He was treating her as if he cherished her.
She’d melt all over him if he did that again.
Easing back up onto her knees, she reached down, working the jeans past his h*ps and freeing him. She tossed them aside.
A masculine sound raw with need escaped.
She’d never felt so wanted, so confident.
In one of his liquid moves, he was up on his knees, facing her. He pulled her forward, always keeping her close. She grasped him; the feel of velvet skin over his hard erection was pure sensual decadence. Gripping him lightly, she moved her fingers up until her thumb brushed over the damp tip.
The blitz of Spanish he muttered would have singed the ears of her language instructor. She blushed to her roots from the erotic meaning.
Gabrielle tried to smother her laugh of pleasure, but couldn’t hide her joy at his earthy flattery.
“Dios mío, you are a she-devil come to kill me.” Carlos drew a deep breath and lowered her across the bed, covering her with his wide body.
She ran her hands across the cut muscles and toned shapes.
Her fingertips brushed over a scar on his chest, just over his heart. She replaced her fingers with her lips.
He stilled.
Was the scar ugly? Why did her touching it make him uncomfortable? A scar didn’t matter to her.
She moved her lips along his neck and cheek, finding his mouth and losing herself in the scorching kiss.
Black night surrounded them, heightening her senses and lowering the walls of her restraint with a man. But she’d had so little experience-if the unremarkable sex with Roberto even counted-she felt unsure of how to move forward.
So when Carlos asked her in a husky voice, “What do you want me to do?” she panicked for an answer and said, “Surprise me.”
He chuckled. A low, riveting masculine sound that held a warning. “I’m not sure you want to give that suggestion to a man like me, princess.”
EIGHTEEN
PRINCESS?
Gabrielle had never cared for being treated like royalty growing up, but from Carlos’s lips princess sounded so intimate.
An endearment.
She caught his warning about “a man like me.” A man she couldn’t get starry-eyed over, but she was beyond caring.
She wanted this man. Tonight was hers to take. “What’s it going to take to get you deep inside me?”
He stilled, again, and tense silence swirled around them.
Had she said the wrong thing? She hated being so inexperienced, but then his fingers curved around her breast, lifting the nipple to his mouth. He suckled her and all thoughts ceased.
The burst of heat that streaked across her skin pooled between her legs.
She might die if he stopped. A low moan of yearning seeped from deep inside her chest. She clutched his shoulders, clinging to him and her sanity with the same fierce grip.
His fingers cupped her other breast, then his lips were there, his tongue torturing her nipple. She squirmed, needing more, so much more.
The nimble fingers left one breast and drew circles along her abdomen, lower, teasing the curls. She pushed up off her knees and he swiped a finger up her thigh, inside her, dipping in again and again.
Mon Dieu! She shuddered and cried out, spinning toward a flame that threatened to burn her to the core.
Then all at once he touched that point where everything in her body was now connected. He teased up and down with torturous control, so agonizingly slowly she was close to losing it. Then the movement changed to a swirling friction.
“Please, please…” She couldn’t finish the thought. For the first time in her life, her mind was of no help.
He whispered sweet words in Spanish, assuring her she was beautiful and desired. The room filled with his ragged voice, which stirred something deep inside her. Something wholly feminine she’d never felt so completely before. His masculine smell, hot and damp from sweat glistening against his skin where her body met his.
His fingers crazed her wet heat.
She arched, strung tight with a need so demanding she expected to rip apart from head to toe.
He moved to her side, one leg hooked around hers, spreading her legs apart. His mouth found hers, kissing hot and hard. When his tongue pushed between her lips and rushed to hers, he pressed his finger deep inside her, then pulled out, then repeated the motion, mimicking it with his tongue.
She gripped his shoulder, clinging for her life, so close to losing her mind she didn’t realize he’d quit kissing her until his mouth replaced his fingers.
