The Morning After

‘I should throttle the lovely life out of you for doing something as stupid as that!’

With another rasping sigh he turned and walked back into the bathroom while Annie stood staring after him, mesmerised by those exposed buttocks rippling as he moved. He came back with another towel, his face no less angry as he stripped his shirt over his head and slammed it down onto the floor.

And Annie lost the ability to breathe.

Her eyes were fixed unblinkingly on that daunting juncture between muscle-taut thighs where the shadowing of crisp black chest hair arrowed to a thick cluster around his potent sex.

He obviously felt no qualms about standing stark naked in front of Annie Lacey. As far as he was concerned, she had seen it all before—many times. But to her this was one of the most critical occasions of her life. And she could neither move, breathe nor speak as, dry-mouthed, she stared at him, horrified by the slow, rumbling burn beginning to erupt deep down inside her.

Desire—for a man who held her in such contempt. And a fascination so strong that she couldn’t even make herself look the other way! Her eyes flickered, then shifted to graze over wide shoulders and bulging biceps where the deeply tanned skin shone like lovingly oiled leather.

His chest was wide and firm, covered by the thick mass of black curling hair—hair that angled down over a stomach so tight that she felt she could throw a punch at it and not make it give so much as a fraction. Then those hips—those narrow, tight hips so arrogantly cradling the essence of the man himself, a man endowed with such power that she could almost feel its—

‘Santa María…’

The softly uttered words barely impinged on her concentration. She was too lost in what was happening to him, too busy watching in paralysed awe as his body stirred, hardened, grew into full masculine arousal.

He let go of the towel and began walking slowly towards her. Annie took in a short, shaky breath and moistened her dry lips with her tongue. She couldn’t move, was unable to do anything other than watch him fill with desire, and feel her own senses fill with the same.

‘Sin,’ he muttered tightly as his eyes glittered over her. ‘You are sin, Angelica Lacey. Pure sin.’

Coming to a stop in front of her, his hand lifted, stroking across her shoulder on its way to capture the edge of her towel. She was trembling when it fell away—not shivering now, but most definitely trembling. There was a subtle difference, and it all had to do with the sensations she was experiencing inside.

His hand was on her waist, gripping, tugging—arrogant in his maleness as he lifted her up against him. She arched on an indrawn gasp as his manhood slid proudly between her trembling thighs. For a moment they stayed like that, their eyes locked, burning, darkened by feeling. Then he captured her parted mouth, widened it and plunged hungrily in.

And she surrendered—surrendered to the storm that had been building steadily from the moment their eyes had clashed across a crowded room…

* * *

Nothing—nothing in her vast and cynical if second-hand knowledge about the act of love had prepared her for what had actually taken place there in the growing darkness of that night.

Nothing. And she lay very still beside the man who had just propelled her into true womanhood, not daring to move while she came to terms with the wreck it had left of her emotions—her senses! Her very soul.

César was lying beside her, stretched out on his stomach, his arms curved tensely around his dark head. His body was damp, layered with a fine film of perspiration. His shoulders, his hips, his slim, tight buttocks were trembling as he struggled to come to terms with what had just taken place.

He was shocked.

Dear God, she was shocked! But both for different reasons. She was shocked by the sheer, brutal reality of the act. His shock came from discovering that the woman he had just taken with such devastating power and sensuality was not the woman he had believed her to be.

And why should he have suspected? she asked herself bitterly. She was the notorious Annie Lacey, for goodness’ sake. Used—more than used to experiencing what they had just done!

She had not even attempted to tell him the truth.

And would he have believed the truth if she had attempted to tell him?

Of course not. Who would? She was Annie Lacey. A product of her own making. She had set out to build a lie around herself and had succeeded so successfully that no one ever thought of questioning that lie.

But he could have been—kinder, she thought on a sudden well of anguish. No matter who or what he’d believed her to be, he still could have been kinder—couldn’t he?

Tears lay like a film across her eyes, blurring her vision as the moon filtered through the darkness of the room. She hurt. She hurt in so many places that she did not know which one hurt the most—her body, still wearing the power of his physical imprint, her brain, grinding against her skull in stunned revelation, her senses, still quivering, flailing around in the morass of the aftermath, not quite knowing what had happened to them, and too shattered by it all even to attempt to regroup.

Then a hand reached out to touch her, and everything—mind, body, shattered senses—leapt upwards and together in a wild dovetailing of panic, sending her rolling from the bed to land, swaying, on her feet—feet that were already stumbling away, running from what she knew was bound to come next.

The post-mortem. No! Please! Just let me be!

Bathroom. A bathroom door had a lock on it, and she needed to put herself behind lock and key before he—

‘Angelica…’