I felt hot and unsteady as he caressed my hair, down my earlobes, my neck. I left handprints in the glass wall of the shower, against the white steam.
Turning me around to face him, he ran his hands down my breasts, over my belly, over my hips and thighs. Hot shooting streams of water poured over us both.
And he knelt before me. Gently parting my thighs, he pressed his face between my legs.
I gasped. His lips were tender and sensual and warm. His tongue slid against me, inside me, the merest breath of a stroke, hot and wet beneath the warm water.
I closed my eyes, pressing my hands against the glass wall behind me.
His hands slid around me, holding me firmly against his mouth. He teased me with the tip of his tongue, soft and light against the most sensitive part of me, then spread me wide and lapped me, until I tossed back my head, slapping my long wet hair against the glass as I shook all over. The hot, steamy water poured over us both as I felt his hands—his tongue—slide over my wet, pink skin.
For an intoxicating eternity, he teased me, bringing me almost to an explosion of pleasure beneath the steamy pulse of the shower, then backing away the very second before I would have exploded into bliss. It might have been seconds or hours, that he seduced me with this sweet torment....
When my need was too much to bear, and I was shaking so hard I could barely breathe with desire, Alejandro turned me around, pressing me against the glass, my bottom resting against his hard, thick length.
“You’re mine,” he growled in my ear. “Say it.”
“I’m yours,” I breathed, pressing my arms against the glass.
“Again.”
“I’m yours!”
“Forever.”
“Forever,” I whispered.
He thrust inside me roughly, deep and hard, and I gasped.
I forgot everything in the overwhelming pleasure of having him inside me. Pleasure was not a big enough word for it. I melted, lost myself, found myself, until he exploded inside me, and I soared.
Afterward, both of us were panting and spent, and he abruptly turned off the water. He opened the shower door and toweled me off. Without a word, he lifted me in his arms and carried me to our enormous bed. Looking back, I saw the trail of water he’d left across his stark floor.
Clinging to my husband’s naked chest as he carried me, I felt as if I were in another time or place. I wondered dreamily about other lovers who’d done this, hundreds of years ago, in this very castle, when the sultan ruled.
Setting me down naked on our bed, he looked down at me. I smiled up at him, blinking tears of emotion, of anger and joy all mixed up together.
Climbing beside me, he held me, kissing my temple tenderly. Our bodies intertwined, his wet skin sliding against mine. My hand stroked the hardness of his chest, laced with dark hair. He held me tight. My eyes were heavy, and started to close.
I’d told him the truth in the shower.
I was his.
Now and forever.
Because I love him....
The realization hit like a bolt of lightning, causing my eyes to fly open.
I was in love with him, and there was something he was keeping from me. A reason he was lying. A secret he thought would hurt me.
I was in love with my husband.
But if I knew the secret he hid from me, would that love be destroyed?
THE NEXT FEW weeks fled by in a blur. We spent our days doing the work of the estate, talking to tenants and managing the house. I started painting in the garden in the morning, and played with our baby on the floor of Alejandro’s home office as he worked on the computer and spoke on the phone to employees around the world.
“I begrudge them every hour,” he told me, stroking my cheek. “I would rather spend it with you.”
My heart sang as the birds did, flying free through the lush green trees, across the wide blue Spanish sky. But eventually, Alejandro had to go on a business trip. “Madrid?” I pouted.
He laughed. “Granada.”
“Isn’t that where the Alhambra is?” I said eagerly, picturing the famous Moorish castle. “I’ll come with you!”
He shook his head. “It will be a one-day trip, there and back. Very boring. Stay here with Miguel. Paint. Enjoy your day.” He kissed my temple and said huskily, “I’ll be back before bedtime.”
Then he kissed me adios until my toes curled.
But after he’d gone, all the fears and shadows came back crashing around me, without Alejandro’s warmth and strength to hide behind.
Was he really going to do business in Granada, as he’d said? Or was he there for some other reason?
Was this his lie?
Don’t think about it, I ordered my trembling heart, but it was impossible, now that I loved him.
I feared knowing the truth.
I feared never knowing it.
“Dear?” I heard Maurine’s tremulous voice. “I wonder if I could ask you a favor?”
“Of course,” I said, desperate for distraction.
She smiled at me. “You are such a talented artist. I love the paintings you’ve done of my roses. You are the only one who’s ever done them justice.” As I blushed, she continued, “Alejandro’s birthday is next month. Would you do a portrait of me and Miguel, in the rose garden...?”
“I’d love to!” I exclaimed, my mind immediately filled with painting materials, size and composition. I went into Seville for supplies, and by late afternoon, after Miguel’s nap, the three of us were outside. I propped up an easel in front of where they sat on a bench, surrounded by greenery and red, yellow and pink roses.
The warm Spanish sun filtered golden light over the garden as I painted the portrait of the dowager Duchess of Alzacar and her great-grandbaby, the future duke.
Maurine’s lovely white hair was like a soft cloud around her twinkling eyes and smiling face. I drew her outline in loose strokes. That was easy, compared with the challenge of the wiggling, giggling baby in her lap. But I’d painted and drawn my son so many times over the past six months, I knew his chubby face by heart. I could have done it blindfolded.
I smiled to myself, picturing how happy Alejandro would be at the gift, reaching up to adjust the floppy pink hat I was wearing to keep the sunlight out of my eyes. Maurine chattered nonstop, while entertaining the baby in her lap. She told me how she’d first fallen in love with her husband, who’d had a title, “though it seemed useless enough, with no hope of returning to Spain, with the political situation,” and absolutely no money or marketable skills. “It’s so much easier to know how to work when you’ve been raised to it. My husband had spent his adult life sleeping in the spare rooms of rich friends from his Eton days.”
“Sounds like my father. He wanted to work, but didn’t know how.”
“It’s the upbringing, I think. Even when we finally returned to Spain, with the Navaro fortune lost, Rodrigo had no idea how to pay for the upkeep of this castle. It’s not like the old days, when a duke could simply demand peasants give him tribute.” She gave a soft laugh. “He was desperate to keep the title and the land, for the sake of his family’s history. I loved him, so I did my best to help.” She looked away, blinking fast. “I sold oranges from the orchard and gave castle tours. Sadly, our son was no better with money—the earning of it, I mean, not the spending of it. By