By the time the driver had dropped them off and they were taking the elevator back up to the apartment, Beth had shaken off most of the strange thoughts that had almost caused her to reevaluate the meaning behind her social media content.
She’d never lied to herself about Xavi always being at the forefront of her thoughts whenever she pressed the post button, but that had always been because she knew he kept an eye out for her posts, and she wanted him to see what a fabulous life she was living without him. To think it had meant more than that…
Nope. Not possible. All she felt for Xavi was hate. In fact, she might just pluck some of his body hairs out while he slept and make a voodoo doll with them. Obviously, she’d need to do an internet search on DIY voodoo dolls, but she was creative and could follow instructions. It would be easy. She’d just have to learn where to poke the pins in so it only maimed him rather than anything serious, because if she…
There was a lurch in her stomach and heart that made her reflexively squeeze the warm fingers laced through hers.
‘Are you okay?’
She met the concerned dark brown eyes and nodded.
His forehead furrowed. ‘You’ve lost colour on your face. Are you sure you’re okay?’
She forced another nod and, because she couldn’t tell him the truth, said the first thing that popped into her head. ‘Someone just walked on my grave, that’s all.’
‘Is that one of those English sayings?’
This time, she managed to dredge a smile with her nod. ‘You know that sensation when a shiver runs through you with no warning or apparent reason? That’s what the saying refers to.’
Right, so voodoo dolls were out. She might be working to destroy him, but she didn’t want tohurthim.
She didn’t just not want to hurt him, shecouldn’thurt him. Her brain wouldn’t even let her think of it, not even as a macabre joke.
The elevator door opened. Instead of stepping out, Xavi cupped her cheek and brought his face down to hers and murmured, ‘Very soon,mi vida, the only shivers you will experience will be the shivers of pleasure.’
Just to feel his breath on her face was to send shivers of sensation racing through her and remind her that hate wasn’t the only emotion she felt for him. It wasn’t even the strongest.
There was the lightest touch of his mouth to hers before his eyes gleamed, and he turned to lead her into the apartment.
Her heart beating erratically, Beth kept her hand in his firm grip and concentrated on breathing as they walked closer and closer to the bedroom.
It had been many years since Xavi had sat propped against a headboard in a bed with such heavy anticipation coiling through his veins and with the beats of his heart feeling so weighty. Even his skin felt like it had come to life; electrical tingles charging through his atoms.
He’d finished in his section of the bathroom first. He’d showered, heavily aware of Beth showering on the other side of the divide. There was no door separating them, just the marble wall that divided his side from hers. If he’d wanted to, he could have walked around the end of the divide and joined her.
The Xavi of old would have knocked the wall down to join her if it had saved seconds walking.
He wasn’t that Xavi anymore. He was no longer driven by his desire for Beth. He controlled his desire, not the other way round. He would have taken her without thinking in the study that day of the funeral, but only because he’d not been prepared for her ‘chemistry test.’
He was prepared now. Prepared for the rest of his life. He could delay his gratification as he’d proved numerous times that day. Showering with a full-on erection just to imagine Beth lathering herself naked only feet from him was but one of the many tests to his control. He could have taken her in the car on the way from the airport and the drive to and from his family villa. He could have taken her before they’d left for the dinner. He could have taken a casual walk to the hidden spot at the bottom of the de la Rosa garden and taken her there as he’d done a dozen times before.
He’d never had to think about delaying gratification in the intervening years. His control had never come close to being compromised…well, except in those early days after he’d ended things with her, but that had been a different form of control he’d struggled to keep hold of.
The bathroom door opened.
Even before she emerged into the dimly lit room, his arousal throbbed and hardened into rock.
His chest filled, and his throat ran dry.
He’d expected her to emerge naked. Instead, she wore a skimpy translucent black negligee that both covered and revealed her most intimate, feminine parts and showcased the spectacular curves that had always driven him so wild.
Long hair loose around her shoulders, full, weighty breasts gently swaying, she stepped slowly to him.
He swallowed for breath as he took in the wide hips and shapely legs, the softly rounded belly that cinched in at the waist, the slender arms…
She reached the foot of the bed and stopped.
Crystal-clear green eyes locked on his, she pinched the hem of the negligee with both hands and slowly hitched it up, past the juncture of her thighs and the soft, trimmed red bush he’d once shaved until they decided they both preferred it in its natural form. Higher it rose, over her navel, her breasts and pale pink nipples rising and stretching as she lifted it over them, and then it was travelling the length of her slender throat and briefly over her face before it was dropped onto the floor and the hair captured in it was tumbling back down and Beth was staring at him with such naked desire it was all he could do not to launch himself at her, throw her onto the bed and plunge deep inside her.
