Determined to Protect, Forbidden to Love: Ramirez's Woman / Her Royal Bodyguard / Protecting the Princess

He turned and faced her, but before she could say or do anything, he grabbed her, yanked her into his arms and kissed her. His mouth took hers with a hungry passion, the taste of her far sweeter than he had imagined. She neither fought him nor cooperated, but let him ravage her mouth as he ran his hands over her lush body. Then just as he ended the kiss and started to lift his head, she moaned softly and her mouth responded, kissing him back. Eager and greedy. Wild with need.

Chapter 9

J.J.’s bones dissolved into liquid and her body heated to the boiling point as she and Miguel shared a kiss to end all kisses. Fourth of July fireworks. Hurricane waves crashing against the shore. The thunder of her own heartbeat deafened her as electrical shock waves heated her blood. She couldn’t get close enough to him, couldn’t meld her body to his as tightly as she longed to do. Only the intimate joining of lovemaking could come close to uniting them in the way she needed to be part of him.

She had been in love once…or thought she had been. And she’d had great sex…or thought she had. But nothing J.J. had ever experienced came anywhere close to what she was feeling now. She had never known what real, honest-to-goodness yearning was until this very moment. Yearning so powerful that it obliterated everything else, reducing her to a purely emotional creature.

As she kept kissing him, tasting him, devouring him as he was her, she rubbed her hands over his shoulders and back, longing for the feel of his naked flesh beneath her fingertips. Rational thought was slipping away fast. If she didn’t hang on, didn’t force herself immediately to think about what she was doing, she would be lost.

But I want him, an inner voice pleaded. I want him more than I’ve ever wanted anything or anyone.

She couldn’t give herself to him. She could not surrender to the weakness overwhelming her. This wasn’t love. This was lust. Primitive animal magnetism, drawing two young, healthy primates together.

All right, so this was nothing more than uncontrollable passion. What was wrong with that? Just because she’d never had sex with a man she didn’t care for deeply, why couldn’t this be the first time?

J.J. pulled away, ending the ravaging kiss, but Miguel moaned and sought her mouth again, his hands cupping her hips and holding her mound against his erection. Her damp femininity throbbed. Wanting. Needing.

“No, please,” she spoke the words against his demanding mouth. “We can’t. I can’t.”

He kissed her again before easing his lips to her jaw and then down her neck, ending up by burrowing his head against her shoulder. When the tip of his tongue flicked repeatedly against her collarbone, she sighed.

“No, Miguel, this isn’t fair.”

Either not hearing her or completely ignoring her protest, he lowered his head to her left breast. Her entire body tensed with anticipation. His mouth covered the areola through the satin material of her pajama top and sucked until her nipple tightened into a pebble-hard point. While he suckled her greedily, she cupped the back of his head and held him in place at her breast. Spirals of desire spread out from her breasts and connected with the core of her body.

As the last coherent thought floated through her mind—put a stop to this now while you still can—Miguel dropped to his knees in front of her and kissed a damp path from her breast, over her midriff and across her navel. He paused, slid her pajama bottoms down a couple of inches, stuck his tongue into her navel and laved the small, deep indentation.

J.J. unraveled completely when his big hands grasped her hips and eased her pajamas farther down her hips.

Oh, mercy, mercy. She wanted this. Oh, how she wanted it. But she couldn’t let him do it. Could she?

“Miguel?” his name was nothing more than a pleading whisper.

“Yes, querida?” His hands paused in their task.

“We can’t do this. You know we can’t. We met only yesterday. We’re strangers. This is all wrong. You know it is.” There, she had been sensible and called a halt to this madness.

He nuzzled her mound through the thin satin barrier. “If it’s so wrong, why does it feel so right?”

“Because we’re acting and reacting from an adrenaline rush,” she told him, as she caressed the back of his head. “Danger, fear, intense emotions all combined to heighten our senses. Wanting sex to diffuse tension is the most natural thing in the world.”

“I agree.” He kissed her mound. She trembled. “The sex would be good. It would be very good for both of us.”

