LITMIR.BIZ

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out of them. She pushed her long hair over her shoulder and stared right back at him.

      ‘I was a pretty child,’ she told him. ‘When a news crew filmed a piece about abandoned children at the bomb-damaged orphanage in Sarajevo, they turned the cameras on me because I was blonde and cute. I was lucky to be adopted by the Saundersons but there were many other children they could have chosen. Even at four years old I understood that I had been given a chance in life because of the way I looked.’

      Cortez said nothing and his hard-boned features gave no clue to his thoughts. Elin felt a nervous flutter in the pit of her stomach when he lifted his hand and crooked his finger, beckoning her to him. She wanted to refuse him but she reminded herself that she wanted to keep her son. ‘You only wanted my body,’ she said flatly. ‘And after you’d had me you walked away and did not give me another thought. You made me feel worthless.’

      She caught her breath when he placed his hand on her stomach. His touch burned her and she knew he must have felt her muscles contract as awareness of his smouldering sensuality ripped through her.

      ‘I wish I had seen you when your belly was swollen with our child,’ he finally said and his voice was deeper than she had ever heard it, as if he felt as raw as she did. But that was impossible, Elin told herself. Cortez had demonstrated how unimportant she was to him when he’d failed to contact her for a year.

      ‘You should have been around when Harry was born and I nearly died. I was terrified he would not have either of his parents,’ she said thickly.

      To her surprise he nodded. ‘You’re right; I should have been there for both of you.’

      Something in his voice made Elin believe that his remorse was genuine and the tight bands around her heart loosened a little.

      He lifted his other hand and shaped the curve of her hips and the indent of her waist before he moved his hands higher and splayed his fingers over her ribcage, tantalisingly close to the undersides of her breasts. She knew he could feel her erratic heartbeat and at that moment she hated him for the ease with which he could make her mindless with desire.

      ‘Is there a purpose to this exercise?’ she said grittily. ‘Are you planning to throw me down on the bed and demonstrate your power over me by forcing me to have sex with you?’

      He looked amused. ‘Is that what you want me to do?’

      ‘Of course not.’ She silently cursed when she heard the huskiness in her voice. He was tying her in knots and he damned well knew it. Her stomach muscles clenched when he trailed his hand down her body and slid his fingers through the blonde curls at the junction between her thighs.

      ‘Why did you try to run away with Harry?’

      ‘I was worried you might grow bored of fatherhood and abandon him.’ Like you abandoned me. The unspoken words hung in the air between them.

      He shook his head. ‘I don’t believe you. I’ve told you how much I wished I had a father when I was growing up, and I will always love and protect my son.’

      Cortez slipped his hand between her legs, and Elin caught her breath when he eased his finger inside her and discovered her molten heat. He gave a little tug of his hand to propel her forwards so that she was standing between his open legs.

      ‘Our marriage cannot succeed without honesty. Tell me the truth, Elin.’

      The truth! She gave a pained laugh and suddenly she was tired of fighting him, of fighting herself. ‘The truth is that I’m scared of how you make me feel,’ she muttered.

      ‘How do I make you feel?’ he demanded relentlessly. He eased a second finger inside her and moved his hand in a devastating dance that left her incapable of concentrating on anything but the blissful sensations he was creating.

      She stared at his face, at his dark eyes flecked with gold and his beautiful mouth that could look stern or sensual depending on his mood. The smile that tugged the corners of his lips stole her heart and she had to remind herself that this was the man who had threatened to take her baby from her if she failed to persuade him to marry her.

      ‘I told myself that the reason I slept with you at my birthday party was because I wasn’t in control of my behaviour after my drink had been spiked with a date-rape drug. But the truth,’ she whispered, ‘is that I danced with many men that night and I didn’t invite any of them into my bedroom. Only you. I saw you and you blew me away. But the next morning, when I woke and you had gone, I felt ashamed. When Virginia told me that her friend Tom had been charged with tampering with women’s drinks, I pretended to myself that what had happened hadn’t been my fault.’

      She trembled as Cortez continued his erotic exploration of her body with his clever fingers. The way he was watching her intently while he pleasured her was shockingly intimate, and she closed her eyes as she moved against his hand.

      ‘It was the same for me,’ he growled. ‘I took one look at you and I wanted you more than I’d wanted any other woman.’

      Elin’s eyelashes flew open and she gave him a startled look. ‘In that case, why did you leave without waking me the next morning?’

      ‘I was angry with myself. I’d read the tabloid stories about you and I couldn’t understand why I had succumbed to your obvious charms. You were even more beautiful than the photos I’d seen of you, and you drove me out of my mind that night. But in the morning I was furious that you had made me lose control.’

      Elin had seen evidence of how Cortez kept a tight control on his emotions and she could imagine he had felt horrified by what he would have regarded as his weakness.

      ‘Is that why you have kept your distance from me?’ She wanted nothing more than to surrender to the mastery of his wickedly inventive fingers, but she fought against the tide of pleasure that she could feel building low in her pelvis.

      He gave a husky laugh as he swirled his fingers inside her and she trembled. ‘I’m not keeping my distance from you now, querida.’

      ‘Because you’re trying to teach me a lesson,’ she choked. ‘You don’t want me.’

      Cortez moved so fast that Elin couldn’t have said how she came to be lying flat on her back on the bed with him on top of her. He had whipped off the towel from around his hips and she could feel the rock-hard length of his arousal between her legs. ‘Does this feel like I don’t want you?’ he demanded hoarsely. ‘You needed time to adjust. I will always be Harry’s father and I’m not going to abandon you or him, ever.’

      Of course everything Cortez did was for his son, Elin reminded herself. But she was finding it impossible to think clearly when she was trapped beneath him. And she’d been wrong in one respect, because the evidence that he desired her was unmistakable.

      ‘I thought...’ she began.

      ‘Don’t think, just feel,’ he muttered as he bent his head to her breast and flicked his tongue across her nipple. He drew the swollen peak into his mouth and sucked hard until she writhed beneath him and he moved across to her other breast to mete out the same devastating punishment.

      Elin ran her fingers through his hair, as she had longed to do often over the past few weeks. It felt like warm silk against her skin and when she explored the sculpted shape of his face the rough stubble on his jaw scraped her palm. Cortez lifted his head and stared down at her, the flecks in his dark eyes gleaming pure gold before he claimed her mouth in a kiss that plundered her soul.

      * * *

      Could he believe Elin? Cortez asked himself. Or was her admission that she’d tried to leave him because of the way he made her feel a lie to persuade him not to seek custody of their son? She had told him she would do anything to keep her baby, and perhaps this was all a lie—the soft gasps she gave when he twisted his fingers inside her, and the way she arched her slender body beneath him when he tasted her cherry-red nipples. But he found that he didn’t care. All he cared about was that Elin was beneath him, and he pressed himself into the sweet contours of her body so that her breasts

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