The Most Expensive Lie of All (13 page)

She pulled back. ‘You’re wrong. Chad and I... Can we not talk about this?’

He was going to kill the moron.

Cruz nudged her chin up until her baleful glare met his. He nearly smiled at her thorny gaze but this was too serious. ‘Did he hurt you?’

She wet her lips, dropped her eyes.

‘Aspen?’

‘Oh, all right.’ She sighed. ‘On our wedding night Chad was... I was anxious. Chad had been drinking heavily and I knew I had made a mistake. Actually, I knew I’d made a mistake even before the wedding, but it became bigger than I was and I didn’t know how to stop it. And Chad could be charming.’ She gave an empty laugh. ‘You might not know that, being a man, but my friends thought he was wonderful. But the alcohol changed him and that night...’ She swallowed. ‘That night...’

‘He raped you,’ he said flatly.

‘No. It was my fault. I was nervous.’

Cruz barely held himself in check. ‘Do
not
blame yourself.’ He guided her eyes back up to look at him. ‘He would have known that you were nervous.’ He cursed under his breath. ‘Hell, Aspen. You were all of eighteen.’

She gave him a wobbly smile and Cruz enfolded her in his arms. He held her until he felt her trembling subside.

‘He didn’t mean to, Cruz. It just wasn’t easy.’

Uh-huh.
When he did kill him he’d do it slowly.

‘It’s fine. I knew this would happen anyway. You can let me go.’

Let her go?

She tried to pull away, and when he looked at her she had that same resigned look on her face that she’d had the previous night.

‘When I first arrived at Ocean Haven to work for your grandfather,’ he began tentatively, ‘I missed my family so much I cried myself to sleep every night for a month and I felt pathetic. You were right yesterday when you said it was a lot for a kid to take on. At the time, though, I thought I just needed to man up.’

‘Oh, Cruz.’

Her hand curled around his forearm, and even though he knew he was sharing the memory with her to take her mind off her own past part of him still soaked up the comfort of her touch.

‘I thought my mother was turning her back on me. That I was an embarrassment to the family.’

‘No.’ Aspen shook her head fiercely. ‘I only met her yesterday but I
know
that can’t be true.’

‘Probably not. And what Anderson told you isn’t true either.’ When her eyes fell to the side Cruz tipped her chin up. ‘Aspen, you’re a beautiful, sensual woman and I want to prove that to you if you’ll let me.’

She frowned. ‘I don’t see how.’

He cupped her face in his hands, halting her words. ‘I want you, Aspen. I want to kiss you and touch you and make love to you until all you can think about is how good you feel. The question is, do
you
want that to happen?’

The question might also be what the hell was he talking about? It was one thing to make a woman feel good in bed. It was quite another to want to slay her demons for her.

Ignoring the fact that he had never donned the white knight suit before, and what that meant, Cruz waited for her answer.

And waited.

Finally, still clutching her dress to her chest, her eyes wide and luminous in the over-bright room, she nodded. ‘I think so.’

‘Then relax and let me take care of you. And, Aspen...?’ He waited for her to look at him from beneath the fringe of her dark lashes. ‘If you want me to stop at any time, then we’ll stop. Understand?’

She paused and her green eyes opened a little wider. ‘You’d really do that, wouldn’t you?’

For a brief moment Cruz savoured all the ways he would break every bone in Chad Anderson’s body, starting with his pompous head and working his way down.

‘In a heartbeat,
mi chiquita
. No questions asked.’

CHAPTER NINE

A
SPEN
BREATHED
IN
Cruz’s warm, musky scent as he carried her to his bedroom and told herself to relax. But it was impossible. She was too embarrassed. Her old panic had returned full force when she’d felt Cruz’s warm hand slide between her thighs and now she clung to his neck like a spider monkey as he laid her on the bed.

‘Aspen?’

The bedcover was cool at her back and his naked chest was hot at her front as he tried to prise her hands from around his neck. In her earlier fantasies about sex it was romantic and sensual. Dreamy and wonderful. Hot and desperate. This felt awkward and tense.

