The Spaniard's Woman
Her hair shimmered, a soft pale gold, and the chain glittered against her throat. And the dress was out-of-this-world, the gold tissue halter straps fastening neatly at her nape softly widening, clinging to the curve of her breasts to meet the narrow waistline and fall sleekly to the knee-length hemline of the skirt.
Her back was bare to just above her waist, so she hadn’t been able to wear one of the lacy bras she’d found in one of the carriers. Just a filmy pair of briefs, a wicked suspender belt and a pair of sheer silk stockings.
She felt like a kept woman. A pampered, indulged mistress. She caught the reflected and definitely sinful curve of her full pink lips, quelled any lingering misgivings and decided that, for tonight at least, she wasn’t going to knock it. She would go with this wildly excited, scary feeling; she would pretend she really was special, the Spaniard’s woman.
Tomorrow would be soon enough to plonk her feet firmly back on the ground, to nip out and buy that pregnancy test thing, and if it was negative put plan B into action—visiting Troone Manor when she knew her father was back there.
And if it was positive? Well, just for tonight she wasn’t going to think about that.
‘Senor Garcia is in the living area, madam.’
‘Oh. Right. Thanks.’ Flicking the white-coated waiter an apologetic smile, Rosie backed out of the kitchen. She wasn’t wanted there. The space-age film set had been taken over by the caterers. A smart young waiter had been pulling on his white gloves and an efficient-looking woman was doing something with a stainless steel dish and the state-of-the-art oven.
Swaying on the three-inch heels of her gold kid shoes, she headed for the living room, the softly shimmering fabric of her skirt brushing sensuously against her silk-clad legs. It made her feel turned on. As if to prove that unfortunate state of affairs her breasts tingled, hardened and peaked against the gossamer-fine barrier of her halter top, and she shivered even as a light beading of perspiration adorned her short upper lip.
Heaven help her! This dress was wicked! She should have pushed it back into its folds of tissue paper, stuffed it back in its box and clambered into her old jeans and jumper. He had commanded and she’d jumped, more fool her. Because just look where besotted obedience had got her-all dolled up like a dog’s dinner, fantasising about being the Spaniard’s woman!
As if!
In increasing turmoil, Rosie pushed open the door, and the sight of an immaculately dinner-suited Sebastian staring out of one of the tall windows at the million city lights spread out beneath him didn’t settle her nerves one tiny little bit.
He had his back to her. The commanding width of his shoulders, the way his body tapered to narrow hips and the length of his elegantly trousered legs made her mouth run dry.
He was such a beautiful specimen of dominant masculinity he made her head spin and her poor heart beat like a steam hammer.
And then he turned, even though she’d been really quiet, hovering in the doorway like a paralysed mouse, and she glimpsed the hard, set features of his angular face for a split second before his hooded silver eyes made a comprehensive sweep of her now drastically overheated body. And then he smiled. A slow, sultry curving of that sensual mouth. It blew her mind.
‘You are gorgeous, cara mia.’ He held out his hand. ‘Come to me.’
His low sexy drawl should have unsettled her even further but it did no such thing. It washed through her veins like wildfire and made her heart sing. Plunged back into fantasy land, she obeyed his command and walked towards him, but slowly, submitting to his will but sensing a glorious power of her own for the very first time in her life.
A power in the way he watched her every movement, the lowering of his eyelids so that the slits of silver were intensified to a fevered brilliance beneath the thick dark sweep of his lashes. A power in the way the faint dull flush of male desire across his angular slashing cheekbones betrayed him.
The whisper of the costly fabric against her silk-covered legs, the way he was looking at her—as if he were drawn into her magical fantasy—made her shatteringly aware of her femininity. And when
his outstretched hand reached for hers she stopped breathing. The electrically charged touch of warm skin and hard bone told her she was playing with fire.
And it was addictive.
‘Never let anyone tell you, you are anything other than perfect.’
Sebastian raised her hand to his lips and watched the wild rose colour heighten the brilliance of her eyes, saw the erratic pulse beat at the base of her slender white throat just above the slender gold chain, and stopped, fighting.
He would give her sapphires to match the beauty of those endlessly fascinating, dark-fringed eyes, fasten them around her neck, her wrists, fine diamonds worthy of gracing her fingers. Rosie, who had never asked or expected anything of him, would be lavished with everything great wealth could buy.
She would be his woman.
His taut body surged. The wooing had only just begun. He had been a blind fool to fight against what she could do to him, to deprive himself of the ecstasy that was in her power alone to give him.
If she wanted him.
His heart crashed against his ribs. She’d been a virgin. She wasn’t promiscuous. That had to mean their night of wild passion had meant something to her, that it hadn’t just been a lusty itch that had needed to be scratched. Had to!
A pulse beat at his temples. He had to know. He lifted her cool hand and brought it to the side of his face and had his answer.
She moved closer. He could feel the fine tremors that raced through her slender frame. Her lush mouth was parted, soft and full, slick and moist. Her trapped hand gently unfurled, her long fingers lying against the hard plane of his face, the other lifting, shyly following the shape of his mouth.
Sebastian hauled in an aching breath when she raised desire-drowned eyes to his. She was his! He had her! Life had never tasted as sweet!