Page 35 of Virgin's Stolen Nights with the Boss

The fact was, she turned him on, just not in the usual way.

It wasn’t simply about chemistry—though there was plenty of that. It was that she turned him on with her laugh, and the way she nudged him and pestered him to let her ride the stallion. It was the way they caught up on stable yard gossip—nothing indiscreet, just everyday chatter.

‘I hear you made the most amazing paella,’ Elias said now.

‘I did!’ Carmen smiled, hoping he couldn’t see her burning cheeks.

It was the only time since she’d got to America that she’d cheated. Instead of foisting her lack of culinary skills on her hungry, hardworking housemates, she’d caved and arranged a secret delivery from a very swish restaurant.

‘What are you making next week?’ he asked.

‘I haven’t decided...’

He loved how she blushed as she lied, and laughed silently to himself at how the entire staff had seen the restaurant truck rumbling up the drive and the driver unloading not bags of ingredients but dishes of food.

She was a mystery—one that made him smile.

He enjoyed the view as she bent to pick up a piece of sea glass from the beach. It wasn’t just the backs of her toned thighs that tightened his groin, but the pout on her lips as she examined it, the scrutiny in her eyes as she held up the piece of glass to the light before discarding it with a huff.

‘Brown!’ she scowled, and tossed it back.

‘What’s wrong with brown?’

‘It’s everywhere. I’m always looking out for orange.’

‘Why orange?’

‘Because in the olden days they didn’t make many orange things.’ Carmen shrugged. ‘It’s very rare. There’s lots of brown sea glass, and I have a few turquoise pieces too, but no orange.’

‘What about this one?’ he asked a while later.

She was about to tell him that green was as common as brown, and that she had a hundred pieces like this, but suddenly she knew there could never be one as beautiful as this, because this one came from long fingers that had selected it just for her...

She saw that the hairs on his knuckles were gold from the sun, that his nails were neat, but the skin on his palms was strong and rough.

Carmen wore gloves for a reason.

She had to present herself as picture-perfect at family events.

But Elias...

She looked at his hands again and wanted so badly to touch them, to know how that tough skin felt against hers.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, and took the glass from him, slipping it into her pocket.

She knew that her plan not to like him was fading as fast as the setting sun.

‘Do you miss Spain?’ he asked one night, having returned to the ranch following a long day of meetings in LA.

‘Yes!’

She knew she sounded surprised, and saw him turn and look at her.

‘Had you asked me a couple of weeks ago, I would have said no. But since working here, at the yard...’

She went misty-eyed as she thought of Presumir.

‘How long are you in the US for?’

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