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What on earth had she done?
She was about to call him back, call it all off, call Francesca to arrange for someone to come get her, when she heard a distinctly feline cry and a uniquely male tirade of curses. Racing upstairs, Diabla speeding the opposite way in a streak, Emily rounded the corner to the master suite and gasped.
And then she laughed. She laughed so hard she started to cry, beautiful big joyful tears rolling down her cheeks.
‘Oh, my...’ she managed through her hysterics, bending double at the waist to try to relieve the pressure on her stomach muscles.
Javier turned, holding up what had once been one of his most expensive shirts, but was now barely strips of material. Fluff and feathers danced in the air from the absolute destruction that was the master suite. The look on his face was a picture! Miserably, Javier picked through the mess on the floor to retrieve a pair of his favourite trousers, setting Emily off on another round of impossible to stop giggles.
He turned back to her and stared as if she’d lost her mind. ‘You can laugh,cariño, but have you seen what she did to your curtains?’
And then she stopped laughing.
CHAPTER SEVEN
EMILYSHIFTEDHERLEGS, the satiny glide of the fresh sheets she’d put on the bed late last night decadent and delicious. Warmth and comfort surrounded her and she buried herself deeper into the plush bedding. The scent of sandalwood, mint and something peppery coiled a tempting tension in her sex, low and incessant. She inhaled dreamily and then screamed when Javier shifted beside her.
‘I am right here, you know. If you wanted—’
She turned and slapped him on the arm. ‘You scared me!’ she accused.
‘I was not hiding,mi vida.’ Javier laughed, throwing back the sheets and getting out of bed.
The sight of his nakedness made her gasp, and slam her eyelids closed as quickly as possible.
‘Emily,’ he chided. ‘It is nothing you have not seen before.’
‘Yes, but that was different.’ She felt the bed dip beneath his weight, as if he were kneeling beside her.
‘Mrs Casas.’
He was waiting for her to look at him—because that was her husband. He commanded, demanded, complete attention. Gingerly, she prised one eyelid open to find him but millimetres away from her. The hypnotic depths of his brown eyes, fathomless and rich enough to drown in, seduced her sleep-addled brain and she allowed him to nuzzle her head to the side, to lean into the crook of her neck and inhale deeply from her skin—an unabashed declaration of intent mocking her sleepy sips at his scent from her pillow.
‘You made the rules,’ he whispered, his breath fanning out against her shoulder. ‘The moment you agree to return to my side, we can get rid of this silly embargo and enjoy wholedaysof making love. Believe me,cariño, I want nothing more.’
And with that proclamation he was gone, leaving her in a melting puddle of desire and aching frustration in the bed they now shared.
Emily was not a fool and she wasn’t used to lying to herself. Of course she wanted to sleep with her husband. The man was sculpted marble come to life in hot flesh. In six years, he had only become that much bigger and stronger. Javier had always been proud of his physique, relishing the power and strength he honed through disciplined workouts and hours at the gym—it was an energy he’d needed to expel she’d realised quite early on. Not that she’d once complained because he was simply mouth-watering. The breadth of his shoulders, biceps she didn’t have a hope of circling even with both hands, the ripple of abdominal muscles that concertinaed when he laughed, or when he... She stifled that thought with a yank so severe she slammed her eyes shut. Even then, she could see the whorls of dark hair across his chest, remembered the way she had stroked and teased both herself and him as she tripped downward to the powerful jut of his erection.
Emily rubbed her thighs together, unable to prevent the pulse of need flaring at her core. Behind lidded eyes, she saw him in her mind, staring at her inthatway, his lips a perpetual pout as if daring her to find fault in anything about him—and the infuriating fact that she couldn’t. That challenge, it was a drug, a lure, a trap.
Because her husband was not above using sex to get what he wanted. And Javier Casas was simply a man who did not lose. But this was one game Emily couldn’t afford to take lightly. She had meant what she said the day before. Nothing had changed. Javier was still a man who, purposely or not, put his needs and desires first. Not for nefarious purposes, not for greed or ill will but almost out of sheer stubbornness. It was strange that she hadn’t really seen that before. Did it help that it was a thoughtless kind of selfishness or did it make it worse? Maybe if she understood a little more why... The thought made her feel embarrassed that she didn’t know her husband as well as she’d thought she had. Was it possible to fall in love with someone before you knew them? They’d been in such a rush to marry, so full of passion and urgency and youthful confidence.
‘I meant my vows.’
As had she, her inner voice insisted, feeling the truth of it sinking in. And being here, in their home in Frigiliana, she remembered. She remembered all the reasons shedidlove him. The power and care, the way he’d made her laugh, the way he had drawn an inhibited girl from London into a world of passion and colour and brightness and even the early stirrings of her own power. Theyhadshared that. And she would never lie. Could not lie about this. Shedidlove him.
But it hadn’t been enough. Because she simply couldn’t be like her mother. Couldn’t and wouldn’t lose herself to a man so much that she forgot her own child as much as she forgot herself. And that was why Emily pulled herself together and was gone by the time Javier emerged from the bathroom.
Emily was at the table when Javier came to a halt in the kitchen doorway. Diabla was peering at him from where she wove herself between Emily’s calves. He glared at the beast that had done untold damage to his wardrobe and—the gall of the animal—she glared back before darting away the moment he crossed the threshold.
He bit back the low growl in his throat, realising that he might have to put more effort into winning over Diabla than his wife. With that in mind, he placed the bottle of sunscreen on the table next to Emily’s breakfast plate as he pulled out his phone to order something online that might help him with the cat.
‘What is this?’ Emily asked, picking up the bottle.
‘It’s sunscreen.’
‘Clearly.’
