Page 42 of Virgin's Stolen Nights with the Boss

Normal.

Necessary.

Her cheeks were suddenly stinging, her legs felt unsteady and her voice quivered as she called Capricorn in from the water.

‘Enjoy your night,’ she said to Elias.

‘And you.’

Capricorn settled easily, thank goodness, because Carmen didn’t want to be around when Elias returned. Or rather, she desperatelydidwant to be around when Elias returned. Because she wanted to revisit that moment and claim the kiss she felt she had denied by walking away.

She made her way to the lodge, thankful that everybody else was either out or already in bed.

Using her cell phone to light the way, she climbed the creaking steps. In her attic room she peeled off her damp shorts and bikini top and hung them over a chair, then pulled on a T-shirt and climbed into bed.

‘I don’t like you, Elias,’ Carmen said aloud, as she slid into the dip in the middle of the lumpy mattress, her words a vain attempt to remind herself of her determination not to let anyone in.

She lay there, her body prickling from its first real exposure to the Californian sun. She sat up and took off her T-shirt to relieve her skin...

Only that didn’t help. And Carmen knew it wasn’t the sun that had turned her body to fire.

And it was there, lying naked in the soft darkness of the night, that it dawned on Carmen that she was finally finding herself...

With Elias, it felt as if she was discovering the sensual side of herself.

Carmen hadn’t even been aware that she could feel like that...like this... She had told herself that Elias would never deign even to look at a stable hand...

Yet he had.

That someone as worldly and sexy as Elias might actually want her, purely for herself, felt liberating. That she, Carmen, could be caressed with his eyes when he knew nothing about her family, her money, her inheritance...

She rolled onto her stomach and pressed her forehead into her arm, willing sleep to come.

She wanted to know his kiss...

More than his kiss.

Carmen had come to America to discover herself, to find out what kind of person she was without the Romero name opening doors for her. And now that she was actually starting to... Well, it turned out that shewascapable of attraction and lust and all the things that had eluded her until now.

Next time he looked at her like that...

She lay there, on fire, certain of one thing: there absolutely would be a next time.

And when that next time came, Carmen wanted more than a kiss...

CHAPTER NINE

ELIASDIDN’TFEELas if it was semi-final day.

‘No green juice for you,’ he said to Homer as he gave the Misfits their treats and then headed over to the yard.

And no parents dropping by, as they always had when he and Joel had played for the old team.

‘Hola!’Carmen was tying Winnie’s tail as if she’d done it a thousand times. ‘She’s on fire this morning. She could make it to Vegas and back.’

‘Good to know!’

‘Vegas?’ Laura looked up from the horse’s leg she was strapping. ‘You so have to go there, Carmen.’

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