Enamored (20 page)

She smiled at him. He was lounging in the chair beside the bed with his shirt unbuttoned and his sleeves rolled up, looking very Latin and deliciously masculine with the shirt and slacks outlining every powerful muscle in his body.

“Yes. It is so,” she agreed absently, but her eyes were saying other things.

He chuckled deeply, and the message in his own eyes was more than physical.

She gave Matthew the ice and took heart when it stayed in his stomach. In a little while he dozed off, and Melissa pushed the disheveled dark hair away from his forehead and adored him with her eyes.

“A fine young man,” Diego said softly. “He has character, even at so early an age. You have done well.”

She glanced at him with a smile. “He was all I had of—” She bit her tongue, because she had almost said “of you.”

But he knew. He smiled, his eyes lazily caressing her. “I have waited a long time for you to tell me. Do you not think that this is the proper time,
querida?
On a night when we meant to love each other in the privacy of my bedroom and remove all the barriers that separate us? Here, where the fruit of our need for each other sleeps so peacefully in the security of our love for him?”

She drew in a steadying breath. “Did you know all the time?” she asked.

“No,” he said honestly, and smiled. “I was insanely jealous of Matt’s mythical father. It made me unkind to him at first, and to you. But as I grew to know him, and you, I began to have my suspicions. That was why I sent for his birth certificate.”

“Yes, I saw it accidentally in your desk,” she confessed, and noted the surprise in his face.

“But before I saw it,” he continued softly, “Matthew described to me a photograph of his father that you had shown him.” He smiled at her flush. “Yes,
niña.
The same photograph I had seen in your drawer under your gowns, and never told you. So many keepsakes. They gave me the only hope I had that you still had a little affection for me.”

She laughed. “I was afraid you’d seen them.” She shook her head. “I cared so much. And I was afraid, I’ve always been afraid, that you might want Matt more than you wanted me.” She lowered her eyes. “You said that love wasn’t a word you knew. But Matt was your son,” she whispered, admitting it at last, “and you’d have wanted him.”

“Him, and not you?” he asked softly. He leaned forward, watching her. “Melissa, I have not been kind to you. We married for the worst of reasons, and even when I found you again I was still fighting for my freedom. But now…” He smiled tenderly.
“Amada,
I awaken each morning with the thought that I will see you over the breakfast table. At night I sleep soundly, knowing that you are only a few yards away from me. My day begins and ends with you. And in these past weeks, you have come to mean a great deal to me. I care very much for my son. But, Melissa, you mean more to me than anything on earth. Even more than Matthew.”

She gnawed her lower lip while tears threatened. She took a slow, shuddering breath. “I wanted to tell you before I left Guatemala that I hadn’t lost the baby. But I couldn’t let him be born and raised in such an atmosphere of hatred.” She looked down at the carpet. “He was all I had left of you, and I wanted him desperately. So I came to America, gave birth to him and raised him.” Her eyes found his. “But there was never a day, or a night, or one single second, when you weren’t in my thoughts and in my heart. I never stopped loving you. I never will.”

“Amada,”
he breathed.

“Matthew is your son,” she said simply, smiling through tears. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you enough to tell you.”

“I’m sorry I made it so difficult.” He leaned forward and took her hand in his, kissing the palm softly, hungrily. “We made a beautiful child together,” he said, lifting his dark eyes to hers. “He combines the best of both of us.”

“And we can look into his face and see generations of Sterlings and Laremoses staring back at us,” she agreed. Her soft eyes held his. “Oh, Diego, what a waste the past years have been!”

He stood up, drawing her into his arms. He held her and rocked her, his voice soft at her ear, whispering endearments in Spanish while she cried away the bitterness and the loneliness and the pain.

“Now, at last, we can begin again,” he said. “We can have a life together, a future together.”

“I never dreamed it would happen.” She wiped at her eyes. “I almost ran away again. But then Joyce reminded me that I’d done that before and solved nothing. So I stayed to fight for you.”

He laughed delightedly. “So you did, in ways I never expected. I had married a child in Guatemala. I hardly expected the woman I found in Tucson.”

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw you there,” she said. “I’d dreamed of you so much, wanted you so badly, and then there you were. But I thought you hated me, so I didn’t dare let you see how I felt. And there was Matt.”

