Mistress to the Mediterranean Male
Alejandro closed his eyes briefly before looking up at her. This woman still dared to meddle in things he would accept from no one else. ‘I do have a business to run—’
‘And was your business any more successful today?’ she challenged scathingly.
‘As it happens, no.’ Alejandro sat forward to replenish his wineglass, his relaxation of a few minutes ago fading as rapidly as the sun now disappearing beneath the horizon. ‘Felipe continues to be … elusive … concerning finalizing the deal.’ His expression was grim.
‘Then perhaps you should become the elusive one,’ Brynne dismissed, aware that they were once again veering off the subject—and the more time she spent in Alejandro’s almost-naked company, the less angry and more tinglingly aware of him she was becoming.
Alejandro raised dark brows. ‘I beg your pardon?’
Brynne gave a shrug. ‘That’s the way it usually works with my more disinterested students. The more I ignore them, the more they want me to take notice of them,’ she explained at Alejandro’s questioning look.
Alejandro continued to look puzzled for several moments, and then he gave a slight smile. ‘And do you shout at these students in the way that you shout at me?’
Had she shouted at him? Probably, she realized with a wince.
After all, she had been waiting hours for him to come home, and the first awareness she had had of his arrival had been the sound of him swimming, without any concern, up and down the pool. Not a move that would soothe her temper!
She grimaced. ‘No, I don’t shout at them.’
Alejandro quirked dark brows. ‘Only at me?’
Well … yes.
Despite her red hair, she didn’t usually lose her temper with anyone; she was normally cheerfully calm. To shout at one of her students, at anyone, really, was to lose control of the situation, she had always thought.
Unfortunately she had lost control of the situation with Alejandro Santiago from the moment the judge had come down in his favour regarding custody of Michael.
She gave him a frustrated glance. ‘You annoy me, yes—’
‘And is that all I do to you, Brynne?’ he interrupted huskily, putting down his wineglass to get slowly to his feet.
Her eyes widened in alarm as he padded softly towards her. Like a predatory animal approaching its prey, she realized as her pulse started to race.
Alejandro stopped only inches away from where she stood rooted to the spot, not touching her—not needing to …
The sheer height and breadth of him as he stood so close to her blocked out everything but the sight and warmth of him.
‘Is it, Brynne?’ he encouraged throatily.
She swallowed hard. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Oh, yes,’ he breathed, ‘I think you know only too well.’
She could smell the all-male scent of him, making her long to touch him, to caress the hard strength of his shoulders, featherlight across his chest and down that flat, hard stomach. She wanted to reach out and pull his head down to hers even as he moulded her body against his, wanted—needed—to feel the hardness of him against her, to touch and be touched, to—
‘You feel it too, do you not?’ he murmured huskily.
‘Feel what …?’ she asked weakly.
But she knew. She knew!
‘Did you know …’ Alejandro spoke softly, one hand moving up to cup beneath her chin as he tilted her face up to his and looked deeply into her eyes. ‘Did you know,’ he murmured again, that silver gaze holding her captive, his lips only centimetres away from hers now, ‘that you have extremely beautiful feet?’
It was so not what Brynne had been expecting to hear, the very air between them so tense with expectation, that for a moment she could only look up at him blankly.
And then she blinked, once, twice, a frown appearing between dark blue eyes. ‘I have beautiful feet …?’ she finally repeated huskily with a hint of incredulity.
‘You do.’ Alejandro breathed softly even as his lips took slow possession of hers.
Brynne swayed weakly against him, her hands at last moving up to those oh-so-strong shoulders, finding them just as muscled and yet warmly sensual to the touch as she had imagined they would be. She groaned low in her throat as Alejandro’s tongue parted her lips to deepen the kiss, his hands splayed against her spine as he drew her close against him.
Brynne felt the force of his arousal against her stomach as the kiss became more intense, more intimate. Alejandro’s mouth became fierce against hers, the thrust of his tongue creating an answering warmth between her thighs, a heat that was both moist and urgent.
She clung to his shoulders as, his mouth still plundering hers, Alejandro lifted her up in his arms and carried her over to lay her down on the sun-warmed grass, her arms moving up about his shoulders as he lay down beside her.
