The Balfour Legacy

People had said it to her before, many times—but she had stubbornly refused to believe it. Yet when Carlos said it, the oddest sensation began to creep over her and Kat started to think that maybe he was right. That it was true. Was that because he’d never spoken anything to her but the stark truth, no matter how painful that could sometimes be? Or just because he seemed so confident and brash about life, so strong and powerful?

‘I know I do,’ she answered. ‘It’s just easier said than done.’ She forced a note of lightness into her voice, wanting to dispel the heavy mood which seemed to have settled over them. She looked up at him. ‘Any tips on how to go about it?’

He wished that the light scent she was wearing would not invade his senses with quite such unerring provocation. Or that her hair didn’t feel like liquid silk spilling over his fingers. ‘You have to tell yourself that you’re more than a product of what happened to you,’ he told her fiercely. ‘Otherwise, it’s like letting the perpetrators of the crime win. Like allowing them to claim two victims, instead of only one. And you have to start believing that, as of now. Right now.’ With the tip of one finger he tilted her chin upwards and looked deep into her eyes. ‘Do you think you can do that?’

Kat thought how astonishing it was that he could quickly turn from sexy tyrant into a man of rare understanding—and yet didn’t that make her want him even more? ‘I’ll try.’

‘Good.’

But despite her tentative word of resolution, he could still feel the faint trembling of her body. Clearly, she was in some kind of reactive shock to the bad dream and had then relived it by telling him about it. And she was still locked in his embrace too. Carlos shifted slightly. It felt almost comfortable to have her leaning on him like that. A little too comfortable.

Suddenly, he let her go, pushing her back gently against the pillows, hardening his heart against the startled question in her eyes even as his body instinctively hardened to the soft promise in hers. ‘Get back underneath the blankets,’ he informed her tersely. ‘You need to sleep.’

Sleep? It seemed as distant a possibility as dry land at that moment. And he had left behind an aching void. All Kat knew was that, without him, she felt cold and frightened again. Once more she bit her lip as a faint memory of the nightmare whispered over her skin and her eyes locked with his in terrified question. ‘Where are you going?’

Where the hell did she think he was going? ‘Back to bed.’

‘Don’t…’ She swallowed, hardly daring to formulate the question, not wanting to open herself up to rejection once again. But Kat was not asking him to make love to her—she just wanted his presence to reassure her. To stay until the dream became a distant memory. ‘Please don’t go,’ she whispered. ‘Not yet. I’m…’

‘What?’

‘Scared.’

Carlos swallowed. Her slender limbs were splayed like a colt’s and the ebony fall of her hair was spilling onto the pillow like dark satin. Reaching out, he clicked on the bedside lamp in the hope that extra light might dispel some of the unbearable intimacy of the setting. But it was a vain hope, because now she was bathed in a soft, apricot light which made her skin look completely edible.

How could he resist such a heartfelt plea—but what the hell was she asking of him? That he endure a temptation which was fast becoming unendurable? Staying close to the enticement of her body when his own was crying out to touch it?

Yet hadn’t he always been the master of control in so many areas of his life before now? And surely this could be just another opportunity to prove his own inner strength and determination.

‘Okay,’ he bit out, and lay down beside her as gingerly as a man might lie beside a snake. ‘I will stay, but only for a while. Understand?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

Instinct told him that it was pointless to leave her trembling on the other side of the big bed, and he intended the arm he reluctantly put round her shoulder to be nothing more than comforting as he pulled her close. A cuddle—even though, as a rule, he didn’t do cuddling.

And he soon saw why. He had been a damn fool to minimise the sensual impact of her slender body, despite the fact that it was covered with those rather prudish pyjamas. Or maybe that was what added to her allure. He’d never been to bed with a woman wearing pyjamas before. Come to think of it, he’d never been to bed with a woman and just lain there with a chaste arm around her shoulder either.

Kat snuggled against him, loving the way his fingers were now idly playing with her hair. Loving the solid reassurance of his powerful physique and the warmth of his nearness. ‘That’s nice,’ she breathed.

He knew that. Too nice. Carlos didn’t know how long he lay there for but it was long enough for his growing desire to stab like a heavy arrow at his groin. And if he didn’t do something soon, she was going to pick up on it.

‘Better?’ he questioned thickly, wondering how soon he could make his escape, even while he silently mocked himself for his own hypocrisy. Because you don’t want to go anywhere, do you, Carlos?

‘Sort of,’ she replied softly.

He rolled over, glad to be able to shift his position and to fractionally ease some of the terrible aching. ‘Only sort of?’

‘Well, like a big weight’s been lifted, only I…’ Suddenly, Kat felt awkward and wondered how she could ever have bared her soul like that. Especially to him—of all people. The man who was only tolerating her because he had to. Because he owed her father a favour. ‘Listen, Carlos, maybe I shouldn’t have unburdened myself—’

‘Forget it,’ he said curtly.

