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He reached down then and hauled her up and into his arms. The blanket fell off her, her phone clattered to the stone floor, and she didn’t care. Because his mouth was on hers and his tongue was stroking deep, making her attempt at defiance seem silly.
When all she wanted was this.
All she really wanted was him.
He spun them around and carried her across the lobby, and she didn’t understand what he was doing until she felt the rain fall all over them. Pounding down until they were both soaking wet.
Eventually he set her down on her feet, and a quick glance around showed her that they were out near one of the smaller pools, its surface agitated by the rain that kept coming and coming. Joaquin backed her up until she found the palm tree behind her and she held on as tight she could, her fingers slick against the bark.
He didn’t stand on ceremony. It was like the storm all around them was in them, too. Joaquin worked the front of his trousers to free himself, and then he lifted her up, letting her arch back against the palm. Then he slid her down his body, thrusting deep within her.
And every time it felt better.
Every time, she thought there was no possible way the pleasure could be this intense. This beautiful.
And every time he proved her wrong.
She couldn’t tell any longer where the storm was. Inside her, around her. Pounding on her head, pounding deep between her thighs.
Maybe they had been the storm all along.
When she arched up against him, sobbing out her joy into the rain, he let out a deep kind of roar. Then jerked himself out of her to finish on her belly.
Once again, he’d forgotten himself.
And she forgot everything.
“Careful,” she warned, in a voice that didn’t sound like hers. She sounded silly with lust. Half-mad with passion. Addled by him, again. “One of these days you’re going to make me pregnant, and then you’ll never be rid of me.”
And it wasn’t until her feet hit the ground with a jolt that she realized how badly Joaquin was taking that remark.
Because he was looking at her as if she’d betrayed him.
CHAPTER SIX
ONEMOMENT,HE’Dbeen burning so hot he was surprised the rain didn’t sizzle as it hit him.
And the next moment, he was chilled to the bone.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Amalia asked, gazing at him like the impossible temptation she was. Soaking wet, wearing one of those gowns of hers that seemed to envelop her in far too much fabric, yet were almost too alluring to bear.
Out here, in all this rain, the fabric clung to her form, making her seem something more than simply beautiful. It was as if she became something else, somethingmore. Some kind of myth, perhaps.
Thank the gods he didn’t believe in such things.
“There will be no pregnancy, Amalia,” he told her, and it was probably a good thing that she’d called out his shocking irresponsibility. It was certainly a good thing that she’d done it before he went too far. “Ever.”
She stared at him as if he was suddenly far, far away. When Joaquin knew the truth. He was always that far away. He was alwaysother.He was always surprised when people failed to recognize the fact that he was not civilized.
Not like they were.
Not likeshewas.
“They call me an orphan, but no one knows if that’s true,” he told her, the words seeming to come from deep inside him like so much rain. When he never spoke of these things. The stories told about him always glossed this part over. Hishumble beginnings.His childhood ofabject poverty. Pretty ways to describe a life of grim desperation and too much terror. And he’d certainly never told Amalia much more than the broad strokes, because why would he want her to think of him like that? So weak and small? He felt overexposed already, but he couldn’t seem to stop talking. “My parents could be alive right now for all I know or care. If they are, I’m certain they lost whatever humanity they possessed to the drugs and the drink long ago. Maybe they were taken by violence on the same streets where I was left to fend for myself. Whatever the reason, whatever happened to them, it does not take a genius to understand that I possess nothing in me that could ever make a good father.”
“If we can only be what our parents were, then I fear we are all doomed,” she said.
“I am happy to be doomed,” he gritted out. “I thrive under such conditions. But I am not planning to pass it down.”
