Married For Convenience. Helen Bianchin

she was hesitant to accept.

      ‘Am I frightening you, querida?’

      Fear wasn’t quite the word she would have used to describe her feelings. Excitement, exultation, to name only two. ‘No.’ The single negation emerged as a whispered gasp.

      His touch proved an erotic torture, and she shuddered as an initial spasm caught hold of her and spiralled out of control.

      ‘Alejandro.’ His name on her lips was a deep, husky groan.

      Dear God, such sweet magic. It was like being taken straight to heaven and shown a hundred different delights.

      ‘Gently, querida,’ he cautioned as she reached blindly for him.

      The soft sounds emerging from her throat were incomprehensible, and she was hardly aware of him easing her down on to the bed.

      He carefully moved her injured hand into a comfortable position, then stretched out at her side.

      His mouth sought hers in a long, slow, drugging kiss that alternately teased and tantalised, and she began to tremble as his lips began a path of erotic discovery so that it was all she could do not to cry out as he nuzzled the entry to her innermost core.

      Brazen, she admitted silently as she climbed to dizzying heights. Shameless. Hopelessly, helplessly passionate and disruptively sensual. She never wanted it to end, yet the spiral of sensation was so incredibly acute she wasn’t sure how much longer she could maintain any restraint.

      It was the most intimate kiss of all, a deep, drugging oral simulation of the sexual act. A sensual gift so exquisite, so incredibly generous that she wanted to weep from the joy of it.

      Slowly his head moved, and he began raining a trail of open-mouthed kisses over the plane of her stomach, upwards to caress the soft underswell of each breast before fastening on one sensitised peak.

      Then he raised his head to look down at her, taking in the slumberous darkness of her eyes, the soft pink that coloured her pale features, and her parted lips.

      Elise lifted a tentative hand to the dark springy mat of hair on his chest, and she traced his shoulder, played delicately with the strong cage of his ribs before moving involuntarily down to the taut flat planes of his stomach.

      She felt the muscles clench, and unconsciously her tongue edged out and ran a tentative path along her lower lip.

      ‘Dios,’ Alejandro cursed in husky remonstrance. ‘If you don’t stop now, I will pass the limit of my control.’

      She looked at him carefully and glimpsed the latent passion, the heated desire barely masked.

      A feeling of power raced through her veins, building until she felt like a goddess in charge of something so infinitely precious, so rare that only she could grant him the release he sought.

      With deliberate slowness she trailed her fingers to trace the length of his distended shaft. Fascinated, she afforded it a gentle tactile exploration, feeling it engorge further beneath her featherlight touch.

      ‘I don’t want your control.’ Her voice was a husky enticement, and she heard his deep despairing groan followed by the sound of silk being torn from hair-roughened skin.

      ‘Dear God,’ he responded piously, ‘I doubt you would condone my lack of it.’

      With extreme care he prepared her to accept him, and she arched instinctively, welcoming the intrusion as he gained entry. The feeling was intense as moist tissues stretched to accommodate his length, and she exulted in the total enclosure.

      It was almost as if this were their first time together, and she experienced a sense of wonder in his possession.

      As crazy as it seemed, she could feel the blood vessels engorge as she encased him, the spasmodic action of inner muscles as they sought to encourage and match his rhythm.

      It was almost as if her body recognised what her conscious mind was reluctant to accept, urging a blatant display of passion that was vaguely shocking.

      With the grace of an uninhibited Circe she traced the length of his spine, then gently kneaded his tightly muscled flank. Almost of their own volition her fingers trailed to his hip, then began a slow exploratory inner path to the highly sensitised base of his sex.

      Gently, very gently she squeezed the sensitive glans, and exulted in his indrawn breath. Not content, she initiated a seeking path with her lips until they discovered a sensitive male nipple, and she suckled shamelessly, nipping occasionally with her teeth until she felt his powerful body shudder in the initial throes of sensual ecstasy.

      She wanted… Dear heaven, what did she want? More, more than this carefully controlled pacing. All of him, plunging deep inside her in a torrent of wild strokes that would take them both to the heights.

      Elise was hardly conscious of the soft sounds emerging from her throat as her body reacted with instinctive ease, lifting, angling with a will of its own as she intuitively matched each and every one of his movements.

      His hands on either side of her shoulders braced his weight, and she met his mouth hungrily as it closed over hers, his kiss so deep, so consummate, it mirrored the sexual act itself in an erotic joining that culminated in a wild journey to the centre of her sensual universe.

      Her mind might deny any conscious acknowledgement of her primeval soul, but every sensitive chord in her awakened body was attuned to this one man, honed by his expertise, tutored with a mesmeric passion that surpassed every restrictive boundary.

      There could be no vestige of doubt that she was his. The traitorous proof was apparent in every sensitive nerve-ending, the acute vibrancy that thrummed through her veins, heating her blood to a fervent flame of desire that could only lead to a conflagration of all the senses. Passion—pagan, primitive, and wildly erotic.

      When it was finally over, she was so emotionally enervated that she doubted her ability to move so much as a muscle.

      She felt tinglingly alive, as if every nerve-ending had become acutely sensitised by his touch, yet drowsy and deliciously spent. Languid, she corrected, smiling as she felt his lips caress the curve of her neck, then slip down to bestow an openmouthed kiss on each breast in turn.

      He was…magnificent, she acknowledged dreamily. A tender lover, caring, considerate of her needs. Had he enjoyed himself with her as much as she had with him? Was he satisfied, complete? Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to ask.

      She felt him move, and she shifted her head to look at him as he retrieved the support for her arm and carefully fixed it in place.

      His eyes were dark, slumberous, and her own skittered to a point somewhere beyond his left shoulder.

      ‘Don’t,’ Alejandro chided huskily as he cradled her head and forced her to look at him, ‘attempt to hide what was an intensely beautiful experience for both of us.’ His thumb probed the swollen softness of her mouth. ‘Exquisito.’

      He slid down to lie beside her, gathering her close so that her head nestled beneath his shoulder. With minimum effort he caught hold of the sheet and drew it over them. ‘Go to sleep, querida,’ he bade her gently.

      Yet she couldn’t, not for a long time. Instead she lay still, listening to the steady beat of his heart.

      Had it always been like this, right from the beginning? Or had it taken time and practice to reach such a pinnacle of sexual satisfaction?

      Sadly, she didn’t know. There was just the aching acceptance that her body remembered what her mind could not.

       CHAPTER FIVE

      THE beach was peaceful, with the merest breeze slipping in from the ocean to caress Elise’s skin and tease the length of her hair.

      The