was too drunk on his kiss to answer. His tongue went in search of hers again, mating with it in an erotic tango that left her gasping with need. His kiss was hungry, demanding, leaving her in no doubt of where it was leading. It was a pre-sex kiss, blatant in its intent, shockingly intimate as his hands moved from cradling her head, sliding down her bare arms to encircle her wrists. The latent strength of him sent a shiver of reaction through her. He was so strong; she was so weak, but not just in physical strength. Her willpower seemed to have totally evaporated. She was molten wax in his arms, fitting to his hard form as if she had known no other place.
He released her hands and moved his up under her top, sliding his warm palms over her belly and her ribcage. Her heart gave a lurching movement as his fingers splayed over her possessively. Emelia thought she would die if he didn’t touch her breasts and she moved against him, silently pleading for him to pleasure her.
His hand cupped her and she let out a tiny whimper of pleasure, for even through the fine lace of her bra she could feel the tantalising heat of his touch. ‘You want more, querida?’ he asked softly, seductively.
Emelia gasped as he pushed aside the cobweb of lace, his fingers skating over her burgeoning flesh. His thumb lingered over her engorged nipple, moving back and forth, hot little rubs that lifted every hair on her scalp.
‘You want this, sí?’ he said and bent his mouth to her breast and suckled softly at first and then harder.
Emelia’s fingers clutched at his hair, trying to anchor herself as delicious sensations washed through her. ‘Oh…Oh, God…’ she whimpered.
‘You like this too,’ he said and swept his tongue down the outer curve of her breast, licking like a jungle cat, the sexy rasp of his tongue melting every vertebrae of her spine into trembling submission.
‘And this,’ he added, pressing her back against the desk, his thighs parting hers with shockingly primal intention.
Emelia’s passion-glazed eyes flew open and her hands thrust against his chest. ‘N-no…’ she said but it came out so hoarsely she had to repeat it. ‘No…no, I can’t.’
One of his dark brows hooked upwards, his body still poised against hers. ‘No?’
She shook her head, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as her eyes momentarily fell away from his.
He let out a theatrical sigh and straightened, pulling her upright against him, his hands settling on her waist, his powerful body, hot, aroused and hard, just a breath’s distance away. ‘That wasn’t what you used to say,’ he said with a taunting gleam in his dark eyes. ‘This was one of your favourite places for a quick—’
Emelia pushed two of her fingertips against his mouth, blocking off the coarse word she was almost certain he intended to use. ‘Please…don’t…’ she said hollowly.
He peeled her fingers away from his mouth, kissing the tips one by one, his bottomless eyes holding hers. ‘Don’t you want to be reminded of how sensually adventurous you were, Emelia?’ he asked.
Her throat rose and fell over a tight swallow. ‘No…no, I don’t.’
He pressed a soft kiss to the middle of her palm and then dipped his tongue right into the middle of it, hotly, moistly, his eyes still locked with hers. ‘I taught you everything you know,’ he went on. ‘You were so eager to learn. A straight A student, in fact.’
She closed her eyes tight. ‘Stop it. Stop doing this.’
‘Open your eyes, Emelia,’ he commanded.
She scrunched them even tighter. ‘No.’
His hands went to her waist, holding her against his rock-hard arousal. ‘This is what you do to me, querida,’ he said in a sexy growl.
Emelia wrenched out of his hold with a strength she had no conscious knowledge of possessing. Her chest heaved with the effort as she stood, trembling and shaken, a few feet away. She folded her arms across her chest, fighting for breath, fighting for control, fighting for some self-respect, which seemed to have gone AWOL some minutes ago.
Javier gave her an indolent smile. ‘What are you frightened of, mi amor?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know you,’ Emelia said.
‘But you want me, all the same.’
‘I’m not myself right now.’ She tightened her arms beneath her breasts. ‘I don’t know what I want.’
‘Your body remembers me, Emelia. It wants me. You can’t deny it.’
Emelia moved even further away because she had a sneaking suspicion what he said was true. Every sense was alive to him, to his presence and to his touch. She could still taste him in her mouth, the musky male heat of him lingering there like a fine wine on her palate. Was he an addiction she had developed over the last two years? How could any woman resist such incredible potency? He oozed sensual heat through the pores of his skin. She felt the waves of attraction tighten the air she breathed in. Every part of her body he had touched was still tingling with the need for more. His incendiary suggestion was still ringing in her ears, making her mind race with erotic scenarios: of her spread before him like a feast; her legs open to his powerful thrusting body, her senses in a vortex of sensation, her back arching in pleasure, her mouth falling open in sharp, high cries of ecstasy.
He came to where she was standing, her back pressed against the bookshelves, his eyes smouldering so darkly they seemed to strip her bare. ‘Maybe it was a mistake for me to move out of our room,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I should insist on you sleeping with me, even though you can’t remember me.’
Emelia’s back felt as if it was being bitten into by the shelves. ‘You c-can’t mean that,’ she said croakily.
He tipped up her chin, holding her frightened gaze with the powerful beam of his. ‘Making love with me might trigger something in your brain. It might be the part of the missing puzzle, sí?’
His disturbing presence was triggering all sorts of things in her body, let alone her brain, Emelia thought in rising panic. She placed her hands on his chest with the intention of pushing him away again, but the feel of his hard muscles under her palms sent off a little flashbulb in her head. It was a tiny spark of memory, a pinpoint of light in the darkness. She splayed her fingers experimentally and, as if of their own accord, her fingertips began moving over his hard flat nipples, over his perfectly sculptured pectoral muscles and up to his neck, where she could see a pulse beating like a hammer beneath his skin. She moved her fingertips to the raspy skin of his lean jaw, the prickle of his stubble sending tantalising little tingles right up her arms.
‘What is it?’ he asked, holding her hand against his face with the broad span of his. ‘Have you remembered something?’
She frowned as she fought to retrieve the fleeting image. It was like the shadow of a ghost, barely visible, but she could sense its presence. ‘I don’t know…’ She bit down on her lip, pulling her hand out from under his. ‘I thought for a minute…but I just don’t know…’
He picked up her hand again and held it against his mouth, his lips feathering against her curled up fingers as he spoke. ‘Touch me again, cariño,’ he commanded softly. ‘Touch is an important part of memory. Taste and smell, too.’
Emelia
