A thought occurred to Maggie, and she looked at him with wide-eye innocence. “Perhaps you’d better head back to your home now? It won’t do you any good to sit in those wet clothes for a moment longer.”
His dark eyes raked her face. “I don’t intend to.”
She let out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. “Okay. Well, thanks for your help.”
“Oh, I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’re… not?” She gulped. Did he have spare clothes at the villa? There were several bedrooms. She hadn’t explored any other than her own and May’s.
“There is a laundry with a dryer,” her reminded her quietly. “I will go and put them through now.”
“Oh!” She glared at him in confusion. “But… that would mean you’d be wearing…” She gulped.
“My underwear.” His voice held a teasing note.
“No!” She responded on instinct and softened her response with a tight smile. “But why?”
“Because,” he nodded towards May warningly. “We have things to discuss. Once May is in bed.”
Maggie closed her eyes and nodded, her mouth a line in her face. When she blinked her gaze to May, Dante was no longer in the bathroom.
May was exhausted. Maggie only made it through half of her favourite picture book before her little eyes were too heavy to stay open. It had, after all, been a big day of meeting new people. “Good night, my sweet love.” Maggie kissed her forehead and laid her gently down under the covers.
She walked with trepidation from the bedroom, scanning the space to discern his whereabouts. The villa appeared empty. She frowned, and slowly paced toward her bedroom. Might he have decided she had no will power whatsoever, and decided to wait for her in bed? He would be right, of course. What will power she did have had been eroding all afternoon.
Her bedroom was empty. The disappointment was strange, but intense.
“Dante?” She called, finally.
“In here.”
She frowned, walking toward the sound of his voice.
One of the rooms she had presumed was a bedroom was, in fact, a very grown up sitting room. Leather wingback chairs, a glass coffee table, and a bookshelf packed with hardcover reference books. He was wearing a pair of black cotton boxer shorts, and nothing else. The sight of him in his naked glory filled her with a swift stab of longing.
“The study,” he said by way of explanation, his sardonic smile showing that he had not missed her response. “This villa is available for my wine buyers to stay in from time to time. Somewhere to work seemed like a good idea.”
“I see.”
“And somewhere to enjoy the best Velasco wine available,” he continued, holding a glass to her without moving his body. It was a ploy, designed to bring her to him, and it worked. She walked over without thinking, and as she took the crystal glass he reached for her other hand and gently pulled her the rest of the distance, so that their bodies connected.
It felt so right, but it wasn’t. It was all so, so wrong. His skin was warm, his chest rippled with muscles. She did the only thing she could think of to put some mental space between them.
“Are you and Veronika reconciled?”
He recoiled sharply in surprise. “Dios mio,” he shook his head. “Of course not.”
“Then why is she here?” Oh, how his body moulded to the contours of hers. She longed to relax against him, but it would be so, so dangerous to give in to the physical cravings she was experiencing.
His eyes were shuttered, his expression guarded. His voice though was heavy with distaste. “Veronika is now my sister in law.”
“You… Your… I don’t understand.”
“She is the wife of my brother Enrique.”
“Oh, God.” She forgot about her own feelings and desires and put a hand on his forearm. “I am so sorry.” She shook her head from side to side. “That’s totally weird, and really horrible.”
“More so for him, I feel.”
“But how… I mean… I don’t understand how that could happen?”
“I do not wish to discuss it,” he responded with a shrug. “It is as it is.”
Maggie had so many questions. Questions of burning importance. Did it hurt? Did he still love Veronika? If so, how did he cope with the knowledge that she loved his brother? It was so impossible to process. And it was really icky. Very gross.
Maggie took a step backwards, wine held firmly in hand. She sat on the edge of the sofa, her mind spinning at this revelation.
“It’s just really strange. When did they marry?”
“About six months after we divorced.”
She shook her head. “I’m struggling to get my head around it. I guess I’m shocked.”
“It is not your concern.”
But it was. Oh, it was. Her heart was heavy with pain, and also with love. Had she really been so daft as to let herself fall in love with him? Had she had a choice? Knowing that he must be hurting at Veronika’s treachery, she felt pain on his behalf.
She lifted the glass to her lips and drank the deep cherry shaded liquid, far faster than one should imbibe a wine of such unparalleled quality. “That was delicious,” she murmured, her cheeks flushed as she looked up at his obviously surprised face.
He laughed! The last thing she expected. A thick, rumbling sound that cut through the tension in the air. And Maggie found herself laughing too, for no reason but that her body needed the release.
“It is a forty year old bottle of hand picked and wood pressed wine,” he said with amusement, shaking his head as he sat beside her on the sofa.
“I’m nervous,” she responded honestly, her good humour evaporating.
“As you should be.” His nod was predatory.
Her blue eyes sparked with his. “Should I?”
“Oh, yes.”
She swallowed, her breath tight in her lungs.
“Why?” She asked on a whisper.
