The Twelve-Month Mistress (13 page)

‘I—I don’t think that would be a good idea.’

‘And why not?’

Because she knew what was coming, that was why not.

But then of course she’d been expecting it. She’d been on tenterhooks all week, her stomach clenching on a twist of nerves each time Joaquin had said that he was calling it a night, or she had known she couldn’t suppress a yawn, or stay awake a moment longer. She’d always known that her luck couldn’t last. That at some point his patience must run out. But why now? Why tonight? What on earth had put him in this mood?

And what was it going to lead to?

Would they sit opposite each other in a restaurant, lighted candles on the table, polished silver and crystal glassware gleaming in the soft light—and talk about…?

About what?

About living together and the wonderful days, the glorious nights they shared? About how happy they were? How everything was perfect? Or at least how Joaquin believed that everything was perfect.

Would they talk about their future and the plans, the dreams they had—together?

Memories of that last morning, the morning before she had left him, swirled into her mind in a torrent of hateful images. She heard again his voice saying, ‘I told you I don’t do commitment’ saw the blank lack of emotion in his eyes; felt the tearing pain of knowing that she could never be to him what he was to her. And knew that she could never go through with the sort of evening of courtship and sophisticated seduction that he so obviously had planned.

‘I just don’t think…’

She wouldn’t be able to eat a thing. It would choke her. Tension would close her throat, making it impossible to
swallow, and she would have to sit there, locked in misery, unable to speak, feeling as if the doctors had clamped a muzzle over her mouth with their ruling that she must keep silent on the events of the four weeks that were missing from Joaquin’s memory.

Then, when the evening was over, she knew that Joaquin would no longer be prepared to wait. That he would expect her to go to bed with him, or want to know the reason why.

And it was that
reason why
that she couldn’t give to him.

‘I mean—’

Inspiration struck and she grabbed at it in desperation, thankful for any way of escape.

‘I think that it would be a pity to waste the meal I have planned. I’ve prepared most of it already…’

The slanting, sceptically suspicious glance that he turned on her had her improvising fast, embroidering on the few basic, factual details.

‘I thought you’d like a paella?’

That was an important plus point. Paella was Joaquin’s favourite dish and one she hadn’t cooked for him in a while.

‘I always like paella,’ he drawled, his tone giving away as little as his expressionless, watchful face.

‘And I thought we could eat out by the pool—it’s going to be a lovely evening.’

‘You’ve done a lot of thinking.’

To judge by the faint glimmer of a smile, he clearly believed that she was planning this romantic evening
à deux
for much the same reasons as he had booked the restaurant. His next words confirmed as much.

‘And our thoughts seem to be running on the same lines. Okay.’

He stretched lazily, pushing both hands through his glossy ebony hair.

‘Do you want some help in the kitchen?’

‘No—no need…’

If he came into the kitchen he would realise just how far from the truth her statement that she had already prepared most of the meal had been.

‘I can manage. Why don’t you take a shower?’

‘I’ll do that. It’s been a pretty sultry day, and I could do with freshening up. I won’t be long.’

He was turning towards the door when he stopped suddenly, swung back, and fixed her with a wide, wicked smile, a devilish gleam lighting up in the midnight darkness of his eyes.

‘Unless of course you’d like to join me?’

That smile, the glitter in his eyes, were pure temptation, and in spite of herself Cassie felt all that was female in her respond to them in an instant. Her heartbeat kicked up, heating her blood and making it throb along her nerves. Her mouth dried, yearning to press itself against the sensual curve of his. It would be so easy to say yes… In fact she had opened her mouth to do just that before a savage reproof from her sense of self-preservation brought her up short, pushing other words into her thoughts.

‘If I did that then the meal would never be ready.’

That roguish grin grew wider, even more dazzling, brilliant white teeth gleaming sharply against the dark tan of his skin.

‘To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t mind. I have other appetites that are just as pressing—more so.’

He was reaching for her as he spoke. Another second and he would have caught hold of her wrist, dragging her into the confines of his arms, holding her tight against him.

‘I don’t think so.’

Somehow she managed to make it sound flippant, even flirtatious. And some sixth sense made her move at just the right moment, dodging his grasping hand, putting an extra distance between them.

‘I know you when you’re hungry—and it isn’t a pretty sight! So you go and take that shower and I’ll prepare a
meal that will save me from having my head bitten off later.’

His unsmiling stillness made her hold her breath. Would he let it go at that or press her further?

