CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER NINE
M IA LAY SPRAWLED supine on the bed as Santos knelt above her, his eyes blazing, his cheeks slashed with colour. It was both thrilling and humbling, to see and know how much he wanted her. To feel so wanted rocked her to her core...again.
With fingers that trembled, Santos began to unbutton his shirt. Mia raised herself onto her elbows. She was naked save for a scrap of lace, and she felt completely unashamed, unafraid.
‘Let me do it,’ she said, and reached for him.
Santos gazed down at her, his expression serious and intent, his eyes still blazing as she slipped the buttons from their holes. Now it was her fingers that were trembling. They’d been together more times than they could count, and yet it had never felt as intense as this; as momentous, as sacred . The past still lay behind them, littered with their mistakes, and yet the future felt endless and shimmering with possibility as it stretched ahead.
Mia slipped his shirt from his shoulders, revelling in the feel of his bronzed, burnished skin, the muscles taut and hard beneath her questing hands. Then she went to his belt buckle, working it from the loops. It slithered out and she tossed it to the floor as Santos chuckled softly.
The button came next, and then she eased his trousers from his lean hips, conscious of the proud, straining length of him brushing the back of her hand as she pulled the fabric free. Santos kicked off the trousers and then divested himself of his boxer shorts as well. Mia’s breath came out in an unsteady rush as she took in the full, glorious sight of him, so utterly, potently male.
‘I think,’ he said softly, his fingers skimming up her thigh, ‘You have too many clothes on.’
She let out a choked laugh. ‘Too many clothes?’ She was wearing only a thong.
‘Yes, too many clothes.’ He hooked his finger underneath the scrap of lace and slowly, with a smile curving his mouth, tugged it downwards. Something in Mia trembled as he divested her of her last bit of armour. She was naked, utterly open and vulnerable to him, and in that moment she felt it.
Santos must have sensed something of this, for he eased down beside her, pillowing her head beneath his arm, his other hand resting on her bare midriff, bronzed fingers splayed and his thumb brushing her pubic bone. For a few seconds they simply lay there, both of them already breathing hard, yet also finding a surprising sweetness and peace in the moment. That sense of vulnerability eased, and as Mia twisted to look up at him he cupped his hand with her cheek, his thumb brushing her lips.
‘I’ve missed you, querida .’
Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them back as she pressed a kiss to the pad of his thumb. ‘I’ve missed you too.’
He bent his head to brush a soft kiss across her mouth that started out tenderly and then deepened, the passion they’d just felt for each other blazing high and hot once more. Her legs tangled with his as she wrapped her arms around him, pressing closer. Santos slid his hand down to cup her bottom, bringing her into achingly exquisite contact with the most male part of him. She pressed even closer and he groaned.
‘I want to go slowly with you,’ he muttered against her mouth, and she let out a shaky laugh.
‘Maybe slow is overrated.’ She pushed up against him, thrilled to feel him press back as pleasure flared deep within her. ‘We can do slow later.’
He slid his hand down towards her legs, cupping his hand between them, feeling how ready she already was for him.
‘Are you sure?’
‘ Yes , Santos.’ She pushed against his fingers, desperate now for the feel of him inside her. ‘I am very sure.’
With a throaty chuckle, he rolled on top of her and braced on his forearms. He paused to glance down at her, his expression serious. Even though everything in her was aching, straining, for him to join their bodies, in that space of a second she felt that something even more important was happening.
‘I love you, Mia,’ he said, his voice low and sure. Her heart stuttered and for a second she could only blink up at him as he slid inside her in one sinuous movement. Out of both instinct and need she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist, drawing him even more deeply into herself. Her mind was reeling from what he’d said, but her body’s response to and need for him felt even more overwhelming. As he began to move in slow, sliding strokes, she matched his rhythm, the words he’d just said pulsing inside her in beat with their bodies.
I love you, Mia. I love you, Mia. I love you, Mia...
Santos’s breath came out in a ragged gasp and Mia let out a cry as their bodies moved in sync, reaching higher and higher until her climax exploded through her, her body convulsing around his as a rip tide of pleasure carried her away for a few heavenly minutes.
Santos pressed his lips to the side of her neck as the last shudders of his climax went through him. Mia’s head flopped back on the pillow as she closed her eyes, feeling incredibly sated, her limbs boneless and relaxed.
