Surrender to Her Spanish Husband (11 page)

She could fool herself by pretending she was delirious because of her illness, or that as a result of her fever she wasn’t yet in her right mind—but both would be a lie. Jenny knew
exactly
what she was doing—and why. She wanted Rodrigo more than she’d ever wanted him. Two years apart hadn’t quelled that desire.

The Spaniard had intoxicated her senses from the moment he’d stepped up to her at the Savoy and so charmingly asked to know her name and if she’d like to have dinner with him. And when he’d stepped into Lily’s guesthouse from out of the rain and then come to her rescue when she’d fallen ill—well…she was so
drunk
on whatever magic he’d conjured up that she could barely think straight. Even in the throes of raging fever she’d ached to be loved by him once more.
Now she had her wish.

Although Rodrigo’s kisses were greedily burning, he gulped at her as if he was drinking from the rejuvenating crystal waters of a life-giving well—as if every taste of her was too precious to spill even a drop. Moving deeply inside her, his magnificently taut male body rocked Jenny to the furthest reaches of her soul. He’d helped take care of her when illness had struck her down, even postponing his meeting.
He had never done that before.
Now, incredibly, he was meeting another great need. A need to be held and loved by him once again—a need that she’d feared would never be met again.

Rodrigo had talked about maintaining distance as friends…Surely he couldn’t want to put distance between them a second time after a union as profoundly magnetic and unforgettable as this?

Cupping her hands round his arrow-straight hips, Jenny took him even deeper, locking her legs round his hard-muscled back. ‘Is this good for you?’ she breathed, catching a glimmer of surprise in his eyes.

‘Is this
good
? You underestimate your powers of seduction, my angel. Right now my body, my heart, my soul—they are all lost to you.’

Although his words touched Jenny deeply, his smile was as sinfully delicious as a taste of decadent chocolate ice cream in the middle of a strict diet.
The kind a girl would willingly put on a couple of pounds for…

He began to thrust harder and deeper, making Jenny cry out as he bent his head to nip the hotly tingling tips of her breasts with the edges of his teeth, then soothed them with the heat from his hot damp mouth. The dammed up feelings building inside her burst violently free. Surely the barrier restraining them had been guarded only by the slimmest of gossamer threads? As soon as she had wound her arms round Rodrigo’s neck she had started to come undone…the incredibly seductive scent of his body was enough to do that alone.

A ragged cry left her throat as wave after wave of rapturous sensation bombarded her. Her heart hammering, Rodrigo’s name was suddenly a heartfelt mantra of unimagined joy on her lips. Shockingly, twin rivulets of tears seeped from the corners of her eyes, mingling with the joy and pleasure. The sheer magnitude of her emotions overwhelmed her—as if every deep wound and fear she’d stored away inside her heart had suddenly surfaced at once. But Jenny scarcely had time to dwell on that as Rodrigo shivered in her arms and convulsed. Holding onto the broad, magnificent slopes of his hard male shoulders, she registered the scalding spurt of his vigorous male seed seeking its home inside her.

What have you done, Jenny?
It simply wasn’t like her not to think about something as vital as protection. But right then, with her body feeling so loved and languorous and her head still a little woozy from her bout of sickness, she somehow didn’t care.

Resting his head on her shoulder, Rodrigo murmured something vehement in Spanish. Judging by the tone, it sounded pretty much as if he was berating himself for the same thing.

He propped himself up on an elbow, his dark gaze serious. ‘I would be lying if I said I didn’t know what got into me to make love with you without taking precautions, Jenny…But I want you to know I’m profoundly sorry for compromising you like this.’

‘Is that all you have to say about what we just shared, Rodrigo?’ Lightly, Jenny wove her fingers through the glossy sable strands of his hair.

‘No.’ He caught her hand, then brushed his lips across her knuckles, his expression intense. ‘It is not all I have to say at all. What we just shared was incredible, wonderful…
beyond
wonderful. You are a lovely, generous, sexy woman, Jenny. Already you’ve made sure that I’ll never forget you.’

Her heartbeat jumped in dismay. ‘If you’re talking about leaving then please don’t. What I want right now is just to savour these precious moments we’ve got together without thinking about anything that makes me sad.’

