Passionate Protection

'I think you know,' Jessica managed bravely. 'There's Lisa, and people are not blind…'

'Ah, someone has told you about Manuela,' he said comprehensively, his mouth twisting in a cynically bitter smile. 'And of course you are quite right. There is endless gossip about Lisa, and her parenthood, and because of that I have to be extremely circumspect—for her sake as much as my own.'

'I can't see why you don't tell her the truth,' Jessica told him huskily. 'It's cruel not to do. She's bound to find out.'

'You are very concerned on her behalf.' Again the mockingly cynical smile.

'Because I happen to like her; and because also I know what it's like to lose both parents, and nothing, but nothing compensates for that loss. Any parent is better than none at all,' she told him fiercely, 'and you're depriving her of the right to that relationship.'

'Enough!' With a ferocity that jerked the breath from her lungs she was dragged towards him. 'I will not listen to any more. You will be silent!'

'How will you make me?' Jessica demanded breathlessly. 'By flinging me in your dungeons?'

'Oh no.' The soft way he spoke, and the insolently appraising look that accompanied the words, sent nervous tremors of warning chasing down her spine. 'Like this!'

He moved so suddenly that she couldn't evade him, hard fingers tangling in her hair and tugging painfully until she thought her spine would crack under the pressure. His eyes searched her vulnerable, exposed features in silence, while hers spat the defiance she now dared not voice.

'It is too late for obedience now,' he told her silkily. 'You must take your punishment.'

His mouth on hers was brutally chastising, his fingers hurting as they bit into her waist, a savage anger that she had not seen before burning in the pressure of his mouth against hers.

She felt frozen and completely unable to feel, her eyes glazing as she tried not to mind that he was humiliating her like this, turning what should be a sensually exciting experience into a deeply humiliating one.

As though he sensed that somehow she had escaped his vengeance, the pressure of his mouth suddenly softened and then shockingly his lips left hers, his tongue slowly tracing their quivering outline, until she ached and yearned for the feel of his mouth. The anger had gone from his eyes, to be replaced by a slumbrous heat.

Her body seemed to melt against him entirely without her consent, her eyes closing as he feathered light kisses over the trembling lids.

'Por Dios,' he muttered hoarsely against her ear, 'there is a chemistry between us that refuses to be denied!'

Jessica knew she should make some protest, tell him to release her, but his fingers were stroking soothingly along her scalp, his mouth investigating the exposed vulnerability of her throat, releasing a fluttering fever of sensations that made her long only to cling to the breadth of his shoulders, and offer herself up to whatever he wanted from her.

Not even the heat of his fingers scorching the curves of her breasts had the power to alarm her. Instead she felt an elemental response to the caress, coupled with a primitive need to feel his touch against her skin without the constricting barrier of clothes. As though somehow her thoughts communicated themselves to him, Jessica heard him groan and saw with surprise the dark flush mantling his skin and the heated glitter of his gaze.

She made no attempt to stop him when he unbuttoned her blouse and slid it from her shoulders. Her lacy bra emphasised rather than concealed the curves of her breasts and her pulses seemed to quicken in elemental excitement as Sebastian's dark gaze lingered on the pale almost translucent skin.

'How much more attractive is this than the over-exposed bronzed bodies that litter

our beaches! This,' he added emotively, stroking a finger over the pale flesh, 'is an enticement to man to touch and taste. The very paleness of your skin hints at a chastity that arouses the hunter in man, no matter how false that impression might be.'

Jessica gasped as he released the catch of her bra, exposing her breasts fully to his gaze. She knew she should feel shame; yet what she did feel was a tremulous, aching excitement; a need to have him touch her. As though he guessed her thoughts his hands cupped her breasts, her nipples hardening devastatingly at his touch. The stroke of his thumbs over the sensitised and

III

aroused flesh incited a need to writhe and press herself close to his body, the husky moan torn from her throat shocking her with it sensuality.

'Dios, I despise myself for it, but right now I want nothing as much as I want to take you to bed, to feel your silkiness against my skin, like a soothing balm to overheated flesh. I want to lose myself in your softness… I… What is it about you that makes me forget what you are?' Sebastian muttered huskily, lifting her in his arms, his eyes moving from her face to the rosy peaks of her breasts and then back again.

She shouldn't be letting him do this, Jessica thought distractedly, but every nerve centre in her body was screaming for the satisfaction she knew only he could give. She felt the bed give under their combined weight, and all her muscles tightened in stunned protest as his mouth moved hungrily over the curve of one breast, the rough stroke of his tongue against the aching nipple causing her stomach muscles to lock in mute protest at the waves of pleasure crashing down on her, teaching her more about sensuality and her own body's response to it in two minutes than she had learned in twenty-odd years.

'Dios, I want you!'

He was only echoing her own thoughts, her own need. She had never felt this overpowering desire to know a man's possession before, and it shocked her that she should now. But then she had never loved a man as she loved Sebastian.

Loved! With sickening certainty she knew that it was too late to banish the treacherous and insidious truth. She did love him.

'Jessica?'

He was watching her, studying the flushed contours of her face, the arousal she felt sure must be there. She longed to touch him as intimately as he was touching her, and she reached out tentatively towards him, her fingers trembling as they encountered the rigidity of his collarbone.