Page 34 of Spanish Marriage Solution

No, it wasn’t. The point was seeing each other, not other things.

‘Fine. Will you leave the decision to me?’

She tilted her head slightly, her mouth curving even more. ‘I like how you’re not really giving me the option.’

There was a teasing note in her voice, only slight, but it was there, and it made the warmth spread through him, thawing parts of him that had been frozen for a long time. Perhaps even since his father had made it very clear just how wide the gap between them was and how it was up to him to bridge it. He wasn’t actually Mateo’s son after all, so he had to be the one to do the work.

And suddenly he couldn’t stand the distance between them. If there were no limits and no boundaries, if they were going to test what this thing actually was between them, then he didn’t have to fight any of his urges. In fact, it was better if he actively indulged them.

So he crossed the space separating them and pulled her into his arms. ‘Do you want the option?’

‘No,’ she said without hesitation, her palms coming to rest on his chest. ‘In fact, you can arrange everything if you like.’

The warmth was changing now, becoming the kind of heat it always did whenever he was touching her, whenever he was even near her. A fire, a blaze, all-consuming, devastating.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘And this honeymoon? It starts now.’

Then he bent his head and took her mouth like a man starving.

CHAPTER NINE

ALICE LAY ON the blanket on the sand and watched Sebastián stride from the sea, magnificently naked, drops of water and brilliant sunshine delineating every hard-cut muscle of his powerful body. His tan had deepened, providing a rich foil to the smoky gold of his eyes, the colour standing out even more as he came towards her across the sand.

Her stomach clenched. Everything clenched. He was so beautiful and he was her husband. Hers.

Your husband who doesn’t love you.

That was true, but they’d already decided back in Spain that love wouldn’t feature in their marriage. There were too many reasons why it wasn’t a good idea. They’d both lost their spouses and her heart was still broken and bleeding, and she couldn’t risk giving it to someone else. Especially someone who didn’t want it anyway.

What about later? When the grief has eased? What about then?

Alice pushed the thought out of her mind. There was no point thinking about the future and she didn’t want to anyway. Not when the present was so much better. The present with him filling every moment of it.

She could hardly believe how much she wanted him. In fact she seemed to have an endless capacity. A hunger that didn’t seem to be getting any better no matter how many times they indulged it, and they’d indulged it a lot since they’d arrived.

Sebastián had kept their final destination a surprise and it wasn’t until they were in a smaller plane from Belize City and flying over the Belize Barrier Reef in the Caribbean that Sebastián had told her where they were going.

A villa on a tiny, private and very remote island. There were no other people on the island, and, apart from a small cottage on a neighbouring island that housed the staff who managed the villa, there was no one else within miles.

The island had the most beautiful white sand beaches surrounding it and the villa itself was sprawling and open-plan, with massive floor-to-ceiling windows that doubled as doors so one entire wall could be opened up. There were lazy fans and dark wooden floors and the master bedroom had a huge four-poster bed hung with gauzy white curtains.

It was the most utterly perfect place she could imagine.

The first couple of days were spent entirely sating themselves physically with each other, neither of them holding back. They didn’t talk, but talking hadn’t been the point, at least not initially. That could wait until their physical hunger was at least at a reasonable level.

After the intensity had eased a little, they explored the island, spending hours in the water and lying on the beach. There was a small boat for their use and Sebastián piloted it out to the nearby reef where they snorkelled amongst multicoloured coral and fish. It was astonishingly beautiful.

He refused to let her do a thing, cooking for her and bringing her treats, making sure her every wish was catered to, and she loved it. Her and Edward’s honeymoon had been spent in Italy and, while she’d enjoyed it, even then she’d had the nagging feeling that Edward had been far more interested in sightseeing than in spending time with her.

She had no such doubts about Sebastián. She was what interested him, and he made no secret of it. She’d never felt so desired. Except his interest seemed to be limited to the here and now, what they were doing that day and what she’d like for dinner and whether she’d like having her hands tied to the headboard of the bed as he made love to her.

Perhaps he was waiting to talk more until later, or perhaps he was waiting for her to broach the topic first. Either way though, it made a subtle tension run through her, a nameless doubt she couldn’t shake.

He came up now to the blanket she was lying on, beneath a pavilion hung with shade cloth to protect them both from the sun, water dripping from his magnificent body as he picked up a towel and dried himself off.

She made a cursory protest as water scattered over her bare skin, but she didn’t really mind, not when she was enjoying watching the play of water on his tanned skin. He dropped the towel and lay down on his side beside her, his head propped on his hand. When he smiled, her heart turned over in her chest.

‘I’m afraid of falling for you,’ he’d said back in Spain.

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