A moment later, her tautly held shoulders slumped again in relief as Joaquin nodded acquiescence.

‘Okay,’ he said, calmly enough, but there was something in his eyes that promised he would not be so easily distracted later, that he would think up a punishment that was suitable to fit the crime he believed she had committed. ‘We’ll play it your way—for now.’

She’d won this round, Cassie told herself as she watched him stride up the stairs and out of sight. Or at least earned herself a reprieve. So why didn’t she feel as if that were the case? Why was her mood as low as if she’d suffered the worst defeat possible? She was handling this the only way she knew how!

Why was she doing it? It would be so easy to follow him upstairs. To undress, to go into the bathroom, open the glass door to the shower cubicle and slip inside to join him…

And she
wanted
to do it. That was the cruellest irony of all. She
wanted
to be with him, wanted to sleep with him, wanted him to make love to her.

Which was the real sting in the tail. She wanted him to make
love
to her. And he wouldn’t. All he wanted was to sleep with her, and she couldn’t sleep with him and have it mean nothing. And surely when Joaquin regained his memory—and recalled his suspicions of Ramón—when he looked back at the way that she had turned down his insulting offer of marriage, the way he had stormed out of Ramón’s apartment, then he would be furious with her. He would feel used. He would think that she had come to his bed because—because…

Cassie choked back a sob.

Because since his accident she could no longer go to Ramón’s.

What was it he had said that night at his brother’s apartment?

‘Are you so insatiable that you’ve gone from my bed to my brother’s in less than a week?’

Only now he would think that she had done it in reverse, going from Ramón’s bed to his.

No. She couldn’t let that happen again. Couldn’t bear it to happen. She was far better off following her original plan and focusing her attention firmly on making the meal. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d talked of the moods Joaquin got into when he was hungry.

She might have snatched the idea of the special meal out of the air in desperation and the hope of avoiding the horror of the restaurant that Joaquin had planned on, but perhaps she could turn it round to her advantage after all. She would cook the paella and they would share it—and then later they could talk…

She would try to jolt his memory once again. Try to make him think of the night before she had left him. To see if she could get him to remember.

She would have to tell him the whole truth. About the problems that had come between them, at least. It was the only way. And it wouldn’t actually go against the doctors’ orders. It wasn’t something that had happened only in the time he had lost. It had been growing in her heart before that.

She would tell him of the way she had been feeling, what had driven her to feel she had no alternative but to leave him. She’d tell him of all the doubts and fears that had been swirling in her mind, the way she had felt he was about to end their relationship and how she had felt forced into considering her own pre-emptive strike.

Then at least if—when—he remembered, he would know
why
she had behaved as she had. He would know why she
had gone, leaving behind that note, why she had moved in with Ramón. And although he might not want her back, at least he would not hate his brother as he had when he had stormed out of Ramón’s apartment. She would not have that on her conscience.

But for now she would cook. And she forced herself to head into the kitchen, pulling out pans, bowls, ingredients with an excessive clatter simply to try and drown out the drumming sound of the shower upstairs.

She wasn’t going to
think
.

But she couldn’t stop herself. She couldn’t help imagining Joaquin’s hard, bronzed body standing under the warm spray of the shower, the water cascading over his lean frame, down the long, straight line of his back, over the tight, male buttocks, around…

‘Ow!’

It was a sharp exclamation of pain and automatically she put her finger into her mouth, sucking to ease the pain where the juice of the pepper she had been slicing had got into the nick she had made in the skin.

Oh, who was she kidding? She didn’t want to be here! What she wanted was to be upstairs, with Joaquin, in Joaquin’s arms.

She wanted Joaquin, no matter what the aftermath might be, no matter what the cost.

If having her in his bed was what Joaquin most wanted right at this moment—it was what she wanted too. So why was she denying both of them? If nothing else, she would have tonight.

Tonight and any extra time that fate allowed her before the missing weeks returned to Joaquin’s brain and she was forced to accept…accept what?

Well, she told herself, she would tackle that when it came.

It was only when she found her hand reaching out for the door—the door to Joaquin’s bedroom—that she reali
sed, with a devastating sense of shock, that even while she had been thinking, arguing with herself, justifying her thoughts, her body had been acting independently and she was already upstairs, and on the landing outside Joaquin’s room. The room they had once shared in happier times.

The decision was made then, she told herself. And the truth was that she could no more make herself turn round and walk away, go back down the stairs, than she could fly to the moon.

This was what she wanted. What she needed. What her hungry body needed—and what her lonely heart most wanted in all the world.