I love you, Mia...
Had he meant it? He’d never actually said it before. He’d said, ‘I think I’m falling in love with you,’ in a voice full of wonder in those first few crazy weeks, but it had felt like a ‘maybe’ or an ‘if’. Then she’d got pregnant so quickly and it had all started to unravel...
There had been no ‘I love you’s after that.
Slowly Santos rolled off her, pressing a soft, smiling kiss to her mouth before he left the bed, slipping into the bathroom. Mia pushed her hair out of her face as she took a steadying breath. How much had what they’d just done changed things? What would Santos expect now? Should she have said ‘I love you’ back? Did she?
A low breath shuddered through her and she rolled up from the bed. She grabbed one of the hotel’s towelling robes from the wardrobe and slipped her arms into its velvety-soft sleeves. Then she took her crumpled dress from the floor and hung it up because, no matter how much passion had overtaken them—and it certainly had—it was too beautiful, not to mention expensive, to be treated like that.
Santos was still in the bathroom, and Mia was starting to feel a tiny bit apprehensive. Was he regretting what they’d done, what he’d said in the heat of the moment? The words had seemed to come from somewhere deep inside him, but that didn’t mean they were real.
She went to the kitchen and took a bottle of sparkling water from the sub-zero fridge, then slipped outside to the terrace. It was into the early hours now, but Barcelona was still buzzing with people, parties, music and lights, an anthill of activity far below the penthouse suite. The sultry breeze slid over her still-heated skin like silk as she stood at the railing and gazed down at the world below.
Mia wasn’t quite sure how she felt—a mixture of bittersweet joy and sorrow, apprehension and hope. She realised she wasn’t sure if she’d just made a big mistake, giving her body and a big piece of her heart to Santos, or if she’d taken a flying leap into love—and what could be better than that?
What was she still so afraid of?
Getting hurt, she supposed, having it not work out. Needing someone and finding out they didn’t need you, that she wasn’t enough. If her own mother hadn’t been able to love her, why should anyone else?
A sigh escaped her, and she closed her eyes. All the old fears and doubts...would they ever let her go?
‘How are you feeling?’
Santos’s voice was quiet and concerned as he stepped out onto the terrace. He sounded as if he wanted to do a post mortem on their passion, and Mia knew she wasn’t ready for that. She needed to work out how she felt first before she dealt with any of Santos’s emotions. She took a quick breath and then turned around with a bright smile.
‘I feel frankly wonderful,’ she told him, her tone deliberately flippant. ‘That was amazing. How do you feel?’ She waggled her eyebrows just in case he didn’t get the memo that she was keeping this light.
Santos cocked his head, his gaze turning thoughtful as it moved over her. He’d clearly got the memo and more, judging from his lack of response as well as the pensive expression on his face, but whether he was going to play along was another matter entirely.
‘I feel amazing too.’ He started to stroll towards her; he was wearing a pair of loose trousers and no shirt, his chest gloriously muscled and bare, crisp dark hair veeing down towards his trousers. It made desire start to wind its tendrils through Mia all over again, pulling her closer towards him even though she hadn’t meant to move. ‘You were amazing,’ he added, reaching out one hand to loosely link his fingers with hers, drawing her even nearer. ‘You are .’
‘Well, it takes two to tango,’ Mia replied teasingly.
She was going into deflection mode as a matter of instinct, a way to protect herself even as she wondered if she really needed protecting. Santos wouldn’t hurt her...would he? Maybe he wouldn’t mean to, but he certainly had before. She told herself she was right to be cautious.
‘Mia...’ His voice was low and concerned. She tensed, their hands still linked, as she wondered what he was going to say. ‘We didn’t use birth control.’
Relief flooded through her and she smiled, shaking her head, so her hair was sent flying. ‘It’s all right. I’m on the pill.’
Santos frowned, his fingers tensing on hers before he tugged them away. ‘You are ?’
She was on the pill ? Why? And why had she never told him? They’d used condoms when they’d first got together, condoms that admittedly hadn’t worked. There had been no need for birth control after the miscarriage because they hadn’t slept together. They hadn’t even touched.
So why the hell was she on the pill now?
Mia let out an uncertain little laugh, her gaze scanning his face. ‘Why do you sound so...disapproving?’
