Page 35 of The Forbidden Cabrera Brother
‘How could a relationship work between us? Your parents...your friends...your relatives...all those people who had gathered there for the engagement party...what would they think?’
‘Why would they know?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I’m not talking about a relationship, Caitlin,’ he husked. ‘This would be sex. Pure and simple. I want you and you want me and one and one makes two. I’m not interested in getting involved with anyone with a view to anything other than having some fun. Yes, you have to get back to London, but you don’t have to get backjust yet.’
Every shred of heartfelt romanticism in Caitlin rebelled against the unadorned brashness of his proposition. There was no attempt to wrap it up as anything other than what it was—two people having sex for a few days before they parted ways, a ripple in both their lives, gone before it had had time to become anything bigger.
Caitlin was an unintentional virgin. She hadn’t been saving herself for the right guy to come along. She hadn’t slept with Jimmy for reasons that had become blindingly clear after he had fallen for the model, and since then she had retreated into herself. No one, not a single guy, had broken through the wall she had erected around herself. She’d pretty much come to the conclusion that she was frigid.
Sure, she wanted kids and a family and one day, she had vaguely thought, a guy would come along and she would be attracted to him and things would fall into place. It was a thought that barely registered on her radar, because she was just so busy building a career and, lately, stressing out about her parents. When ithadregistered, she had assumed the guy who eventually showed up would tick all the usual boxes. Nice, thoughtful, good sense of humour, non-smoker.
And yet here was Dante, all dark and dangerous, and definitelynotMr Nice and Thoughtful... And she wanted him so much it made her feel weak.
‘I’m gathering from the prolonged silence,’ he said wryly, interrupting the frantic racing of her thoughts, ‘that sex without arelationshiplabel attached to it isn’t something you would be prepared to sample.’ He lowered his eyes and her heart raced even faster. ‘Although you’d be shocked at just how much fun it would be...’
He straightened. Somewhere along the line, they had moved close to the wall and he had been lounging against it, a long, lean, powerful jungle cat prepared to have a bit of fun with the antelope.
Antelopes, Caitlin thought in confusion, never came off well in any encounter with powerful jungle cats.
He was strolling away when all of a sudden she was galvanised into action.
He wanted fun. He wasn’t relationship material and he hadn’t bothered to hide that fact.
What was so wrong if she wanted a bit of fun, as well? There hadn’t been much of that around for the past few months. She was here and she was only going to be here for a matter of a few days if she decided to stay on. After that, she would return to the reality of life on the other side of the ocean, back to the stress and the worry.
‘Dante!’ Crunch moment. She took a deep breath and was suddenly filled with a wave of pure, fizzing excitement.
He’d stopped, turned round and was looking at her with lazy interest.
He hadn’t expected her to stop him but now that she had, he was aware of a soaring sense of relief. He hadn’t realised just how much it had meant for her to come to him, and not because he had kissed her or tried to seduce. He hadn’t wanted her to be swept away in the moment. He’d wanted her to make a conscious decision in the cold light of day.
He looked at the sexy sashay of her rounded hips and banked down the fierce ache of an erection.
‘Yes.’ Caitlin cleared her throat and looked at him without flinching.
Dante didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds, then he reached out and cupped the side of her face, his long fingers soft and tender, stroking the satin smoothness of her cheek.
When he kissed her, she finally discovered what it felt like for the earth to stop spinning.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THEYMADEITto his bedroom, fingers entwined. He nudged the door, which was slightly ajar, with his foot and, instead of turning on the overhead light, he just wrapped his arms around her in the gathering darkness in the bedroom and held her close.
‘Would you listen to me if I told you not to be nervous?’
It was the one thing guaranteed to calm her nerves and it did. She visibly relaxed and settled into the embrace, her head resting on his chest so that she could hear the faint beating of his heart.
She tentatively wrapped her arms around him, then slid them underneath the polo shirt and shivered at the feel of muscle and sinew under her fingers. Very gently, he mimicked what she was doing. Without making a big deal of it, he expertly unclasped her bra.
Caitlin gave a soft whimper as he curved his big hands under her breasts, stroking the crease beneath them and then, very slowly, working his way up until he was massaging both her breasts, and as he massaged them he rubbed the pads of his thumbs over her stiffened nipples.
‘You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this,’ he murmured. ‘I’m hard like steel for you. One touch and I don’t know what the outcome will be. I might embarrass myself by not being able to hold back... If I make you nervous then, rest assured, you make me nervous, as well...’ He wasn’t kidding. The gentle, shyly faltering sweep of her hands along his body made him wonder whether he would be able to last long enough to actually get inside her.
‘No, I don’t,’ Caitlin breathed. She was hopelessly drifting on a current of such pure, delicious sensation. Her nipples were tingling and, between her legs, her panties were wet. Her clothes felt like an impediment. It was as if, slowly but surely and without attempting to remove a single article of clothing, he was somehow managing to get her to a place where she wanted to rip them all off.
Dante laughed softly. He looked down at her upturned face and lowered his head to kiss her. It was a long, leisurely, lingering kiss, and he didn’t stop touching her nipples, playing with them, teasing them so that she was squirming, her whole body hot and restless.
