One Summer At The Lake: Maid for Montero / Still the One / Hot-Shot Doc Comes to Town

‘It takes two, and I think when a woman literally shakes with lust when I look at her I’m willing to take the risk on a sight-unseen basis—’

‘My God!’ she gasped. ‘You really think I’m shallow enough to want to sleep with a man who is obviously deeply in love with himself. A man whose only redeeming feature as far as I can tell is a pretty face and a moderately all right body.’

Fingers crossed, because that was a lie. He had the body of an Adonis. She gave a derisive sniff and arched a brow before laughing.

‘Yes, I do.’ His sloe-dark eyes drifted over her lush sinuous curves shrouded beneath the robe, and his mouth grew dry at the thought of slipping the loose knot of the belt looped around her narrow waist.

It was an uphill struggle to act as though his slow, sexy smile was doing nothing to her. She knew that sex appeal wasn’t just about looks, but the idea that she was any man’s erotic fantasy—let alone a man like Isandro—was shocking. She swallowed and pressed both hands to her stomach, shamefully aware that the deep quivers that rippled low in her pelvis were not caused by shock. What he was suggesting was wrong on more levels than she could count, it went against every principle she held dear, yet she was excited…What does that say about me?

‘Besides, we don’t have to wait. This is the perfect opportunity to find out if it’s as good as I think it will be.’ The sweep of his hand took in the big bed piled with cushions, the open French door against which the light curtains fluttered in the breeze.

In the distance Zoe could hear a flock of geese landing on the water. She went hot, cold, then hot again.

‘I’m not selling my body.’

‘That’s good, because I’ve never paid for sex.’

‘What do you call what you’re suggesting?’

‘I’m suggesting we remove the barrier that is preventing us both doing what we want to. If you are no longer on my payroll we can be equal.’

‘I’ll never be equal to you. I’ll always be superior!’

‘Bravo!’ he drawled.

Her lips tightened. ‘Don’t you dare patronise me! And why make up that stupid story about your friend?’

‘That is not invented. It is real. I do have a friend who owns a gallery.’

Zoe felt a stab of something she didn’t immediately recognise as jealousy. ‘A female friend?’

Could you sound more jealous if you tried?

‘Her name is Polly Warrender. She inherited a theatre from her husband.’ Zoe had heard of the Warrender theatre, but then pretty much everyone had. ‘When she diversified and bought into an art gallery she came to me for advice.’

She stifled a theatrical yawn, but the gesture unwittingly drew his eyes to the soft full curve of her rosy lips. ‘So, let me guess, she listened to you and made a fortune,’ she inserted with a roll of her eyes.

‘Actually she ignored my advice and bought it and, yes, made a fortune.’ He gave a faint smile. ‘A smallish one.’

‘So you were wrong?’

He reached out and tangled a wet curl around one long brown finger and drawled, ‘You’ve discovered the chink in my infallible armour. Please do me a favour and keep it to yourself.’

As he released the curl his finger brushed her cheek. It barely made contact, but Zoe, who had been holding her breath, felt an electric tingle pass through her body all the way to her curling toes.

His voice was a soft attractive buzz. She could hear what he was saying, but over and above the words was a louder buzz—a combination of her own heartbeat and the thrum of the deep hunger that was coursing through her veins with each beat of her heart as she stared at the deep V of golden chest dark against the white towelling.

It took every ounce of her self-control to stop herself reaching out and touching him…She curled her hands into fists and tucked them behind her back.

‘I put her onto the decommissioned church that was up for sale in town as a possible site for a new gallery. She has wanted to expand into this area for some time, so she owes me a favour. She is genuinely looking for someone to run it, and you have an art background…So it is perfectly feasible for you to live here and commute to do the foundation course.’

‘And amuse you in bed.’ He acknowledged her bitter addition with a tilt of his head. ‘You have it all worked out.’

He gave a smile. ‘The secret of success is taking control of events and not allowing them to control you.’

Yeah, you carry on telling yourself that, Isandro, if it makes you feel any better. The fact was he had felt out of control since the moment he had met this woman. From day one she had managed to turn his well-ordered life into chaos.

