribes?’
‘No, mi vida.’ His hands were working on the sash of her robe. ‘There is no need for bribes when you pay for the restoration of many of your home city’s historical monuments and fund numerous shelters and rehabilitation units.’
Relieved, although why she didn’t know, supposed it was that she didn’t want to think the Xavi of old who’d always taken pride in the Rosbel Group being built on honest endeavour could have changed that much, she closed her eyes and leaned back into his strength.
‘You’ve become a philanthropist?’ Philanthropy made much more sense.
‘Don’t sound too impressed—it is all for the sake of my soul.
I’m following in the footsteps of my father and grandfather.
They taught me that with great wealth comes great responsibility.
’ As he spoke, he cupped her breasts and squeezed them in the way she so liked.
‘Also, Blanca is always keen to remind me of the biblical quote about it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, and on the off chance that she’s right, I prefer not to take any chances. ’
She laughed and wriggled her bottom provocatively against his arousal. ‘And how much of her personal wealth has Blanca given away?’