Page 33 of The Secret Sanchez Heir
Something weird and disconcerting kicked inside him and he buried the odd sensation in the only way he knew how.
With sex.
He took over and Abigail loved it. He was so powerful and yet tender between the sheets. Her body was thrumming when, after an eternity, he thrust into her with long, deep strokes that drove her wild. Fingers biting into his waist, she moved against him, finding the rhythm that was theirs and moving to its beat, their bodies as one as sensation built and built between them.
She climaxed on a wave of shuddering ecstasy that went on and on and on, taking her to ever higher peaks which were made all the more amazing because she knew that he was coming as well, his body arching and stiffening under the impact of his own orgasm.
In sex, they truly became one person.
As they descended back down to Planet Earth, Abigail marvelled that she could have translated that complete physical union as a uniting of the mind, soul and spirit as well.
And what, she wondered in sudden raw confusion, was she going to do now?
He was back in bed with her and she didn’t want to let him go, but thinking like that made her feel like a coward after the stand she had taken. How could she love someone who was so indifferent to her that he’d point-blank refused to answer a simple question? When he knew that the answer would have meant so much to her? They might not be married, but they’d been lovers and parents to a child. How did secrecy fit into that scenario?
Bitter tears tried to push their way through as stark regret began to invade her. Yet when Leandro scooped her against him she was happy to let him. She flattened her hands against his chest and breathed him in deeply, then sighed.
‘Okay,’ Leandro told her roughly. ‘You win.’
Abigail drew back and squirmed into a position that allowed her look at him. ‘What have I won?’
‘You asked me who I was talking to on the phone.’
‘You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,’ she lied with a dull flush. ‘And it’s not some kind of game, Leandro. We were supposed to be...trying...and it...it hurt thinking that you were talking to a woman on the phone. And it hurt to realise that you couldn’t even respect what we had enough to tell me who it was. I know I have no rights over you but you wanted to know who that guy was...the one I was dancing with...and I told you. You’d rather walk away than tell me and, for me, that could only mean you were talking to someone you plan on sleeping with.’
Leandro groaned, lay flat on his back and stared up at the ceiling because everything she said made sense. He’d been an idiot and he couldn’t blame her for laying into him. He’d let his pride rule him. ‘I’m not accustomed to...answering to other people,’ he admitted gruffly. ‘But I should have just told you and I... I apologise.’
Abigail closed her eyes for a few seconds, astounded that she had won this concession, and astounded that he had apologised to her. True, it wasn’t a flowers-and-chocolates kind of apology, but she knew instinctively how much it took for someone like Leandro to say sorry, someone who didn’t, as he had said, answer to other people.
‘So, who was it?’ she asked coolly, pressing him for an answer.
‘My sister. I was talking to Cecilia.’
CHAPTER NINE
ABIGAIL STIFFENED AND drew away from him. Aside from that one conversation two months ago, Cecilia had not been mentioned. Where was she? She could have set up residence on Mars, for all Abigail knew. Leandro never mentioned her, and Abigail knew better than to initiate any conversation about her, because she was all too aware of the unshakeable bond between them. At least, out of their sight, she could do no more damage—although why on earth hadn’t Leandro said at the time who he had been talking to? Unless the conversation had been an awkward one. And it didn’t take a genius to figure out what that awkward subject might have been.
‘How is she?’ Abigail asked, trying to sound concerned, and Leandro looked at her wryly.
‘I’m sensing real interest there,’ he remarked, but his face was serious and thoughtful and she couldn’t help but feel a wave of unease. He would always at least partly believe the picture Cecilia painted of herself and presented to him. Lately, it might have taken a dent, and perhaps he wasn’t quite as forgiving in his responses as once he might have been, but essentially Cecilia could do no wrong. She was his kid sister, he had always taken care of her, and caretaking was a habit that could never be broken.
‘She hasn’t been around.’ Abigail lay flat on her back, pulled the duvet up to cover her nakedness and stared at the ceiling, although in her mind’s eye she could see his face, shuttered and inward thinking.
‘That’s because she’s been on the other side of the world opening up my boutique hotel in Fiji. It’s been non-stop for her. She’s barely had time to surface. She’s also got involved with one of the project managers working with her, so she hasn’t had any interest in flying back to the UK when she can holiday on a South Pacific island if she needs a break.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me that she was the woman you were talking to on the phone?’ Abigail demanded, turning to look at his profile.
‘Like I said,’ Leandro returned without missing a beat, ‘I’m not accustomed to having questions asked about who I’m talking to, or where I’m going or with whom.’
Abigail inhaled deeply. ‘I know we’re not married,’ she began, ‘and that in fact you’d probably feel the same way even if we were married, but as far as I’m concerned that’s not an acceptable attitude to take.’
‘Come again?’ Leandro turned to her, astounded that she would flatly choose to start an argument when he had earlier offered her an apology for not having told her what she had wanted to know, and when he had volunteered the information in a move that, for him, was a massive concession.
Abigail wasn’t going to back down on this but the brooding disapproval in those eyes was wreaking havoc with her levels of courage. ‘I mean you need to make a choice, and then we can take things from there.’
‘I’m not following you,’ he replied, but all his senses were on red alert. He shifted so that he was on his side and they were looking at one another, eye to eye. It hadn’t escaped him that she had tugged the covers up to cover herself, and from that he gathered that this was a serious conversation, a conversation in which accidental nudity had no part. ‘What choice am I supposed to be making?’
‘We’re living together,’ Abigail began with a great deal more assuredness than she was feeling. Indeed, she was floundering so much inside that she marvelled that her voice hadn’t dried up completely. ‘You may think that I overreacted to your silence, but I’ve had real doubts as to whether it’s a good idea to let something develop between us.’ She sighed and looked at his shuttered, unrevealing face. At least he hadn’t turned away. At least he was listening. As far as she was concerned that was a case of so far, so good.
