The Secret Spanish Love-Child - By Cathy Williams Page 0,58

nervously and wondered at the speed with which she had been derailed.

‘What’s that?’

‘You’re trying to distract me.’

‘By telling you that I’m not very comfortable in this Goldilocks chair?’ To emphasise his point, he shifted and then stood up to flex his muscles. He had rolled up the sleeves of his white work shirt and Alex stared weakly and compulsively at the dark hair on his forearms.

‘I was saying…’

‘I heard you. You think I’ll stick a wedding band on your finger and then disappear back off to work, only to resurface when my son’s due to graduate from university.’ He took the two steps needed to get to where she was sitting with an expression of rigid intent that Gabriel found strangely cute and endearing, and he bent over to support himself on the arms of her chair.

‘You underestimate your pulling power, my darling,’ he murmured, stroking her with his voice until her face was redhot.

‘What…what do you mean?’

‘You know exactly what I mean. You just want to hear me say it. Shall I tell you, my darling, so that you’re in no doubt? Or I could just…’ he lowered himself so that he was kneeling in front of her ‘…show you…hmm…? Do you like me like this…? On my knees in front of you…?’

Alex bit down on the whimper that threatened to escape and tried to give him a stern look, but he was already insinuating himself between her legs and playing with the soft cotton of her T-shirt. When his fingers brushed against the bare skin of her breast, she gasped and half closed her eyes.

‘You remembered…’ He shoved up the T-shirt and felt the swift kick of hungry craving.

‘Remembered what…?’

‘How much I like it when you don’t wear a bra. I love your breasts. Have I told you that before? But I think I might have forgotten what they taste like…’

‘Gabriel!’ Alex said in a desperate voice. ‘I’m trying to talk…’

‘And I’m listening. Really. I’m all ears. Don’t mind me.’ He delicately tickled the erect bud of her nipple with the tip of his tongue and when she squirmed and moaned softly, he had to struggle to contain himself.

‘The door…’

‘I’ll close it.’ He quietly shut the kitchen door and then stood for a few seconds, just looking at her sprawled in the chair, with her rucked T-shirt and the glistening disc of her nipple where he had been licking it. Her eyes were half closed and she was breathing softly.

Talk or no talk, she had agreed to be his wife and he savoured the taste of sweet elation as he strolled lazily to continue what he had started.

Chapter Nine

‘WE STILL need to talk.’ Alex felt that she had let the side down by falling at the first hurdle and making love with him. How could she have the serious talk she had intended on having when his legs were wrapped around hers and the covers were half off their bodies and she could only vaguely remember making her way up the stairs with him to her bedroom?

One minute she was busily trying to get a grip on the situation and the very next minute she had sabotaged her own good intentions and fallen back into bed with him when he’d crooked his finger and given her that smile of his that could unravel every thought in her head. The devastating effect he had had on her senses the first time round was nothing compared to the effect he was capable of having on her now. She closed her eyes in resigned despair as he pushed back her hair and deposited a kiss on her forehead.

‘So we do. You can’t accuse me of not being willing to listen.’

‘How could I have a conversation when you were…were…?’

‘Having fun with you?’ Gabriel laughed throatily, his good humour fully restored after an hour and a half of very satisfying lovemaking. He slipped his hand under the bed cover and idly toyed with her breast, liking the way it responded to his teasing fingers, even though they were both too spent at the moment to take that teasing touch any further.

‘There are a few conditions to my marrying you, Gabriel.’ Somehow it didn’t feel right to be having this kind of conversation when she was lying naked next to him, nor did she want to spoil the atmosphere of contentment between them but she knew the sort of man he was, the sort who would take her acquiescence for granted and expect her