She shook her head. ‘Don’t you dare smile. I’m not listening to a word you’re saying.’

He took the hands she had pressed to her ears and pressed them against his chest. Then holding her eyes with his, he brushed his lips across her cheek.

‘You’re not shouting, though,’ he murmured against her mouth.

She wasn’t. Zoe was barely breathing. Her body felt strange and tingly, as though it didn’t belong to her. Her arms and legs felt heavy as though a great weight were dragging her down. Dizzy, she clutched at the towelling of his robe. Somehow it parted and her hands were flat on his skin, the warmth seeping into her cold fingers, the heavy thud of his heartbeat mingling with the frantic clamour of her riotous pulse.

Common sense told her to push him away.

‘This isn’t going to happen.’ Why was she whispering? She should be shouting.

‘If you say so, querida.’ His big hand sank into her wet hair, cupping the back of her skull. His long fingers tangled in her hair while his thumb trailed tingling paths down her cheek. His breath was coming fast and hot against her neck.

Her knees gave out, but before she could slide to the floor his arms snaked around her waist. He was so close that his face was a dark blur. She could see the predatory glow of his beautiful eyes. Her own eyes burned but she couldn’t blink, she couldn’t look away, not until he tugged at the soft pink flesh of her lower lip, holding it between his teeth. Then her eyes squeezed tight closed as she released a soft sibilant sigh and opened her palms flat on his chest, pushing them under the thick fabric of the robe, up over his warm skin to his shoulders.

Still she didn’t push. Like someone in a dream she clung, and still he didn’t kiss her. The scent of his warm male body in her nostrils, she was desperate for the taste of him. The need consumed her utterly, so strong that it blotted every other thought from her mind. He radiated raw power, and it excited her unbearably, sent a primitive heat sweeping through her in waves crashing over her. She felt herself going under.

Need, primitive need, raw and all-consuming, blinding lust controlled his actions as he tilted her face up. Dios, but he had wanted to kiss her for…It felt like a lifetime.

His tongue slid between her parted lips and Zoe’s brain closed down as instinct took over. Her moan was lost in the warm recesses of his mouth as her lips parted to deepen the sensual invasion.

She kissed him back, greedily drinking in the taste of him, wanting more…wanting everything. He hauled her body into him. His hands slipped down to her bottom as, cupping it, he lifted her off the ground. Without thinking, she wrapped her long legs tight around his waist as she framed his face between her hands, gave a throaty sigh and whispered, ‘God, but you are so beautiful…the most beautiful man.’

With a deep groan that rose up in his throat he plundered Zoe’s mouth, kissing her with barely controlled desperation, stealing the breath from her lungs, lighting a passion that flared into violent life. As she kissed him back with a wild and unrestrained hunger, satisfying the mutual need between them, everything else ceased to exist.

Her fingers dug into the muscles of his shoulders, her legs tightening around his waist as she fought to get closer to him, her strength fuelled by the primal desire to be joined with him…be one.

Joined with her that way still, he walked blindly towards the bed.

Zoe felt as if she were falling—and then she was really falling and he was falling on top of her. A pillow beneath her head, she barely noticed the weight of his body on top of her until he levered himself off.

Panting, her eyes as dark as midnight, she gave a small cry of protest, then she saw what he was doing. Kneeling over her, Isandro was shrugging off his robe.

‘Oh, my God!’

He was long and lean, his skin gleaming like burnished gold. Not an ounce of excess flesh blurred the perfect lines of his powerful body. Every bone and sinew of him was perfect, like a bronzed statue. A rampantly, fully aroused bronzed statue.

She bit down hard on her full lower lip as heat washed her skin with a warm rosy flush. Her initial shock at the earthy image was replaced by a stomach-clenching, incapacitating, lustful longing that closed down every logic circuit in her brain.

His grin was fierce and his laughter strained as he husked, ‘If you look at me like that, querida, this thing is going to be over before it has begun.’

‘I want you,’ she whispered, pulling herself up onto her knees. ‘So badly…’ She reached out and touched him, unable to believe her daring as she curled her fingers around the shaft of his erection. Silky smooth and rock hard, he pulsed hotly against her small hand. ‘You feel—’ her breasts quivered as she gave a fractured sigh and continued to stare, fascinated, at him ‘—incredible.’