‘You were crying. I saw tears in your eyes.’ Tracing the outline of her mouth with his forefinger, he dragged her plump lower lip downwards for a moment.

‘It was overwhelming…the way you loved me. You touched feelings that I’d suppressed for a long time. Something inside me broke open, Rodrigo…something that I’ve held back for far too long. I feel—’ Suddenly self-conscious, Jenny turned away from his intense ebony glance. ‘I feel cleansed, somehow.’

‘So you will sleep much better tonight. No bad dreams will come to visit you again, hmm?’ Rolling over onto his side he laid his bare arm protectively across her middle.

‘You’ll keep them away for me,’ she agreed.

Just hearing him say that the bad dreams wouldn’t come made Jenny feel safe. But with her head still feeling achy and hot she sensed her body succumbing to another helpless wave of tiredness. Sighing, she snuggled down deeper into the bed. Under the covers, Rodrigo’s hand moved possessively over her bare hip.

Registering the sensuous tug in her solar plexus, along with the surge of heat in her breasts, Jenny smiled. ‘That’s nice.’

‘I have even more nice things to show you if you want.’

‘You do?’
Just the anticipation made her feel boneless.

‘But there is something I need to do first.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Sit up for me a minute.’

‘Why?’

‘So many questions…Have you never heard that sometimes you just need to go with the flow?’

Jenny obediently scooted up, and without preamble found her nightdress expertly pulled up over her head and flung to the side. Her skin prickled with goosebumps at the hot appreciative glance Rodrigo shamelessly submitted her to. His slow burning gaze all but devoured her.

‘You are like an exquisite painting of a fairy queen come to life,’ he said huskily. ‘Perhaps I have dreamed you up?’

‘I’m no dream, Rodrigo. I’m fallible flesh and blood, just like you. If I was a dream then I couldn’t be hurt, could I?’ She heard the catch in her voice.

Unperturbed by her comment, Rodrigo shrugged his shoulders and smiled. ‘I don’t care what you say. You’ll always be my favourite fantasy…the one I’ll summon when I’m alone in my bed at night after a hard day and need reminding of something beautiful.’

Not liking his reference to being alone, and the scene it conjured up of him being back in Barcelona without her, Jenny shivered. Desolate, she folded her arms over her chest. ‘I’m cold, Rodrigo.’

‘Then lie down with me,
querida
, and let me put the heat back into your blood to keep you warm…’

‘Maldita sea!’
He could hardly credit his clumsiness. That was the second mug he’d managed to break that morning. Sweeping the broken remnants into a dustpan, Rodrigo impatiently deposited them into the bin. Then he reached up to the overhead pine cupboard with its meticulously arranged shelves of bright painted crockery for another one.

He groaned as a tight muscle in his back stretched a little too abruptly. Strenuous exercise never fazed him. When all was said and done he was a man in the peak of fitness—even if lately his body
had
sometimes felt fustratingly fatigued. But last night he’d been making love to Jenny until the early hours of the morning.
And the more he’d demanded of her body, the more he’d craved.
It seemed as if his impossible desire was never sated.

His hand stilled on the coffee percolator’s handle. It pricked his conscience that he might have selfishly taken advantage of her when she was not totally well, but she had more than matched his passion, he recalled. The memory of her soft inner thighs clamped round his middle instantly hardened him. He hissed out a ragged breath. The sooner he returned to work the better. He was quickly realising that the longer he stayed, the more this white-hot lust and longing for Jenny would consume him…no doubt to the detriment of his ability to think straight, concentrate on his work and all he had set out to uphold and achieve.
Just as his father had warned him it would.

‘Is there any of that coffee going begging? I can’t tell you how good it smells.’

Rodrigo spun round. Jenny stood in the doorway, dressed in light blue denims and a sweatshirt that was just a shade darker than her eyes. The picture she made was stunning and fragile at the same time.

Rodrigo’s heart lurched. ‘What are you doing up? I told you to rest.’

‘I’m sick of resting. I need to be up and about again or I’ll go mad. Let me pour the coffee. I can do that much at least.’

Seeing her hand tremble as she reached for the coffee jug, he tutted. ‘You are your own worst enemy—you know that? I’d almost forgotten how impatient you are.’

