CHAPTER FIVE
"I'll have to deal with you?"
Louise's heart jerked, seemed to stop, then lurched into a rough, unsteady beat. Nervously she swallowed hard.
What had Thornton told him? Just how much had the other man let slip? Oh, why hadn't she defied Alex's command and stayed in the room?
"What do I have to do?"
Once more Alex's smile was the opposite of warm.
"'Anything,'" he drawled. "'Just ask. If I can manage it, I'll do it.'"
It took Louise a couple of shaken, bewildered moments to grasp just what he meant. And when she realized that he was quoting her own words back at her, reminding her of her promise to do anything she could to thank him if he got Thornton off her back, her head spun in something close to real panic.
"You've — you've decided what you want."
"I have."
"And what is it?"
It was too late now to regret her rash promise. Too late to acknowledge that she had blundered in without thinking, and so landed herself between the devil and the deep blue sea. She had promised, and Alex had delivered the goods, so now she had to do the same.
"I want you to come back to Spain with me."
"Spain?"
He couldn't mean it!
And even as she told herself that, she felt the sudden desperate rush of a longing for him to really want her to go to Spain with him. To be with him. As it had once been.
But of course that was not what he wanted.
"But I can't! I mean — I can't just walk out on things here. I have a job."
"A job? As what?"
"I'm a nurse. In — in the premature baby unit in the local hospital."
And that was coming way too close to memories that were painful even after all this time.
"A nurse? You?"
Suddenly, unexpectedly, the disbelief in his expression changed to something new and very different. There was a speculative light in his eyes as his cool gray gaze swept over her, a hint of a sexy grin curling the corners of his sensual mouth.
"I can just imagine you in the uniform…"
Louise's sigh was a blend of exasperation, relief and a hint of teasing amusement. At least this was safer ground.
"Don't tell me you're one of those guys who are turned on by the thought of a nurse's uniform. We don't wear the starched hats or the…"
Her voice faded, her throat drying, tension clutching at her heart.
The atmosphere in the room had changed, moving from calm, even relaxed, to nerve-tightening apprehension in the space of a heartbeat. But it wasn't a fearful apprehension, more an anticipation. A need. A longing.
"I wouldn't need a uniform to turn me on," Alex said, and the same sensations that were tugging at her nerves were there in his voice, in the darkening of his eyes that held hers transfixed. "You can do that all on your own. You always could. All I need is you."
"Alex…"
"Luisa, come to me…"
And when he held out his hand it was as if he were a magician who had cast a spell over her. She couldn't resist, had no will to resist.
She didn't want to resist.
She wanted to be in his arms. It was the only place she had ever wanted to be. And as their warmth and strength closed around her it felt like coming home.
And then it didn't. Because Alex bent his head and took her mouth in a kiss that seared her soul. And then it felt as if she was venturing out into new and dangerous territory. But she knew she could never turn back. Because this was what she wanted. What she had missed so much in all those long lonely years.
"Luisa…querida…amada," Alex muttered roughly against her mouth, and the words made her tremble in need.
She didn't care if he meant them or not. She only knew that they were part of the whirlwind of sensation that assailed her, and she needed them as she needed his kiss, the heat of his hands on her, smoothing, stroking, awakening the hunger that had always lain just below the surface whenever she was with him. She desperately wanted to feel the heat of his skin, and her fingers were clumsy with need as she tugged at the hem of the sweatshirt at his narrow waist.
With a rough laugh low in his throat, Alex helped her, shrugging off the soft material and coming back to her with the heat and hardness of his torso crushed against her upper body. And somehow he seemed to know that she so longed for him to follow suit and rid her of her own clothing, but he didn't put her out of her misery at once.
Instead he let those knowing, tormenting hands move everywhere. They slid under her sweater at the neckline, sending shudders of response right through her as his long fingers stroked the upper curves of her breasts, the sides. Then his hands moved away again to tangle tightly in her hair, pulling her face closer as he deepened and prolonged his kiss.
"Alex…" It was moaning protest, a sound of impatience, and hearing it he soothed her gently.
"No rush, querida; we have all day.…"
But even as he spoke the words, Alex knew that he was deceiving himself.
No rush! Who was he kidding?
He might have wanted to take this slowly, but he knew it was impossible. From the moment that he had felt the softness of her body in his arms, the taste of her mouth on his and the scent of her skin in his nostrils, the hot and heavy pulse of desire through his body had taken over, pushing him to the edge of his control.
He skimmed the pink sweater from her in one swift movement and captured the warm weight of her breasts in his hands, cupping them through the flimsy lace that was their only covering. His thumbs stroked the delicate crests, rousing them to urgent hunger.
Louise moaned again, writhing against him, feeling the heat and hardness of his need for her against her hips. Her breath caught in her throat, her whole body stilling as his mouth touched her shoulders, moved down, down, to close over one tight nipple, warm and demanding, his tongue tracing wildly erotic circles over her aching flesh.
"Amada…" his voice was raw and husky. "Tell me, your bedroom is…?"
"Too far away. It would take too long. I want you here and now."
Her tone was as rough as his. And as she spoke she was drawing him toward the open fire, drawing him down onto an old-fashioned rag rug before the hearth. On her knees before him, she tugged the fastening of his jeans free, slid the tight denim down the length of his legs and then made a raw, choking sound in her throat at the sight of his lean, muscled maleness in the firelight.
"Alex…" she muttered, and reaching out she closed her fingers around his hardness.
The soft touch shattered what little was left of his control. Pushing her back onto the rug, he came down on top of her, urgent hands lifting her skirt, tugging down the white lacy panties beneath it.
The flickering, changing light of the fire played out an endless succession of patterns on the pale limbs splayed beneath him, gilding his chest and arms, shadowing his face as he slid between her thighs, entering her on one long, slow, sensual thrust.
"I have waited so long for this," he muttered against her yearning mouth. "Too long. Far, far too long."
"Too long…" she echoed on a broken sigh. But then as he moved inside her the sigh changed to a cry of delight, rising to a note of loss of control, and finally of total fulfilment as she lost herself completely in his arms.
And as she arched in total abandonment against him, Alex too gasped out her name as felt himself shatter in the hot, silken warmth of her body.
It was the start of a long, lingering, erotic afternoon. What they had begun by the heat of the blazing fire, they later continued, more slowly, in the deep, welcoming warmth of her bed. And as a result it was a long, long time before any sort of rational thought made its way back into Alex's mind.
But when, in the early hours of the morning, a degree of memory returned, it was the last words that Thornton had flung at him on the way out the door that slid coldly into his mind.
And made him wonder if he had made the worst mistake of his life.
11-05-07, 09:57 AM
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