The Alvares Bride

She came awake slowly, whispering his name, and a pleasure so deep it shook his soul swept through him. It was his name she said, even before she was fully awake, his mouth she sought as she embraced him and drew his head down to hers, his kisses for which she hungered.

Her flesh was hot as flame against his. Hot and silken. He angled his mouth over hers, deepening the kiss, opening her to him with the tip of his tongue. She moaned softly, threaded her fingers into his hair and touched his tongue with her own.

Ai, Deus, she tasted of morning sunshine, of honey and cream, of all that he had remembered during the past endless months.

“Carin,” he whispered, her name as sweet as her taste, “Carin, amada, desejo-te. I want you, sweetheart. I want you so badly that I ache.”

Her eyes turned dark. She put her hand around the back of his head, drew his mouth to hers for a kiss that was all the answer he needed.

Rafe drew back, watched her face as he slid the blanket from her body, saw the way her lips parted and her breathing quickened as on that long-ago night. He saw the sudden leap of her blood in the hollow of her throat, the expansion of her pupils until they seemed to fill her eyes.

“You are beautiful, querida,” he said softly, and then he let his gaze move slowly over all the rest: the mauve-tipped breasts, the narrow waist, the softly rounded belly and the triangle of dark curls at the juncture of her thighs.

“Carin,” he whispered, and he bent his head, kissed her mouth, drank in the taste of her as he slid his hand over her, cupping her breast, curving it along her hip, tracing the line of her thigh. Her soft sighs of pleasure mingled with his, her body melted against his, and he gave up trying to think because there was no way to think, not when she was in his arms.

Rafe kissed her throat and shoulder, the soft swell of her breasts. She moaned his name as his head dipped lower; when he tongued the swollen crests, she made a little sound of pleasure that was almost his undoing.

“Rafe,” she whispered.

Her sigh became a groan as he kissed his way to her belly.

“You’re even lovelier than you were, amada,” he whispered.

It was true. She was. A fierce sense of need swept through him, to take her, possess her, make her his at last. He knelt above her, let his fingers seek the silky curls that guarded the core of her femininity, slid his hand between her thighs and cupped her.

She was hot against his palm, wet with wanting him, and it almost drove him over the edge. He told himself to go slowly. He was afraid of hurting her; he had never made love to a woman who’d given birth to a child only weeks before…who’d given birth to his child.

He whispered her name, told her how beautiful she was, how much he desired her, the soft words of Portuguese slipping from his tongue as he eased himself down her body. Gently, he pressed his mouth to her belly, then to those silky curls. She gave a startled cry as he spread her thighs, put his hands beneath her and lifted her to him.

Then he put his mouth to her.

Her cry rose into the silence of the room, not the cry of a woman in pain but of one in ecstasy. His world trembled; he groaned, lost in the taste of her, in the knowledge that she was ready for his possession. He kissed her, tongued her, and when she arched towards him and came against his mouth, he moved up over her, knelt between her thighs, entered her slowly, moved within her slowly, his concentration almost savage as he focused not on the pleasure, oh, Deus, the sweet, sweet pleasure of all that satin heat around him but, instead, on whatever shreds of self-control he had left, knowing he must not ride her hard, that he must not hurt her—

“Rafe,” she said, and she lifted herself to him, impaled herself on him, and he lost everything, his control, his logic, himself, as he exploded within her.

He collapsed against her, breathing hard, spent, filled with a joy he had never before known. Carin held him close, whispered his name against his throat. He put his arms around her, murmured sweet nonsense words to her in Portuguese and in English, and kissed her.

They lay that way while time slipped past, heartbeats slowing, breath sighing, until Rafe realized that his full weight was pinning his wife, his delicate wife, his wife only weeks past childbirth, to the bed.

He cursed softly, started to roll off her, but she tightened her arms around him.

“Don’t,” she said unsteadily. “Please don’t leave me.”

He thought back to that night, how she had frozen beside him, how they had left each other, and he kissed her.