He leaned forward, and now, he did press his lips to hers, ever so lightly. So lightly that it almost felt as though she was imagining the contact. “Because I have you right where I want you.” He pressed further forward, so that his body was weighing hers down onto the luxurious leather sofa. “And I do want you.” He lowered his mouth, running his tongue over the sensitive skin of her décolletage. “Whatever else I might feel about you, the desire is unmistakable. And no longer something I wish to ignore.”
“But…”. She tried to concentrate but her mind was rapidly filling with mush. “This makes no sense…”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No.” Of their own accord her fingers ran lightly over his back. “You’ve hardly looked at me since I arrived.”
His laugh now was not rich with humour. “I’ve looked. I haven’t dared touch until now.”
In her chest, she felt a pang as her heart seemed to rotate. He’d wanted to touch? Had he wanted to touch as badly as she had? With an actual physical need? “What changed?” His hands were creeping beneath the bottom of her sweater, lifting it so that he could lightly caress the bare skin of her stomach.
“You are a wonderful mother.”
Her lips pulled downwards at the corners, and a small crease formed between her brows. “So? What does that have to do with what you want from me?”
“Because I know you’ll do anything to keep May in your life. I know you’ll do whatever it takes to make her happy. Even if that means marrying me.”
She sat up abruptly, bumping her head to his in her haste. She swore, as pain radiated from her forehead through her brain. “I’m not marrying you!” She pushed away from him, and stood, wrapping her arms around her mid-section.
He reclined lazily on the lounge, watching her with smug pleasure. “Oh, you are, Maggie Carrington.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Shotgun weddings are a terrible idea. I only know of one couple it’s actually worked for.”
He waved aside her objection. “It is not a shotgun wedding two years after the
fact. And this isn’t a typical marriage. Neither of us is pretending to love the other. This is about May, and her future. And the fact I can’t look at you without wanting to rip your clothes off your body and make slow, heavenly love to you.”
She reached out to the table for support, her mind spinning. “No.” She sucked in a deep breath in an effort to stave off the wave of dizziness that had assailed her.
“Yes,” he replied with a sensual smile. He stood with deliberate intent and stalked toward her. “Let me show you what marriage to me would be like.”
Her breath hitched in her throat as he lifted her sweater over her head and tossed it carelessly across the room. His mouth took possession of a nipple, his fingers teased the other, and she felt her knees buckle at the sensations he was arousing, He laughing softly, wrapping his free arm around her back for support.
“No,” she said stoically. “I can’t do this. I need to talk to you about May.”
He lifted his head sharply, but kept his hand on her breast. “Is anything you are going to say able to give me back the last year of her life?”
A single tear rolled down her cheek. She shook her head. “No.”
“Then it does not matter. I do not believe in analysing the past. What matters is the future.”
He lifted her easily, despite her height, and carried her to the desk against the wall. It was empty but for a couple of books. He pushed them off with scant regard for the survival of their bindings, then lay her backwards on the cool, polished walnut top.
“It has been an agony, not having you,” he murmured, pulling at her pants, and sliding them from her body. Her briefs were sensible, white cotton. He smiled as he quickly dispensed with them. Her legs dangled, from the knee down, over the edge of the desk. He put a hand on either leg and parted them, so that he could stand between her nakedness. Slowly, he ran his fingers down the cleft in her chest, between the valley her breasts formed. His sigh was heavy with inevitability, and Maggie wondered distractedly if he was as torn about their physical desire as she was.
He lowered his mouth and traced the path his hand had walked, his tongue deliberately marking her skin. “It has always been rushed with us. Desperate. Because we knew it was not permanent.”
The noise in her throat was a groggy sound of assent.
“I do not want to rush things now, Maggie.”
He stepped out of his boxer shorts and put his hands beneath her buttocks, lifting her so that her pelvis was close, but not quite touching, his body.
“All my life, I have never felt what I feel with you.” He leaned forward and reclaimed her breast in his mouth, slashing the dusky aureole with his tongue. “Only you can do this to me.”
She pushed up on her elbows, her forehead beaded in a fine layer of perspiration. “It’s mutual, believe me.”
His smile was victorious. “I do believe you.” He nudged towards her entrance, his eyes locked to hers. “Tell me what you want to feel.”
She bit down on her lower lip, besieged by nerves. “I want to feel you. And I’m furious that I want you because nothing about this makes sense.”
He shook his head and grinned, slowly sheathing his length in a condom, all the while his eyes were teasing her. “Pathetic attempt, both to describe your desire and to fight it. Try harder.” He moved closer, his tip probing her entrance gently. “Do you want me to make slow love to you, or do you want me fast? Do you want me to be gentle, or do you want me to own you?”
She pushed up completely, so that she was sitting with her chest pressed against his, and wrapped her legs around him. He was surprised, she could see by the way his eyes widened. She pulled him further inwards, and kissed him at the same time. As he filled her completely, she groaned against his mouth, and ripped her hands through his thick crop of dark hair.
“What do you want?” He demanded fiercely, breaking his mouth free to look at her.
Her smile was slow. “This.”
“Good.” He lifted her beneath her buttocks and needled them with his fingers. “Tell me you want me.”
