The Alvares Bride

His smile was all male. ‘But you are happy to belong to me, senhora, are you not? To be my wife?’

“Yes.” She smiled, too, and wondered if her heart were in her eyes when she looked at him. “Oh, yes, I am. Except…”

Rafe’s smile tilted. “Except?”

“Except, you still have your clothes on.”

He laughed softly. “As do you.”

“I don’t.” She blushed, even though it was silly. “I’m still wearing my panties.”

“Mmm. You are a delectable sight, in that scrap of lace.”

“Well, I want you to be equally delectable,” she said, and, her eyes locked to his, she put her hand on his fly, closed it over the hard, aroused flesh pulsing beneath the denim.

Rafe caught his breath, caught her hand, brought it to his lips. “Be careful,” he growled, “or you’ll have to pay the price.”

Carin moved towards him, pressed her body against his and wrapped one arm around his neck.

“Make me pay,” she whispered, and he swept her up into his arms.

He made love to her there, on the bed, his clothes scattered on the floor wherever they’d landed. He was right; he was sweaty, and she loved it. The male scent of him, mingled with the earthy scents of leather and grass, was like an aphrodisiac. She clasped his face with her hands, put her legs around his hips, took him as deep into her body as she could and when she came, seconds before he did, she cried out his name.

Afterwards, when he tried to roll off her, she wouldn’t let him go.

“I am too heavy for you, amada,” he said, but she shook her head.

“Stay here,” she said softly, loving the feel of him, the weight of him, and wondering how, and when, to tell him that she loved him.

Did a woman wait for a man to say the words first? Maybe not in today’s world, where the rules had all changed, but Rafe’s world was different. He treated her as an equal, yet with a tender arrogance that made it clear he was male and she was female.

And she loved that arrogance, that—that macho. It was part of what made Rafe the man he was, part of what made her husband special…

Her husband.

Surely, that tilted the balance. A wife could turn to her husband, smile and say, “I thought you might like to know that I’ve fallen in love with you,” and then he would say—he would say—

“Come and shower with me, querida.”

Carin closed her eyes, then opened them again. “Only if you’ll promise to wash my back,” she said, and felt his body shake with laughter, because washing her back had gotten them into trouble in the shower many times before.

* * *

An hour later, they lay in bed again, hair still wet from the water.

Rafe put his arm around Carin and gathered her close.

“You grow more beautiful each day, esposa.”

She smiled. “It’s our baby who grows more beautiful each day.”

Rafe pressed a kiss into her hair.

“Sim. She does. Our little girl is going to be as beautiful as her mother.” He gave a dramatic sigh. “This means trouble for me.”

“Trouble, for you?”

“Of course.” He lifted his head from the pillow and kissed her. She felt his mouth curve into a smile against hers. “I suspect I will be the kind of father who subjects every boy she dates to interrogation. What are his intentions? What kind of car does he drive? Has he had any speeding tickets? Does he drink? Where is he taking my daughter? When will he bring her home?”

Carin laughed. “I’ve heard about fathers like you.”

“Well, wasn’t your father that way, when you began dating?”

“He wasn’t there.” Carin sighed and laid her hand over her husband’s heart. “My parents had split up by then.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Mmm. Well, we’ve never really talked much, about how we grew up”

“No,” he said, after a second, “no, we haven’t. I’m surprised, Carin. Your parents were divorced, you were raised without a father…Surely, that should have made you more…”

His voice trailed away.

“Made me more what?” Carin propped her head on her hand and looked down at him.

“Amenable to marrying me.”

“Amenable to being commanded to marry you, you mean.”

She said it lightly, even meant it lightly, because how she’d come to marry him no longer mattered, but she felt Rafe stiffen.

“I had no choice.”

A tiny bit of the happiness inside her began to drain away. “I know that’s what you thought, at the time, but—”

“It is what I knew, what I still know.” Rafe drew his arm out from under her. He sat up and swung his legs to the carpet. “How could a woman who grew up without a father have wished that same fate for her child?”

Carin sat up, too. She drew the sheet over her breasts. His voice had become cool and accusatory. Amazing, how vulnerable you could feel, if you were naked.

“It would have been a mistake for my parents to have stayed together.”

“That’s a very modern attitude and commendable, I am sure, in North American circles, but—”

“In North American circles?” Carin reached for the silk robe that lay across the foot of the bed. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Does it really need interpretation?” Rafe stood up, went to the dressing room and pulled on a pair of white silk boxer shorts. “It takes two people to make a child, and two people to raise it.”

“Not always. If the parents don’t love each other—”

“Love is not necessary in a marriage,” he said coolly. “If people are adults, they can reach an accommodation.”

Love is not necessary. The words rang in her head. She felt as if she were shaking, deep inside.

“As we have, you mean.”

Her voice was flat. Rafe could feel her eyes, boring into his back. She was angry, but why? He was the one who had the right to be angry. She’d grown up fatherless, as he had. She should have understood the immorality of trying to keep him from their child. Instead, she’d put up barriers against him, made him into a villain, a man who’d had to f

orce her into doing the right thing.

Still, all of that was behind them. They were married. They were, much to his surprise, happy together. They liked the same things, enjoyed each other’s company, enjoyed each other in bed. What more was required, save for his mother’s blind certainty that love should have been everything?

It wasn’t. His marriage was proof. Couldn’t Carin see that for herself?

He took a breath, turned and faced her. She was pale, though her eyes glittered dangerously; he realized she was hurt, not angry, but why would she be hurt by anything he’d said, when she knew it was all the truth?

“Yes,” he said. “As we have reached one. Our marriage is a success, isn’t it?”

Carin didn’t answer. He cleared his throat.

“Perhaps I should tell you that I grew up without a father, too.”

“Did you.”

Still, that flatness in her voice. Rafe pulled on a pair of jeans, drew a T-shirt over his head.

“Yes,” he said, and ran his hands through his hair. “Perhaps we should discuss this.”

“This?”

“You know. Our childhoods.”

Carin folded her arms. “If you like.”

Deus, what was he doing? He sounded like a robot, but he felt like a man who’d stepped onto a frozen pond only to discover the ice was far thinner than he’d thought. Be quiet, he told himself fiercely…but he couldn’t seem to shut up.

“It might help you understand why it is so important to me that Amalia—that Amy—grow up with a father.” He slid open the glass door that led to the terrace and stepped outside. Carin hesitated, then followed him. “I think of her that way, sometimes. As Amalia.”

“My. You really do believe in running things.” Carin smiled tightly. “You mentioned that before, but I didn’t give my daughter a Brazilian name.”

“It isn’t Brazilian.” He looked at her, then out across the ranch. “It’s Italian. And you did give it to her.”

“I named my baby ‘Amy.’”

“Our baby. And it was a fortuitous choice, because my mother’s name was Amalia.”