The Alcolar Family

CHAPTER TWO

DAMN Ramón!

‘Damn, damn, damn him!’

Joaquin slammed his fist hard against the side of the window frame as he stared across at the terraced expanse of his garden, to where the clear water of the curved swimming pool glinted in the last of the afternoon sun.

Damn him for appearing at just the wrong moment! For walking into the house as if he owned it, flashing that smile at Cassandra and interrupting…

Interrupting what?

The question froze him suddenly, hand still clenched tight into a brutal fist, the knuckles of his fingers showing through white under his tanned skin.

This time, the muttered curses in his native Spanish were harsher, more savage—and aimed at himself instead of his brother and his ill-timed visit.

Interrupting what? That was the real problem. The uncomfortable, nagging worry at the bottom of his mind, that corrupted and distorted everything until he wasn’t sure what to think.

He had thought that he’d succeeded in what he’d planned for his early arrival at the finca. That he’d enticed Cassandra out of her difficult mood, charmed away the uncharacteristic coolness and distance in her attitude—seduced it out of her. And he had believed that she was ready, as she had always been in the past, to put their differences behind them, and do their making up where they always did it so well—in bed.

But Ramón’s arrival had interrupted all that. Broken the mood totally and left him fuming with frustration while his woman and his half-brother made coffee and chatted affably.

It seemed that Ramón had a habit of turning up unexpectedly, just when he was least wanted. After all, hadn’t he arrived on their father’s doorstep, unannounced, nothing known of him until then, just at the moment when Juan Alcolar and his son by marriage had been at the lowest point of their relationship together? And now here was Ramón, the illegitimate son—one of the illegitimate sons, Joaquin corrected, because there was Alex too. But Ramón was the son who was everything that his father would have wanted—who had everything going for him—except that he was not Juan’s legitimate heir.

‘No!’

He muttered it aloud to emphasise the word, driving it home to himself.

It wasn’t Ramón’s fault that he was who he was. Not Ramón’s fault that their father was a philandering womaniser who couldn’t keep his trousers on when he was with another female. He was their father’s son after all; no one could have any doubt about that. You only had to look at the three of them together and it was as plain as could be.

And it wasn’t Ramón’s fault that he had wandered in on the awkward, uncomfortable confrontation between his brother and Cassandra.

The sort of awkward, uncomfortable, uneasy confrontation that was becoming more and more common between them. So much so that the nagging unease was the norm rather than the rare occurrence it had been at the beginning of their relationship.

At the beginning…

Joaquin’s hard features softened from the taut, harsh lines into which they had been drawn, and a smile of memory played over his sensual mouth.

At the beginning— Oh, their relationship had been amazing then. Amazing, fantastic—mind-blowingly sensual. They had been caught up in a whirlwind of sexual desire and passion, unable to keep their hands off each other, not daring even to kiss in public for fear of the blazing, hungry desire such a small caress might spark off. If they had been in the house, then they had been in bed. It seemed that they had never left the bedroom, except occasionally to eat, for almost all of the first six months.

But that had changed so much lately.

The frown was back, creasing his forehead harshly.

The sex was still great—the best, for him at least. Cassandra turned him on as no other woman had done in his life before. But out of bed, so often he had the uneasy feeling that her mind was somewhere else. And…

But at that moment his thoughts stopped dead, his rational process arrested by the sight beyond the window.

‘Cassandra!’

Where he had opted for a shower to wash away the heat of the day and freshen up, Cassie had decided to go for a swim. So now he stood transfixed, his ebony gaze caught and held by the tall, slender figure making her way down the path towards the cool, inviting water of the pool. Her long blonde hair was caught up in a high pony-tail at the back of her head, and she wore a hot pink bikini, fastened at the back and the sides by shoestring laces.

‘Bella!’

It was a fervent, almost reverent exclamation, expelled on a low, sighing breath. He had thought that after their twelve months together the effect her beauty had on him might have lessened, not hitting home quite so hard. But now he found himself caught and held unmoving by just the sight of her, and the sensation deep in the pit of his stomach felt as if someone had just punched him there, very hard.