The tongue that had tangled with hers now brushed back and forth over her most sensitive spot. Her heart raced. A frenzy of nerves scrambled for release. She arched up.
Her body clenched tight, then shattered, free from the strain.
Stars blistered across her vision.
His tongue pressed her for more.
Unable to refuse him, she cried out again and again until her muscles quit contracting.
Spent beyond her wildest imagination, she could only lie there, her chest moving with each long, exhausted breath.
Then he was holding her, cuddling her to him the way she’d always dreamed the man she’d love would do. Carlos whispered in her ear how special she was, how hot she made him, how much he wanted her.
But he never pushed for more as he held her close while she found her way back into her body again. His big hands wrapped her against his warm chest. Gentle lips touched her forehead, her cheek, and brushed her lips.
She rubbed her h*ps against him like the wanton woman she was at the moment.
He answered by reaching a hand between her legs from behind to tease her, then plunged two fingers inside.
How could she want more after that?
She didn’t know, but there it was.
He laid her down on the mattress. “Don’t move.”
“As if I could.”
His deep chuckle rumbled all the way to the bathroom just before the light flashed when he opened and closed the door. Her mouth went bone-dry at the vision of his gorgeous backside in that moment.
He rummaged through something, then flipped off the light on his way back.
What had he been looking for…
Protection?
“Did you have a condom with you?” She was cheered and suspicious at the same time. Had he really planned on this?
“I always carry a few,” he admitted, answering her unspoken question.
She heard the hesitation in his voice, as if he thought he’d insulted her. Not even.
“I would have been sorely disappointed if you hadn’t.” She reached blindly until her fingers encountered his sheathed erection.
The growl that followed had an edge, warning her he wouldn’t hold back much longer.
She didn’t want him to.
She was more than ready for him.
He kissed her, moving his lips to her ear and whispering, “Exceptional is too understated for you. I’ll have to search for a better word.”
She shut her eyes tightly, not wanting a tear to streak loose. This man could touch a place inside her she’d shielded from others for a long time. No man had ever gotten close to her, not even Roberto. She’d been too young to know the difference between love and lust the last time.
She knew the difference this time.
When Carlos moved between her legs and kissed the inside of her thighs, all sane thought fled.
She gasped, gripping fistfuls of the plush duvet. The muscles inside her legs were taut, ready to snap. His mouth moved away, kissing a path to her navel.
He leaned over her and kissed her sweetly at first, then with heat. The tip of his erection prodded her, pulsing against her slick opening. He waited, then thrust a little harder.
Warmth rushed her when he pressed deeper. She locked her legs around him. He plunged all the way inside, filling her, then pulled back.
With each stroke of him sliding deep within her, his fingers worked magic, driving her back to that edge where she wanted to leap off into oblivion again. She met him stroke for stroke, determined that he reach the same mindless plane where he was sending her.
He moved his arms to support his body above her. She clutched his biceps that flexed hard beneath her fingers, his breathing harsh.
“I need you so much,” she rasped on a strained breath, then he moved one hand between them and fingered that one spot, taking her breath.
Her world broke into a thousand pieces. She cried out his name until she couldn’t anymore.
With both arms supporting him, Carlos lifted away, then shoved deep, again and again, powerful strokes. He growled his release, pumping relentlessly as he cli**xed. Nothing would ever be as incredible as making love to him.
Carlos shuddered, finally collapsing and rolling to the side, taking her with him so they stayed joined.
He kissed her tenderly, his lips barely touching hers.
“I need to tell you something.” She ran her fingers across his face and damp forehead where she brushed a lock of hair back, wishing the lights were on so she could see his face.
“What?” he asked with a hint of concern.
“I don’t just do this…I mean, I haven’t done this since my divorce. Haven’t really dated.”
Carlos wasn’t moving again, his breathing as quiet as his thoughts. “I know you aren’t the kind of woman to play the field, but what stopped you from at least dating?”
