One Night in Buenos Aires: The Vásquez Mistress. Sarah Morgan

realise that he’d unzipped her dress until it slid to the floor, leaving her standing in her underwear. She clutched at his shoulders, feeling the hard swell of male muscle under her fingers, revelling in the strength and power of his body.

      He was pumped up and aroused and she gave a choked cry as his hand cupped her breast through the thin, silken fabric and he stroked her with skilled clever fingers.

      The delicious friction of his thumbs over her nipples sent intense excitement shooting through her body and it would have been impossible not to respond. She arched against him in desperate invitation, feeling the heavy, rigid thrust of his arousal and the immediate explosion of heat deep in the core of her femininity.

      He kept his mouth on hers, his kiss demanding and shockingly intimate, but all the time his fingers teased her breasts, driving her wild. Only when her breasts ached and throbbed with almost agonising sensation did he slide his clever, confident hands down her shivering, quivering body.

      Mindless and desperate, Faith slid one foot up his leg and he caught her thigh in his hand, lifting her leg higher and wider, exposing her to his touch. Once, such a wanton position would have brought a blush to her cheeks but she was too aroused to think about modesty or behaviour. The response of her body was outside her own control and as she felt his knowing fingers slide over the thin fabric of her panties she shuddered and pressed towards his hand. Only a layer of thin, flimsy silk lay between them but it was too much of a barrier and she gave a moan and shifted her hips, just desperate for him to touch her there.

      But he didn’t.

      Instead he tormented them both by prolonging the moment that they craved so desperately, very much in control despite the hunger that consumed both of them.

      Driven wild with excitement, her fingers slid downwards, reaching for him and he broke the kiss with a harsh groan as the flat of her hand brushed against his pulsing erection.

      ‘Faith—’

      Desperate and urgent, her fingers dealt with his zip, slid inside and encountered the warm throb of masculine power. Touching him so intimately, she felt an explosion of pure sexual need. He was so unashamedly male, so virile, that for a moment her heart seemed to beat double-time. She couldn’t quite circle him with her hand and as usual she felt a flash of trepidation that he might be more of a man than she could handle.

      ‘You’re driving me wild, cariño,’ he groaned and his hand moved again and this time he slid his fingers under the silken barrier that still protected her. The intimate stroke of his fingers was the touch she’d longed for and she whimpered his name, her eyes closing as his fingers slid deep, her damp, desperate body closing around him. She didn’t know herself when she was with him. Didn’t recognise the person she became. Devoured by sensation she was powerless to resist as his long clever fingers explored her with astonishing expertise. She felt the pressure build, felt her body race headlong towards completion and then he gently removed his hand and brought his mouth down on hers with punishing force.

      His kiss made her so dizzy that she was only dimly aware of him lifting her, of him coiling her other leg around his hips. There was a brief moment of clarity when she felt the blunt tip of his arousal brush against her and then suddenly she felt a blind flash of panic and struggled against him. ‘No, Raul. No. ‘

      He froze, his breathing harsh, his body on the point of penetrating hers. ‘No?’ His voice was hoarse with disbelief, his entire frame straining with the tension of holding back. ‘What do you mean, no?’

      ‘We have to stop. Put me down!’

      Two streaks of colour on his cheeks, Raul hesitated for a tense, pulsing moment and then lowered her gently and released her. Stepping away from her, he leaned both hands against the wall and breathed deeply, clearly struggling for control.

      ‘Raul—’

      ‘Don’t.’ His tone was raw and savage. ‘Just give me a minute—’

      Faith watched helplessly, not knowing what to do or say, her own body singing with unresolved passion. It didn’t help that he was half-undressed, his bronzed back bared for her greedy gaze, his trousers riding low on his hips.

      She closed her eyes with a groan because her only hope was not to look at him.

       What was it about this man that made her forget herself every time?

      Finally he drew in a breath and turned, his dark eyes burning with feverish intensity. ‘So what was that all about?’ His dark hair was tousled from the aggravated plunge of his fingers and he reached down and zipped his trousers with a purposeful movement. ‘It was a joke or a punishment?’

      ‘Neither.’ Shivering and shaking, she stooped and retrieved her dress, holding it in front of her like a shield.

      ‘Then what? You wanted it as badly as I did,’ he said in a driven tone. ‘So don’t pretend that you didn’t.’

      ‘I’m not pretending anything.’

      ‘So why did you stop?’ His eyes were dark as a winter night and Faith licked her lips, trying to ignore the fact that her entire body was suddenly alive with anticipation.

      ‘Contraception,’ she croaked, watching as his expression froze. ‘For a man who doesn’t want babies, you’re extremely careless, do you know that?’

      He stilled and a sudden silence screamed through the room.

      ‘I am not careless.’ His breathing suddenly shallow, he ran a hand over the back of his neck. ‘Not usually. I did not intend to put you at risk—I forgot that you didn’t use protection.’

      And there it was, back again. This thing that lay between them. ‘I did use protection,’ she said flatly. ‘But I stopped taking the Pill when I found out that I was pregnant. And I didn’t start taking it again after I lost the baby.’ She looked away from him but felt the tension levels rocket in the room.

      ‘So, clearly that’s something we need to address sooner rather than later.’ His voice was rough, still laden with the passion that thickened the air and scraped along the edges of their nerve endings.

      ‘No, we don’t!’ She took several steps backwards and found herself against the wall again. The same wall that just moments earlier she’d been pinned to under the weight of his body. ‘We shouldn’t even be thinking about sex when things are so complicated between us, Raul!’

      ‘We have thought about nothing but sex since the first moment we met, cariño, and you know it.’

      Faith wished there was a switch she could flick to turn off the responses of her body. She didn’t want to feel like this. ‘And that’s our problem, isn’t it?’

      ‘Problem?’ One dark eyebrow swooped upwards in sardonic appraisal. ‘The fact that you are capable of satisfying me in the bedroom is the one thing that is absolutely right about our relationship. I certainly don’t see it as a problem.’

      His oblique reference to her abandoned response to him sent the colour flooding into her cheeks. ‘You can’t base a relationship on sex!’

      ‘Never underestimate the importance of sex.’

      Her heart rate doubled. ‘I know it’s important, but if sex is the only thing that is right about our relationship then we’re doomed, Raul. A marriage is about trust and caring. We need to talk.’

      Casting her a glance laden with hot-blooded volatility, Raul stepped back from her. ‘If you want to talk, phone a girlfriend.’ Simmering with unfulfilled passion and male hormones, he strode into the bedroom, leaving her staring after him in disbelief.

      Stunned by the suppressed violence she sensed in him, Faith followed. ‘You can’t just walk out in the middle of a conversation just because you don’t happen to like the subject matter—’

      ‘Dios mío, not now!’ With a low growl of impatience he turned, his hand