Redeemed By His Stolen Bride / Crowning His Convenient Princess

‘You don’t have to do this, you know…’

He bent down and surrounded one still sensitised nipple in the hot wet heat of his mouth. Leonora’s back arched.

She panted, ‘What…? Do what…?’

He lifted his head, a sexy smile playing around his wicked mouth. ‘Put on the innocent act. You don’t have to play games to entice me, Leonora. I’m enticed.’

Before she could respond to that he was ministering the same exquisite torture to her other breast. Act? What act? She couldn’t think straight. Not when he was massaging one breast with his fingers and nipping at the other with his teeth before soothing it with his tongue.

His tongue trailed down under her breasts to her belly, dipping into her navel before moving further. Leonora tensed as he came close to the juncture of her legs. He tucked his fingers under her panties and tugged. She lifted her bottom off the bed in silent acquiescence. He pulled them down her legs and off completely. Then one stocking and the other followed them to the floor.

Now she was totally naked—like him. And yet she didn’t feel self-conscious. Just…hungry. Aching. Empty inside. As if something was missing.

He was looking at her, his eyes roving over her body, and her self-consciousness returned. She was suddenly acutely aware that she didn’t conform to current beauty trends by waxing every inch of her body. But Gabriel wasn’t looking remotely repulsed.

He came down beside her, his hand resting on the cluster of dark curls between her legs. ‘I like a woman to look like a woman.’

He kissed her then, stopping any words or more coherent thoughts. The feeling of pleasure that he liked her as she was quickly became something far more urgent as he pushed her legs apart and his hand explored further, through those tight curls to the secret place where she ached for his touch.

She gasped into his mouth when his seeking fingers found her, wet and ready. He massaged her, stroking her with expert fingers into a level of excitement that had her arching off the bed, pleading incoherently for something just out of reach, a shimmering promise of ecstasy she could almost taste.

He was relentless, teasing her to the point where she thought she would die if he didn’t just—

But then, with one deep thrust and a twist of his fingers, Leonora was finally released from the tension, and she soared high on a wave of pleasure so exquisite she cried out, her hands instinctively reaching for Gabriel’s wrist to stop his movements, her throbbing flesh over-sensitised.

Gabriel looked down at Leonora, transfixed by the pleasure suffusing her face. Her skin was dewed with perspiration, her cheeks pink. When she looked at him her eyes were unfocused.

‘That was… That was…’

He shook his head, trying to fathom how she could manufacture a response so…earthy. Responsive.

He answered for her. ‘That was amazing.’

It had been. And he was literally hanging on to the last shred of his control. Seeing her like this, her breasts moving up and down jerkily with her breaths, long dark hair tumbled across the pillow, it was all he could do to find and roll on protection.

He settled between her legs, where the core of her body was still hot and damp. She looked at him, her mouth swollen from his kisses. He’d never seen a more erotic sight, had never felt such a visceral need to join with a woman.

He couldn’t wait any longer.

He put his hands on her hips, positioned himself where she was so wet and ready, and plunged deep into the hottest, tightest embrace he’d ever known.

The sensation was so exquisite that he almost climaxed in that moment.

It was also unexpected.

She was innocent.

Unbelievably.

Her eyes were wide and shocked. He saw her silent entreaty to move…to do something to alleviate this alien sensation. And Gabriel could no more deny her that silent plea than he could force his mind back to some rational place and absorb this revelation fully.

It took supreme skill and control to claw himself back from the brink and move slowly in and out…

Leonora’s brain was white-hot with the sudden pain of Gabriel’s body thrusting into hers and now, as the pain ebbed, with the building of a whole new level of tension. He’d looked at her just now as if he’d realised she was a virgin, but to her profound relief he hadn’t said anything…

She didn’t want him to say a word to take them out of this moment. She was joined with this man who had taken her over, body and soul. He lifted her buttocks up, so he could deepen his thrusts, and every single part of her body spasmed with a wave of pleasure, cancelling out any last vestige of pain.

