The Housekeeper's Awakening

He kissed her until she relaxed. Until her body had begun to call out to her with a hunger which was already familiar and impossible to ignore. And again, Carly was lost as her whole world became centred on what he was doing to her.

She closed her eyes as he cupped her breasts, his palms rolling rhythmically over her peaking nipples. She squirmed with pleasure as he moved over her, parting her thighs and positioning himself there. She gasped as he entered her with one long, slow thrust, her head tipping back as he began to move inside her. Her fingertips roved over his skin, greedily exploring all the different textures, from the hard, hair-roughened thighs to the silken expanse of his broad back.

She wanted to revel in this feeling of intimacy and pleasure, but her orgasm rushed upon her with the speed and power of a freight train crashing over eggshells. She heard him cry out almost immediately, that strangely vulnerable moan he made as he shuddered into stillness inside her. She cradled her arms tightly around him and snuggled up close, her head resting comfortably on his shoulder.

And then she fell asleep.

When she awoke he had gone, just as he’d done last night, and when she appeared at the breakfast table, Simone informed her that Monsieur Martinez had gone into Nice on business and she didn’t know when he’d be back.

The morning seemed to pass like an eternity and Carly found it impossible to concentrate on anything. He didn’t return until late in the afternoon and by the time he came to her room to find her, she was convinced he was regretting what had happened.

‘Where have you been?’ she blurted out, before she could stop herself.

He raised his eyebrows.

‘I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.’

He gave a short laugh as he pulled her into his arms. ‘I needed space, and I needed to do some business without any distractions. But now I find I’m in the mood for distraction.’

He pushed her down onto the bed, removing her clothes with almost clinical efficiency, and as Carly looked into the hungry gleam of his black eyes she guessed that this was a demonstration that sex could be fast and furious, too.

Afterwards, she lay there feeling slightly dazed, drawing little circles on his skin and realising that he knew far more about her than she did about him. And in her dreamy post-orgasmic state, she felt she could ask him anything.

‘Luis?’

‘Mmm?’

She turned onto her side, propping herself up on her elbow so that spills of hair fell down over her shoulders and covered her breasts. ‘Have you never wanted children of your own?’

His mouth tightened as he brushed away the curtain of hair to expose her nipple. ‘Another word of advice,’ he drawled. ‘As a post-coital topic, fatherhood isn’t really a winner. Be warned, any dreamy little references to babies is likely to send any future lovers running off into the sunset. They might worry that you’re starting to fall in love with them.’

She ignored the stab of disappointment that he seemed totally without sexual jealousy; she didn’t think she could have been quite so casual about any future lovers he might have. But she stuck to her guns. To consider the question logically, as she had been taught. ‘You think a question about children automatically means I’m falling in love with you?’

‘I know the signs,’ he drawled.

‘Well, in my case you are misreading them,’ she said coolly. ‘I’m interested purely from a human interest point of view. Most men want to recreate—it’s in their DNA. Continuation of the human race, that sort of thing. You’ve built up a massive empire, you’re a millionaire many times over, surely you want your own flesh and blood to inherit all that?’

Luis rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. It was a topic he usually snapped the lid on—fast. He didn’t like women probing and it bored him when they searched for feelings which weren’t there. He wondered why was she was spoiling things by asking him this kind of question.

Yet Carly wasn’t looking for the kinds of things which most women wanted, was she? A question he’d normally consider loaded, and which he would deflect with ease, sounded different when it came from her. With Carly, he had laid out all his ground rules from the start. She knew what he would or wouldn’t tolerate. She was ambitious for a career, not marriage, and perhaps that was why he felt relaxed enough to answer her question.

‘I think the human race will survive very well without any miniature versions of Luis Martinez,’ he said drily.

‘Any particular reason?’

‘I can see that you’re going to make a very good doctor.’ He turned his head to meet her eyes. ‘Since you’re very persistent with your questions.’

‘You’re stalling.’

‘So I am.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. About your life. Where you grew up. Why you’re so adamant you don’t want children.’

He linked his fingers together and put them behind his head, allowing a slow stream of memories to pass through his mind. ‘I grew up on a big ranch outside Buenos Aires,’ he said. ‘Where we farmed cattle in great rolling sweeps of land with the biggest skies you ever saw.’

She wriggled a little closer. ‘We?’

‘Me, my mother and my father. We were quite unusual in that there weren’t loads of children running around. But I guess that made us especially close as a family, and my parents...’ He shrugged. ‘Well, they adored me, I guess. The farm was hugely profitable, my father had business interests in the city which were equally successful...’