The hot pink bikini might not be as microscopic as some things he had seen her wear in the privacy of their bedroom, but to a man who knew her body intimately the way that the tight Lycra clung to the smooth curves of her breasts and hips, even before it was wet, was pure torment. The brilliant colour of the material was in sharp contrast to the smoothness of her slender limbs, only just touched with the faintest hint of a pale gold tan after her year here.

Joaquin’s mouth dried, his lower body tightening sharply at just the thought of sliding his hands over the heated satin of her flesh, over the long, lean lines of her legs, trailing along the waistband of the bottom half of the swimming costume. His touch would follow the indentation of her waist, skim over the delicate ribcage, and up, towards the soft swell of her swaying breasts.

‘Hell-fire!’

This time the kick of need was sharper than before, making his head swim, his breath catch. He was hard already. Hard and hot and hungry. So much so that watching Cassie move to the edge of the pool and lift her arms above her head, bringing those luscious breasts into even sharper prominence, was like some form of delicious torment, one he wanted desperately to end and yet also longed to prolong as much as he possibly could.

He wanted this woman. Wanted her with a need that was more than words could describe. With a hunger that all the many, many times they had made love over the past twelve months could do nothing to assuage. If anything, he wanted her more now than that day when he had first set eyes on her and felt that he might die if he didn’t get her into his bed—and fast!

But then she lifted herself on her toes, gave a little spring and dived neatly into the pool, disappearing under the cool water in a couple of seconds.

And before those seconds had ended, before she had a chance to fully submerge herself, Joaquin found that he was moving. The towel he had been drying his hair on was discarded somewhere, he didn’t give a damn where, and he was thundering down the stairs, leaping the last section all in one jump, and dashing out, on bare feet, towards the terrace and the pool.

Her blonde head had barely just broken the surface as he arrived at the spot from which she had dived, the golden hair sleeked and darkened by the water, the long pony-tail floating on the surface beside her. And as he checked briefly at the edge of the pool she shook the water from her face, kicked her legs and set out at a steady breaststroke for the far side, away from him.

She hadn’t seen him, didn’t know that he was there. But she would do soon. He had no intention of hanging around here, waiting. He wanted her in his arms, her body tight against his. And he wanted that now.

Barely pausing for breath, he executed a perfect racing dive, plunging into the water and setting off after her in a fast, powerful crawl.

The first indication Cassie had of Joaquin’s presence in the pool was the sudden splash, the sound of his powerful body entering the water in a clean dive. The next moment he had surfaced and was coming after her, strong arms cleaving through the waves he’d created in forceful strokes.

A shattering range of feelings assailed her, whirling through her mind in quick succession, battering her with swift, violent changes of mood.

Shock was first. Simple, startled, physical shock at the unexpectedness of his arrival, the suddenness of the splash and swirling waves at his appearance.

Apprehension followed. Uncertainty at not knowing why he was here, what he wanted, just what his mood might be this time.

But then, suddenly, old habits reasserted themselves. Old habits of thought and actions as she recalled the number of times in the past that he had come after her in just this way. Knowing she was a strong swimmer, he had thrown out an unspoken challenge, encouraging her to race him to the far end of the pool.

‘Okay, then…’

Reacting instinctively she turned, ducked under the water, kicked hard and, surfacing fast, struck out for the blue-painted edge.

At first she had a noticeable lead, but a quick glance over her shoulder showed that Joaquin was coming up fast behind her. Exhilaration and excitement flooded her veins, pushing her into even stronger movement, putting all her heart and energy into it.

She was holding her own. The finishing line was almost within reach. But Joaquin’s tanned arms, his dark head, were drawing level, matching her stroke for stroke.

She saw him turn his head. Caught the swift, brilliant flash of white teeth against the dark olive of his skin as he grinned in wicked triumph. Another forceful kick from his muscular legs, an extra spurt of speed, and he had passed her, tanned fingers reaching out and touching the edge of the pool just bare seconds before her own paler ones.

‘Okay, you win!’