‘I’ve lots of faults, that’s true.’

‘Come here.’

‘Why?’ She blinked owlishly at him.

He let her finish pouring the coffee, then pulled her into his arms. Everything about her delighted him…her slim compact body, sunshine gold hair, flawless blue eyes and pale satin skin.

Outside, a light rain fell onto the greenhouse roof and the neat flowerbeds alongside it. The air had a real crisp, cold bite to it. In an attempt to cool his ardour—as well as help distract a mind that seemed intent on dwelling on one thing and one thing only—Rodrigo had already been out walking, and the icy temperature had made him glad to return inside. It had also made him ache momentarily for the sunshine of Barcelona. But standing here with his arms wrapped round a sweetly scented Jenny he felt warm as toast and—not surprisingly—
aroused.

‘I want to kiss you good morning,’ he murmured, lowering his face to hers.

Jenny ducked her head out of the way. ‘You’ve already kissed me a hundred times this morning.’ She grinned, her cheeks turning charmingly pink. ‘I just hope you don’t catch what I’ve had—then you’ll be sorry!’

‘Never.’ He feigned a disapproving look. ‘I would never be sorry for kissing you. It would be worth being struck down for a few days just to have had the chance to sample your irresistible charms again, my angel.’

‘But then you wouldn’t be able to go to your meeting and I’d have to look after you.’

‘How tedious for you.’ Rodrigo tried to hide his automatic resistance to the idea but failed.

‘Why do you think that would be tedious for me?’ A tiny concerned crease appeared between Jenny’s neatly arched brows, ‘I would relish every minute of it, Rodrigo.’

‘And you would do it just because you have a naturally caring instinct, and not for any gain?’

‘What gain? What are you talking about?’

‘Wanting more of me than I can give.’

Unable to hide her alarm, Jenny stiffened in his arms.

Chapter Eight

‘I
F
I
TOOK
care of you while you were ill it wouldn’t be for any ulterior motive, Rodrigo. It would merely be because I care about you. Do you have a problem with that?’

All desire for coffee had fled. Jenny felt as if her stomach had a dead weight inside it at the suspicion and pain mirrored in her ex-husband’s silky dark eyes.

Abruptly removing his arms from round her waist, he moved away, leaving her feeling as if she’d gone from summer to winter in one fell swoop.

‘I don’t want you to care about me.’ A muscle flinched at the side of his jaw. ‘I’d like us to part as friends, of course, but—’

‘What?’

‘When I leave it’s best if you just forget about me. The commitment I have to my work is heavy. As I explained, that’s why our marriage couldn’t work. At least I was honest with you. A man like me hasn’t the right to pursue a serious relationship when he knows that because of his dedication to business there’s a high probability it will fail.’

‘You must have been hurt very badly somewhere along the line to make you believe that—to believe that any attempt at a committed relationship would fail.’

‘No!’

His denial was fierce. Jenny stepped back in alarm.

‘Just because I happen to prefer concentrating my time and energy on making a success of my work doesn’t mean that someone hurt me. The reality is that I’m aware of the false promises a relationship can breed…the false hope. Look around you—how many relationships do you see that even survive? I prefer to focus on something with a higher rate of success…something that does deliver on its promise.’

‘And work can fulfil every hope, every dream of happiness, can it?’

‘For me, right now, it gives me exactly what I want.’

‘That sounds to me like somebody
did
hurt you, Rodrigo—or at least poisoned your mind about what can be possible as far as relationships go.’

‘
Dios mio!
How have we got onto this tedious subject?’

Moving restlessly, as if his skin was suddenly too tight to contain whatever emotions were flooding him, the handsome Spaniard fixed her with a cold glare. Jenny held her ground.

‘I know that we broke up and things didn’t work out, but it wasn’t because I didn’t at least
try
to make it a success! But you- you decided not to try at all. What we had was really beautiful…have you forgotten that? And you just threw it away as if it meant nothing at all. I’ve thought about things a lot, lying ill in bed, and I know that for me life would be pretty meaningless if there was never anyone else to share it with.’

‘To look after, you mean?’

‘To take care of your husband and family isn’t something to be ashamed of.’ Inside her chest, Jenny’s heart thudded hard. ‘You talk as if it is.’