He caught her hands, both of them, and twined his fingers with hers. He brought them over her head and held them there as he moved in and out in a relentless rhythm that made her writhe against him, seeking release from the growing tension.

She could do nothing but hold on as he wound her so high she thought she would break into a million pieces—and then, with no warning, she did break apart, on a thrust so deep that she gasped at the majesty of his body pulsing deep inside hers. She saw an expression of almost pain on his face as he stared down at her, as if he’d never seen a woman before.

Wave upon wave of ecstasy racked her body. She could feel her inner muscles clamping around Gabriel’s hard length. She was his captive of pleasure and yet she’d never felt more free as she soared on a high that was breathtaking.

He jerked against her and she bit her lip to stop crying out as yet another mini-orgasm wrenched her apart all over again.

She had been so totally unprepared for this overload of sensation that she didn’t even notice when Gabriel extricated himself from her embrace, slipping into the deep oblivion of deep and total satisfaction…

When Leonora woke the faint light of dawn was painting its pink trails across the sky. It took her a second to absorb the fact that she wasn’t in her own bed and that she felt different.

Because she was different.

She was no longer a virgin. She had been thoroughly initiated into the art of lovemaking by a master.

She turned her head and saw Gabriel’s dark one beside her. Even in sleep he looked powerful. Her gaze moved down his naked body hungrily, lingering over the densely packed muscles of his abdomen and lower, to where his masculinity looked no less impressive at rest.

Her lower body clenched. After they’d made love that first time she’d fallen into a pleasure coma. And then she’d woken a couple of hours later with her bottom tucked into Gabriel’s body, his growing erection stirring against her. He’d demonstrated that that wasn’t the only way to bring about intense pleasure and had brought her slowly and inexorably back to life with his hands and his mouth, showing her that what had happened hadn’t been a dream.

No. It hadn’t been a dream.

It had been very much an explosive and transformative reality. She held the sheet to her body, going cold inside as the full significance of the night sank in. Just hours ago she’d been about to be publicly betrothed to Lazaro Sanchez. And yet here she was, having been thoroughly bedded by a totally different man.

This behaviour was so out of character for her. She hadn’t even kissed Lazaro beyond one chaste kiss on the lips. And yet she’d spent mere hours in Gabriel’s company and tumbled into bed with him with barely a moment’s hesitation.

She’d felt responsible for so long—since her parents had lost everything when she was a teenager—that she’d almost forgotten what it was like to want something just for herself. And now she felt supremely selfish. The paparazzi had probably been camped outside the castillo all night, while she’d been here indulging in sheer sensual decadence.

She felt as if millennia had passed since the previous day, when she’d set out from her home ready to commit to Lazaro Sanchez. And here she was in another man’s bed.

She put a hand to her burning face.

She thought of how Gabriel had looked at her with that single-minded intensity. No one had ever looked at her like that before. As if they truly saw her. As a woman. Independent of her name and the scandal that had rocked her family.

And then she cursed herself.

Gabriel Torres was an experienced man of the world. A consummate lover. He probably looked at all his lovers like that. She was just one in a long line. She’d intrigued him last night, but even if he hadn’t figured out she’d been a virgin she doubted very much he’d be expecting to see her again.

Terrified that he would wake and look at her, and see how profoundly he’d affected her, she stole out of the bed as quietly as she could. She held her breath when he moved, saying something incomprehensible in his sleep. When he didn’t wake Leonora gathered up her things and tiptoed out of the bedroom, finding a guest suite down the hall where she dressed and repaired herself as best she could.

She avoided looking at herself in the mirror. She tried to ignore the tenderness between her legs. But then she caught a glimpse of the redness around her jaw and neck. The burn from Gabriel’s stubble. The burn of shame.