Somehow all the uneasiness of earlier that afternoon had evaporated, leaving her with a rush along with her gasps for air as she regained her breath. Letting her feet sink slowly to the base of the pool, she stood upright in the shallower water, wiping her hands across her skin and back over her hair in order to brush away the lingering water, clearing it from her face and her eyes.

Joaquin lounged just feet away, half in, half out of the water, his back against the tiled edge of the pool, his hair, jet-black and slicked back, clinging to the fine shape of his skull. Once more those white teeth flashed in a wicked, triumphant grin.

‘Show-off!’

But of course he had every right to show off, she admitted inwardly. Unlike herself, he was hardly even breathing faster; the broad, muscled chest rose and fell as easily as if he had just had a short, casual stroll along the side of the pool and not powerhoused his way through the water after her.

Glinting in the sunlight, tiny drops of water slid over the bronzed skin and came together in a tiny rivulet that trailed its way through the black body hair and down over the flat plane of his stomach. Cassie found that her mouth had dried suddenly, her throat tightening on a wave of response, and she tried to swallow as inconspicuously as possible in order to ease the constricting sensation.

Joaquin treated her to another wide grin, eyes gleaming knowingly.

‘Maybe, but I still won! So now you owe me.’

Something tightened deep in Cassie’s stomach, twisting sharply on a touch of nerves.

It was no good trying to pretend that she didn’t know what he meant. From the very first time when he had discovered how much she liked to swim, and how fast she was in the water, he had issued a challenge, tempting her to race him.

‘And to make it interesting,’ he’d said, ‘we’ll compete for a prize. Whoever loses owes the winner a forfeit—whatever they demand.’

So now, seeing that taunting smile, hearing the words ‘you owe me,’ Cassie knew just what was going through his mind.

‘It wasn’t a proper challenge!’ she hedged warily.

‘Which it wasn’t the last time—when you won,’ Joaquin reminded her. ‘But as I recall you still claimed your prize.’

That gleam in his eyes brightened vividly, reminding her without words just what the prize she’d claimed had been, and letting her know that he remembered only too well. She felt as if her whole body must be blushing, her skin suffused with rich colour as she recalled the passionate way he had responded to her begging him to make love to her right here, in the pool, under cover of the darkness of late evening.

But that had been over a month ago. It was five weeks since they’d last raced in this way. Five weeks since they had even swum together. Five weeks in which Joaquin had had little time for relaxation, little time for leisure, little time, it seemed, for her. So that now things seemed so very different. The unspoken split that had opened between them had turned into a gap and from a gap into a chasm, until she was beginning to wonder if it was possible to bridge it at all.

And the worst thing was that she knew she was partly responsible. That her own inability to hide her feelings, her constrained, preoccupied mood, had driven a wedge between them and she hadn’t been able to stop it.

This time she did slick her tongue over her painfully dry lips. She just couldn’t stop herself.

‘So what is it that you want?’

Watching that gleam flare into flame, blazing suddenly in the darkness of his gaze, she knew just what was in his mind. But a second later, to her bewilderment, he closed down on the heat in his eyes, and instead let his stare fall to her mouth.

‘A kiss,’ he said softly. ‘Just a kiss. Is that too much to ask?’

But would it stop at just a kiss? She doubted it.

A kiss that would lead to an open mouth? A kiss that would lead to a caress, the smoothing, stroking of his hands all over her body? A kiss that would lead to lovemaking?

Was that what she wanted?

But did she care?

There was no room inside her head for the memory of the uncertainty of earlier that day. And other thoughts were crowding into her mind, making it spin even more wildly.

The exhilaration sparked by the race was still fizzing through her veins, buzzing inside her head so that she couldn’t think clearly. The sheer sensual pleasure of standing here, with the sun warm on her head and shoulders, the cool water lapping around her waist, was enough to make her forget any colder, calmer, common sense. And there were other feelings too. Feelings sparked by the sight of Joaquin’s lean brown body, the tight lines of his muscles still glistening with traces of moisture. The stunningly carved face was turned towards her, gilded by the sun, black eyes brilliant as jet, the high, slanting cheekbones sharp as blades under the bronze skin.

