full circle, knowing that she didn’t deserve this. How could she, when her marriage was a charade? But to waste their preparations for her would be throwing their generosity back in their faces.
Releasing the hem of her dress, she let it fall to the floor and stepped out of it. Climbing into the bath, she sank into the warm, sudsy water and lay back, closing her eyes. She could hear a shower running somewhere close by. When it stopped she pictured Tiago stepping out, grabbing a towel and winding it around his body. She waited a few more seconds and then sat up.
Just in time. The door opened and he was there. Just as she had imagined, his powerful torso was naked, while his body was gleaming and barely dry.
‘You’re lucky,’ he said, smiling as he glanced around her fairy dell. ‘The women have really gone to town for you.’
Her heart beat faster as he strolled deeper into the room. He picked up a towel, unfolded it and held it out. She climbed out of the bath, naked and transfixed by his eyes. She had no doubts left. This had nothing to do with the contract. This was what she wanted.
Tiago wrapped her in a towel and lifted her into his arms. He carried her into his bedroom and laid her down on the bed. Unlooping the towel from his waist, he let it drop. The room was silent apart from her breathing. The bed yielded to his weight with a sigh.
His muscles were formidable close up. She had never seen him naked before. His skin was deeply tanned to a rich bronze, and scarred from a lifetime of taking riding to the limits—maybe scarred from his youth too, she remembered, knowing he’d been wild.
She traced his tattoos, those brutal reminders of the Thunderbolts polo team, with an exclamation mark for emphasis—intended, no doubt, to strike fear into the team’s opponents. His stubble was thick, his hair was thick too, and his gold earring glinted in the light. He was like no man she’d ever seen before. He was the perfect barbarian. And he was her barbarian.
‘Slowly, chica,’ he advised as she pressed against him. ‘I’m big and you’re small.’
‘No...’ She smiled cheekily up at him.
But, yes, he was big—and she was small by comparison and she loved that. She loved the weight of his erection pressing against her thigh, and exclaimed softly when his hand found her.
‘Are you surprised?’ she murmured, when he raised a brow at how ready she was.
‘Not surprised,’ he growled as he moved over her, to start teasing her with his velvet-smooth tip.
‘You can’t do that,’ she complained. ‘You can’t tease me like that.’
‘Really?’ He smiled faintly. ‘I think you’ll find I can.’
A cry escaped her when he probed deeper, but he took his time and waited until he’d built her confidence. Then he moved a little more, a little deeper, stretching her beyond imagining, but his knowing fingers made her forget the shock of it.
‘Do you want me?’
‘You know I do,’ she forced out shakily
‘Deep?’
‘Yes,’ she confirmed.
‘Firmly?’ Tiago suggested, smiling, his lips brushing hers.
‘Please...’
‘Now?’
She cried out with pleasure as this big man, who looked so brutal but was so careful with her, took her smoothly until he was lodged deep. Then he rested, giving her a chance to recover from the invasion and catch her breath. She hung on to him, her hands clutching as she gasped with excitement. And then he cupped her buttocks, and that felt so good. It turned her on to think of those big, strong hands controlling her. He lifted her onto him and began to move with regular, dependable strokes, until she was whimpering in time with every one.
She reached her climax fast—too fast—and lost control with a throaty scream of shock. And then she was all melting, soaring, gliding on thunderclaps of sensation.
‘More?’ Tiago suggested when she was finally reduced to astonished sobs.
‘Please...’ She only needed that one word in her vocabulary, Danny concluded as she stared into Tiago’s eyes.
She pressed her mouth against his shoulder as he began to move again, faster now. She clung on tightly as the primal imperative to move with him, to work with him, claimed her.
‘Let me pleasure you,’ he encouraged huskily, opening her legs wider still.
‘Yes...’ she agreed. This was everything she had ever wanted, and it thrilled her all the more to know that Tiago needed her too.
She exclaimed with disappointment when he withdrew, and then laughed when she realised that he was teasing her. When he sank deep again she moaned and pressed her mouth against his neck.
‘More?’
‘As much as you can give me?’ she suggested. Her whole world was sensation now, and he had centred it in that one place.
He thrust deep and pulled out, then thrust deep again. Her heart cried out to him to give her everything, to find his release. Grabbing hold of his buttocks, so firm and muscular, she moved with him. She was demanding now, claiming her mate and moving as strongly as he was with every stroke. They were both ravenous for this, and she could be as fierce as Tiago.
It was only a matter of moments before she felt the pressure building again and, seeing the mist of pleasure reflected in Tiago’s eyes, she knew he was close too.
‘I’ll tell you when,’ he cautioned.
‘Now,’ she said fiercely.
He could do nothing to stop her—to stop himself—as she tightened her muscles around him. They were both lost, both swept up in a fire storm of sensation, and when she found release he did too.
* * *
If only she hadn’t read the screen on Tiago’s computer. She had come downstairs for two glasses of water while Tiago was in the shower, and she hadn’t been able to wait to get back to bed. But now she was squatting on the kitchen floor with her arms over her head, pressing—pressing hard—as she tried to make the words on the screen go away.
If she hadn’t come down to the kitchen she wouldn’t have nudged his computer and the screen wouldn’t have flashed on. It was too late now. She’d seen it. And, short minutes after crying with happiness, she had tears of desperation pouring down her face.
She never learned. She always trusted. She always hoped for the best. And now she was a ridiculous bride in a skimpy outfit that one of the young girls had left out for her to wear on her wedding night. The decorated bathroom, with its candles and scent bottles and flowers, had been wasted on her. The women on the ranch had wanted her to feel like a treasured bride, when in fact she was a complete idiot.
Burying her head again, she hugged it harder. But the words on the screen still flashed in front of her eyes.
‘You will never hear anything good about yourself if you eavesdrop, Danny,’ her grandmother