A hiss left his lips as he caught her wrist.

‘Too much,’ he muttered, pressing her body back onto the bed before he joined her. Arranging his long lean length beside her, he kissed her, a kiss full of passion and promise that made words redundant. Lifting his head, he stroked her face and held her eyes as he reached for the tie on her robe.

The embarrassment she had anticipated did not materialise but the voluptuous pleasure did as he whispered fiercely, ‘You are exquisite, flawless.’

His searing gaze swept upwards slowly, greedily drinking her in as it took in every detail from her narrow feet and ankles, the long elegant length of her legs, and over her belly. Then finally to her lovely, pertly pointed breasts.

His hand came to cover one perfect soft mound. Her skin was flawless. He could smell the perfume of the soap on her skin, and the faint but distinctive delicate, musky scent of her arousal made his vision mist red.

As he massaged the smooth skin, his touch firm but sensitive, running his thumb with slow deliberate strokes across the sensitised peaks, Zoe gasped and muttered his name. Her head thrashed wildly back and forth on the pillow. The pleasure was so intense—beyond words, she clenched her hands into fists at her sides as she felt herself losing her struggle to stay in control.

Then his mouth was on her breasts, his hands on her body, touching her awakening senses. With a soft sigh of surrender, she stopped trying and gave herself up to the desire flowing like warm wine through her veins. She almost felt like laughing with the sense of release. Who knew that losing control, feeling enough trust to give it over to someone else, could feel like this?

She reached for him, her fingers tangling in his dark hair, holding him against her as she stroked the skin of his muscled shoulders. The raw power in him, the dramatic contrasts of his hard angularity and her own softness, her roundness, was more exciting than she could have dreamed possible.

Isandro lifted his head and smiled at her with his glorious eyes, a dark fierce smile filled with promise, then he kissed her belly, drawing a hoarse gasp from Zoe, and ran his tongue over the quivering skin, drawing a line that terminated just above the apex of her thighs.

At the first touch of his hands between her legs need exploded through her. She loosed a keening cry as her hips lifted off the bed. Her entire body ached and trembled with desire; her mouth opened but she had no words, just his name, which she said over and over. And when she stopped he lifted his head and said, ‘Again, say it again.’

She did, and at the same time opened her legs in mute invitation, inviting skilful touch of his fingers over the slick, moist, swollen folds of her femininity, and the tight, sensitive nub they protected.

The first skin-to-skin contact was electric. Then, as her arched spine made contact with the bed and he pressed down on top of her, it was totally, utterly blissful, a cocktail of intoxicating physical sensations that made her senses spiral and spin. Bright lights exploded behind her eyelids as she closed her eyes.

Her hips moved in a grinding motion as she rubbed herself against his erection as it dug into her thigh, then her soft belly. The pressure building inside her made her thrash around, bite his neck as she dragged her fingers down his back, clutching at the firm contours of his tight, muscular buttocks.

Unable to bear the erotic friction of his erection against her any longer, she grabbed his hair, drawing his face to hers, and kissing him hard, whispered, ‘Please!’

With a savage smile he held her eyes as he drove deep into her body. The breath left her in a shocked gasp that was drowned out by his deep growl of pleasure. Her heart racing, her eyes closed tight, she concentrated on the intense pleasure of each slow, measured movement of his hips as he moved inside her body. There was layer after layer of sensations that she had never imagined she could feel.

Each thrust built the erotic pleasure that she encouraged with each sinuous, sensuous grind of her hips responding to age-old instincts she was delighted to discover.

When the climax hit her, she was unprepared for the strength of the expanding wave of pleasure and her eyes flew wide with shock.

‘Perfect, just go with it, my clever, beautiful…’ His eyes held her while she rode the wave. He waited until she reached the vortex of the storm before he allowed himself to find his own release and thrust one final time into her.

When Zoe floated back to earth, she was curled up in his arms, her head resting against his thudding heart, her sweat-slick limbs tangled with his.

‘Well, I never saw that one coming. I remember hearing you say you did not approve of casual sex but I never equated that with…Was there a bad experience that put you off sex I should have known about?’

