Carole Mortimer - The Balfour Legacy

But despite her tentative word of resolution, he could still feel the faint trembling of her body. Clearly, she was in some kind of reactive shock to the bad dream and had then relived it by telling him about it. And she was still locked in his embrace too. Carlos shifted slightly. It felt almost comfortable to have her leaning on him like that. A little too comfortable.

Suddenly, he let her go, pushing her back gently against the pillows, hardening his heart against the startled question in her eyes even as his body instinctively hardened to the soft promise in hers. ‘Get back underneath the blankets,’ he informed her tersely. ‘You need to sleep.’

Sleep? It seemed as distant a possibility as dry land at that moment. And he had left behind an aching void. All Kat knew was that, without him, she felt cold and frightened again. Once more she bit her lip as a faint memory of the nightmare whispered over her skin and her eyes locked with his in terrified question. ‘Where are you going?’

Where the hell did she think he was going? ‘Back to bed.’

‘Don’t…’ She swallowed, hardly daring to formulate the question, not wanting to open herself up to rejection once again. But Kat was not asking him to make love to her—she just wanted his presence to reassure her. To stay until the dream became a distant memory. ‘Please don’t go,’ she whispered. ‘Not yet. I’m…’

‘What?’

‘Scared.’

Carlos swallowed. Her slender limbs were splayed like a colt’s and the ebony fall of her hair was spilling onto the pillow like dark satin. Reaching out, he clicked on the bedside lamp in the hope that extra light might dispel some of the unbearable intimacy of the setting. But it was a vain hope, because now she was bathed in a soft, apricot light which made her skin look completely edible.

How could he resist such a heartfelt plea—but what the hell was she asking of him? That he endure a temptation which was fast becoming unendurable? Staying close to the enticement of her body when his own was crying out to touch it?

Yet hadn’t he always been the master of control in so many areas of his life before now? And surely this could be just another opportunity to prove his own inner strength and determination.

‘Okay,’ he bit out, and lay down beside her as gingerly as a man might lie beside a snake. ‘I will stay, but only for a while. Understand?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

Instinct told him that it was pointless to leave her trembling on the other side of the big bed, and he intended the arm he reluctantly put round her shoulder to be nothing more than comforting as he pulled her close. A cuddle—even though, as a rule, he didn’t do cuddling.

And he soon saw why. He had been a damn fool to minimise the sensual impact of her slender body, despite the fact that it was covered with those rather prudish pyjamas. Or maybe that was what added to her allure. He’d never been to bed with a woman wearing pyjamas before. Come to think of it, he’d never been to bed with a woman and just lain there with a chaste arm around her shoulder either.

Kat snuggled against him, loving the way his fingers were now idly playing with her hair. Loving the solid reassurance of his powerful physique and the warmth of his nearness. ‘That’s nice,’ she breathed.

He knew that. Too nice. Carlos didn’t know how long he lay there for but it was long enough for his growing desire to stab like a heavy arrow at his groin. And if he didn’t do something soon, she was going to pick up on it.

‘Better?’ he questioned thickly, wondering how soon he could make his escape, even while he silently mocked himself for his own hypocrisy. Because you don’t want to go anywhere, do you, Carlos?

‘Sort of,’ she replied softly.

He rolled over, glad to be able to shift his position and to fractionally ease some of the terrible aching. ‘Only sort of?’

‘Well, like a big weight’s been lifted, only I…’ Suddenly, Kat felt awkward and wondered how she could ever have bared her soul like that. Especially to him —of all people . The man who was only tolerating her because he had to. Because he owed her father a favour. ‘Listen, Carlos, maybe I shouldn’t have unburdened myself—’

‘Forget it,’ he said curtly.

‘It was crazy to have bottled it up for so long,’ she said, half to herself. ‘And in a funny sort of way, it feels so much better now that I’ve said it.’

In the soft glow of the apricot light, his eyes narrowed as he took in the full implication of her words. ‘You mean you’ve never talked about it before? Not to anyone?’

‘Never. I’m not really into counsellors—and it’s not the greatest subject to bring up at parties, is it?’

‘I can’t believe that your father didn’t tell me any of this himself,’ he said, his voice growing bitter.

She stared at him. ‘He didn’t?’

‘Of course he didn’t! Madre de Dios , Kat! Do you really think I’d have brought you on board like this if I’d had any idea of the kind of trauma you’d suffered in the past?’

Actually, up until about half an hour ago, if someone had told her that Carlos Guerrero had a tiny pair of diabolical horns growing amidst the tumble of his dark curls, she would have believed them. But as she stared at his angry and shifting features, Kat realised that her feelings for him were undergoing a rapid change. Her physical attraction to him had never been in any doubt, but his surprising protectiveness towards her was forging an even more indelible mark than desire.

She shrugged, trying hard to focus on something else. To protect something of her family’s reputation. And in so doing, surely to protect herself. ‘Daddy’s just a bit insensitive, that’s all.’

‘Please don’t defend the indefensible!’ And then something else occurred to him. ‘Come to think of it, you must have known that I wouldn’t have kept you here if I’d realised what had happened to you as a child. So why the hell didn’t you tell me, Kat?’

Why indeed? She gave a brief smile. ‘Because I can be stubborn,’ she admitted. ‘And proud’.

‘ Sí , I can imagine,’ he commented drily, thinking how that tentative smile lit her face up. And how the apricot light of the lamp threw beguiling shadows over the pristine white of her top, emphasising the soft blue shadows which fell beneath the pert swell of her breasts.

‘You know this changes everything?’ he said suddenly.

She blinked up at him. ‘What does?’

‘After what you’ve told me, there’s no way I can keep you on board. Not now.’

Kat stilled. She had rebelled against the lowly duties entrusted to her and being incarcerated on Carlos’s luxury yacht, and she had wanted more than anything to escape. But while it was perfectly acceptable for her to object to staying, it was quite another for him to tell her she couldn’t! She had always rebelled against authority, and she found herself protesting now. ‘Why not?’

He wanted to say, You know damned well why not . But he didn’t. Because once you openly acknowledged sexual attraction, it became almost impossible to resist. He wanted to tell her to stop looking at him as if butter wouldn’t melt in those luscious lips of hers—because he knew that was simply an illusion. Yet their soft petal shape was putting him in danger, making him forget the conflict of interests raging within him.

‘Because maybe you’ve learned a lesson after all,’ he said. ‘That you have to confront your demons in order to get rid of them, and that running away doesn’t solve anything.’

Reality hit her with a harsh jerk. ‘You’re thinking about those rules,’ she said slowly.