Page 51 of A Caribbean Heiress in Paris
“Is this what you need?” She opened her mouth, unsure what would escape her, but soon he was taking her so thoroughly that all thought fled from her mind. The only thing that mattered was reaching for the climax crawling up her limbs. The sounds created by Evan’s body colliding against hers in that perfect, exquisite rhythm made her think of swimming in the ocean on days the water was restless.
Agua brava.
Furious water, an undertow that could lift you up and wash you away. That would never leave you quite in the same place it found you. That returned you slightly—but irrevocably—different. So that at night when you lay in your dry bed, you still felt the memory of that wave moving inside you.
Still inside her, Evan moved his hands and pressed his thumb to the knot of nerves right where their bodies were fused together, and Luz didn’t think again. She felt the walls inside her spasm, which elicited a wounded sound from Evan, who redoubled his thrusts. Her body and her mind careened into a bone-melting climax.
Evan dropped his head against her shoulder, puffing labored breaths to her warmed skin. She smiled as she mentally assessed the aches in her limbs, the soreness on the inside of her thighs, the slight burn on the spots his beard bristled her skin. She felt...altered and a slew of other things that were best not to look at too closely.
“You are a constant assault on my plans, Luz Alana,” he said with a groan as he carefully left her body. His tenderness as he did so felt achingly intimate; the absence of him shocking. Then he arranged their position until she was lying on his chest. She made a sound that was something between protest and apology. Then he pressed a kiss to her temple and tipped her head up to look at him.
“How do you feel?” What was that in his eyes? Concern? Hope?
Why did she want to know?
“Good,” she said brightly. “Wonderful, thank you. This was...” her voice trailed off as she scoured her brain for words that suited “...ideal.”
He stared at her with that steadfast regard, as if he looked intently enough he’d manage to extract the words that she would not say. She looked away, hiding her face on his formidable chest.
“We will have to make travel plans,” she mumbled against his skin.
“I will take care of it,” he said, his hands gliding on her skin. She believed he would. She’d learn to rely on him. To count on his presence, and then he’d be gone. She loathed how much the prospect already ached.
“Is it too uncouth to have a nip of rum before noon?” she asked in a self-mocking tone, feeling unsteady. Wondering how she would find her way back to shore once her time with Evan Sinclair was done.
“I may need a nip of something myself,” he confessed wryly and moved to pluck the flask from where it had landed at the foot of the bed.
She unscrewed the top and offered him a drink after taking a sip. He took it from her with a rueful grin and shook his head.
“You are one of a kind, Luz Alana Heith-Benzan.” He sounded...perplexed. And she truly had to stop dissecting everything the man said.
She had to reestablish the terms here, affirm what they were doing. With effort, she forced herself to pull away from him. By the time she could face him again she was almost certain her face was not displaying every single one of her muddled emotions.
“Thank you for the lovely interlude, which I suggest we revisit, but I would like to get on with formalizing things. The business with my trustee is becoming rather urgent, and I can’t delay the departure for Edinburgh much longer.”
Just like that, his expression shuttered. He nodded and sat up, the silence between them oppressive, a living thing pressing against her.
“I am glad the interstice was to your satisfaction,” he said icily as he left the bed. “I will use the dressing room.” He picked up her clothes and laid them very carefully on the bed. “The en suite is there.” He pointed to a closed door without looking at her.
“When you’re dressed come back to the study. I will need some information to arrange our travel.”
Without a backward glance he walked naked into another room, leaving Luz to grapple on her own with the wretchedness of doing the right thing.
THE BRAEBURN
Fifteen
“This is impressive,” his betrothed commented wanly as she looked around his private train car. It had been an ordeal to ready everything for their departure. He’d hardly seen Luz but for a few hours the day before when they’d come to supervise her rum casks being appropriately stowed in the train for the journey to Calais and then a cargo ship to Leith. Miraculously—and thanks to an exorbitant amount of francs and pounds—they’d managed to get their affairs in order and on the train out of Paris only three days after they’d signed their contractual agreement.
Things had been strained between them since Evan’s thorny reaction to Luz Alana’s cavalier attitude after they’d made love. But she seemed to be taking things in stride and today was as pleasant as she’d ever been.
Shewas behaving in a marvelously civilized manner. He was the problem. He should’ve been elated that the woman who he was to spend the next three months tied to, desired to have him in her bed with absolutely no other expectations than to enjoy each other and amicably part ways when the time came. The mere thought of it put him in an absolutely foul mood. So foul in fact that in the last two days he’d been told by Murdoch, Raghav and his sisters to get his head out of his arse before they convinced Luz Alana to cut her losses.
“My grandfather owned a good portion of the railways at one time.” The car was lavishly decorated in mahogany and damask. No Second Empire fringe and gold but dark greens and blues. To his taste, which was a bit more on the subdued side of things. They would not be sleeping in the train tonight. Evan had arranged for the traveling party—and it was a large one—to stay at an inn in Calais from where they’d take the ferry to Dover the next morning. In the end they’d required four private cars instead of the two he’d hired to accommodate his two sisters, Bea’s three children, Murdoch, Luz’s sister and cousin as well as the two of them. The only two missing were Manuela and Aurora, who would travel to Edinburgh in a few weeks once Luz Alana was settled.
“Will we take this same one into Scotland?”
“No, the family’s cars will be waiting for us in Dover, and those will take us up to Montrose.”