She quickly pulled her hair back and tied it into a rough bun. She put her wrap around herself, hiding as much of the evidence of the passion of the night as possible. Then she crept out of the apartment and down to the lobby, where she got the concierge to call her a taxi.

Thankfully she didn’t have to wait long. As it drove through the quiet early-morning streets she took a deep, shuddering breath, hating the awful bereft feeling stealing over her.

She thought of the man sprawled sexily in bed in his stunning apartment. He would wake up and get on with his life and not think about her again. Of that she was sure. Last night would barely register on his radar. How could it when she’d been such a novice?

She’d made a pact with the devil, agreeing to sleep with Gabriel Torres, telling herself that one night would be enough. Because now the empty feeling inside her mocked her. One night with Gabriel Torres had ruined her for ever.

Gabriel woke slowly, through layers of a deep sense of satisfaction. Not just any satisfaction. Sexual satisfaction. It was a long time since he’d felt like this.

His mouth curved into a smile as images came tumbling back into his head. Long dark hair, elegant curves, high, firm breasts with deliciously hard nipples… Brown curls covering the apex between her legs—the place where he’d lost himself and found ecstasy. The best sex he’d ever had.

With a virgin.

His eyes snapped open on that thought and he jack-knifed up in the bed, instantly awake.

She’d been a virgin.

He hadn’t been able to process that information fully in the midst of the hottest experience of his life. She hadn’t asked him to stop. She’d entreated him to go on with those huge grey eyes. And he’d tipped over the edge of his legendary control.

Uncomfortably, he had to concede now that he didn’t think it had been her innocence that had elevated the experience beyond the realms of normality. It had been her. And their unique chemistry. He’d had no idea it would be so explosive.

Where was she?

There was a stillness in the bedroom that extended out into the apartment. He stood up from the bed and pulled on a pair of jeans, and only then noticed that it was bright outside. Already morning. He could hear the faint hum of city traffic.

He felt discombobulated. He always woke at dawn, if not before. He never slept in.

He padded through the apartment, an uneasy and unfamiliar feeling of exposure sliding into his gut.

There was no sign of her. Literally no sign. Had he dreamt it all? Then he saw the small tumbler that still held some alcohol. He didn’t like the sense of relief.

He went back into his bedroom and something glinted in the morning light on his cabinet. Her jewellery. She’d left it behind. He went over and picked it up and recognised instantly that it wasn’t real. Costume jewellery. To create a façade.

Leonora Flores de la Vega. The heiress with nothing to her name except her name. And her astonishing beauty. A virgin who’d left him behind in his bed.

No woman ever left him. He left women. And no woman left him with this hungry, clawing ache of need.

Even after only one night he could sense that the more he had of her, the more he would want. Unprecedented. One night with her was not enough. Not nearly enough.

As he stood under the powerful spray of his shower a few minutes later Gabriel knew that Leonora Flores was not like his usual women. There was a wildness under her serene exterior and it resonated with something inside him—a wild streak he never allowed to surface in his day-to-day life, when he had to be supremely controlled and on guard at all times. Too many people depended on him.

He’d been her first lover. And he couldn’t deny that, along with the erotic charge he felt thinking of that, he also felt something else totally uncharacteristic. Possessive. It had been there the previous evening too, when he’d felt the electric current between them as she’d stood beside Sanchez with his arm around her waist.

Gabriel emerged from the shower and slung a towel around his waist. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the sink and stopped, looking long and hard at his reflection. He was thirty-three years old. He’d been ignoring his advisors’ not so subtle whispers for some time now. Whispers that had been getting more insistent. Whispers about settling down. Putting forward a more respectable image. Being a family man.

Something lodged in Gabriel’s gut at that thought. Family man. He’d always known that he would have to have a family some day. After all, he was the last in his line. But after his emotionally sterile upbringing, with two parents who had despised each other, he’d never relished the prospect.

