‘I want...you,’ she heard herself say and she didn’t know where the words came from, only that it was a truth so new to her that she had to say it, had to share it.
‘Gracias a Dios,’ Ruy groaned above her head, crushing her mouth under his with an urgency that shook her to her very depths. His mouth contrived to communicate everything she didn’t have the words to express and the explosive effect of his hunger meeting hers set her on fire.
It took a while in that passionate exchange of kisses for Suzy to notice that he was extracting her from her sweater and for a split second she stilled, checking with herself that that was all right. And because it was Ruy, because she was so worked up that she was wound up tighter than a spring, it was fine. She was a big girl now, she reminded herself abstractedly, not a teenager keeping a handsy first boyfriend within acceptable limits. Yes, she could take her clothes off now, of course she could.
‘Of course, you would have to have the boots on.’ Ruy sighed, lifting her up into his arms and bringing her down onto the side of the bed, crouching down lithely at her feet to remove her boots. ‘I love these boots. You’re going to wear them in the studio for me when you pose—’
‘Am I?’ Amusement softened Suzy’s gaze as she stared down at him, spearing her fingers into his black luxuriant hair, smoothing it back from his brow, admiring the dark slashing brows and the ridiculously long ebony lashes framing his gorgeous eyes. Absently she wondered what she had thought about before she met him.
‘In a wedding dress...but not the one you put on for him,’ he asserted, tossing aside the boots and gently pushing her back to embark on the zip of her jeans.
‘You have the most crazy imagination.’ Suzy sighed.
‘I’m not an imaginative man.’
‘But you’re an artist. You’ve got to be imaginative,’ Suzy told him, sensing that for some reason he was in denial of that reality. ‘I mean, imagining me posing in my boots and a wedding dress...how eccentric is th...that?’ She stammered to a halt as, with one hard yank, he succeeded in tugging the jeans down her long slender legs.
‘But that’s not imagination, that’s the reality of how I saw you in the woods,’ Ruy argued, lifting her dangling legs up onto the divan and coming down beside her. ‘We’re talking too much... I don’t talk in bed—’
‘Tough,’ Suzy whispered, touching a fingertip to his slightly reddened lips. ‘Two people here, two votes, not just one...you just revel in being bossy, Ruy.’
He hauled off his sweater and leant over her, shimmering dark golden eyes alight as flames against his bronzed complexion, the corner of his mouth hinting at a smile. ‘Maybe a little.’
‘I should’ve run like hell when you told me about buying into the pub,’ Suzy remarked with sudden anxiety. ‘Maybe you’re one of those controlling guys, who tries to own a woman.’
‘I’ve never tried to own a woman in my life. And you see this is why you don’t talk in bed—it gets too serious and now you’re freaking yourself out and stressing again,’ Ruy censured, dropping a kiss down on her parted lips, trailing his own slowly down her neck to her shoulder, lighting up a tingling trail of arousal through her trembling body.
‘I’m still furious with you!’ she protested, struggling to ground herself again and yet at the same time inwardly rejoicing at the concept of her own freedom from constraint, the precious ability to do as she liked for once.
All her life, after all, she had been the good dutiful daughter, instinctively tailoring herself to the role her father needed her to fill. She hadn’t had the liberty to choose a career once she had grasped that her father couldn’t afford to pay anyone else for the work she did. In the same way she hadn’t experimented with any young men because, working at the pub, she couldn’t risk acquiring a free and easy reputation, which would only encourage the often married men who tried to chat her up.
‘Why would you be?’ Ruy reasoned in what appeared to be genuine surprise as he stared down at her with smouldering dark golden eyes. ‘I’m solving problems for you.’
‘But I don’t need you to solve my problems.’
‘There’s no shame in accepting help when it’s available.’ Ruy kissed a rousing trail across one delicate shoulder, lingering on her collarbone, making her shiver convulsively, heat curling at the secret heart of her. ‘I’ll be disappointed if you decide not to model for me or accompany me to Spain but if those are the choices you make, I will respect them,’ he swore.
With those words, that assurance that she was still free to do as she wished, he broke the last chain of constraint holding her back. Bribery and blackmail only worked with the addition of pressure and he was removing the threat of that pressure. ‘You promise?’ she pressed tightly.
‘I promise, querida,’ Ruy husked, lean fingers spreading across her curvy derriere to angle her into collision with his erection. ‘I can take no for an answer when to do otherwise would make a woman feel intimidated.’
Her heart raced as she felt his readiness. ‘Take off your clothes,’ she urged helplessly, impatient and greedy now that he had soothed her fears.
Ruy vaulted off the bed and stripped at speed. Boots, sweater, jeans hit the floor in a messy heap, leaving him standing there before her for a split second, almost naked, and breathtaking in a way she had never known a man could be. He was very tall, very lean and all muscle from his sculpted torso and flat, corrugated stomach to his powerful arms and legs. Her attention lingered on the thrusting evidence of his arousal, clearly delineated by the boxers he sported, and her face burned, curiosity and anxiety melding as he strode into the bathroom and reappeared to toss a handful of condoms down beside the bed.
A handful? Surely he wasn’t planning on them doing the deed more than once?
He released the catch on her bra, cupped a firm full mound and suckled a straining nipple and an arrow of damp heat raced through her and settled into a dulled throb between her thighs. Her spine arched as she surged up to him, alight as a crackling fire craving oxygen. His mouth crashed down on hers again and the heat inside her surged even higher. Her hands danced over every part of him she could reach, toying with his hair, caressing his wide smooth shoulders, skating down the long line of his flexing back, fingers curling as he addressed his attention to her other breast and tugged on the sensitive tip until she moaned low in her throat.
An impatience more powerful than anything she had ever felt assailed her. Hunger clawed at her, a wanting, a need she had never before experienced. He took her mouth again, urgently tasting her, and every delve of his tongue made her temperature rocket.
He lifted his dark head, struggling to catch his breath. ‘Slow down,’ he urged. ‘We’re not in a hurry.’
Her eyes closed tight against the compelling contours of his beautiful face, defiance racing through her trembling frame because she didn’t like to be controlled and just then, as the giver of pleasure, he was controlling her. He might not be in a hurry, but she was. She ran a hand down over his flat stomach and stroked him, surprised by how smooth and yet hard, like steel wrapped in velvet, he was, delighted when he shuddered against her and groaned out loud, as responsive to her as she was to him and she liked that, really liked that feeling of power. She pressed him back against the pillows.