A Spanish Awakening. Kim Lawrence

used to follow him around like a puppy.’

      The reminder brought a flush to her cheeks. ‘I’m not twelve, Dad.’ Actually, she had been thirteen when her brother had brought home his college friend, who had been the most beautiful young man she had ever imagined, let alone laid eyes on.

      He had been kind.

      Later he had been cruel.

      ‘And anyway, he definitely doesn’t like me.’ This was not a stab in the dark; it was actually an understatement. Two years on the memory of his blighting scorn no longer had the power to make her feel physically sick. Though she was a little way off laughing at it.

      ‘Don’t be stupid, Megan. Why would he not like you? I doubt if you even registered on his radar back then.’

      Is that meant to make me feel better? Megan wondered.

      ‘I did have hopes he might have fallen for Janie.’

      Why not? Megan thought. Everyone else had, or so it had seemed to her when she had watched, with wistful envy, her beautiful half-sister make male jaws drop wherever she went.

      ‘But I think that marriage of his was a done deal when they were both in their cradles. But that’s over and it’s different now. You’ve turned into quite an attractive young woman. No Janie, obviously.’

      Obviously, Megan thought, and her twisted smile was more philosophical than cynical as she said, ‘You mean I lost twenty pounds.’ There was less of her but suddenly she was a lot more visible, at least to male eyes. ‘Look, Dad, I have to— Hold on, Dad,’ she added, turning in response to the pressure of a hand on her shoulder.

      The expression of polite enquiry on her face melted into one of wild-eyed panic as she tilted her face up at the man standing at her shoulder.

      He was the reason why she was suddenly not being jostled. People did not jostle Emilio Rios. It wasn’t just his physical presence, which was considerable, it was his aura.

      ‘You!’ Oh, God, how long had he been standing there? The thought that he had been listening made her feel queasy.

      Emilio Rios smiled and Megan’s lips parted. She had no control over the tiny sigh of female appreciation that emerged from her throat. Fortunately the level of noise in the place drowned it out.

      The smile did not reach his dark eyes, just deepened the fine lines fanning out from the corners, leaving the gleaming depths intent as without a word he framed her face with his big hands.

      A myriad emotions swirling in jumbled psychedelic chaos through her head, Megan stood immobile as she felt the warm brush of his breath against the fluttering pulse at the base of her neck, then the downy softness of her cheek as his dark features blurred out of focus as she struggled to escape the magnetic tug of his unblinking stare.

      Logic told her this was not happening, but it was. This wasn’t a dream; it was real. Dreams were not hot; he was. Across the inches barely separating them the heat of his body seeped through the fine creased linen of her jacket.

      Say something! Do something?

      She did neither, but he did.

      Emilio bent his head and covered her mouth with his.

      Scream, kick him, bite him, said the voice in her head.

      Instead she melted into him, her soft body moulding sinuously against the lean, hard length of him. Her lips parted with a silent sigh, not just allowing but inviting the bold, erotic penetration of his tongue.

      Need and enervating lust rolled over her, sweeping her along in its wake as she clung to him, her arms sliding around his middle.

      The crowds faded, her sense of self faded, all that remained was the taste of him filling her mouth, the texture of his warm lips. The hunger inside her responding with mindless enthusiasm to the erotic probing advances of his tongue.

      Then just as abruptly as it had begun it stopped and she was standing there deprived of the heat of his body, shaking and feeling pretty much as if she had just been run over by a truck.

      Megan’s hands balled into fists at her sides.

      ‘Mr Rios,’ she croaked. ‘I was just talking about you.’ She raised the phone that she still held in a white-knuckled grip.

       He just kissed you!

      Two years had not changed him. He looked perhaps a little leaner, a little harder, the angles and planes of his incredible face perhaps more sharply defined, but essentially he was still the same.

      But you’re not that Megan, you’ve moved on, she reminded herself.

       He just kissed you.

      Emilio stood waiting for his breathing to return to something approximating normal and watched her, fascinated to see denial this close up. Megan was addressing her remarks to some point over his left shoulder and her attractive contralto voice had an audible edge of hysteria. The open neck of her blouse didn’t quite hide the pulse that beat at the base of her throat.

      Struggling to control the hunger rampaging through his body, he avoided looking at her mouth, deciding it would not help the painful issue of his arousal, which remained painfully obvious—also painful!

      Kissing in public places had some definite disadvantages.

      You’ve met a lot of good-looking men, Megan, she told herself. You can look at him and not turn into a gibbering idiot. You do not worship this man from afar. He cannot injure you with an unfair accusation and harsh word. He has no power at all over you any more because he’s just a good-looking man you used to slightly know because he went to school with your brother.

      Just a man who made it a struggle to breathe when she looked at him and all that scalp-tingling stuff. Her glance swept downwards as she rubbed her forearms to dispel the goose bumps that in the heat of the terminal building had broken out over her body like a rash.

      Face it, Megan, a man like Emilio is never going to be just a man, not with a mouth like that. But that didn’t mean she had to humiliate herself by drooling.

      ‘I know, I heard you.’

      Somewhere above the hum of noise and the pounding of her heart as it struggled to batter its way through her ribcage, Megan was conscious of a voice, a vaguely familiar voice, calling Emilio’s name.

      If he heard it he gave no sign, he just continued to stare silently down at her with an expression on his face that she struggled to interpret.

      ‘You just kissed me.’

      He angled a dark brow. ‘I was beginning to think you hadn’t noticed.’

      ‘I’m ignoring it.’ Or not dealing with it? ‘Like I ignore troublesome, irritating bugs.’

      ‘So you do not like me?’

      The possibility did not appear to have dented his armourplated confidence, she thought, struggling to recover her shredded composure, or at least close her mouth—it was so not a good look.

      Relax, she told herself.

      It was not like or anything similarly tepid that Emilio felt as his eyes moved across the soft contours of her upturned features. Soft was the right word, he decided, allowing his eyes to briefly drop as far as her visibly heaving bosom before returning to her face, soft and feminine.

      The colour of her eyes had always fascinated him, a deep shade of topaz, though at this moment only a rim of that remarkable colour remained around her dilated pupils. Her skin was incredible. Under the spreading dark stain on her smooth cheeks it was milk-pale and totally flawless. Did that milky pallor extend all over?

      He watched the muscles in her pale throat contract as she blinked and gave her glossy head a tiny shake and lifted her chin to a defiant angle before opening her eyes. Emilio, identifying the ‘don’t mess with me’ look on her face, felt a buzz in his blood