Allie released a breath through her nose. “This is ridiculous.”
“Maybe so,” Lucy said. “But if you ever speak to me in such an unprofessional way again, consider yourself my former real estate agent.”
Turning her head, she caught Jill’s eye. “Can we finish filming now?”
“Sure.” The woman offered her a thumbs-up from thewagon’s doorway. “You heard her, people. We’re in the home stretch!”
Allie brushed past Lucy, but Sebastián stayed put. In fact, he looped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her tight against him, giving her a fierce squeeze.
“You okay?” His voice was low and concerned.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“That…” He shook his head a little. “That was magnificent.”
“That was long overdue.” She drummed up a small smile. “I’m not a huge fan of conflict, as you might have noticed.”
He kept looking at her, those dark eyes soft. And he wasn’t letting her go. In fact, he hitched her even closer, until they were pressed together front-to-front. Through the thin fabric of her tie-dyed tunic, the heat of his hands seared her back.
“The sparkle is back,” he said, confusingly.
She looked down at her top. “That’s my other tunic. This one doesn’t sparkle.”
“Yes, she does.” He lowered his mouth for the length of a breath, his lips gentle and warm and seeking against hers. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see it.”
She clung to him as he kissed her again. His mouth courted hers, rubbing and nuzzling, until her lips parted beneath his. Then his tongue touched hers for the first time, and in the space of a single moan, a single shudder, the embrace exploded into raw carnality. He was squeezing her ass with one hot hand, cradling her skull with the other as his tongue dueled with hers, twisting and exploring and claiming.
He tasted like the tart apple he’d eaten for breakfast, and he smelled like sea salt and sage and damp skin. Like her friend pushed to the edge of endurance, heated to the pointof combustion. She plunged her fingers into his hair, the inky strands a cool contrast to the furnace of his body, and he groaned at the touch of her fingers against his scalp. Sucking her lower lip into his mouth, he nipped it, licked the spot with his tongue, and soothed the sting.
She whimpered, and he shook against her. One of his legs nudged between her thighs, and he bent her backwards, her weight supported by his strength alone.
His cock nudged against her hip, hard with urgent need, and she wanted her hands on it. Her mouth. She wanted to make him come and demand the same in return. Sebastián would make it good. He’d give her what she needed in bed. The time, the effort, the skill. The trust.
She was pressing against his leg, shameless in her desire. Growing swollen and slick and achy from the fierce display of possession and passion, totally unexpected from such a controlled, careful man.
Then he was levering her back to her feet, keeping his hands on her arms until she could stand unsupported. He stepped away, his lips swollen and damp from hers, a furrow between his brows.
She blinked at him, dazed.
Wow. Oh, wow. He’d reached for her. Kissed her. Slid his hand down to her ass and cupped it. Told her shesparkled.
She’d considered her hopes foolish, a product of wishful thinking. But maybe those erections of his hadn’t been generic, after all. Maybe they’d had a brand name on them.Hername, in huge, throbbing, tumescent letters.
And goddess knew, after everything that had happened the last few days, Lucy’s vagina might as well haveSebastián Castilloemblazoned on it.
She frowned. In it? Along it? Vaginal emblazoning was a linguistically confusing matter.
“You folks ready?” Jill called out from the wagon door.
“I am,” Lucy called back. “Ready and willing.”
From the heat that flared anew on Sebastián’s cheekbones, he knew exactly what she meant.
EIGHT
Lucy knew now.She had to know just how much Sebastián had hidden from her and how long he must have hidden it.
Sure, she hadn’t mentioned the kiss since they’d climbed into his car and begun the drive home. But only a fool wouldn’t realize the significance of a longtime friend seizing her, bending her over backward, and having her ride his thigh while his mouth devoured hers and his erection prodded her hip. And Lucy might be more innocent than most people, but she was far from a fool.