She felt dizzy with excitement, tension, admiration.

Need surfaced, caught and held.

And need she gave into, reaching out a hand that shook faintly to smooth it over the broad, straight lines of his shoulders, the strength of his arms and then along the ridges of muscle that lined his powerful chest, tracing tiny, erotic circles in the dark body hair that hazed his flesh.

‘Cassandra…’

Joaquin stirred convulsively under her touch, his voice husky and soft.

‘So do I get my kiss?’

Like someone in a trance she leaned forward, pressed her lips softly against the hard plane of his lean cheek, feeling the faint roughness of male skin beneath her mouth, tasting the intensely personal flavour of him. On a sigh she inhaled the equally intimate scent of his body.

And knew that she was lost.

And that she didn’t give a damn.

‘That, querida,’ Joaquin complained as she withdrew slightly, ‘was not a kiss. It does not pay the forfeit you owe me.’

With an effort Cassie forced herself to look up, into the sensually darkened pools of his eyes, knowing from his smile that he saw his answer in her own gaze.

‘Oh, doesn’t it?’ she managed huskily. ‘Then I shall have to do better.’

‘Much better.’

‘Then what about this?’

She had barely finished speaking before she took his mouth, teasing and tantalising him with her own lips, letting her tongue run along the warm cleft that separated the finely carved upper lip from the fuller, more sensual lower one. And she knew his reaction when she heard him catch in a breath on a faint gasp, his mouth opening under hers, his tongue meeting the tentative exploration with an erotic enticement, drawing her in deeper and closer.

‘That’s more like it,’ he muttered, rough and urgent against her mouth. ‘That is a kiss. The sort of kiss I wanted.’

And as his kiss encouraged her, so his arms drew her closer too, fastening tight around her slim waist and pulling her sharply towards him. So sharply that her feet left the bottom of the pool and she floated towards him on the gentle eddies of the cool water.

But there was nothing gentle, or cool, about the part of his body that she connected with as she came tight up against him, her stomach cradled in the hard arc of his pelvis, her hips crushed against his.

And what she felt was hard and hot and intensely male. The forceful power of his arousal, reaching through the thin and ineffective barrier of her clinging costume, sent a shudder of response rushing through her. And that tiny movement only added to the stunned sense of intimacy as she was crushed closer.

‘Señor Alcolar!’ she managed on a choking gasp, turning shock into a teasing provocation. ‘You—you have no clothes on!’

Joaquin’s grin in response was totally unrepentant.

‘Nothing at all,’ he returned smoothly, lowering his dark head to press a hot, hungry kiss on her shoulder, one that stirred the potent heat of his lower body, pressing even more intimately against her.

Joaquin adjusted his position, opening his legs so that she was drawn into the space between them, then closing them again around her, imprisoning her tightly, his hands on her hips, warm fingers brushing against her skin.

‘You’re naked. And—and aroused…’

‘Absolutely,’ he nodded smilingly. ‘But then…’

His grin widened, there was a faint tug between her legs, and the next moment he raised his hand from under the water to reveal the bright pink material of the bottom half of her bikini crushed in his large male hand.

‘So are you.’

While his eyes had held hers, keeping her attention transfixed, his fingers had been busy under water, pulling loose the bow-tied strings that had fastened her bikini bottom over both hips, and sliding it away from her body.

Now he tossed the sliver of cerise material from him, aiming it back over his shoulder so that it landed on the bright blue tiles that surrounded the pool.

‘Joaquin!’

Cassie didn’t know if her startled response was one of reproof or delight, and clearly Joaquin didn’t care as he settled her into an ever more intimate position between his powerful thighs, the thrust of his manhood hard against her, and brought his mouth down crushingly on hers.

And while he kept her mouth from speaking, effectively stopping her thoughts from functioning too, once more those wicked hands were busy, twitching loose the ties on her bikini top and letting it fall free, floating on the top of the clear water.