He lifted his head to look down at her, the last of the sun’s red rays turning her hair to fire against the green of the grass, her eyes darkly blue, her mouth poutingingly aroused from his kisses.
His gaze was caught and held by those full lips as he bent his head to draw her lower lip into the heat of his mouth, sucking gently, groaning low in his throat as he felt the quivers of pleasure down the slender length of her body.
Touching and kissing Brynne Sullivan was something he wanted badly, something he had been wanting for a long time.
But, like yesterday, kissing wasn’t enough. He wanted more.
His lifted his head, easily holding her gaze with his as he moved one of his hands to undo the buttons down the front of her dress. He smoothed the material aside to reveal completely unrestrained breasts, shifting his gaze to look at those pert, beautiful orbs, the nipples already roused and begging to be kissed.
Brynne gasped, her body arching as she felt the first touch of Alejandro’s lips against her bared breasts, his tongue tasting, teeth gently rasping, before he drew that heated tip into the warm cavern of his mouth, suckling, first gently, then harder.
She couldn’t think, couldn’t see, couldn’t feel anything but Alejandro and the pleasure he was giving as his hand moved as surely to her other breast, the pad of his thumb moving there with the same rhythm as his lips sucked and his tongue rasped so erotically.
She moved her hips restlessly against him as she felt her need grow, wanting, aching for, some sort of release from this burning need that was threatening to tear her apart.
Alejandro was suddenly above her, their bodies moulded together from breast to thigh. The movement of his thighs against hers told her of his own pulsing arousal as he looked down at her with fierce silver eyes.
‘Tell me what you want, Brynne,’ he encouraged gruffly.
‘Alejandro—’
‘Tell me, Brynne.’ he repeated fiercely before his head lowered, his gaze holding hers as his tongue rasped erotically across her already sensitized nipple.
Brynne trembled even as she arched against him, her hand moving up instinctively as she held his head against her.
It was all the encouragement Alejandro needed. He suckled fiercely, teeth gently biting, tongue caressing, a flush to his cheeks minutes later when he raised his head to look at her. ‘Do you want me to make love to you, Brynne?’ he prompted forcefully.
Yes …
She had never wanted anything as badly as she wanted Alejandro at that moment, her nails digging into his shoulders, her heart beating so loudly she was sure he must be able to hear it.
She moistened her lips, her breath shallow in her chest as she felt herself held captive by that compelling gaze. ‘I—’
‘Shh!’ He became suddenly still beside her, raising his head, more like the hunter this time than the predator as he tilted his head to listen, eyes narrowing. ‘I hear a car.’ He rolled onto the grass beside her, his hands moving to the folds of her dress, pulling them back over her nakedness.
He heard a car?
Brynne hadn’t been aware of anything but Alejandro, of the touch of his hands, the caress of his lips and tongue, totally lost to the sensuality of the moment, her whole body trembling with the anticipation of this man’s possession.
Unlike Alejandro, who heard a car!
CHAPTER NINE
‘WHO—?’
‘The who does not matter,’ Alejandro rasped as he stood up impatiently, very aware now of the rapidly approaching car.
And unsure of whether to be annoyed or relieved at the interruption!
Making love to Brynne Sullivan, much as he might have wanted it, was not a good idea. In fact, it was more recklessly stupid than anything he had ever done before!
More stupid than his relationship with Joanna all those years ago.
More stupid than his marriage to a woman he had not loved and who most certainly had not loved him.
His eyes were cold now as he looked down at a still-dazed Brynne, running a hand through the damp length of his hair as he heard the car stopping at the back of the villa. ‘As we are about to have company I suggest you cover yourself,’ he snapped.
Brynne’s shock was starting to fade now, the cool night air on her damp flesh probably contributing to that, she acknowledged self-disgustedly even as she began to do up the buttons on her dress with slightly trembling fingers.
What had happened just now?
What had she allowed to happen?
One minute she and Alejandro had been arguing as they usually did, and the next—
She closed her eyes in embarrassment as she remembered what had happened next!
How on earth had she allowed things to go as far as they had?