She didn’t look at him as he turned onto his side, visualising how gauche she must appear, with her hair spread out around her and her body partially exposed, with the bodice of her dress undone and metres of silk twisted up around her waist. Keeping her eyes scrunched tight, she adjusted the skirt down her legs.

‘Can you turn out the light?’ She could feel it burning holes in her retinas even though her eyes were clamped shut.

‘I will if it makes you more comfortable, but I won’t be able to see you if I do that.’

‘That would be the general idea.’

‘Open your eyes,
gatita
.’

‘Is it a prerequisite?’

His low chuckle had her squinting up at him. He looked lazy and indolent with his head propped in his hands, his gaze extremely male and hot as it met hers. Well, clearly only one of them was feeling awkward and tense.

‘You’re very comfortable with this, aren’t you?’

‘You will be too, very soon,’ he promised. ‘More than comfortable.’

He brought his hand up to her face and started drawing lazy patterns with his finger over her cheeks and nose and down the side of her neck to her collarbone. It wasn’t easy for her to give him control, but Aspen lay as still as a stone, slowly recognising that her skin was tingling with a pleasant sensation and that goosebumps had risen up along her upper arms.

‘How much pleasure have you actually had during sex,
mi
chiquita
?’

She swallowed and would have turned from him then, but his magical finger edged along the loose side of her dress and feathered across her nipple. She sucked in a shallow breath, letting it out on a rush. ‘Not much,’ she answered honestly.
None
seemed too big an admission to make.

‘Mmm...’ Cruz ducked his head to her shoulder and trailed a line of kisses to the sensitive curve of her neck. ‘Then we’ll have to change all that. I am now taking it as my personal mission to teach you about pleasure.’

He shifted closer so that she could feel the heat of his body burn into the side of hers.

‘Nothing but pleasure.’

He looked at her as if he wanted to devour her. As if he couldn’t think of anything else but her. The thought frightened her, because her desire for him had grown exponentially over the course of a couple of days and she didn’t know how that had happened.

He had invaded her thoughts and her dreams and seemed to make a mockery of her declaration that she would never again be at any man’s mercy. Because here she was, lying nearly naked on his bed and feeling way out of her depth. And yet as scary as that thought was, as she looked at him like this, his face half in shadow from the bedside lamp, he looked amazing. His strong features and wide shoulders promised to fulfil all of her hidden desires and she felt utterly and completely safe with him, she realised with astonishment. Something she would have said she would never feel again in a man’s arms.

Warmth returned deep inside her. Warmth and a sense of wonder that made her feel hot and restless. Her gaze fell to where her hands rested on his gorgeous chest and then she slowly returned her eyes to his. The look in his was both tender and hungry and it made her insides melt.

Reaching up, she stroked the sexy stubble already lining his jaw. ‘Make love to me, Cruz. Please.’

As if he’d been waiting for her to say those exact words he took one of her hands and brought her palm to his lips. His answer, ‘It will be my pleasure...’ rumbled through his chest and arrowed straight into her heart.

His next kiss was hot and deep and sensation swamped her, sending sparks of excitement everywhere, cutting off her ability to think. Her inhibitions and worries seemed to be caught up with some primal desire and this time desire won out.

There was just no room to consider anything other than Cruz’s big hands on her body, stroking her, adoring her. His whispered words of encouragement as he discarded her dress and moved her tiny thong down her thighs raised her level of anticipation to an unbearable pitch.

Within seconds she was naked beneath him and his mouth was tracking a path to her breast. Aspen held still, already anticipating the heady pleasure his mouth would bring. And she wasn’t disappointed. Cruz drew the tight bud gently into his mouth, licked, circled, nipped and did things to her nipple that were surely illegal. Aspen felt dizzy and her hazy mind didn’t even register when his hand slid over the outside of her thighs. Then every neuron in her brain tightened and focused as she felt his hand drift inwards.