‘So now you too are naked.’ He spoke huskily, looking deep into her eyes, resting his forehead against hers. ‘Naked and—aroused?’

He echoed her own words, adding an upward, questioning note at the end of the sentence, but Cassie had no doubt that he knew exactly how she was feeling.

He must know it from the way that her pulse was thudding, her heightened breathing and the vein at the base of her throat giving away too much. And the pressure of his hands at her hips was lighter than her own instinctive movement towards him, the way that she was writhing softly against his heat and hardness, revelling in the extra sensation since he had tossed aside her clothing.

And when his hands, cool and wet, came up out of the water to cup her breasts, softly teasing their peaking nipples, she knew it was impossible to hide her need from him. She didn’t even want to try.

‘What do you think?’

She whispered it against his ear, her head lifted to press against his cheek, and she let her teeth graze the skin of his earlobe very slightly, feeling the long body crushed against hers shudder in instant response.

‘I think…’

Those knowing hands were on the move again, wandering over her body, stroking the swaying curves of her breasts.

‘I think it might be so. But I also think…’

His fingers slid down under water, travelling over the flat plane of her stomach, smoothed through the wet curls at the juncture of her thighs, slid lower…

‘Joaquin!’ Cassie gasped as his daringly intimate touch made her insides clench, her whole body convulsing on a wave of hungry need. ‘Oh, please…’

‘I think that you should say—that you should tell me how you feel—don’t you?’ he urged softly, a knowing smile curving up the corners of his wickedly sensual mouth in the same moment that his deep, deep eyes took in the unconcealed evidence of the effect his touch was having on her.

‘Joaquin…’ she moaned as a searching finger slid into the moist cleft, found the tiny, pulsing bud and touched softly, creating an effect much like setting light to the fuse on a powder keg.

‘Tell me…’ he persisted, almost roughly, clearly determined that she should say exactly what she wanted even though it had to be so blatantly obvious that it was impossible he didn’t know. ‘Cassandra, querida, tell me.’

‘I think—I know—I want you! Want you!’

And now that she’d said the words, she couldn’t hold them back, but repeated them over and over in a growing litany of need.

‘I want you, want you,’ she muttered with her mouth against his shoulder, her teeth scraping his tanned skin, her fingers digging into the tight muscles.

She heard his muttered curse, felt the struggle he was having to contain himself, control himself, and was determined to break it down totally, absolutely.

‘Want you here with me, close to me, inside me… Joaquin, I need you!’

‘And I want you!’

It was a cry of surrender, an admission of total loss of control. His eyes were wild and blazing, his face set in a mask of urgent need as he stood up, hands closing over her, swinging her up into his arms and hoisting her bodily out of the pool and up the shallow steps, trailing dripping water behind them as he carried her over to one of the wooden loungers and set her down, not exactly gently, on the green-and-white striped cushions.

‘Now…’

This was what he wanted, Joaquin told himself as he looked down at Cassie, sprawled on the lounger, her wet blonde hair struggling loose from the pony-tail in which it had been fastened.

This woman, hot and hungry and wild—this was what he wanted from the relationship. This was what was worth having, worth putting up with any other uncomfortable feelings for. This burned away the unease, the doubt, leaving room for only one, blazingly powerful emotion.

Lowering himself to kneel at the side of the lounger, he picked up one slim, elegant foot, still damp from the swimming pool, and pressed a kiss against the big toe.

‘Joaquin…’ Cassie protested, but only faintly. ‘We’re out in the open…’

‘And there isn’t another house for miles,’ he returned smoothly, moving on to all the other toes in succession. ‘No one to see us. Besides, that didn’t trouble you that other time.’

‘We were in the pool then—the water—oh!’

She broke off sharply, her eyes closing, her head moving restlessly against the cushion as his warm mouth closed over one toe and his tongue circled it enticingly.

‘We’re as private here as in the bedroom,’ Joaquin told her, abandoning her toes and turning his attention to her foot, kissing his way from her instep to her ankle. ‘So just lie back and let me pleasure you.’

