She looked up.
He sounded rough. ‘I need you. I need to taste you.’
Her hand stalled on the thick column of flesh and gently Cesar removed it, pushing her down onto the bed. He came down beside her and his mouth was on hers, and Lexie moaned as she tasted him hungrily, sucked him deep. Wrapped her legs and arms around him as if she could bind him to her for ever.
Gently Cesar unbound her, spreading her arms out, his mouth leaving hers to explore over her jaw and neck. Over the tops of her heaving breasts. Taking each tight bud of her nipples into his mouth, making her moan even louder and her hips writhe against him.
But he kept moving down, over her belly. An arm came under her back, arching her into him, his other hand pushed her legs apart.
She felt dizzy. ‘Cesar...’
His green gaze was blistering. ‘Trust me.’
Trust me. Lexie sank back. She did trust him. She always had—from the moment she’d met him and let him kiss her. Her—with her history. The knowledge rushed through her. Wiping aside any trepidation or lingering hurt.
His mouth was moving down, kissing the top of her thigh. Moving in. A big hand was splayed under her buttocks, tipping her towards his face. Lexie’s breaths were coming so hard and fast she had to consciously slow down for fear of passing out.
And then his tongue touched her there. He licked her with explicit skill. All the way up the seam of her body, his tongue delving into her secret folds, opening her up to him, baring every part of her.
Lexie’s hands gripped the sheet. Legs bent, back arched. Cesar licked and sucked and drove her more and more mindless. His tongue swirled with maddening strokes against her clitoris before leaving it to lavish attention elsewhere and then returning just when those cells were screaming for release.
When it came it was so huge...so all-encompassing...that Lexie thought she’d passed out. Because the next thing she was aware of was Cesar sliding into her, so deeply and thoroughly, and with such a fierce look of concentration on his face that it was all she could do to wrap her legs around him as far as they’d go and tilt her hips to take him even deeper.
They were locked in a dance that was as old as time and as profound. Lexie couldn’t look away from Cesar even though she felt as though her soul was being turned inside out and he’d see it as clear as day. She loved him. And it went deeper than just loving him because he was the first man she’d allowed herself to be intimate with. He was the only man she could imagine being intimate with. The only man she wanted to be intimate with.
That revelation came just as bliss split her body in two, throwing her high into the air, where she seemed to hang suspended on the crest of a huge wave until it finally dropped her again. Cesar caught her in his arms and rolled them both so that she went limp across his heaving chest, their hearts thundering in unison, their skin slick with perspiration.
* * *
In the aftermath of her shattering climax and revelation Lexie felt as wobbly and vulnerable as a new foal trying to stand on spindly legs. So much had happened, and in the past couple of days since leaving Cesar’s apartment she’d deliberately cut herself off from the people around her, dreading the upcoming rape scene.
It had reminded her of when she’d arrived in London for the first time, when she’d been completely alone and unsupported.
Cesar shifted now and she winced minutely as the connection between their bodies was broken.
He asked with obvious concern, ‘Are you okay?’
Lexie nodded and looked at him. He was on one elbow, some hair flopping into his forehead, his face dark, eyes glowing like dark green gems. She loved him.
But even as she knew that she also knew, with a feeling of desolatio
n, that he didn’t feel anything for her other than desire...and maybe worst of all pity.
Cutting into her thoughts, Cesar asked, ‘What happened to him?’
Lexie went cold inside. ‘My uncle?’
Cesar nodded.
She braced herself for the pain that inevitably came whenever he was mentioned or she thought about him, but it wasn’t as sharp. Lexie’s mouth became bitter. ‘Nothing. My parents didn’t want to know when I told them. They were very religious—pillars of the community. My father was a salesman; he travelled a lot. The thought of the scandal was too much for them.’
Cesar was incredulous. ‘You mean he just got away with it?’
She pulled the sheet around her and sat up against the pillows. ‘He died in a car crash about a year after it happened. But, no, he never got prosecuted or punished.’
‘How could they have done that to you? Just ignored it?’
Lexie glanced away from Cesar. There was an even darker stain on her soul than he could imagine. She suddenly felt jaded and weary. Knowing that she loved him, but that it would end when she left the castillo for London at the end of that week, she felt reckless. As if she had nothing more to lose.