“I don’t doubt that for a minute, but—”

He made his way up her body, inch by inch, his hot breath searing her through the satin and his big hands working their way up and over her buttocks. When he rose to his full height, he looked down at her, his golden eyes smoldering.

“You are not a virgin?” he asked.

“No, but that doesn’t mean—”

“You have been with other men, why not with me?”

“I don’t love you. I don’t even know you.”

He cradled her buttocks with his palms and pressed her firmly against his pulsating sex. “What better way to become acquainted than to make love? I promise that you will not be disappointed. I have been told I am an excellent lover.”

“Ah—! What a macho, male, he-man thing to say.” His words had been like a bucket of cold water dumped on her head. She shoved against his chest until he released her. “Just when I was beginning to like you, you have to go and be a…a…a man!”

Miguel chuckled. “Sí, señorita, I am indeed a man. A man who very much wants to make love to you.”

“You want sex,” she told him, avoiding eye contact. “Any woman would do.”

Frowning, his gaze narrowed as he glared at her. “You do not truly believe that, do you? If sex with any woman was all I wanted, there are dozens of women I could have. I could pick up the telephone and make a call and any one of them would come to me now, in the middle of the night. But I do not want any of those women. I want you.”

J.J. stiffened her spine. She believed him. About the dozens of willing women and about him wanting only her. “I’m your bodyguard. My job is to guard you and protect you, to keep you alive during the election campaign. Having sex with you would be unprofessional.”

“What are you so afraid of, Jennifer?” Although he no longer touched her, he caressed her with his seductive gaze.

She swallowed, then looked up at him. “The truth?”

“Yes, the truth.”

“I’m afraid that I’ll become fond of you, that I’ll care for you, and I’ll get my heart broken.”

“Querida.” He held his hand out, as if he intended to touch her.

She moved backward, just out of his reach. “I do not have casual, meaningless affairs. The only relationship you and I have now or will ever have is a farce. I’m your pretend fiancée. And that’s all.”

He dropped his hand to his side. His defeated expression told her that she had finally gotten through to him. “You should go in to bed now,” he told her. “I will stay out here for a while longer.”

“Will you be all right?” That’s it, Jennifer Joy, fawn over the man. Didn’t you just tell him that you weren’t in love with him, that you didn’t care for him except as a client?

He turned his back to her and looked down at the dark garden below, illuminated only by the moonlight. “I will be fine. Go to bed.”

Reluctantly, wondering if she was a fool for rejecting a man she so desperately wanted, J.J. went back into the bedroom. She looked down at the chaise and then over to the huge king-size bed. Images of Miguel and her sharing that bed, the two of them naked, thrashing about, making love, flashed through her mind. She groaned as she lay down and pulled the cotton blanket up over her.

How long would Miguel stay outside? Would she still be awake when he went to bed? She closed her eyes and tried to think of anything other than the tall, dark, handsome man standing alone on the balcony. But despite her best efforts to erase all thoughts of him, he filled her mind. And her own traitorous body reminded her of the pleasure his mouth and hands had given her.

Miguel had made certain that he was showered, shaved and dressed before J.J. awoke. He had been exceptionally quiet, trying to not disturb her. He knew she had spent restless hours tossing and turning on the chaise lounge, just as he had in the massive king-size bed. He had finally fallen asleep sometime shortly before dawn and rested for a couple of hours. When he’d left his bedroom suite, J.J. had been awake, but she’d been pretending to be asleep. He understood that she was as reluctant as he to discuss what had transpired between them in the early hours of this morning.

He would leave things as they were. For now. In the clear light of day, he could think more clearly, more rationally. Having a love affair with his American bodyguard might give him immense physical pleasure, but at what price, not only to him, but to her? Was his life not already complicated enough without adding an ill-fated romance to the mix?

When he entered the dining room, Ramona, who was busy overseeing the dishes being brought into the room by the kitchen help, spoke to him.

“Good morning, Señor Ramirez.” He could tell that she wanted to ask him something, possibly question him about the dinner party last night.

“Have you heard about what happened at Anton Casimiro’s party?” Miguel asked. “About some of his guests having food poisoning?”