haven’t done this very often.”
“I don’t need an accounting.” In fact, he’d rather not know. The thought of his Maria with other men made him a little crazy.
“That’s not what I mean.” She started in on his shirt buttons. “I want to please you. But my experience is—”
He put a hand over her mouth for the second time that night. “Your experience is irrelevant. That’s what it is...irrelevant. Neither of us has ever been here before. Everything we say and do in this room is brand-new.” He tucked her hair aside and kissed the soft skin beneath her ear. “Brand-new, Maria.”
It took a great deal of fortitude to allow her to unclothe him. But she was so sweetly intent on her task he clenched his fists at his hips and let her take the lead. When her fingers touched his belt buckle, he inhaled sharply, the sound a quick hiss of startled shock.
Since when had a woman ever been able to arouse him with such innocent motions? Stretched on a rack of unfilled desire, he braced himself as she slid his shirt from his shoulders and then tugged his trousers to his knees. When she paused, he kicked off his socks and shoes and pants in one ungainly dance.
His navy boxers did little to hide how much he wanted her.
And still his would-be lover was mute. “I think we could adjourn to the bed,” he said, smiling with a grimace that was supposed to be reassuring.
Maria nodded, allowing him to take her hand and draw her toward the king-size mattress that could sleep half a dozen men. The coverlet was navy damask, the contrasting pillows and trim taupe. Against the heavy, ornate fabric, Maria’s skin would glow.
At the last instant, he picked her up in his arms and used one hand to fling back the covers. Maria looked up at him, her eyelashes at half-mast, her throat and chest flushed with color. “I’m on the pill,” she said.
All members of the delegation had undergone fairly stringent physicals before leaving for the States. Though he had condoms with him, he found himself fiercely glad that they would be unnecessary.
“Are you sure?” he asked hoarsely. “I don’t want you to think I’m coercing you.”
For the first time since she entered his suite, her face lightened, and she laughed out loud. “I’m pretty sure you’re not. It’s a little insulting that I had to work so hard to get your attention.”
He deposited her on the soft sheets and followed her down. “Are you kidding? I noticed you the first day you came to work for our company in London. But you were way too young and I was way too busy.”
“And later?” Her arms remained at her sides, as if she were afraid to move.
He traced a fingertip from the center of her forehead, down her nose, between her breasts, all the way to her navel, where he stopped to let both of them catch their breath. “In Alma I watched you bloom from a pretty young girl to a mature, fascinating woman. But we were both consumed with the work at hand—steering Alma’s fate.”
“Did you have this in mind when you suggested me to be on the delegation?”
Her quiet question caught him off guard. He was the one to flush this time. Had he envisioned this moment? Really? It troubled him that he couldn’t give her an unequivocal answer.
She stroked his collarbone with both hands, moving down his chest as he leaned over her on one elbow. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Because even if you didn’t, I did. I’ve had the worst crush on you. Then somehow, when we got to Florida, everything got worse.”
“Worse? Or better?” He lightly rubbed her nipples one after the other, breathing harder when she arched off the bed and called his name.
This time...this precious first time. He knew he wanted it to be special for her, but lust rode him like a wild animal, consuming everything in its path. Honor...tenderness...gentle care.
Maria trembled against him, as nervous as a wide-eyed cat. “Relax,” he muttered. “I won’t do anything you don’t like.” But when he buried his face between her thighs and feasted on the taste of her, nothing short of cataclysm could have made him stop before he pushed her off the edge of a choked climax.
“More,” he groaned. “We’ll do more later. But I can’t wait.”
He felt the last flutters of her climax against his shaft as he pushed his way inside her. The tight fit...the heat...all of it overwhelmed him. Because in the midst of intense physical euphoria he felt something else. A notion that terrified him and made him weak.
He might be in love with her.
* * *
Maria still reeled in the aftermath of what had been an unprecedented orgasm. She’d been sure such things were the stuff of movies and books. Who could believe that the earth actually rocked on its axis when the right man staked a claim?
Alex filled her completely, in a way she barely understood. He was a man with all the usual equipment, but even in her limited experience, she recognized that this was something far beyond a casual hookup. Maybe not for him, but certainly for her.
And because she had courted this moment, watched for it, waited for it to happen, she would be the one with the most to lose. Alex Ramon was not available for everlasting love. He was smart and wonderful and passionate, but he was not hers.
That dreadful reality refused to take root in light of the fact that he was thrusting inside her wildly, rolling to his back and encouraging her own acrobatics. “Take what you want, Maria. Take it all.”
His breathless grin encompassed a masculine satisfaction that should have made her want to smack him for his impudence...if she hadn’t been trembling on the brink of yet another exquisite climax. “Who’s taking whom?” she asked primly, stingingly aware that he felt larger and more determined from this angle.
“Doesn’t matter.” He groaned when she dared to reach behind and touch the base of his erection.
Where his fingers gripped her buttocks, she would likely have bruises tomorrow. She looked down at him, seeing the power in his broad shoulders, the pleasing symmetry of his pectoral muscles, the sleek delineation of his rib cage.
“You are a beautiful man,” she breathed, squeezing inwardly as he dragged her down onto his hard flesh again and again. “I never knew what you were hiding beneath all those hand-tailored suits.”
His head pressed into the pillow as he gasped. “Well, we’re even then, because I may never let you get dressed again.”
With one last twist of his hips, he took them both into the deep end. As the wave crashed over her, violent and deeply satisfying, she slumped onto his chest and counted the beats of his heart.
* * *
Alex couldn’t feel his legs. Paralysis was, as a rule, a frightening state. But at this particular juncture in his life, he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Maria slept like the dead, her limp body draped over him as the softest, sweetest of blankets. Her hair was in his mouth and his nose, and one of her knees threatened his male anatomy. But all he could do was smile and thank his guardian angel for arranging this tryst.
Did