“Why did you not tell me the truth at the beginning?” he asked quietly.

“Because I couldn’t be sure that you wouldn’t take him away from me.” She sighed. “And because I wanted you to trust me, to realize all by yourself that I’d loved you far too much to betray you with another man.”

“To my shame, I believed that at first,” he confessed. “And blamed myself for being so cruel to you that I made you hate me enough to run away.”

“I never hated you,” she said, loving his face with her eyes. “I never could. I understood, even then. And it was my own fault. The note, the poems, and I gave in without even a fight…”

“The fault was mine as well, for letting my desire for you outweigh my responsibility to protect you.” He sighed heavily. “So much tragedy, my own, because we abandoned ourselves to pleasure. At the time, consequences were the last thought we had, no?”

“Our particular consequence, though, is adorable, don’t you think,
esposo mío?
” she smiled at their sleeping son.

He followed her glance.
“Muy adorable.”
His eyes caressed her. “Like his oh-so-beautiful
madrecita.”

Touched by the tenderness in his deep voice, she reached up and kissed him, savoring the warm hunger of his embrace. Matthew stirred, and she sat back down beside him, watching his eyes open sleepily.

“Feeling better?” she asked gently.

“I’m hungry,” he groaned.

“Nothing else to eat just yet, young man,” she said, smiling. “You have to make sure your tummy’s settled. But how about some more cracked ice?”

“Yes, please,” he mumbled.

Diego got up and took the cup and the spoon from her. “I could use some coffee,
querida,”
he suggested.

“So could I. I’ll get it.”

She left him there after watching the tender way he fed ice to Matthew, the wonder of fatherhood and the pride of it written all over his dark face. Melissa had never felt so happy in all her life. As she left the room she heard his voice, softly accented, exquisitely loving, telling the little boy at last that he was his real papa. Tears welled up in her eyes as she left them, and she smiled secretly through them, bursting with joy.

It was a long night, but the two of them stayed with the little boy. Melissa curled up on the foot of his bed finally to catch a catnap, and Diego slept sprawled in the chair. Mrs. Albright found them like that the next morning and smiled from the doorway. But Matthew was nowhere in sight.

Frowning, she went toward the kitchen, where there was a strange smell…

“Matthew!” she gasped at the doorway.

“I’m hungry,” Matthew muttered, “and Mama and Papa won’t wake up.”

He was standing in his pajamas at the stove, barefoot, cooking himself two eggs. Unfortunately, he had the heat on high and several pieces of eggshell in the pan, and the result was a smelly black mess.

Mrs. Albright got it all cleared away and picked him up to carry him back to bed. “I’ll get your breakfast, my lamb. Why were you hungry?”

“My supper came back up again,” he explained.

Mrs. Albright nodded wisely. “Stomach bug.”

“A very bad bug,” he agreed. “Papa is my real papa, you know, he said so, and we’re going to live with him forever. Can I have some eggs?”

“Yes, lamb, in just a minute,” she promised with a laugh as they went into the bedroom.

“Matthew?” Melissa mumbled as she looked up and saw Mrs. Albright bringing Matthew into the room.

Diego blinked and yawned as Mrs. Albright put the boy back in bed. “Where did you find him?” he asked, his face unshaven and his eyes bleary.

“In the kitchen cooking his breakfast,” Mrs. Albright chuckled, registering their openly horrified expressions. “It’s all right now. I’ve taken care of everything. I’ll get him some scrambled eggs and toast if you think it’s safe. I’d bet that it is, if my opinion is wanted. He looks fit to me.”

“You should have seen him last night,” Melissa said with a drowsy smile. “But if he thinks he’s hungry, he can have some eggs.”

“You two go and get some sleep,” Mrs. Albright said firmly. “Matthew’s fine, and I’ll look out for him. I’ll even call the office for you,
señor,
if you like, and tell them where you are.”

“That would be most kind of you.” He yawned, taking Melissa by the hand. “Come along, Señora Laremos, while I can stand up long enough to guide us to bed.”

“¡Buenas noches!”
Matthew grinned.