It seemed the only explanation for how a woman as sexy and passionate as Zoe Grace could be a virgin. And her surrender had been total; she had held nothing back. He had sensed the passion beneath the surface, but what he had released had startled and delighted him almost as much as the discovery she was a virgin.

‘No bad experience, I just…I’ve moved around a lot and never got time to make any sort of lasting relationship. Not that this is lasting…obviously.’ There was a short awkward pause. Dear God, it was a strange world when she was embarrassed to admit that, a secret romantic, she had always felt uneasy about casual sex.

‘You must have had boyfriends.’

‘Of course I have—I’m not a freak. I had boyfriends but they all seemed to suggest I was not very…good at that sort of stuff.’ Her last date had culminated in a nasty little scene when the man who invited her to dinner had accused her of being a tease when she could not agree that the correct payment for a dinner was a make-out session in the back seat of a car.

He gave a throaty laugh of incredulity. ‘I think you have been keeping the wrong company.’

She twisted in his arms and flipped onto her stomach, resting her chin on her elbows and affording him an excellent view of her breasts. ‘And you’re the right company?’ she challenged.

He was definitely the right lover.

‘It felt pretty right to me.’

‘So what happens now?’

His wicked grin flashed. ‘Give me five minutes.’

‘I mean after this?’ Had he really been serious about moving her and the twins into the gatehouse?

CHAPTER NINE

‘I THOUGHT I had already made that clear.’

‘But after?’ Isandro was hot for her now, but Zoe did not anticipate the situation would last and when he lost interest, what then? ‘When I am no longer flavour of the day?’

‘That moment,’ he purred, stroking the silky smooth skin of her forearm, ‘feels like a long way off.’

‘But it might not be.’

‘Well, that is catered for. You will continue to live in the gatehouse for as long as it pleases you. It seems to me a win, win situation.’

He could say that but he wasn’t on the brink of falling in love. Who was she kidding? Zoe thought bleakly. She was already in love and had been for the past weeks. She was going to be devastated when this was over, but she was going to be devastated anyway so why not have some weeks of delicious mind-blowing sex with this gorgeous man to remember and some financial security for the twins?

‘All right, but no.’ She twisted away from the hand that reached for her, knowing that once he touched her she wouldn’t be able to think straight, let alone consider consequences. ‘There have to be some rules.’

Isandro stared at her, taken aback—he made the rules.

‘I don’t want this to affect the twins. I don’t want them to know about us. We have to be discreet. We know this is just sex but they are just…’ Whichever way she looked, there were aspects to this arrangement that didn’t feel right.

He tipped his head. ‘That seems fair.’ He tangled his fingers in her hair and kissed her mouth. ‘Do not look so worried. We have weeks of pleasure ahead of us. You are not some little girl seeking the attention of men and mistaking it for love. This is an equal relationship of two people who know what they want.’

‘What do you want?’

‘You, querida, you in so many ways.’

She shivered. ‘Many ways?’

His smile made her heart flip. ‘Come here and let me show you.’

Zoe and the twins had been established in the gatehouse for six weeks. Her passion with Isandro had not flagged, and six weeks was new ground for him. Abiding by rules set by someone else was also new and on occasion frustrating.

There came a tapping on the window of his study—which had recently been knocked through to make room for the extra office equipment he needed since he had made the decision to do more work from home.

Isandro looked up from the computer screen.

When the red-headed figure at the window saw him she began to gesticulate wildly. A second later she vanished, and there was a clattering sound.

With a sigh Isandro levered himself up from his chair, stretching the kinks from his spine as he walked towards the window. Pulling up the sash, he leaned out. Georgina was lying beside an overturned crate she had presumably dragged over to the window and fallen off. She was picking herself up.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Looking for you, obviously.’ Ever irrepressible, she dusted off the seat of her jeans.

‘Did you hurt yourself?’

The kid treated the question with the scorn she appeared to think it deserved, shaking her head and looking offended by the question.

Like aunt, like niece, he thought.

‘I would have gone to Chloe but they’re not back until tomorrow. I can’t wait to see Hannah again and she’s walking with crutches, and there isn’t really anyone else.’

