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down beside her. "This is where we meant to begin last night, is
it not, querida?"
She knew it was incredible to be shy with him, but it had been five years. She lowered her eyes to his
mouth and looped her arms around his neck and shifted to ac-commodate the warm weight of his
muscular body. She shivered, savoring the abrasive pleasure of his chest hair against her soft breasts,
the hardness of his long legs tangling intimately with hers.
Tremors of pleasure wound through her. "Sweet," she whispered shakily, drawing him closer. Her
mouth nipped at his, pleaded, danced with it. "It's so sweet, feeling you like this."
"An adequate word for something so wondrous," he whispered, smiling against her eager mouth. He
touched her, watching her eyes dilate and her body stiffen. "There, querida?" he asked sensuously.
"Softly, like this?" He did it again, and she shuddered deliciously and arched. A sensual banquet, after
years of starvation.
"You...beast," she chided. Her nails dug into his shoulders as she watched the face above hers grow
dark with passion, his eyes glittering as he bent to her body.
"A feast fit for a starving man," he whispered as his lips traced her soft curves, lingering to tease and
nip at the firm thrust of her breasts, at her rib cage, her flat belly.
And all the while he talked to her, described what he felt and what he was doing and what he was
going to do.
She moved under the exploration of his hands, her eyes growing darker and wilder as he kindled the
flames of passion. Once she looked directly into his eyes as he moved down, and she saw the naked
hunger in them as his body penetrated hers for the first time in more than five years.
She cried, a keening, husky, breathless little sound that was echoed in her wide eyes and the stiffening
of her welcoming body. She cried in passion and in pain, because at first there was the least
discomfort.
"Ah, it has been a long time, has it not?" he whispered softly, delighting in the pleasure he read in her
face.
"Relax, my own." His body stilled, giving hers time to adjust to him, to admit him without discomfort.
"Relax.
Yes, querida, yes, yes..." His eyes closed as he felt the sudden ease of his passage, and his teeth ground
together at an unexpected crest of fierce pleasure. He shuddered.
"Exquisite," he groaned, opening his eyes to look at her as he moved again, his weight resting on his
forearms.
"Exquisite, this...with you...this sharing." His eyes closed helplessly as his movements became
suddenly harsh and sharp. "Forgive me...!"
But she was with him every step of the way, her fit young body matching his passion, equaling it. She
adjusted her body to the needs of his, and held him and watched him and gloried in his fulfillment just
before she found her own and cried out against his shoulder in anguished completion.
He shuddered over her, his taut body relaxing slowly, damp, his arms faintly tremulous. She bit his
shoulder and laughed breathlessly, feeling for the first time like a whole woman, like a wife.
"Now try to be unfaithful to me," she dared him, whispering the challenge into his ear. "Just try and
I'll wear you down until you can hardly crawl away from my bed!"
He nipped her shoulder, laughing softly. "As if I could have touched another woman after you," he
whispered.
"Querida, I took my marriage vows as seriously as you took yours. Guilt and anguish over losing
you made it impossible for me to sleep with anyone else." He lifted his damp head and searched her
drowsy, shocked eyes.
"Amada, I love you," he said softly. He brushed her mouth with his. "I do not want anyone else. Not
since that first time with you, when I knew that your soul had joined with mine so completely that part
of me died when you left."
She hid her face against him, weeping with joy and pain and pleasure. "I'm sorry."
"It is I who am sorry. But our pain is behind us, and now our pleasure begins. This is only the start,
this sweet sharing of our bodies. We will share our lives, Melissa.
Our sorrow and our joy. Laughter and tears. For this is what makes a marriage."
She reached up and kissed his dark cheek. "I love you so much."
"As I love you." He twined a strand of her long blond hair around his forefinger. His eyes searched
hers. He bent, and his mouth opened hers. Seconds later she pulled him down to her again, and he
groaned as the flare of passion burned brightly again, sending them down into a fiery oblivion that
surpassed even the last one.
Mrs. Albright was putting supper on the table when they reappeared, freshly showered and rested and
sharing glances that held a new depth of belonging.
Matthew was still in his room. They ate supper alone and then went to see him, delighting in the
strength of their attachment to each other, delighting in their son.
"Tomorrow I will bring you a surprise when I come home from work. What would you like?" Diego
asked his son.
"Only you, Papa," the little boy laughed, reaching up to be held and hugged fiercely.
"In that case, I shall bring you a battleship, complete with crew," his Papa chuckled with a delighted
glance toward Melissa, who smiled and leaned against him adoringly.
Diego went to work reluctantly the next morning to find Apollo like a cat with a bad leg and Joyce as
cold as if she'd spent two days in a refrigerator.
"How's Matthew?" Apollo asked when Diego entered the office.
"He's much better, thanks, but his mama and I are still trying to catch up on our sleep," Diego laughed,
and told him about Matthew's attempt to make breakfast.
Joyce laughed. "I hope your fire insurance is paid up."
Apollo stared at her with unconcealed hunger. "Don't you have something to do?" he asked curtly.
"Of course, but I have to work for you instead," she said with a sweet smile. She was wearing another
one of the new outfits, and she looked very pretty in a red-and-orange print that showed off her figure
to its best advantage. Apollo could hardly keep his eyes off her, which made for a long and confusing
workday.
When Diego went home that afternoon, Apollo was at the end of his rope. He glared at Joyce and she
glared back until they both had to look away or die from the electricity in their joined gaze.
"You look nice," he said irritably.
"Thank you," she said with equal curtness.
He drew in an angry breath. "Oh, hell, we can't go on like this," he muttered, going around the desk
after her. He caught her by the arms and pulled her against him, his mind registering that she barely
came up to his shoulder and that she made him feel violently masculine. "Look, it's impossible to treat
each other this way after what happened at the Laremoses two nights ago. I'm going crazy. Just
looking at you makes my body ache."
She drew in a steadying breath, because he was affecting her, too. "What do you want to do about it?"
she asked, certain that he was thinking along serious lines and wondering how she was going to bear
it if he wasn't.
He tilted her mouth up to his and kissed her, long and hard and hungrily. She moaned, stepping closer,
pushing against him. His arms swallowed her and he groaned.
"I won't hurt you," he promised huskily, his black eyes holding hers. "I swear to God, I won't. I'll take
a longtime..."
She could barely make her mind work. "What?"
"I'll get you a better apartment, in the same building as mine," he went on. "We'll spend almost every
night together, and if things work out, maybe you can move in with me eventually."
She blinked. "You.. .want me to be your mistress?"
He scowled. "What's this mistress business? This is America. People live together all the time "
"I come from a good home and we don't live together,"
she said proudly. "We get married and have babies and behave like a family! My mother would shoot
you stone-cold dead if she thought you were trying to seduce me!"
"Who is your mama, the Lone Ranger?" he chided.
"Listen, honey, I can have any woman I want. I don't have to go hungry just because my little virgin
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