And he’d never fully admitted to himself that while the thought of a family terrified him on one level, on another he’d always wondered if he could do it any differently? He’d grown up with one assertion—never to bring children into this world and leave them to their fate as his own parents had.

His younger sister had suffered more than he had, and he still felt guilty that he hadn’t noticed her descent into chaos. But by then he’d been the only thing holding the Cruz y Torres empire together…

Both his parents had conducted extramarital affairs for as long as he could remember, and he’d routinely witnessed them lying to each other about their activities to the point when it had become farcical.

Gabriel was ashamed to recall that when he had been much younger, he’d had a fantasy of a relationship far removed from what he’d seen with his parents. Uncynical. Respectful. Kind. But life had shown him that he was a fool to have such dreams when he’d found his first lover in bed with his so-called best friend.

She’d told Gabriel she’d seduced his friend to make Gabriel jealous. He’d thrown his lover and his best friend out, and from that day forward had ruthlessly quashed his silly teenage fantasies.

But perhaps he had finally met someone with whom he could envisage embarking on the next phase of his life. He wasn’t such a fool as to equate physical innocence with honesty, but there was something special and unique about Leonora Flores de la Vega.

She was stunningly beautiful, and she oozed elegance and class in spite of the fact that she was all but penniless. They had the most insane chemistry Gabriel had ever experienced with a woman.

And clearly, if she’d been prepared to marry Lazaro Sanchez, she was in the market for marriage.

The thought of her with that man made Gabriel’s hands clench into fists. His expression in the mirror turned hard.

Sanchez had obviously been ready to make a lifelong commitment in a bid to garner respect. Perhaps it was a sign that Gabriel finally needed to deal with something he’d been pushing away for a long time. Saying a curt Not yet whenever another advisor tentatively mentioned the notion of settling down.

But maybe ‘not yet’ had become now.

Leonora Flores de la Vega was perfect on every level for what he envisaged in a marriage. He had never been so old-fashioned as to have expected a virginal wife, but he couldn’t deny that her innocence appealed to a deeply masculine part of him. As did the knowledge that she hadn’t slept with Sanchez.

She was from their world. She knew how these marriages worked. And after last night he didn’t have to worry about compatibility.

Last night he hadn’t seduced Leonora for any other reason than because he wanted her. Sanchez had been the last person on his mind. But now…

He relished the perfection of timing and serendipity. And the opportunity to show Lazaro Sanchez in a very comprehensive way that a woman like Leonora Flores de la Vega was out of his league.

For ever.

When Leonora arrived back at the castillo after driving Matías back to his school, she found her mother waiting for her, looking pale and agitated.

‘What is it? Is it Papá?’

Leonora always had the fear that something would set her father off again. Something like this—his daughter getting jilted in public by her fiancé.

Her mother shook her head. ‘No, nothing like that. Papá is having a nap. You got a phone call…from Gabriel Torres. He wants you to call him back.’

Her mother was handing her a note with a number on it before Leonora could fully register it. It had been two days since that cataclysmic night. Two days of feeling alternately shocked and shamed and giddy at what had happened. And two days of the knowledge sinking in that of course Gabriel wasn’t going to be chasing her down.

Except now butterflies exploded in her belly. Along with a far more carnal tug of awareness. And the man wasn’t even here.

She looked at the number. A cell phone number.

Her mother gripped her arm. ‘Oh, Leo—Gabriel Torres. You must have made an impression.’

Leonora’s face burned and she avoided her mother’s eye. She’d been vague about Gabriel’s involvement the other night, making it sound as if he’d just offered her a place to hide out. But she knew he’d offered her so much more. And delivered.

She scrabbled for something to say. ‘Mamá, I’m sure he’s getting in touch for something quite boring. Let me go and call him back.’

Her mother shooed her off, two bright pink spots in her cheeks, making her look girlish for her fifty-four years.

