Stand-In Bride's Seduction

He felt her hand on his chest, her fingers clenched in the fabric of his shirt, her other hand now curled behind his neck, holding him to her, anchoring him.

Dios, he wanted more than this. He wanted to taste all of her. To discover if her hidden places were as deliciously sweet as those he’d tasted now.

Tremors shook his body as he left a hot path of kisses down her throat and the hollow at the base of her neck. Again, he flicked his tongue against her skin. As before, the intoxicating elixir of the flavor of her sent hunger clawing through him.

Both her hands were now knotted in the short strands of his hair and the pleasure/pain of it added a new dimension to their embrace. He lifted his head and captured her mouth once more. Starving now for the taste of her, for the softness of her lips, the heat and wetness of her tongue as it met his and tangled in a duel that knew no losers.

This was passion. This was absolute. His body knew it even as his mind struggled to equate the reality of the ardent, hotblooded woman pressed against him—her hunger equal to his own—with the skittish creature who’d kept him at arm’s length for weeks.

He couldn’t stop kissing her, consuming her. He just couldn’t get enough of the taste and texture and feel of her. The hand he’d kept at the small of her back coasted lower, over the curve of her buttocks. She felt different from the Sara he knew. The same general size, yet there was a hardness missing from her body. The tensile strength of an event rider gone, and in its place an enticing edge of softness. Not that there was anything out of condition about her body. To the contrary. She felt lithe and strong, yet yielding in all the right places.

No. This was definitely not Sara Woodville. It couldn’t be. But then who was she?

Slowly, he loosened his embrace and tempered the heat in his caresses until he could gently push her away. Her eyelids slowly fluttered open, her gray eyes reminding him of a stormy, turbulent sky right before a storm. Her lips were slightly swollen, still moist and parted. Still inviting him to sup at their softness.

Reynard fought with his instincts, overcoming them with the cold reality that she was not who he’d thought, and driven by the need to find out exactly who she really was. His family had been the target of scammers before—people who thought, for whatever reason, that they deserved a slice of the wealth that made up the del Castillo fortune. He’d developed an instinct for them. One that had saved him and his family much heartache. The fact she had slipped under his radar was disconcerting, but he knew he daren’t show his hand too early.

“I have to go, but I’ll see you tomorrow, yes?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice slightly hoarse, as if words were more than she could handle right now.

Somehow he found the strength to tear his gaze from her face and to drop his hands back to his sides and walk to the front door. As he drove away, he tried to make sense of what had just happened. It was difficult with his heart still racing, his blood still hot in his veins and an erection that demanded to be assuaged.

She looked like Sara, sounded like Sara—even moved the same way—but she was definitely not Sara. He’d wager his life on it.

He racked his memory, trying to think of what he knew of Sara Woodville beyond her talent as an equestrian, beyond her flaming beauty that drew looks and turned heads wherever she went. She’d mentioned family in New Zealand, he was sure of it. A sister, perhaps? Yes, a sister. They’d both competed in equestrian events as teenagers but Sara had stayed with the sport, going so far as to qualify to represent her country—as she had done while here on Isla Sagrado, when he’d met her. But the sister? He shook his head as he tried to force the memory from his brain.

By the time he’d pulled into the underground car park at his apartment building and ridden the lift to the penthouse—overlooking Puerto Seguro’s harbor lights—his blood had finally begun to cool, but he was no closer to an answer. Still, how difficult could it be in this wonderful Internet age, he wondered, to find out just how close a sister Sara Woodville had?

It was only a matter of minutes before he had the information he needed. He stared at the search results on his computer screen and sipped slowly at the delicious red del Castillo Tempranillo wine he’d poured for himself while his computer booted up.