So not first choice, or even second. ‘I feel honoured.’

‘If Zoe died, would we get put in a home?’

His half-sardonic smile snuffed like a candle caught in a chill draft and Isandro did suddenly feel as though a cold fist had plunged deep into his belly.

‘Zoe is not going to die.’

‘No…?’ Her niece sounded scarily uncertain.

‘What has happened to your aunt Zoe?’ he asked, ruthlessly reining in his imagination and struggling to keep his tone light.

‘She says she’s fine but she doesn’t look fine and she—’

He held up a hand. ‘Wait there. I will be with you momentarily.’

Snatching up his jacket on the way out, he paused only to close his laptop before leaving the house. Outside Georgie was trotting around the side of the house to meet him when he emerged.

‘Zoe sent you?’

She shook her head. ‘She’ll be mad with me,’ she predicted gloomily.

‘She doesn’t need to know that you came to get me.’

Her eyes flew wide with shock. ‘That would be lying!’ Children were a minefield.

‘Of course it would, and of course you should never lie…especially to your aunt.’

The child looked unconvinced as she climbed into the passenger seat of his car.

‘Now tell me what is wrong.’

When they arrived at the lodge they entered through her open back door where Harry, his face scrunched in concentration, was standing on a kitchen chair trying to open a tin with an opener that looked like an antique. His small fingers looked perilously near the razor-sharp edges.

Conscious it might not be a good idea to startle him, Isandro walked across and, after a friendly pat on the shoulder, extricated the tin from his grip.

‘Let me—there’s a knack to this. There you go.’ He glanced at the label. ‘Chicken soup.’

‘Mum always gave us chicken soup when we were sick. I thought I’d make Zoe some.’

‘Good idea, but let’s wait until we see if she wants to eat just now.’

‘Until she stops throwing up, stupid,’ his sister inserted critically.

‘I’m not stupid.’

Isandro cleared his throat. ‘How about if you two go?’ Two expectant faces turned to him. ‘Go to the shop and get me some…’ He paused. ‘Are you allowed to walk to the shop?’

They both shook their heads.

‘Right, well…’ Madre di Dios, give me a room of CEOs any day of the week.

‘We could clean out your car. It was very messy. For money,’ Georgie offered.

Her brother cast her a sideways warning look. ‘For free.’

His sister sighed heavily.

‘That would be very helpful.’ His car had been valet cleaned the previous week. ‘I will go and see how your aunt is feeling, but don’t worry. It sounds like she has the flu bug that is doing the rounds.’ He moved towards the hallway.

‘Are you Zoe’s boyfriend?’

Isandro might not be good with children but he did not fall into that trap. He paused and turned. His amused expression was not a direct denial but he hoped they took it as such. ‘Is that why you came to get me? Because you think I am her boyfriend?’

‘No, we came to get you because she was saying your name in the night. She woke us up and when we went in she was awake but really hot.’

‘I told you it was just a nightmare,’ Harry said.

A woman’s nightmare…children certainly had a way of keeping a man’s ego in check.

Isandro made his way to the bedroom at the front of the cottage. The door was ajar, and he pushed it open and found the curtains in the airy room pulled shut. The light filtering through the striped fabric illuminated the figure in the bed lying with one arm curled around her head.

He was used to feeling the tug of sexual attraction when he looked at her, used to feeling the electrical tingle when she was close. As he stared at her now, looking both vulnerable and utterly desirable—they were both there but there was something else in the mix, something he struggled to define as he stood nailed to the spot while something imploded in his skull.

Then she moved and shifted, groaning softly before she licked her lips as her eyelashes fluttered against her cheek. ‘Harry.’

‘Not Harry.’

The eyelashes parted to reveal blue blurry eyes. ‘Oh, God,’ she groaned. ‘What are you doing here?’

He had had more enthusiastic welcomes. ‘How are you feeling?’

She raised herself groggily up on one elbow, causing the nightdress she wore to slip over one shoulder. He felt a stab of inappropriate lust.

‘Fine,’ she croaked.

‘I admire the stiff upper lip, naturally, but an honest answer would be more helpful.’