His breath huffed out as though he’d been punched.
“But I also want to feel you here.” She ran her hand to her own sex, where she was soaked and aching.
“Then you shall have me,” he said through his teeth and rolled on the condom.
As he loomed over her, she guided him into place. He filled her in one firm, perfect thrust that made her arch in glorious abandon.
When he kissed her, she tasted herself and it only made the experience more erotic. Profound. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and urged him to unleash his full power, propelling them both into the volcano.
Coated in sweat and still suffering aftershocks from his powerful orgasm, Joaquin dragged himself free of her. He discarded the condom, then dropped onto his back beside her. His chest continued to heave, striving to catch his breath.
What had started as a pleasant diversion had turned into something that bordered on cataclysmic. Sex was supposed to be just sex. It was a shared experience in which he gave more than he took. He was never as generous with his business partners as his intimate ones, but in bed it was a case of wanting the same thing: pleasure. Giving was as good as getting for him. They were two sides of the same coin. The encounter was delightful while it lasted and afterward, his appetite was sated. His desire to possess was gone.
So why did he have this prickling sense of loss?
It wasn’t the grief of losing his brother. Not the reduction of assets due to stock market fluctuations or other business cycles. This was the sense of something beingtaken. Held out of reach.
Which didn’t make sense because she was right here.
And he had no intention of keeping her.
This unsettled sensation was a belated reaction to his father’s attempts to manipulate him, he decided. He was stuck in the confluence of two crashing forces: his desire to expunge his father from his life and his responsibility to his brother’s wife and children. He’d taken brief refuge from that mental war in the fleshy paradise that was Siobhan. He didn’t regret it, but he couldn’t let this respite she’d offered him become more significant than it was.
He couldn’t let desire for her dull him to his duty.
“You know when you get a really great massage and you never want to move again?” She rolled onto her stomach and hugged the pillow that she pulled under her head and chest. Her eyelids drooped heavily as she blinked at him. The corners of her lips tilted in libidinous pleasure. “That’s how I feel right now,” she purred.
“I don’t get those kinds of massages, but no judgment.”
“As if!” Her teeth flashed and she slid across the sheet to drape herself over his chest, making him delightfully aware of the way her breasts brushed his skin before settling warm and plump against him. “I thought you promised me dinner?”
“Are you hungry? Why on earth would that be?” Despite his decision to distance himself, he absently gathered her more fully atop him. “I can order something. Or would you rather dress and go out?” Leaving this room would be prudent.
“This is nice.” She shifted in a full body caress, legs interlacing with his own in a way that was pure seduction.
“It is.” He ran his hands down her back and over the cool cheeks of her ass, thinking the cashmere had been lovely, but hepreferred her naked skin. Perhaps he would indulge himself, and her, a little longer.
But only a little.
She nuzzled his jaw and her hair fell across his mouth.
He brushed it back behind her ear.
“Why do you color it?” Not that he was complaining. On the contrary, he was mildly turned on by the factheknew her natural color and few others did.
“No one takes me seriously as a blonde.” She slid off him and sat up, letting her dark hair fall forward to curtain her profile. “Do you mind if I pop down to my room? I need to take out my contacts.” She blinked at him.
He kept getting the sense she was hiding something. It provoked his frustration that he wouldn’t get the chance to learn all her secrets, but such was his life right now.
He kept a light tone as he said, “If you come back and your eyes aren’t blue, I really will believe you work for the government.”
“But which one?” she challenged with a cheeky grin.
He slid his fingers along her hip and thigh, unable to keep from enjoying the supple softness of her. She was a warm, glowing light that mesmerized him the way a candle flame drew a moth.
“My eyes are blue. I promise.” Her expression altered as she noticed the scar on the side of his chest. She gently traced it. “Broken rib? That was a bad one.”
“It was,” he agreed impassively, not telling her the hospital stay had been a relief from worse.