He folded his arms across his chest, hating how vulnerable he felt. He’d just told her he loved her, for heaven’s sake, the words having slipped out of their own accord, but he’d meant them...even if she hadn’t said them back. And now she was telling him she was on birth control... Why? ‘I just don’t understand why you would be on the pill.’
‘Um...to prevent pregnancy?’ Her eyebrows drew together as she cocked her head. ‘So we don’t have to panic on a night like this?’
‘I’d wouldn’t have thought you’d be expecting “a night like this”,’ Santos pointed out in what he hoped was a reasonable tone, although his jaw was clenched tight. Was he overreacting to this bit of news, simply because he felt vulnerable and he didn’t like that feeling? He thought they’d been on a journey together, that they’d been feeling the same sorts of things, but now he wondered. ‘Considering you ran away from me weeks ago,’ he continued, ‘And you obviously had no idea I would come and find you.
‘How long have you been on the pill?’ It had to have been for a while; there had been no time for her to get a prescription since he’d found her on Ibiza; and, in any case, didn’t a woman have to take it for a week or so before it worked reliably? Why on earth would she have needed birth control when they’d been apart?
In a blinding flash, he recalled the sexy emerald evening gown she’d worn, together with the man lounging next to her, and his initial surprise hardened into a terrible suspicion. Had more been going on there than he’d realised? Heaven knew, he’d wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, but just now he found it hard— very hard.
Mia must have seen his thought process reflected on his face, for she folded her arms, her hands lost in the voluminous sleeves of the bath robe she wore, her eyes narrowed to blue-green slits.
‘Just what are you suggesting, Santos?’
What was he suggesting? The suspicion he’d been feeling, bordering on certainty, now teetered on the precipice of doubt. Surely he wasn’t actually accusing Mia—his wife, whom he’d only just held in his arms and made sweet love to—of being unfaithful ?
‘Well?’ she demanded, her voice ringing out loud and hard.
Irritation flickered through him. It wasn’t unreasonable of him to wonder why his wife would be on birth control when they’d been apart for so long. ‘I just asked a question,’ he replied coolly. ‘One that, for some reason, you haven’t seemed willing to answer.’
For a second, he saw hurt flash through her eyes and her face started to crumple. A sudden, crippling guilt assailed him. What was he saying, thinking, about Mia ?
‘Mia...’
Her chin came up as her expression ironed out into something hard and unyielding. ‘I believe your question was, how long have I been on the pill? I’d be delighted to answer you, Santos. I’ve been on the pill since the obstetrician who delivered our dead baby offered it to me after the procedure. You weren’t there for the conversation, you see, because you’d walked out of the room.’
And then she did exactly that, storming past him back into the penthouse. He heard the slam of the bedroom door and bowed his head. He felt like an utter ass, an idiot, a brute . He hadn’t really thought... And yet, for a few damning seconds, he’d acted as if he had. He knew it, and it made guilt and regret churn acidly inside him. He turned to go after Mia and then decided to give her—and himself—a few moments to cool down. He needed to work out what had been going on in his mind and, more importantly, why.
Slowly, frowning in thought, Santos walked to the bar and poured himself a large whisky. Why, he wondered, had he jumped to such conclusions, and so quickly? And had Mia really faced that alone? She’d said he’d walked out of the room back at the hospital.
Those grief-stricken hours felt like a blur. She’d barely spoken to him, and he’d felt so helpless in the face of their loss—a loss he hadn’t been sure she felt, at least not the way he had. The loss of their baby had brought up so many memories, stirring to life the old grief for his father that he’d thought long buried. He’d never explained any of that to Mia, had never even tried to tell her how his father had died or how guilty he’d felt. The burden of carrying on his father’s name had sometimes been too heavy to bear. But surely they both had enough to be going on with without having to think about all that now?
And yet...what if it was all related—the assumptions he’d made about Mia now as well as then? Why? Because, Santos acknowledged starkly, on some level he felt he hadn’t really known her. How could he have after just a few weeks? It was a point she’d made herself, and he hadn’t been truly honest with her about his own doubts. Not that their marriage was a mistake , precisely, because he still meant what he’d said about taking his vows seriously. But maybe it had been precipitous, a point his mother had made with both acerbity and alarm. It had also been so utterly out of character for him; afterwards, he’d half-wondered if he’d been possessed not just by passion but by some deeper, driving need to be happy...to be free .