Leonora’s insides cramped as she went into the castle’s office, the administrative centre where they took bookings for tours. Tours that were falling increasingly in numbers because people inevitably wanted to experience something more exciting than just walking around a dusty medieval castle full of antiques and scary-looking portraits of long-dead ancestors and a tired and wilted walled garden.

Her family’s dependence on her sat heavily on her shoulders today. She’d just had a painful conversation at Matías’s school about overdue fees.

She sat down at the desk and put the piece of paper in front of her. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and keyed in his number. For an age she sat there, a little paralysed at the thought of hearing that deep rumble of a voice again.

Then, before she could lose her nerve, she pressed the key and after a second heard the long ring tone.

The call was picked up almost immediately with an impatient, brusque tone. ‘Si?’

She almost cut off the connection, he sounded so forbidding, and then his tone changed and he said sharply, ‘Leonora, is that you?’

She gulped. ‘Yes, it’s me.’

‘Thank you for calling me back.’

She thought she detected a dry tone in his voice. She didn’t imagine he had many women doing a disappearing act on him.

‘I’m sorry for…for leaving the way I did the other morning…but I felt it was for the best.’

‘For who? You? Or me…?’

Leonora squirmed in the chair. ‘Both of us… It was—’

She stopped. She’d been about to say just a moment out of time, but that sounded far too whimsical.

‘It was just one night.’

‘An incredible night.’

His voice was low and it seemed to rumble down the phone and across Leonora’s skin. Her mouth went dry and her palms got clammy just thinking about it.

Then he said, ‘I’d like to take you out for dinner.’

Leonora pushed aside the X-rated memories. ‘Dinner?’

‘Yes…’ He sounded amused.

‘When?’

‘Tonight. I’ll pick you up at seven.’

‘I…’

‘Do you have plans, Leonora?’

Was it her imagination or was there a mocking tone in his voice now? Of course she didn’t have plans—other than the endless worrying about what was to become of them.

She tried to sound as nonchalant as possible. ‘No, I don’t have plans this evening.’

He became brisk again. ‘Good. I’ll see you at seven.’

CHAPTER FOUR

BY ALMOST SEVEN that evening Leonora was a bag of nerves at the thought of seeing Gabriel again after sharing such intimacies, and also wondering what he wanted. A repeat of that night? Or was he just intrigued because she wasn’t like his usual lovers?

The thought had slid into her mind over the past couple of days…wondering if he’d noticed her innocence. But he hadn’t said anything. And certainly any pain had been fleeting.

She tensed when she heard the low purr of a powerful engine and crunching gravel, not remotely ready to see the man again.

Liar.

She went to the window and peeked out, feeling like a coward. She watched him step out of a low-slung sports car—a different one from the other night. This was black.

He was dressed semi-casually, in dark trousers and a lighter toned long-sleeved top. She could imagine the material was expensive, the way it moulded to the muscles of his chest as he came around the car.

He looked stern. Austere. But then she remembered how he’d smiled wickedly. Sexily. Her insides spasmed.

She was about to go into the hall to answer the door when he rang the bell, but just then she heard quick footsteps cross the marbled hall and cursed silently. Her mother. Seizing on the opportunity to meet the man who had been Leonora’s knight in shining armour the other night.

Her mother’s disapproval of Lazaro Sanchez’s behaviour, as compared to the gallant actions of one of their own, had spoken volumes about what she’d really thought of Leonora’s first fiancé. And yet, Leonora thought cynically, her mother would have been only too happy to have Lazaro’s money paying off their debts and restoring their reputation.

The front door opened and Leonora heard voices—her mother’s too high and girlish, and Gabriel’s much lower. A light sweat broke out on her brow. She wished there was a mirror to check her reflection again.

Her black silk shirt dress with its wide belt had at one time been fashionable, with its thigh-high slit, but now she was afraid it was far too provocative and out of date. She touched the buttons again, to make sure they were done up as far as they could go—which didn’t feel high enough. And should she have put her hair up?