Carole Mortimer - The Balfour Legacy

‘ Sí . The rules—and your father’s wish that you learn the importance of commitment. I hope you have.’ His voice hardened as he told himself that she was no longer his responsibility. ‘But that is up to you, Kat. If you want to spend your life running away, then so be it, but I am no longer willing to be your enforcer. Not any more. I will order the crew to set sail for shore and as soon as we reach dry land in the morning—I can arrange to have you flown back to London.’ His eyes narrowed in question. ‘Unless there’s somewhere else you’d prefer to go? France, maybe? Or perhaps the States?’

Kat swallowed. He was giving her back her liberty—but never had freedom seemed to mock her quite so much. She thought about how nomadic and pointless he made her life seem. The little rich girl with no real place to go—who could just choose where she wanted to flit around the globe, like someone idly stabbing a pin into a map.

She looked into those cold black eyes of his and suddenly a wave of longing washed over her—because didn’t the cloak of darkness liberate her from convention? She didn’t want to go and she didn’t want to leave him—it was as simple as that. At least, not before she had sampled some of his magic. A taste of the sensual promise which radiated like an aura from his powerful frame, and which had ensnared her from the beginning.

She knew it was probably wrong and almost certainly foolish—because what if he pushed her away yet again? But Kat couldn’t help herself. He had ignited a flame in her and she wanted Carlos Guerrero with a hunger she’d never experienced before. And maybe never would again.

She found herself wondering if a woman could just come out and tell a man that she wanted him. And wasn’t it crazy that at the ripe old age of twenty-two, she didn’t have a clue?

‘Let’s not talk about it now,’ she whispered, and snuggled into the warmth of his bare torso.

Uncomfortably, Carlos shifted again—because now her appeal was growing by the minute, and acquiring all kinds of different dimensions on the way. Like a neglected kitten that had been brought inside and given food and shelter, she was looking up at him with something in her eyes which looked uncomfortably like trust.

He wanted to tell her not to trust him, that he never gave enough of himself to a woman to warrant such trust. But he knew from experience that even opening up a topic like that made women brighten. It made them think they were getting close to you. And there was only one way he wanted to get close to Kat Balfour…and no way was he going to give into it…

So why was his hand drifting down from her shoulder to her slender waist, the slick movement of his wrist bringing her soft body even closer? Like a drowning man he fought for control—a steely control and self-will which had always come as naturally to him as breathing. And to his fury and despair, he felt it slipping away from him.

‘Kat…’

‘Mmm?’ All she was doing was whispering her lips against the line of his jaw and there wasn’t anything so very wrong in that, was there? Not when he felt and smelt so warm and so vital .

‘Kat.’ Carlos swallowed, because the ability to speak coherently seemed suddenly to have deserted him. He felt his body tense with a sudden sense of urgency. ‘If I don’t get off this damn bed in a minute, I’m going to do something…something I’ll regret.’

‘Something like what?’

Just then she lifted her face to his, and the moment he felt her warm breath against his skin, Carlos knew that it was too late. ‘Something like…this.’

Feeling the last of his self-control desert him, he pulled her against his hard and hungry body. And with a small, angry curse, he began to plunder her lips with a hunger which now seemed unstoppable.

‘OH!’ KAT squirmed with pleasure as every fantasy she’d ever had about Carlos began to come true. She was in bed with the black-eyed Spaniard and he was kissing her—kissing her with the kind of passion she had somehow known existed, even if she’d never experienced it before. And somehow it didn’t surprise her a bit to realise that she’d found it, with him.

‘Oh!’ Moaning softly, her body jerked in disbelieving reaction as he captured her breast, his fingers playing with one pert nipple which peaked against her cotton pyjama top. Sharp sensations of pleasure shot across its tightened bud and she could feel it begin to flower beneath his expert caress. Words slipped straight from her mouth and into his. ‘Oh. That’s… gorgeous .’

‘You think I don’t know that?’ he growled.

Now the hand had slipped beneath the thin cotton top and made contact with the naked flesh there and she shuddered at that first intimate contact with her skin. ‘C-Carlos!’ she gasped.

‘You want more?’

Breath drying in her throat, she nodded.

‘How much more?’

‘I—’

‘This much?’

‘Yes. Oh, yes.’

Trailing his hand down, he let it skate over the warmth of her belly and down beyond that to the faint fuzz of hair to where she was warmer still. Slicking his fingertips with soft precision to delve into her honeyed heat, he felt her buck beneath his touch.

‘Carlos!’ she gasped again.

Oh, but she was responsive—instantly and gratifyingly so—yet Carlos was a little taken aback by her unashamed hunger. Hadn’t he expected her appetite to be jaded, as befitted a woman who must have enjoyed sex time and time and again? But instead she seemed almost wondrous… with a sense of near awe in her bright eyes as she cupped his face and kissed him back so passionately. Who would have thought it?

With the sleight of wrist which had made him so masterful in the ring, Carlos skimmed the little top up over her head and tossed it to the floor. Then he tugged at the matching bottoms, peeling them down over her hips before sliding them off completely. And, oh, she was beautiful—her body a creamy cascade of inviting curves and enticing shadows. ‘ Mía bella ,’ he ground out unsteadily, as he caught hold of her fingers.

Her breath gasped against his neck as he guided her hand to the hard ridge at his groin, clearly discernable even through the thick denim of his jeans. ‘C-Carlos,’ she stumbled, her cheeks growing hot at this very physical evidence of how much he wanted her.

‘I think I’m a little overdressed, don’t you, Princesa ?’ he questioned unsteadily.

‘Y-yes.’ She should have been scared, but strangely enough fear was the last thing she was feeling as she heard the sound of his zip rasping down.

He moved away from her to remove the jeans from his aching flesh—and then he was naked and so was she, and Carlos could never remember feeling so hard and hot and hungry before. Because this was forbidden? he wondered fleetingly as he stroked his fingertips over her silken skin. He didn’t know—and right then, he didn’t care.

With one sure, swift movement, he moved on top of her and thought how light and how slender her body felt beneath his. ‘Now,’ he said huskily. ‘Where shall I begin, mía princesa ?’

‘Anywhere,’ she whispered, praying that he wouldn’t expect her to take some sort of lead. To perform any kind of erotic act with him. The kind she’d heard her more experienced friends talk about. ‘Anywhere you like.’

His mouth was at her throat as his hand moved down to the silken surface of her thighs, feeling them part beneath the soft insistence of his touch. He kissed her for an age, tempering his own hunger as he felt her melt into ever more willing compliancy. He touched her in places which made her moan, until he felt the restless urging of her body—and only then did he allow his own hunger to spiral up inside him. Technique and restraint were forgotten as he found himself compelled by a primitive urge to fill this woman, and for a moment he tensed, before driving into her body with what felt like the most powerful thrust of his life.