The Holiday Escapes Collection. Sandra Marton

up and carried her down to the master stateroom, kissing her the entire way. He lowered her to the ground, turning her around so he could work on the tiny buttons from behind. It did not halt his mouth; his tongue kissed every inch of newly exposed flesh till her spine felt as if it were on fire.

      He peeled off her dress, then her shoes and stockings. As his tongue licked and nibbled her sex through her silk panties the sensations his mouth delivered drove her wild. He only removed her panties when the moisture his mouth had made matched the dampening silk.

      ‘Raúl…’ Her hands were on his head—contrary hands that tried to halt him, while her moans of mounting desire urged him on.

      ‘I want you so bad.’ He peeled off her panties and, kneeling, parted her lips, his tongue darting to the swelling bud over and over as her hands knotted in his hair.

      ‘Raúl…’ she whimpered, lost between bliss and fear. ‘I’m serious. I really haven’t slept with anyone before.’

      He simply didn’t believe her. As she came under his mouth she had a hopeless thought that maybe he wouldn’t guess, maybe he wouldn’t know. Because despite her

      naïveté her body responded with ease. She throbbed against his mouth, more aroused than sated as he softly kissed the lingering orgasm.

      He relished her taste, was assured she was moist. He was desperate now to take her.

      He rose to his full height then, and shrugged his jacket off.

      Breathless, aroused, moving on instinct, her hands shaking with want, she undid the buttons of his shirt. He was so dark and sultry, and he wore it well. His lips parted as her hands roamed his chest and she licked at his nipples as she undid his belt.

      Raúl wanted her fingers at his zipper, and he wished she would hurry, but she lingered instead, feeling his thick heat through the fabric, her fingers lightly exploring. His already aching erection hardened further beneath her fingers. ‘Estelle…’ He could barely get the word out, but thankfully she read the urgency and slid the zipper down, and he let out a breath as she freed him.

      He was delicious to her hands. She ran her fingers along his length, felt the soft skin that belied the strength beneath. She was petrified at the thought of him inside her, but wanting him just the same. She could see a trickle of silver and caught it with her finger, then swirled it around the head, entranced by its beauty.

      Raúl closed his eyes in a mixture of frustration and bliss, for he wanted her hand to grip him tight, yet conversely he liked the tentative tease and exploration, liked the feel of her other hand gently weighing him.

      Deeply they kissed, his tongue urging her to move faster, his erection twitching at the pleasure of her teasing, till he could take it no more.

      ‘Te quiero.’

      He told her he wanted her in Spanish as he pushed her onto the bed. ‘Tengo que usted tiene.’ He told her he had to have her as he parted her legs.

      ‘Be gentle.’ She was writhing and hot beneath him, her words contrary to the wanton woman in his arms. Her sex was slippery and warm and engorged as his hand stroked her there. She was as close to coming as Raúl, and his answer to her final plea was delivered as he nudged her entrance.

      ‘It’s way too late for gentle, baby.’

      How he regretted those words as he seared and tore into her.

      Raúl heard her sob, heard her bite back a scream.

      Estelle knew then she had been a fool to think he might somehow not notice. He tore through her barrier but the pain did not end there. His fierce erection drove through tight muscles full of resistance. Too late to halt, too late to be tender, he froze—just not quickly enough. He leant on his elbows above her as she tried to work out how to breathe with Raúl inside her.

      He attempted slow withdrawal. She begged that he did not. She lay there, trying to accommodate him, waiting for the heat and pain to subside, her muscles clamped around him.

      ‘I take it out slowly,’ Raúl said. He felt sick—appalled by his own brutality—and guilty too at the pleasure of her, hot and tight around him. He was so close to coming and trying to hold on. ‘I’ll just—’

      ‘Don’t.’

      Her eyes were screwed tight as he moved a fraction backwards, but when he halted, when he stilled, her body relaxed a little. Estelle tried to release herself. She moved to slide away from him. Yet the pain was subsiding to a throbbing heat so she moved again, warming to the sensation of him inside her.

      It was a different type of command she gave next. ‘Don’t stop.’

      ‘Estelle?’ He did not want to stop, and yet he did not want to hurt her; he moved slowly a little within her, his breath shallow, panting as if he had already come.

      Her hands moved to his buttocks and she felt them tauten beneath her fingers. It was Estelle who pressed and dictated the tempo and, rarely for Raúl, he let her. Rarely for Raúl, he was humbled. He did not think of the questions he must ask her, just focused on the tight grip and the heat of her on his unsheathed skin, and all he could do was kiss her. Every inch of him held back, resisting the beckoning of oiled muscles that gripped as he slid past them, that urged him now to move faster, to take her deeper.

      Estelle’s breath was quickening. He felt the somewhat impatient rise of her groin, the press of her hands in his buttocks, and he could hold back no more.

      Still he had not taken her fully, but now he thrust in. Estelle’s neck arched as he probed and located fresh virgin flesh with each deepening thrust, and when he had filled her, when every part of her was consumed, he moved out and did it again, angling his hips, hitting her deep inside till she was moaning.

      He was moving fast now, and she wrapped her legs around him, could not believe how her body had just taken over. For she lifted to him, was building to him, working with him, both heading to the same mutual goal.

      No longer naïve, her body shattered in an orgasm like nothing she had ever given herself—for there she could stop, there she could halt. And it was nothing like the teasing he had given her either, for here in Raúl’s bed he urged her on further, broke all limits, ensured that she screamed.

      She pulsed around the head of him. He was stroking her deep inside—one spot that had her sobbing, one tender spot that he hit over and over—till she sobbed, and then he released himself into her. Her thighs were in spasm as a fresh wave of orgasm crashed through her body—and, yes, just as he had warned her, she cussed him in Spanish till he kissed her, till she was lying beneath him no longer a virgin.

      She looked up at him, expecting a barrage of questions, a demand for an explanation, but instead he moved onto his side and put his arm around her, pulling her into him.

      ‘I should have known’ was his reprimand.

      ‘I tried to tell you.’

      ‘Estelle…’ he warned.

      She gave a small nod, conceding that tonight might have been rather too late.

      ‘We will speak about it in the morning.’

      For now, they held each other, lay in each other’s arms, tired and sated and both in a place they had never thought they might be.

      Estelle a bought bride; Raúl a man who had married and made love to a virgin.

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

      ESTELLE WOKE AND had no idea where she was for a moment.

      Her body was bruised and sore. She could hear a shower.

      She rolled over in bed and saw the evidence of their union, and moved the top sheet to cover it.

      ‘Hiding the evidence?’

      Estelle turned and was shocked at the sight of him.