“¡Buenos días!”
Melissa corrected with a laugh. “And eat only a little breakfast, okay?” She threw him a kiss. “Good night, baby chick.”

She followed Diego into his bedroom and got into the bed while he locked the door. She hardly felt him removing her dress and hose and shoes and slip. Seconds later, she was asleep.

* * *

Sunshine streamed lazily through the windows when she stretched under the covers, frowning as she discovered that she didn’t have a stitch of clothing on her body.

Diego came into the bedroom from the bathroom with a towel around his lean hips and his hair still damp.

“Awake at last,” he murmured dryly. He reached down and jerked the covers off, his dark eyes appreciative of every soft, pink inch of her body as he looked at her openly for the first time in five years. The impact of it was in his eyes, his face.
“Dios mío,
what a beautiful sight,” he breathed, smiling at her shy blush.

As he spoke, he unfastened his towel and threw it carelessly on the floor. “Now,” he breathed, easing down beside her. “This is where we meant to begin last night, is it not,
querida?
”

She knew it was incredible to be shy with him, but it had been five years. She lowered her eyes to his mouth and looped her arms around his neck and shifted to accommodate the warm weight of his muscular body. She shivered, savoring the abrasive pleasure of his chest hair against her soft breasts, the hardness of his long legs tangling intimately with hers.

Tremors of pleasure wound through her. “Sweet,” she whispered shakily, drawing him closer. Her mouth nipped at his, pleaded, danced with it. “It’s so sweet, feeling you like this.”

“An adequate word for something so wondrous,” he whispered, smiling against her eager mouth. He touched her, watching her eyes dilate and her body stiffen. “There,
querida?
” he asked sensuously. “Softly, like this?” He did it again, and she shuddered deliciously and arched. A sensual banquet, after years of starvation.

“You…beast,” she chided. Her nails dug into his shoulders as she watched the face above hers grow dark with passion, his eyes glittering as he bent to her body.

“A feast fit for a starving man,” he whispered as his lips traced her soft curves, lingering to tease and nip at the firm thrust of her breasts, at her rib cage, her flat belly. And all the while he talked to her, described what he felt and what he was doing and what he was going to do.

She moved under the exploration of his hands, her eyes growing darker and wilder as he kindled the flames of passion. Once she looked directly into his eyes as he moved down, and she saw the naked hunger in them as his body penetrated hers for the first time in more than five years.

She cried, a keening, husky, breathless little sound that was echoed in her wide eyes and the stiffening of her welcoming body. She cried in passion and in pain, because at first there was the least discomfort.

“Ah, it has been a long time, has it not?” he whispered softly, delighting in the pleasure he read in her face. “Relax, my own.” His body stilled, giving hers time to adjust to him, to admit him without discomfort. “Relax. Yes,
querida,
yes, yes…” His eyes closed as he felt the sudden ease of his passage, and his teeth ground together at an unexpected crest of fierce pleasure. He shuddered. “Exquisite,” he groaned, opening his eyes to look at her as he moved again, his weight resting on his forearms. “Exquisite, this…with you…this sharing.” His eyes closed helplessly as his movements became suddenly harsh and sharp. “Forgive me…!”

But she was with him every step of the way, her fit young body matching his passion, equaling it. She adjusted her body to the needs of his, and held him and watched him and gloried in his fulfillment just before she found her own and cried out against his shoulder in anguished completion.

He shuddered over her, his taut body relaxing slowly, damp, his arms faintly tremulous. She bit his shoulder and laughed breathlessly, feeling for the first time like a whole woman, like a wife.

“Now try to be unfaithful to me,” she dared him, whispering the challenge into his ear. “Just try and I’ll wear you down until you can hardly crawl away from my bed!”

He nipped her shoulder, laughing softly. “As if I could have touched another woman after you,” he whispered.
“Querida,
I took my marriage vows as seriously as you took yours. Guilt and anguish over losing you made it impossible for me to sleep with anyone else.” He lifted his damp head and searched her drowsy, shocked eyes.
“Amada,
I love you,” he said softly. He brushed her mouth with his. “I do not want anyone else. Not since that first time with you, when I knew that your soul had joined with mine so completely that part of me died when you left.”

She hid her face against him, weeping with joy and pain and pleasure. “I’m sorry.”