Because she had wanted Alejandro with a madness that had driven everything else from her mind and body, had been wanton in his arms, her body still trembling with that need, her breasts still aching, the throbbing warmth between her thighs telling her how near she had come to losing control completely.
God, what must Alejandro think of her?
She didn’t even want to think about that now, couldn’t think about it, daren’t think about it …!
But as she heard the familiar click of high heels on the villa’s tiled pathway she knew that the ‘who’ did matter, after all, sure that their visitor, Alejandro’s visitor, was going to be none other than the beautiful Antonia Roig!
Brynne rose quickly to her feet, standing several feet away from Alejandro as Antonia came through the arched gateway at the side of the villa, as sexily alluring as usual in a black fitted dress that left her shoulders bare, its knee-length also revealing her shapely legs.
Was this meeting prearranged? Brynne wondered. Or was Alejandro as surprised at the woman’s visit as she was?
His greeting was warm enough as he strolled across to meet the other woman. ‘Antonia,’ he murmured huskily as he bent to kiss her on both cheeks.
Brynne turned away as she saw the beautiful Antonia reach up to complete the affectionate gesture by placing her red-painted lips against his in the third kiss that confirmed their intimacy with each other.
She had to get away from here.
Now!
Alejandro frowned darkly, slightly annoyed with Antonia for turning up uninvited in this way, but at the same time knowing he should probably be grateful for the interruption, because she had prevented him from making a serious mistake where Brynne Sullivan was concerned.
He was normally a cautious man when it came to his involvement with women, but Brynne had somehow managed to slip beneath his guard, making him forget, however briefly, all of the reasons he had told himself he should not pursue the sexual awareness he had sensed was growing between the two of them.
An awareness he now needed to dispel as quickly as possible!
‘How kind of you to come and share your evening with me.’ He smiled at Antonia. ‘Would you care for a glass of wine?’ he invited as they turned.
He couldn’t help but notice Antonia’s start of surprise as she saw Brynne standing a short distance away—her dress thankfully rebuttoned, although her glorious hair did look slightly wilder than normal.
Antonia’s eyes narrowed briefly, losing some of their warmth, before she collected herself enough to resume smiling. ‘Miss Sullivan,’ she greeted lightly. ‘How lovely to see you again,’ she added almost questioningly.
‘Señorita Roig,’ Brynne came back stiffly. ‘If you will both excuse me?’ she added abruptly, head bent as she moved swiftly towards the villa.
It was what Alejandro had wanted, needing time away from Brynne to collect his scattered wits. For surely they had to have left him for him to have been so reckless as to kiss and touch her in the way that he had?
But as he saw the pallor of Brynne’s cheeks, the slight trembling of her lips, the telling glitter to those dark blue eyes, he felt a moment’s regret for deliberately hurting her in this way.
‘Brynne!’ he called after her sharply.
She stopped hesitantly, that tear-wet gaze not quite meeting his as she turned back slightly. ‘Yes …?’
‘Will you excuse me a moment, Antonia?’ He turned back briefly to the woman at his side. ‘I—have something I need to tell Brynne before she retires for the evening.’ His smile was warmly placating.
‘I understand, Alejandro.’ Antonia gazed up at him warmly, mouth full and pouting. ‘Do not be away too long, hmm?’ she added with sensuous invitation as long red-tipped fingers ran caressingly down his cheek.
Brynne watched the intimate exchange between Alejandro and Antonia with mounting humiliation.
She had forgotten, as Alejandro had kissed her, that the reason she had waited so impatiently for his return this evening was because she had wanted to complain of the things this woman had said to her earlier today.
Now, witnessing that warm familiarity between the two of them, the look of triumph in Antonia’s gaze as she glanced across at her so dismissively, Brynne thought it too late to make those complaints!
‘What do you want, Alejandro?’ she muttered impatiently as he reached her side.
His face tightened at her dismissive tone. ‘You were the one who wanted to talk to me about something earlier …?’ he reminded curtly.
Brynne could have laughed at the ridiculousness of talking about that now; Antonia Roig, despite Alejandro’s denials to the contrary, obviously had her red-tipped claws into him so deeply he was unlikely to disapprove of anything the other woman said or did, but especially to Brynne, whom he considered an unwelcome guest in his home, at best.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She sighed.