“I will never leave you again,” he said, in a husky whisper. “But surely, amada, I am crushing you.”

He felt her lips curve against his throat. “You aren’t.”

“Sim, I must be.” He kissed her again, more slowly. Her mouth was softly swollen and he loved the way it clung to his. “You are so tiny…”

“Tiny?” She laughed softly, brought her hand to his face and stroked the damp, tousled hair back from his forehead. My husband, she thought, this is my husband. “I’m not ‘tiny,’ senhor.”

“Delicate, then.” He rolled to his side, gathered her close, smiled into her eyes. “Delicate, and so beautiful it takes my breath away, to look at you.”

A soft rosy hue flooded her cheeks. “And mine, to look at you.”

Rafe grinned. “This is not a time to tell me I have taken a wife who can’t tell a good-looking man from a big, ugly gaucho.”

“Stop fishing for compliments.” Carin ran the tip of her finger down Rafe’s nose. “You’re not big and ugly, and you’re not a gaucho.” She gave him a smug look. “I still remember my sixth grade geography. Gaúchos are cowboys.”

“Sim,” he said, and caught her finger gently between his teeth.

“And they’re from Argentina, not Brazil.”

“Are-zhen-teen-ah,” he said, and smiled. “But here, in this part of Brazil, we speak of gaúchos, too, and of the pampas.”

It was lovely, lying in Rafe’s arms and talking this way, as if they’d always known each other. She shifted closer to him, only wanting to feel all of him against her, but the simple action changed things instantly. His smile tilted; she felt the quickening of his body and the hot, sweet quickening of her own.

“Querida.” He took a deep breath, curved his hand around her cheek. She could see the sudden tension in his face. “Esposa, I think—I think we should get up now.”

“Get up?”

“Yes.” Deus, he could feel his muscles knotting. “You know. Take a shower. Have breakfast…”

“…Find out what happened to last night’s guests.”

Rafe laughed. “I suspect they gave up waiting for us, and…” He groaned. “Don’t do that, querida.”

“Do what?” she said softly, and moved, ever so slightly, again.

“The shower is best,” he said quickly. “A long one, that is very, very cold…”

“I have a better idea,” Carin whispered.

She reached between their bodies and closed her hand around his erection. He growled, rolled her beneath him, caught her hands and pinned them against the pillow on either side of her head.

“You play with fire,” he said thickly.

“Yes,” she whispered, dizzy with desire and with her power over him.

Rafe summoned up the last of his self-control. “I don’t want to hurt you, querida.”

“You could only hurt me by telling me you don’t want us to make love again.”

“I will never tell you that,” he said softly. Slowly, his eyes never leaving her face, he eased himself into her. “Take me inside you, esposa. And look at me, as you do.”

She opened her eyes. Rafe was all she could see. His wonderful face. His eyes. His mouth.

“Look at me, and say my name.”

“Rafe,” she whispered.

He moved, moved again.

“Say it, minha esposa.”

“Rafe,” she sobbed, as he filled her, “Rafe…”

“Who am I?” he said fiercely. “Tell me

what I want to hear.”

“You are my husband…”

Her words, and the arching of her body, tore him from reality. He thrust harder, deeper. Carin dug her fingers into his biceps and cried out. And just before Rafe let go of his carefully ordered, tightly controlled world, an emotion that had nothing to do with sex flashed like lightning through his head, and through his heart.

* * *

Carin awoke to a room filled with golden sunlight.

She was alone, but not in the way she had been on that night so many months before. Rafe’s presence was still here, in the warmth of the sheet where he’d lain beside her, in the clean scent of him on his pillow as she gathered it in her arms.

Carin sighed, rolled onto her belly and closed her eyes.

What an incredible night it had been. They’d been so furious with each other…who could have imagined all that rage would dissolve and turn first to tenderness, and then to passion?

Her husband was a remarkable man.

She smiled, threw out her arms and let them flop across the mattress. Not just remarkable. He was also—he was also…