She bit down on his shoulder teasingly. “I want you.”
“I do not want you to regret this,” he said quietly.
So quietly that it broke through her web of passion. She frowned. “I have never regretted being with you.”
He thrust into her, deeper, harder, driving all thought from her brain. “Lie down.”
An order. So in keeping with his personality that she smiled, as she did what he’d said. He gripped her hips, hard enough to run the risk of being painful. As he moved inside of her, she watched his face, and saw his demons. Possessing her was both a pleasure and a pain, and it was impossible to know what she could do to free them from this unending spiral of need.
“You fit around me so perfectly,” he said through snatched breaths. “Like your body was designed to take mine.”
She had thought that so often that she wondered now if she’d said it aloud.
“I will never stop wanting this.” He thrust again, harder, deeper, desperately. “This is why you will marry me.”
She didn’t say anything. But that in and of itself was a concession, and they both knew it. As their worlds began to merge in one frenetic explosion of need, she knew she couldn’t let him go.
But that knowledge filled her with misery.
For she would have his hand in marriage, but never his heart. She would possess his future, but not his soul. And he would always and forever have all of her.
9
“It is one night,” he whispered, his face serious as he scanned hers.
She nodded guiltily. “I know. I’m just… I’ve only ever left her with Rosie. And Luca.”
Dante rolled his eyes in frustration. “She is asleep. Anita has two children. She will handle anything May throws at her if she wakes. You have said yourself that she does not wake.”
“I know, I know.” Her body was limp from the effect his closeness always had on her. The night before, they’d made love over and over again, until she was weak and exhausted. All day, she’d suffered through visits from everyone in his family, even Enrique and Veronika, without a single sign of Dante. Finally, he’d arrived as May was going to sleep, his arms filled with presents for their child, his eyes full of promise for Maggie.
“I want to show you something.”
She shook her head slowly. Sex was one thing. But marrying him when he didn’t understand a thing about her was impossible.
“On one condition,” she whispered back, uncomfortable having the conversation in front of a hovering Anita.
He instantly bristled. “What is it?”
“I need to talk to you.” She grabbed his hand in hers. “I mean it. I need to speak to you before um... we get distracted by anything. It really is important.”
“And yet your mouth has much more appeal to me when employed in other ways,” he mused with a spreading grin.
She squeezed his hand, but she was smiling also. “I mean it, Dante. We need to talk.”
“And so we shall. Later.” He turned to Anita. “I will have my phone.”
“Excellent,” she responded, a curious expression on her face as she took in the sight of her employer with the striking English woman.
“Thank you,” he said with a dismissive nod, then turned his attention back to Maggie. “Do you need anything?”
She pulled a face. “I don’t know where we’re going do I? Is what I’m wearing okay?”
He ran his eyes slowly down her body, leaving her in little doubt that he intended to remove her clothes altogether as soon as they were alone.
“It is fine.” He nodded. Hardly a rave review, but she hadn’t exactly dressed up. The clothes she’d bought for the trip were really quite unsuitable for attempting to seduce a man. Was that what she was doing? She frowned. He was doing the seducing. But she was falling into step with it without complaint.
“Okay.” She poked her head around the kitchen, seeking Anita. “Are you sure
you’ll be okay?”
Anita nodded reassuringly. “I will call Dante if she makes a peep, I promise.”
“Okay.”
Dante waited until they were outside the villa before putting an arm casually around her shoulders. It felt nice. Better than nice. It felt perfect. She shook her head to clear the unwelcome thought. Nothing about this was perfect. At most they were making the best out of a situation that should never really have happened.
“Where are we going to?”
“Somewhere you’ll love,” he promised, his voice low.
“How do you know?”
He frowned. “How do I know what?”
“What I like? What I’ll love?”
He turned his head away, on the pretence of looking at the star lit sky. He knew too much about her, given how many hours they’d spent together. Somehow she’d imprinted herself on him, and he seemed to have all of this information that he couldn’t ignore.
“Because everyone on earth would appreciate what I am about to show you,” he finally answered with a deceptively casual grin.
“Oh.”
He angled his body, leading them away from the path to the house and towards a small brick wall. As they got closer, Maggie saw that it was two walls, and between them was an opening with a timber hatch on the ground. He crouched down and lifted it, propping it up and then stood back. “After you.”
She looked at him sceptically. “Down there?”
He nodded.
She looked down at herself with a frown. She hadn’t exactly dressed up, but nor was she wearing clothes suitable for tumbling down a dark hole. Designer jeans Rosie had given her for her last birthday, and a cream hand knitted sweater that showed off the lustrous alabaster of her skin. “Really?”
He nodded again. “There is a ladder. Your feet will find the first step.”
“Ummm…” She wondered if she was mad, to trust this man who’d bullied her into coming to Spain and then given her a cold shoulder from the moment she’d arrived. She must have been, because she did trust him. “This had better be worth it,” she grumbled as she stalked past him and began to lower herself into the opening. Her feet grazed the step and she went lower and lower still.