She opened the door and went in, crossing the bedroom swiftly, not looking to right or left for fear of distraction or second thoughts. She shed her clothes as she went. Dropping them carelessly onto the rich blue carpet and leaving them where they fell, like a trail of pastel colour showing where she had been.

The shower was still running and the bathroom was full of steam. Steam also clouded the glass doors into the shower cabinet but through the misted walls she could see Joaquin. See his tall, lean frame, the intense black of his water-soaked hair, the deep bronze of his skin. The details of his body were blurred but she didn’t need to see to picture the honed strength of the straight shoulders and long back, the muscles rippling as his arms lifted to clear the water from his face, the narrow waist and hips, the taut buttocks and powerful, hair-darkened legs. Her throat tightened, her mouth drying at just the thought.

He had his back to her, his face turned up to the shower head, and she knew that he wasn’t even aware of her presence; the sound of the door opening drowned in the rush of the water.

‘Now or never,’ she told herself, the words propelling her forward. ‘Now or never.’

Opening the door as little as she possibly could, she slipped inside.

Joaquin sensed her arrival immediately, the whisper of cooler air on his skin making him whirl around and stand, black eyes fixed on her face, just looking at her.

‘Well, hi,’ was all he said.

But that look made her feel beautiful and special, sexy and wanted, and somehow cherished. And it was all she could possibly have hoped for at this moment. She would never have dared to dream of anything more, let alone ask for it.

‘Hi…’ she managed, soft as a sigh.

Then he opened his arms and she went into them like a homing bird, and felt them close around her, warm and strong and, for now at least, very, very right.

H
E HAD
wanted her so much for so long, Joaquin thought hazily through the rush of blood pounding in his head. So much longer, it seemed, than the week he had spent sticking strictly to her rules and avoiding all intimate contact. So that when she finally came to him like this, warm and willing and oh, so welcome, he truly believed that there was no way he was going to be able to hold back.

His hunger was so wild, so fierce that he felt he couldn’t restrain it in any way. It wouldn’t be reined in, but wanted to break out, wild and fierce and hungry as hell.

In his dreams, through the long, solitary nights when he had slept alone in the bed they had once shared, he had made love to Cassandra so ardently, so passionately, that he’d woken with his heart still thudding, his blood carnally hot and his senses screaming for appeasement of their hunger fast and
now
.

He had thought that whenever—if ever—Cassandra let him touch her again, then his passion would surely spiral out of control. That he would need only a touch of her hand, the sweet scent of her skin, the soft pressure of her mouth on his, to reach the point of no return. That he would take her hard and fast, and that even as he tumbled back to earth after the mind-blowing explosion of his climax he would feel the insatiable hunger start to grow again, demanding more and more and more.

But from the moment that he had turned and seen her standing there, just inside the door to the shower cubicle, everything had changed. Every thought had flown from his head, his mouth and throat had dried, and he had felt as
gauche and awkward as a young boy faced with his first ever experience of a woman.

Her blonde hair hung loose about her shoulders, her glorious body was totally naked and flushed pink from the heat of the shower.

Or was it from embarrassment?

Surely not. After their twelve months together, what reason could Cassandra have to feel embarrassed with him?

But, hell, if he could feel ill at ease and unsure, as he did, then why not? Because the truth was that he didn’t know what to do. This sudden reversal of roles, turning the situation he had thought existed on its head in the space of a minute, had left him floundering, unsure of himself in a way that he hadn’t been in a very long time.

That ‘Well, hi,’ was all that he could manage.

And ‘Hi,’ was all that she said right back, in a strangely similar tone.

He opened his arms to her, feeling that he was also opening his heart, exposing it, raw and vulnerable, so that it would tear him apart if she turned away now.

But she didn’t. Instead, she came straight to him, like a bird flying home to its roost, and he enfolded her in his hug, holding her close and vowing to himself that he would never, ever let her go.

The water pounded down on them, too hard, too fierce for the way he was now feeling, and so he reached up one hand and switched it off with a snap, shaking the wetness from his saturated hair and sighing in relief as it eased, stilled, stopped.

‘Cassandra…’

Her name was just a thick mutter against her mouth, a feeble attempt at the speech he felt incapable of making. Already his body was throbbing in urgent demand—and yet, strangely, the urgency was not for instant and rapid appeasement.

He needed something
more
. Something slower, longer, deeper.

More.

He needed something more emotionally satisfying.