‘Still with me,
chiquita
?’ he asked, blowing warm air across her moist breast.

‘Yes, oh, yes.’ She curled her hands around the defined muscles in his shoulders. ‘But you’re still partially dressed.’

‘Not for long,’ he assured her. ‘But let’s take care of something first.’ He gently pressed her upper body back down on the bed. ‘Lie back,
gatita
. This is all for you.’

Aspen complied, but she still tensed when his hand returned to her closed thighs. She half expected him to open them and maybe move over the top of her, to push himself inside her. What she didn’t expect was that he would bend one of her knees up and start stroking her leg as one might a domestic cat. Or a startled horse.

And then she couldn’t think at all, because he brought his mouth back to her breast and laved the tip with his tongue. She pressed closer, husky little sounds urging him on, and her lower body clenched unbearably with every tug of his lips on her nipple. Then his hand started circling higher on her leg. Slowly. So slowly it was sheer torture. She couldn’t stop herself from restlessly trying to turn towards him. She needed weight, she realised, and pressure.

‘Patience,
chiquita
,’ he implored, his breathing heavy.

‘I don’t have any,’ she groaned, and then gasped as his fingers lightly grazed over the curls between her legs before circling her belly and dipping down again, this time lingering a little longer and pressing a little lower.

Unbelievably Aspen shifted her legs a little wider of her own accord and knew in that moment that she truly wanted this to happen. That she wanted more. That she wanted all of him. Inside her. Her fear of disappointing him, of failing, of him hurting her was completely eradicated as need spiralled through her and drove everything else out of her mind. If it didn’t work out she no longer cared. She just needed
something
. Him!

She waited breathlessly as his finger ran along the seam between her legs again, only to exhale as it continued moving up to link with one of hers.

‘Cruz, please...’ She curled her free hand around his neck and dragged his mouth back to hers.

‘You want me to touch you,
chiquita
?’ he said against her lips.

‘You know I do.’ Then she had a horrid thought. ‘Don’t you want to?’

He stilled and held her gaze as he brought the hand he held down to the front of his pants. He was huge. That was Aspen’s first thought. And her second was that she wanted to see him, touch him.

‘Never doubt it,’ he said fiercely. ‘Never.’

His kiss was hard and hungry and then he wrenched his mouth from hers.

‘But I’m trying to go slow. Make sure you’re totally ready for me.’ He took her hand in his again, linking his fingers over the back of hers. ‘And I have something to show you.’

He laid her hand palm-down on her belly and then slowly guided her hand over her silky curls.

‘Open your legs wider,
chiquita
,’ he murmured beside her ear. ‘No. More. Yes, like that...’

And then he directed her hand even lower until, with a gasp, Aspen felt herself as she never had before.

‘Oh, my God—that feels...’

‘Wet?’

Cruz ran the tip of his tongue around the whorl of her ear and she nearly came off the bed.

He pressed her hand downwards. ‘Silky? Sexy?’

Yes!

Lost in a maelstrom of sensation, Aspen closed her eyes and let her feelings take over. She didn’t know what to focus on as her fingers slipped over her body, making her want to press upwards.

‘And now...’ Cruz shifted until he lay on his stomach between her splayed legs, his olive skin dark against the cream bedcovers. ‘Now I’m going to taste you.’

Aspen tried to close her legs in a hurry. ‘Cruz, you can’t.’

He looked up, the skin on his face tight as he held his hands still on her open thighs.

‘Let me, Aspen. Remember? I promised you nothing but pleasure.’

Tensing just a little, she let him move her legs wider again and closed her eyes as he dipped down and opened her with his skilled tongue.

She’d heard of men doing this, of course. She had been to an all-girls school, and she knew that some girls liked it and some didn’t. She had always put herself in the latter camp. Cruz’s low groans of pleasure as he licked and lapped at her sensitive flesh shifted her firmly to the former.