His gaze narrowed. ‘It mattered enough earlier for you to verbally berate me in the way that you did.’
Brynne gave a humourless laugh. ‘I’m always “verbally berating” you, Alejandro—or hadn’t you noticed?’
Oh, he had noticed. It was one of the things that made Brynne so different from every other woman he had ever known; none of them, including his wife, Francesca, had ever dared to talk to him in the way that Brynne did.
‘Please go back to Miss Roig,’ Brynne added with abrupt dismissal. ‘I’m sure that she will be only too pleased to … soothe you, after your troubled day!’ she added scathingly, that blue gaze raised in challenge to his.
Alejandro regretted even more having deliberately hurt Brynne, after their closeness of earlier, with his implied intimacy of a relationship with Antonia. But he also knew that it was for the best. He had nothing to offer a woman like Brynne—not love, and certainly not permanence.
‘I am sure that she will too,’ he replied mockingly. ‘Goodnight, Brynne,’ he added with cool dismissal, turning away to walk back to where Antonia waited for him.
Brynne turned sharply on her heel as she saw Antonia turn to Alejandro, murmuring something softly to him before the two of them laughed companionably.
At her, probably!
Or was she just being paranoid? Oversensitive from her time spent in Alejandro’s arms?
Probably, she accepted heavily as she went slowly up the stairs. Alejandro might be many things—fickle obviously being one of them!—but she very much doubted that he was a man who discussed his conquests, especially with a woman who was another one of them.
But at least Antonia’s arrival had stopped her making a complete idiot of herself, Brynne acknowledged with clenched jaw and gritted teeth as she heard the other woman’s husky laugh several more times as she sat up in her bedroom once again trying to interest herself in the book she had brought away with her.
Again a useless exercise, when her thoughts were tormented with visions of what Alejandro and Antonia would be doing together when the laughter stopped!
She threw the book down on the bed and stood up, deliberately not approaching the window as she paced the room restlessly, having no intention of letting either Alejandro or Antonia think she was actually spying on them.
God, she could do with a plunge into the pool herself, so hot were her memories of her time in Alejandro’s arms!
Several of her boyfriends had lasted longer than a couple of dates, but with none of them had she ever felt that mindless need to know their possession, to just forget everything but the moment, to find a release that she had never known.
To still ache, hours later, for that fulfilment!
Her nerves jangled irritably as she once again heard Antonia’s husky laughter. She threw herself down on the bed to pull one of the pillows over her head to shut out the sound.
She would get over this ridiculous fascination she seemed to have developed for Alejandro.
She would!
‘What do you intend doing today?’ Alejandro prompted politely as Brynne joined him at the breakfast table the following morning, his manner deliberately that of a host to a guest.
He had a need, after seriously stepping over a line the evening before, to establish their relationship back to one of formality.
Although Brynne looked less approachable herself this morning as she looked across at him coolly, the white cotton blouse and linen trousers she wore suiting her slenderness, her red hair secured loosely on top of her head.
‘You really don’t need to even pretend a polite interest in what I’m doing, you know, Alejandro,’ she dismissed with a derisive laugh. ‘We both know I’m only here on sufferance!’
Alejandro frowned his irritation at Brynne’s tone—
that irritation at complete variance with his earlier decision to instigate a distance between them. ‘As you are Miguel’s aunt, I of course owe you a debt of gratitude for the way in which—’
‘Michael’s aunt through marriage,’ Brynne corrected pointedly as she carefully replaced her coffee cup in the saucer. ‘And as anything I may or may not have done for Michael was done out of love for him, I’m sure you know what you can do with your gratitude!’ she added forcefully.
Alejandro had let her know quite clearly the night before that he regretted whatever lapse had induced him to make love to her—a lapse that Brynne probably regretted more than he did! He didn’t have to treat her like some polite stranger this morning in order to emphasize that point!
He frowned darkly. ‘I was merely—’
‘I’m really not interested, Alejandro,’ Brynne snapped irritably, pushing back her chair with the intention of standing up, but prevented from doing so as Alejandro reached out and grasped her hand. She trembled slightly. ‘What are you doing?’ She sighed her exasperation with this man’s hot-and-cold moods.