Maybe these were some of the thoughts he needed to share with Mia, instead of stubbornly insisting he hadn’t had any doubts. Santos drained his whisky and then set the empty glass on the bar. Slowly he walked towards the bedroom, pausing before the closed door before he tapped once and then opened it.
Mia was curled up on the bed, her knees hugged to her chest, her tangled hair spread across the pillow and covering her face. It made pain lance through him, the regret he felt, before sharpening to an agonising point.
‘Mia, I’m sorry,’ he stated quietly.
She took a hitched breath, the sound making him ache. ‘What,’ she asked, her voice muffled and clogged with tears, ‘Are you sorry for exactly, Santos? I’m just curious.’
He perched on the edge of the bed, close to her tucked-up legs. He wanted to touch her, but he decided to wait.
‘For making assumptions. Not just about the birth control thing, but before, about...about the baby.’ The words came stiltedly, but he still meant them, and he hoped Mia knew it. ‘I know you said you weren’t ready to have a baby,’ he continued, ‘But that didn’t mean you weren’t sad when you miscarried. I do realise that, even if I didn’t show it or say it.’
Mia pushed her hair away from her tear-streaked face as she scooted up against the pillows. ‘Why didn’t you say it, Santos?’ she asked quietly. ‘It would have made such a difference to me.’ A single tear slipped down her cheek, and she brushed it away, sniffing.
‘I...don’t know,’ he admitted, although that felt like a cop-out. It was .
‘I thought you blamed me,’ she whispered. ‘I still think you blame me, at least a little bit, for not wanting the baby in the first place. But we’d been married for two weeks, Santos!’ She blinked at him through her tears as she shook her head slowly. ‘We’d known each other for little over a month . It all felt like it was happening way too fast.’
‘I know.’ He’d felt that too, even if he’d been pleased. He’d always wanted a family, and in all fairness he’d supposed having a baby together would cement their marriage—legitimise it in a way a barefoot ceremony on the beach in Portugal hadn’t; not entirely, anyway. Perhaps he’d felt a baby would bind Mia to him more than a piece of paper did. On some level he’d been thinking that way without even fully realising it.
But he hadn’t fully realised a lot of things back then, Santos acknowledged, and maybe he still didn’t. He hadn’t realised how Mia had struggled with so much, including adjusting to life in Seville. He hadn’t considered how having a baby in that new environment might make her feel even more uncertain and afraid. And he wasn’t entirely sure what was going through her mind now...but he wanted to know. He wanted her to tell him.
‘Sometimes,’ Mia whispered, ‘I wonder why you married me. I wonder why you don’t seem to regret it. Maybe you do, and the whole “vow” thing is a millstone around your neck; I don’t know.’ She paused and then met his gaze directly, seeming to summon her courage before she asked bluntly, ‘You told me you loved me, but I... I don’t know if I believe you. I believe you think you love me—’
‘Mia—’ he protested, although he wasn’t sure what he was going to say. Did he want to double down on saying he loved her now, when she clearly wasn’t going to say she loved him? Surely love wasn’t a tit-for-tat thing? And yet...he felt vulnerable enough already.
A sigh escaped Mia, long and low. ‘Why did you marry me, Santos? Really?’
Santos stared back at her, knowing she needed his honesty, yet not quite sure how to give it. Did he even know himself? ‘Mia, if I had an easy answer, I’d give it to you,’ he said slowly. ‘The truth is, I... I don’t even know. All I can say is, when we met, when we spent time together, I felt happier than I had in a long time—maybe ever. And I wanted that to continue.’ He paused, his throat working as he continued raggedly, ‘I needed it to.’
To his surprise, she reached for his hand, threading her fingers through his. ‘Why?’ she asked softly. ‘Weren’t you happy before?’
The questions were becoming even harder to answer. They felt more painful, more revealing.
An Aguila must always be master of his own mind and heart.
To him that had meant not admitting his weakness, his need. And yet maybe that was what Mia needed. Maybe it was what he needed too. There was a positive side to this sort of vulnerability, opening up, as well as giving. ‘Not like that,’ he confessed in a low voice as he gazed down at their twined fingers. ‘Never like that.’
Gently Mia squeezed his fingers. When he risked a glance at her, he saw her smiling softly through her tears, and he felt a sudden pressure in his chest, a lump in his throat. Somehow, in that moment, neither of them seemed to need any more words.