She thought maybe he asked if she was okay, but by that stage he had brought his fingers into play and Aspen couldn’t breathe, let alone answer. Her whole body was burning and intensely focused on something that seemed just out of reach. She writhed and twisted beneath him, delighting in the scrape of his stubble against her tender skin, not even registering that she was calling his name until he moved over her.

‘It’s okay,
chiquita
. Let go.’

Let go? Of what?

And then it happened. Somehow the gentle stroking of his fingers sped up and they moved in such a way that she felt something inside her shift. Within seconds her body had exploded into a thousand tiny pieces.

Distantly she was aware that he had moved down her body again, but she was in such a blissful state of completion she felt as if she was floating.

‘Aspen, open your eyes.’

Were her eyes closed again?

Opening them, she saw Cruz watching her.

‘How was that?’

She smiled. ‘That was the most exquisitely pleasurable experience of my whole life.’

‘And I’m just getting started,’ he drawled arrogantly.

Aspen laughed, and then her breath caught as he rose over her with latent male grace; his powerful biceps bunched as he completely covered her and took her mouth with his again.

She felt the heavy weight of his erection against her stomach and unbelievably her lower body clenched, needing pressure again. She squirmed upwards, opening her legs automatically.

Groaning, Cruz rolled off her, yanked his pants off in a rustle of fabric and reached into the side drawer for a condom. She watched, completely motionless, as he tore the wrapper apart with his teeth and then held his hard length with one hand while he applied it.

‘You keep looking at me like that,
mi
gatita
, and I’ll have no need for protection,’ he husked, his gravelly voice rolling straight to her pelvis.

Aspen felt herself blush, but she didn’t look away. He was too mesmerising. Too...

‘Beautiful,’ she said. ‘You’re beautiful.’

She ran her hand over his tanned back, briefly marvelling at the smooth heated texture of his skin and the way he trembled beneath her touch. Had
she
done that? Her eyes flew to his and she noticed the sheen of perspiration lining his forehead.

A smile of abject female joy slowly crossed her face. He saw it and groaned. Captured her mouth with his and pushed her onto her back, coming over the top of her in a position of pure male dominance. For once it didn’t scare her. Because in that moment she felt a sense of feminine power she’d never known she had. And it was exhilarating. Drugging.
Freeing
.

‘Hook your legs around my waist,’ he instructed gruffly.

She did, and immediately felt the smooth rounded head of his penis at her entrance. Totally caught up in the wonder of it, she dug her hands into the small of his back as she pulled him closer.

He hesitated and for a moment her old fear returned, her nerves tightening in anticipation of possible pain, and then he nudged her so sweetly her breath rushed out on a sob. She clasped his head and brought his mouth down to hers, tears burning the backs of her eyes as he slowly eased inside her body.

She easily accommodated him at first, but then she did feel too full. Too stretched.

‘Relax,
amada
,’ he crooned against her lips. ‘I’ve got you.’

He kissed her hungrily and withdrew almost all the way, before slowly pushing forward again, his tongue filling her mouth and mimicking his lower body’s movements until Aspen felt as if she was melting into the bed.

He raised his face above hers and he looked intense. Focused. ‘You feel amazing.’

He adjusted his weight and Aspen moaned, arching towards him.

‘But you’re so tight. I feel like I’m hurting you.’

‘No.’ She flexed her hips and rubbed against him, gasping as she felt him lodge deeper. ‘It feels sensational.
You
feel sensational.’

Cruz groaned and seemed to praise God as he started moving inside her, his strokes smooth and slow before gradually picking up pace. Every time his big body pushed into hers Aspen clung harder to his damp shoulders, her body growing tighter and tighter until with a sudden pause she felt another rush of liquid heat, right before her body convulsed into a paroxysm of pleasure.

Dimly she was aware of Cruz still moving inside her, of her pleasure being completely controlled by the powerful movements of his. And it was endless as he drove into her, over and over and over, until with a pause of his own he tilted her bottom and surged into her with controlled power. Once, twice more, until she cried out and felt him rear his head back and fall over the edge with her.