“For one thing, I withdrew after divorcing Roberto and didn’t want much to do with men for a while. Then I had a couple near-miss accidents that scared me so I couldn’t risk meeting someone.” And she sure as the devil wouldn’t have met anyone who made her feel the way Carlos did, but she wasn’t saying that.
“Attacks on your life by the scumbag?” Carlos interjected.
“Yes.”
“Why do you think your ex is behind the accidents?”
“Because when we split up, he had an insurance policy on me for twenty million dollars we took out right after getting married that stays in effect as long as the premiums are paid. He made it very clear what would happen if I tried to cancel it.”
Carlos hugged her to him and muttered, “That bastard. But he has to know he’d be suspect even if you died in an accident.”
“No, he blackmailed me into keeping a joint life-insurance policy so it looks like we have one on each other, like we had an amiable breakup and kept those policies. If I hadn’t, he would have trashed me and my family in the tabloids, which would have had a devastating impact on my father.”
His lips touched her forehead sweetly, then he pulled back. “You were loose as Jell-O a minute ago and now you’re tense. What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Tell me.” He added a kiss to soften the gentle demand.
“I should have more experience by now. Roberto wasn’t much of a lover and rarely came home at night. I feel like I’m stunted in this department and I hate not excelling at something.”
“You’ve got it all wrong,” he whispered in a voice so erotic goose bumps pebbled along her skin. His hands ran along her back, stroking her. “Making love with you felt like a gift being shared. As for being good at something, I’m afraid to think how much better you could be in bed.”
Her glow of happiness returned.
Carlos embodied everything a woman could want in a man.
A man of honor.
A man capable of helping her take down Durand Anguis.
CARLOS SPUN THE shower faucets off and snagged the towel folded on a shelf above his head to dry off. The hot water had done nothing to help him regroup after the last few hours of making love to Gabrielle. He should sleep like the dead tonight, but damn his body, he wanted her again.
She wouldn’t be able to walk if they went another round.
Humming on the other side of the curtain let him know Gabrielle was still in the room with him.
Guilt jumped him the minute his lust cooled. He shouldn’t have stepped over that line and made love to her. Not just because of his position with BAD.
Because she was no onetime wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of woman. He hadn’t thought she was, but neither had he been prepared for just how much she’d come to mean to him. How much he didn’t want her hurt by anyone.
Especially by him.
He’d guessed she hadn’t been with many men before she told him. One other man, to be exact, and the scumbag might as well have been nonexistent if not for the emotional scars he’d left.
Carlos smiled. She’d told him to surprise her. He might have done something more provocative with an experienced woman, but his instincts had been right to warn him to take care how he made love to Gabrielle.
He never expected to care for another woman. Not after watching one die sixteen years ago.
Pain and pleasure rolled around in his heart, banging the organ with an ache for his lost love and desire for the woman who gave life to something dangerously close to joy.
He’d enjoyed plenty of women, sweet ladies he’d met who clearly wanted no more than he had-a few days of rousing sex.
But Gabrielle was not like any other woman he’d met. Tonight with her had been different in a way that was hard to ignore. She was spectacular and na?ve at the same time.
He flinched over recalling how he’d thought the same thing after making love to sixteen-year-old Helena when he’d been seventeen.
Helena Suarez, Salvatore’s goddaughter.
Her face had faded over the years, but not the painful memory from the last time Carlos looked into her eyes as the life seeped from her body.
And Helena had died because she’d been involved with him.
He wanted Gabrielle now with that same burning desire he’d had for Helena, but this time as a man who knew the risks they both faced.
Gabrielle would never be safe around him.
The best thing he could do to protect her would be to convince her to stop sending intel on people like Durand Anguis to security agencies and for Joe to put her into the WITSEC program if they could figure out how to do it without causing an international clash over hiding an heir to a dynasty.
That was if Carlos could prevent BAD from handing her over to Interpol.
“Are you going to come out?” she asked. The snicker of laughter that followed had him smiling.