He had no idea, Alejandro acknowledged with inward impatience for his own actions; he only felt a need to stop Brynne from leaving with things so strained between them.
He removed his hand, resting his elbows on the table as he steepled his fingers together. ‘You wanted to say something to me last night …’ he reminded huskily.
Brynne gave him a scathing glance. ‘I’m sure that Antonia was only too eager, once I had gone to bed, to tell you all about our little chat yesterday morning!’
Antonia …? What did Antonia have to do with what had been troubling Brynne when he had arrived home yesterday evening?
What was it Brynne had said—attacked him with—last night? Something about that woman telling her he wanted her to leave, he recalled frowningly. He had been too tired and irritable at the time to consider Brynne’s anger as anything more than yet another misunderstanding between them. But her mention of Antonia put an altogether different connotation on things.
Antonia had been the woman Brynne referred to …?
Alejandro’s gaze became guarded as he looked across at a Brynne, who was obviously angry once again, a flush to her cheeks, her eyes sparkling with the emotion. ‘Perhaps I would rather hear it from you …?’ he said slowly.
‘Well, that’s just too bad!’ she told him scathingly, standing up to look down at him. ‘Because I have no intention of satisfying your curiosity! Suffice to say, I am not leaving here before my month is up, and nothing you can say, or do—or that your girlfriend says or does!—is going to make me leave any sooner. Is that clear enough for you?’ she challenged.
‘Very clear,’ he acknowledged distractedly.
Antonia had come here yesterday while he was out? While she had known he was out in Palma at a meeting with her father?
Exactly what had she said to Brynne …?
Whatever it was he deeply resented Antonia thinking she had the right to come here when he was out and say anything at all of a personal nature to Brynne.
Yes, he had used Antonia’s unexpected arrival yesterday evening as a means of ending that tense situation between himself and Brynne, which might or might not have given Antonia completely the wrong idea about their own relationship, but her conversation with Brynne had taken place before that …
‘Perhaps you misunderstood Antonia? Her English was perhaps not as fluent—’
‘Yes, you would like me to think that, wouldn’t you?’ Brynne scorned as she gave a rueful shake of her head. ‘It hardly fits in with her claim of you “always being the gentleman”, does it, to ask your mistress to come here and tell me it would be a good idea if I left?’
Alejandro’s expression darkened even more. ‘Antonia is not my mistress,’ he bit out coldly. ‘And I did not ask her to speak to you on this subject—’
‘Of course you didn’t,’ Brynne dismissed wearily.
‘Or any other,’ Alejandro finished firmly, throwing his napkin down on the table before standing up, tall and forbidding in a black tee shirt and black denims. ‘You will forget this conversation with Antonia ever happened,’ he instructed arrogantly. ‘I will speak to her—’
‘In bed or out of it?’ Brynne taunted, her anger of yesterday increased by the humiliation she had suffered after being in this man’s arms last night.
Alejandro looked every inch the arrogant Spaniard at that moment, his eyes cold, his mouth a thin, angry line. ‘You will forget the things Antonia has said to you,’ he repeated icily. ‘As I will do my best to forget that you have once again insulted my honour with your accusations—’
‘Oh, please, Alejandro.’ Brynne gave another weary sigh. ‘This display of injured Spanish pride may work on some people, but it doesn’t work on me!’
Alejandro wanted to make her listen to him. To take hold of her and shake her until her teeth rattled. To take her in his arms and kiss her until she was senselessly compliant …!
He forced himself to do none of those things, instead clenching his hands into fists at his sides. ‘Nevertheless, I will ensure that Antonia does not talk to you in this way again,’ he assured Brynne coldly. ‘And I apologize on her behalf for any misunderstanding that may have arisen between the two of you,’ he added stiffly.
‘There was no misunderstanding,’ Brynne assured him with a derisive shake of her head. ‘And I’m sure she wouldn’t thank you for implying that there was!’
His mouth tightened. He did not care whether Antonia thanked him or not. He allowed no one, absolutely no one, to act on his behalf in the way that Brynne claimed Antonia Roig had done yesterday.