And so he held her close, hugging her even tighter, lifting her from her feet and half carrying, half walking her from the shower stall, pushing the door aside until it banged against the wall.

‘Joaquin…’

He couldn’t tell if her use of his name was a question, a sound of agreement, or simply just another sigh. But she was limp and acquiescent in his arms, seemingly willing to go anywhere, any time with him. And so he carried her into the bedroom, snagging up a couple of thick white towels as he went.

Only when he reached the bed did he set her down, spreading out one of the towels, one-handed, on the deep blue coverlet before lowering her gently onto its softness. Then, taking the other towel and bending over her, he began to dry her water-dappled body.

Each stroke of the soft cotton was a caress. Each movement over the pink-tinted skin was followed by the touch of his lips, pressing against the warmly yielding flesh. Each kiss was accompanied by a murmured comment, a compliment crooned softly in his native Catalan, the language he lapsed into at the most intimate moments.

He told her how beautiful he found her. Whispered of the longings she lit in him, the hunger that burned away his soul. And in his mind he murmured secret words from his heart that even now he did not dare to let into the open for fear that they were not what she wanted to hear. That revealing them would risk making them shrivel into ashes as they left his mouth.

Her sighs answered him. Her body too responded mutely, stretching and twisting on the bed, her hair splayed out on the white towelling that cushioned her head. In the delicate
blue veins he could feel her pulse beat strong and hard, and he heard her breathing quicken, rasping faintly in and out of her lungs.

Her hands were reaching for him now, pulling him up so that their mouths met in the deepest, longest, most satisfying kiss he had ever known.

‘Cassandra!’ he gasped, struggling for breath. ‘
Querida—belleza!
Do you know what you do to me—how you—?’

He broke off on a choking cry as those wickedly knowing slender hands closed about him intimately, stroking provocatively along the achingly hard length of his erection.

‘Cassie!’

It was all that he could manage, the full syllables of her name beyond him. His tongue wouldn’t form it; his breath couldn’t last until he had completed it all. And besides, that ‘Cassandra’ suddenly seemed so wrong, so inappropriate to the moment.

And so, ‘Cassie,’ he sighed again, taking her mouth once more.

He had wanted her warm and willing and she was all that. Everything he could ever have dreamed of—and more. She was hungry for him, urgently pressing him onwards when he would have taken things even more slowly, taking the time to arouse and tantalise her even more, prolonging the waiting, the anticipation, and so heightening the pleasure to its peak for both of them.

Yet at the same time there was an unknown, a unique vulnerability about his woman tonight. And that new sensitivity seemed to communicate itself to him. It was as if it were the first time they had made love together—the first time he had
ever
made love in all his life. But at the same time there was a deep, powerful knowledge at the heart of it, a sense of experiences in the past, of lovers known and weighed against this one intense and powerful moment.

Weighed and found wanting. So damn wanting.

Every sense was heightened; every pleasure greater than ever before. The texture of her skin was the softest he had ever known, the scent of it pure intoxication. Her kisses were honey mixed with spice and her voice was husky music in his ears.

He had never felt so hard, so hot, so powerfully aroused, but at the same time he had never wanted to take things as slowly as he did this time. This time he wanted to indulge every sense, stretch out the pleasure to the highest peak, extend it to the longest possible time. He wanted to enjoy every heightened second, experience every hungry passion for as long as it could possibly endure.

Cassandra seemed to match his needs exactly. With an instinct that was uncannily close to mind-reading she recognised his desires almost before he knew them himself and for each pleasure he gave her she gave him back a hundredfold, feeding each sense, stirring new hungers, satisfying and enticing all in one wonderful moment.

‘Joaquin,’ she sighed against his kiss. ‘I’ve wanted—needed…for so long. So long.’

‘And I have too,’ he assured her, knowing exactly how she felt.

It had been the longest week of his life. Seeming so much, so very much longer than a mere seven days. He felt as if he had been without her for ever. As if this had been their first magical time together. As if it had never been like this before.

‘I’ve missed you,
querida
,’ he muttered, the words harsh and rough from restraint in his throat. ‘Missed you so much…’

His voice faded as he felt a tug inside his mind. Something that whispered of memory. Of a door opening briefly, just for a moment, and just enough to let a tiny sliver of light in before it drifted shut again and he was back in the present.

‘I don’t know how I waited…’

‘Neither do I.’ It came with a tiny bubble of laughter in her throat. ‘Neither do I.’

‘There were times when I thought I would die if I didn’t have you back in my bed again. Die or go completely insane.’

