The Alcolar Family: The Twelve-Month Mistress / The Spaniard's Inconvenient Wife / Bound by Blackmail

His proud head lowered very slowly, making her heart skip a beat as she guessed at his intentions. The soft, lingering pressure of his lips against the side of her temple, her ear, her cheek made her melt, swaying in towards him in spite of her resolution not to.

And that moment of weakness left her in no doubt at all that for all his calm demeanour, his subtle, sensual approach, Joaquin was hotly, heavily aroused, the bulge of his masculinity pressing tight against the black denim of his jeans.

‘Joaquin…’

She struggled to find a voice with which to argue with him. She had to argue. She had no other choice.

‘Cassandra, querida—I don’t have to make any effort at all. If we were to go to bed…’

Once more his tormenting mouth teased at her nerves, caressing the line of her jaw, before moving to tantalise her lips, his tongue sliding out to trace around them delicately.

‘And I’m sure that the stern doctors would approve of my taking to my bed so early in the evening…’

‘No…’ Cassie tried again, but her voice had no strength, no authority.

‘Then you could do all the…’

That wicked mouth quirked up into the most sinful grin that he directed straight into her troubled blue eyes.

‘All the work… And I could just lie back and think of Spain.’

The image that sprang into Cassie’s mind at just the thought was so burningly erotic, making the heat rush through her veins, her head swim, so that she closed her eyes against the force of it. But that was a definite mistake. The sensual images persisted, projecting onto the back of her eyelids the impression of Joaquin lying back in the bed, and herself straddling him, both of them naked, her paler skin looking almost white in contrast to his long, bronzed body.

‘Joaquin!’ His name was a groan of effort, pushed from her by the struggle not to give in. ‘Joaquin, stop it!’

‘You stop me,’ he challenged, the rich, dark sensuality of his voice implying that he knew only too well that she would not.

She could feel his smile against her skin, just before those tantalising lips caressed again, moving away from her mouth and down… down, driving her to arch her neck in sensual response. The vee-necked dress she wore gave him access to the vulnerable spots at her throat and shoulders, something he immediately took advantage of.

His hands knew just where to go as well. Starting on the swell of her buttocks, they stroked and smoothed their way upwards, pressing her close to the straining heat of his erection as they went. At her breasts the knowing fingers cupped the soft weight, closing around them as the heat of his palms reached through to her delicate skin. And they traced tantalisingly erotic patterns over her curves, drawing provocative circles round and round her tightening nipples, tormenting her with the ‘so near and yet so far’ effect that came from feeling his touch through the fine cotton of her dress, the barely there lace of her bra.

‘Joaquin…’

This time his name was a sigh. A sound in which she could hear her own control evaporating, her resistance ebbing away.

Clearly Joaquin could hear it too. She felt his tiny laugh of triumph in response against her shoulder blade and shivered in instinctive reaction as it was followed by the faint graze of his teeth over the sensitive surface of her skin.

‘So stop me,’ he muttered thickly, the rough, fraying edge to the words revealing how fast his hold over his own passion was slipping. ‘If you really mean it, say the word. But say it now, damn you, before it’s too late.’

Say the word.

The hoarse-voiced command barely penetrated the hungry haze inside Cassie’s head. Passion had scrambled her brain, leaving it impossible to think clearly.

The word.

What word?

What should she say if she wanted him to stop?

And she did want him to stop.

Or did she?

She knew she should tell him to stop. There was too much danger, too many complications if she went down this sensually enticing path. Too much to lose.

But she still couldn’t find the word.

The restless clamour of her senses had drowned out the functioning of her brain. Somehow the importance of common sense and self-preservation didn’t weigh enough to outbalance the hungry need for this man. Perhaps if she hadn’t been apart from him for that week, if she hadn’t missed his lovemaking already…

‘I knew it.’

The triumph in his voice was even richer and darker now, and hearing it sent a tiny chill shivering through Cassie, tempering her ardour for just a moment. Reluctantly she opened her eyes, focused on the dark, stunning face above hers.

And was shaken back into reality by the sight of the discoloured, spreading bruise on his forehead, reminding her sharply of his injury.

‘No!’

She had no hesitation in finding the word now. It jumped from her lips a second before she stiffened in his arms, drawing herself back, struggling to get away.

‘No, Joaquin. You can’t—we mustn’t!’

‘Mustn’t!’

Black rage flared in his eyes, turning them into deep, blazing fires that scorched with every searing glance he turned on her.

‘Can’t? Why not?’

But the brief moment of shock had been enough to loosen his hold on her, giving her just enough liberty to twist free and take herself away, across the kitchen and out of reach. Reacting rather than thinking, she moved to put the kitchen table between herself and him. Not so much for her protection from Joaquin, though the fury in his eyes was dangerous enough, but more as a defence against herself and her own weak impulses.

If he tempted her just once more, she knew she would give in. She was only human, and so desperately vulnerable where he was concerned. With the table between them, the time it took to walk round it might just give her space to have much-needed second thoughts.

‘Cassie?’

What the hell was wrong with her? Joaquin asked himself. What had happened to make her change her mind, behave this way?

She didn’t usually do anything like this. Cassandra wasn’t a tease; never had been. At least, the Cassandra he had known had never been a tease.

Just what the devil had happened in that missing month? Was there something he really should know? Something important?

Okay, so the bang on the head had scrambled his brain, but he remembered the Cassandra he had been living with before he’d lost those weeks. Or thought he did. And she had never been one to pull back, to say no. That had always been the best thing about their relationship.

So could it have changed so much in a month?

‘Just what in the devil’s name is wrong? Why can’t we go to bed? We live together.’

‘We mustn’t…’

She wasn’t teasing. Her white face and dark, shadowed eyes told him that, far from playing with him, she was deadly serious. Something had shaken her badly.