If the truth were told, he didn’t know if he was pleasuring her or himself, he admitted inwardly as he made his slow, caressing way up her leg, heading for the softer inner skin of her thighs, one of the parts of a woman that he loved most of all. There were times when only the hot, hard rush of fiery passion would do, when speed and urgency were everything. And there were times when the slow, sensual build-up, the piling of delight upon delight, was what it was all about.

And this time was one of those.

This was a time to savour. To enjoy to the fullest the pleasures of the flesh.

But at the touch of his mouth on her thigh Cassie moaned aloud, her hands reaching down, reaching for him, pulling him up to cover her until their mouths met, clashed, clung in a soul-searing kiss that was hotter than the sun in the sky.

‘Querida!’ Joaquin muttered against her lips, the sensation of her naked, sun-warmed body under his pushing all his earlier thoughts of patience, of slow sensuality, right out of his mind. ‘Cassandra, querida, you are all that a man could ever ask for in a woman—in a lover.’

His strong, tanned legs pushed at her slimmer, paler ones, opening her to him so that he lay between them, the essential heat and hardness of him just nudging against her exposed flesh.

‘Joaquin…’

It was a soft, moaning whisper, the sound of his name an enticement, a caress and a reproof all in one.

And the reproof was because she was getting impatient. He could see it in her face, read the gathering storm of hunger in her eyes.

That was what he had always enjoyed so much about this woman.

The fact that she not only matched his desire head-on, but that her own passion often surged ahead, leaving him breathless with the need to equal her, satiate her, appease the hunger her demands woke in him.

He had never had a sexual partner like her. Never known someone who satisfied all his fantasies in one glorious, sensual, physical package, and yet somehow always managed to leave him hungry, looking for more.

Cassie’s clutching hands held him where he was, close on top of her body. The soft, sweet pressure of her breasts against his chest was a torment of sensuous delight, making him harden even more.

With his lips taking delicate, nipping little caresses, he kissed his way down her neck, making her stir and murmur faintly, tilting her head back against the cushions. The movement opened the way to the rest of her upper body, taking his kisses over the slopes of her breasts, one after the other, so she arced ever higher, exposing the hardened, thrusting nipples to tempt him.

A temptation there was no way in hell he could resist.

‘Oh, dear heaven…!’

The uncontrolled cry escaped her as his mouth fastened tight over the pink nub, suckling hard, grazing the skin faintly with his teeth.

‘Oh, Joaquin…’

Her body convulsed under his, her legs opening wider, exposing the innermost core of her, inviting…

With a single, forceful, uncontrollable thrust, he answered that invitation, taking himself into her body and into the realms of pure sensation in the space of a split second.

There was no room for thought in his head. No room for anything but sheer physical delight. Hunger, passion, burning, blazing excitement that exploded inside his brain, took him higher, further…

And Cassandra came with him every inch of the way.

Having been together for a year, their bodies were attuned. Each knew the other’s private pleasure spots, and used that knowledge shamelessly to entice, to tantalise, to arouse even further. And the warmth of the sun, playing over bare flesh, the evening scent of the plants in the garden, the sound of the birds chirping in the trees, were extra enhancements to the erotic pleasure that swamped their thoughts.

They were lost, abandoned. Totally absorbed in each other. Totally given up to each other, the primitive rhythm pulsing harder, hotter, faster, higher. Until it took them right over the edge and into the mind-blowing explosion of perfect ecstasy, falling headlong into an oblivion of delight.

As their breathing gradually slowed, Joaquin buried his face against her neck, under the now-dry, tangled fall of her hair, and kissed away the faint sheen of perspiration from her skin.

‘This is why you’re mine, Cassandra,’ he muttered, his voice thick and rough with satisfaction. ‘This is why we’re together, why we’ve stayed together. Why we’ve lasted this long.’

His breath escaped in a long sigh that stirred her almost-dry hair.

‘You’re mine!’ he declared possessively, making it plain that that was as much as he wanted.

And at that moment, replete and totally exhausted by the blazing, primitive ardour of their lovemaking, Cassandra allowed herself to believe that perhaps, after all, for now that might just be enough for her too.