‘I know. I know. I felt that way too. So now…’

She shifted slightly, rubbing her slender body against his, her breasts brushing against his chest, her pelvis arching towards the heated hardness of his, long, pale legs tangling with his bronzed, hair-hazed limbs, making him groan aloud in yearning response.

‘Don’t wait any longer, Joaquin,’ she whispered against his ear, trailing the warm dampness of her tongue around its curling edge, flicking teasingly against the softness of the lobe. ‘Don’t make me wait any longer—don’t make
us
wait any longer.’

How could he wait any longer when she urged him on in that soft, persuasive voice? How could he deny her anything? How could he deny himself?

He pulled her underneath him and she moved easily, willingly, opening to him without any need of further encouragement. When he covered her body with his, feeling her fine strength supporting him, her softness cushioning him, it felt like coming home after the longest journey of his life.

He almost lost it then.

‘Dios en el cielo!’ he muttered through gritted teeth, struggling to control himself long enough to make this right, make it perfect for her.

He didn’t know what was driving him that way, and why it mattered so damn much right now, at this time. There was some deep and cloudy memory lurking at the back of his mind, but one he couldn’t pin down. And he didn’t even want to try. He only knew that it
had
to be right. That he couldn’t live with himself if he spoiled it now.

He sank into the moist, enveloping warmth of her as if
into liquid sunshine, bathing himself in it up to the hilt, pushing as far and as deep and as fully as he could. As strongly as he could.

And he held on for as long as he could, though it damn nearly killed him as Cassandra writhed and moaned beneath him, abandoning herself totally to sensation. Her delicate hands wreaked devastation on his self-control, touching in just the right places, tantalising, tormenting, driving him to distraction and beyond.

It was when she gave the small choking cry that he recognised of old, and her whole body tensed, that he knew his ordeal of waiting was almost at an end. A couple of frantic, ragged heartbeats later that cry became a moan, the moan a high, soaring sound of delight, and she arched underneath him, eyes tight shut, barely breathing as she lost herself in a wild and powerful climax.

He held her tighter than ever. Clasped her hard to him while the storm took her and her body shuddered against him again and again and again. And it was only when the peak of ecstasy began to subside that he let go of the reins on his own starving passion and followed her into the wild abyss of fulfilment.

Cassie came back to herself slowly and with difficulty. She woke to reality again to find herself with tears on her cheeks and a whirling confusion in the scrambled remains of her mind.

What had happened to her?

What had happened to
them
?

She and Joaquin had made love—slept together—hundreds of times over the past year and it had never, ever been like
this
.

Caught off guard, weak and foolishly vulnerable, totally lost in a world she didn’t recognise, she could only focus on one thing. And it was something that terrified her.

This time it had felt like making love.

At any other time, under any other circumstances, she would have welcomed that fact. But tonight, right here and now, she didn’t dare to let the thoughts slide into her mind.

Even if tonight something had happened to change Joaquin’s way of thinking. Even if right now he felt something totally different from the hard and hungry passion that was all he had felt for her before. Even if her dream had actually come true and he was finally coming to care for her in the way that she had so longed for, she would be foolish, ridiculously blind, naïve and gullible, to think that she could rely on those feelings lasting.

Because they were based on a lie—or, if not a lie, then at least on a lack of any real understanding. Those four weeks that were missing from his memory must always come between them. And if Joaquin thought that he was feeling something different—something
more
—then, although it tore at her heart not to do so, she knew she could never, ever let herself trust those feelings.

When he remembered, it could destroy anything he felt now. It would certainly undermine the foundations of the things he thought he was experiencing. Because of that she could never let herself trust in it or believe in it or find any grounds at all for a hope of the future.

A tiny, single tear seeped out of the corner of one eye and slid slowly down onto her cheek, heading for her temple.

‘Tears,
querida
?’ a low, husky voice startled her by sounding from so very close by, and a second later Joaquin’s warm lips were kissing away the tiny salty drop, his tongue taking it delicately into his own mouth.

Cassie’s eyes flew wide open, stunned, wary blue eyes locking sharply with watchful black.

‘Why tears,
belleza
? And why now?’ he murmured. ‘I can only hope that they are tears of joy—of fulfilment—of delight.’

‘F-fulfilment, yes…’ Cassie managed, her voice revealingly weak.

Some of them at least had been tears of delight. The tears she had shed at the highest point of her explosive orgasm. The tears that had totally escaped from her control and tumbled out of her eyes without her even being aware of it.