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‘Probably. But why?’
Because you’re lying to me. Because I’ve left everything in London for you—again. Because you make me want you when Idon’twant to, her inner voice screamed silently.
He shook his head, perhaps realising she couldn’t answer his question. Not with this game they were playing.
‘What were you doing down there?’
‘Breathing,’ she snapped sarcastically.
She saw the flex of his jaw, one of the only tells Javier Casas had, and reflexively she swallowed.
All the emotions, the drama and the worry of the last few days, the memories of a husband who hadn’t even cared enough about the one thing,one thing, that had been so important to her... The ache spread out across her chest and crawled up her throat, her heart hurt all over again, bruised and raw, it thudded under the tide of memories washing again and again over her soul.
‘Mi vida,’Javier said, sweeping a damp twist of hair from her cheek. ‘What’s wrong? Please tell me,’ he begged.
But here? Now? Javier had encircled her with his arms, that legendary focus and determination all on her, the concern she felt press against her in waves. This was the man she had first met; this was the man who wanted to know her secrets and share them, her desires and make them happen, her hurts and make them better. This was the man she had fallen in love with and she so desperately wanted to pretend. Pretend that hedidhave amnesia.
Pretend that he hadn’t lied to her and upended her life for his own selfish reasons. Pretend that the last six years hadn’t happened. Pretend that it would be the most natural thing in the world for her to make love to the husband she had given her heart and soul to one Spanish summer’s eve. She didn’t want to worry about what would happen tomorrow or the next day any more. She wanted the here and now. She wanted her husband.
His hand cupped her cheek, and he was looking at her as if trying to unravel some great mystery she wasn’t anywhere near ready for him to see. The white linen shirt he wore had turned see-through, clinging to his skin, and his dark trousers abraded her legs beneath the water. They were both breathing hard with the force of staying afloat in the deep end and, in unspoken agreement, Javier swam them back towards the shallow end, keeping her within the circle of his embrace.
He powered them easily through the water, creating a delicious slip and slide between their bodies, until she felt the gentle curve of the edge of the pool at her back. Encased in his arms, she didn’t feel trapped but protected, sheltered, hidden... And here, as dusk was falling, in a pool hidden from the sight of passers-by either on the road or on the gorge, she felt that anything could happen. It whispered like a delicious taunt in her mind and soul until she wanted not just anything, buteverything.
Intensity zipped from his gaze to her body, she felt it like a carnal stroke over her breasts and beneath the waterline. Javier braced one hand against the stone and held her with the other, even though she could now stand. His fingers burned the flesh at her side through the water and shivers racked her body.
‘Are you cold,querida?’
She bit her lip and shook her head, her eyes fastened on his, so that she caught the way his gaze flickered between her lips and her eyes. The way his nostrils flared on a swift inhale and his pupils burst wide, the molten depths promising heat and hardness—all concealment ripped away from his intense gaze showing her a world of want she was so tired of fighting. She wanted, she needed, so Emily closed her eyes and surrendered.
‘Kiss me,’ she pleaded, no longer caring that she was begging. He had always done this to her. He had always made her feel like this,wantthis. With complete and utter submission.
Javier Casas, the man who the press had dubbed as ‘having it all’, had never wanted anything more in his entire life. His wife was in his arms, asking him to love her. But he couldn’t. Because he was lying to her. That she knew it didn’t make a bit of difference. His conscience wrestled with the sheer force of his need for her, the request on her lips an invitation to the sweetest of sins.
‘Please.’
The word escaped lips he’d kissed a thousand times and it hadn’t been anywhere near enough. Memories of the way she would laugh beneath his mouth, the giggle he could bring forth with the lightest of touches in the most specific of places, the sigh when he slipped his hand between her legs, the moan that built with her orgasm, the sound of his name on her tongue as she came, it built until the wall of his desire for her loomed so large it blocked out all reason.
If he’d been worried that she’d be startled by the passion with which he claimed her lips, he was so very wrong. Emily wasinflamedby it. Her mouth opened to his before he even closed the distance between them. Where he would have held her still, she came alive beneath his touch, raising onto tiptoes, twining her arms around his neck, pressing into his chest, making the blood roar her name in his veins. The taste of her was like manna from heaven and he hadn’t realised just how lost he had been until Emily found him in that moment. His heart beat so profoundly that for the wildest second he thought to press a hand against his chest to hold it in place.
Encouraged by the small needy groans she made at the back of her throat—the ones he’d used to learn every single one of her favourite places to be touched and teased—he pulled her against the hard ridge of his arousal, satisfied by the little whimper that tangled in their kiss.
With his nose, he nudged her head back so that he could take tiny nips along her neck and shoulder, then chased the ripple of goosebumps with his tongue across her skin. He hooked the strap of the bikini top with his forefinger, sliding it down her shoulder, smiling to himself. If she’d known how much it had cost, she never would have worn the obscenely expensive item of swimwear. But he’d kept the cost from her because he’d known how good it would be to peel it from her skin.
‘The moment I saw this,’ he said, his finger releasing the strap and following the curve of the top, ‘thiswas what I imagined doing, over and over and over again.’ He pulled down the cup covering her breast and took it into his mouth, relishing the way she leaned back, pressing her chest forward, wanting, needing more. Cupping her breast, his thumb teasing the taut nipple, he pressed open mouth kisses and went to the other, unable to resist the pull of wanting to have it in his mouth.
Her legs wrapped around his hips and brought his arousal deliciously against her core.
‘When you wore this,’ he said, between teasing her to distraction with his tongue, ‘to Santi and Mariana’s engagement party, I nearly had a heart attack,’ he went on, smiling at the memory. ‘You are never to wear this in public,mi amore. I told you that when I gave it to you.’
‘Santi and Mariana’s engagement party?’ Emily asked, pulling back from his embrace and staring at him with startlingly dull eyes.
‘Yes? You remember.’
She shook her head and slipped from his arms, bracing her hands against the pool edge and levering herself backwards out of the pool. ‘I do,’ she said as she reached for her robe. ‘But you shouldn’t.’
He watched her walk away—brain completely blank—until arousal dissipated and he realised what had happened. He cursed, striking out, sending a wave of water that covered half the patio. Santi and Mariana’s engagement party had been only weeks before she’d left him and long after Gabi’s sixteenth birthday.
The game was up. There was no more pretending.