‘It was crazy to have bottled it up for so long,’ she said, half to herself. ‘And in a funny sort of way, it feels so much better now that I’ve said it.’

In the soft glow of the apricot light, his eyes narrowed as he took in the full implication of her words. ‘You mean you’ve never talked about it before? Not to anyone?’

‘Never. I’m not really into counsellors—and it’s not the greatest subject to bring up at parties, is it?’

‘I can’t believe that your father didn’t tell me any of this himself,’ he said, his voice growing bitter.

She stared at him. ‘He didn’t?’

‘Of course he didn’t! Madre de Dios, Kat! Do you really think I’d have brought you on board like this if I’d had any idea of the kind of trauma you’d suffered in the past?’

Actually, up until about half an hour ago, if someone had told her that Carlos Guerrero had a tiny pair of diabolical horns growing amidst the tumble of his dark curls, she would have believed them. But as she stared at his angry and shifting features, Kat realised that her feelings for him were undergoing a rapid change. Her physical attraction to him had never been in any doubt, but his surprising protectiveness towards her was forging an even more indelible mark than desire.

She shrugged, trying hard to focus on something else. To protect something of her family’s reputation. And in so doing, surely to protect herself. ‘Daddy’s just a bit insensitive, that’s all.’

‘Please don’t defend the indefensible!’ And then something else occurred to him. ‘Come to think of it, you must have known that I wouldn’t have kept you here if I’d realised what had happened to you as a child. So why the hell didn’t you tell me, Kat?’

Why indeed? She gave a brief smile. ‘Because I can be stubborn,’ she admitted. ‘And proud’.

‘Sí, I can imagine,’ he commented drily, thinking how that tentative smile lit her face up. And how the apricot light of the lamp threw beguiling shadows over the pristine white of her top, emphasising the soft blue shadows which fell beneath the pert swell of her breasts.

‘You know this changes everything?’ he said suddenly.

She blinked up at him. ‘What does?’

‘After what you’ve told me, there’s no way I can keep you on board. Not now.’

Kat stilled. She had rebelled against the lowly duties entrusted to her and being incarcerated on Carlos’s luxury yacht, and she had wanted more than anything to escape. But while it was perfectly acceptable for her to object to staying, it was quite another for him to tell her she couldn’t! She had always rebelled against authority, and she found herself protesting now. ‘Why not?’

He wanted to say, You know damned well why not. But he didn’t. Because once you openly acknowledged sexual attraction, it became almost impossible to resist. He wanted to tell her to stop looking at him as if butter wouldn’t melt in those luscious lips of hers—because he knew that was simply an illusion. Yet their soft petal shape was putting him in danger, making him forget the conflict of interests raging within him.

‘Because maybe you’ve learned a lesson after all,’ he said. ‘That you have to confront your demons in order to get rid of them, and that running away doesn’t solve anything.’

Reality hit her with a harsh jerk. ‘You’re thinking about those rules,’ she said slowly.

‘Sí. The rules—and your father’s wish that you learn the importance of commitment. I hope you have.’ His voice hardened as he told himself that she was no longer his responsibility. ‘But that is up to you, Kat. If you want to spend your life running away, then so be it, but I am no longer willing to be your enforcer. Not any more. I will order the crew to set sail for shore and as soon as we reach dry land in the morning—I can arrange to have you flown back to London.’ His eyes narrowed in question. ‘Unless there’s somewhere else you’d prefer to go? France, maybe? Or perhaps the States?’

Kat swallowed. He was giving her back her liberty—but never had freedom seemed to mock her quite so much. She thought about how nomadic and pointless he made her life seem. The little rich girl with no real place to go—who could just choose where she wanted to flit around the globe, like someone idly stabbing a pin into a map.

She looked into those cold black eyes of his and suddenly a wave of longing washed over her—because didn’t the cloak of darkness liberate her from convention? She didn’t want to go and she didn’t want to leave him—it was as simple as that. At least, not before she had sampled some of his magic. A taste of the sensual promise which radiated like an aura from his powerful frame, and which had ensnared her from the beginning.

She knew it was probably wrong and almost certainly foolish—because what if he pushed her away yet again? But Kat couldn’t help herself. He had ignited a flame in her and she wanted Carlos Guerrero with a hunger she’d never experienced before. And maybe never would again.

She found herself wondering if a woman could just come out and tell a man that she wanted him. And wasn’t it crazy that at the ripe old age of twenty-two, she didn’t have a clue?

‘Let’s not talk about it now,’ she whispered, and snuggled into the warmth of his bare torso.

Uncomfortably, Carlos shifted again—because now her appeal was growing by the minute, and acquiring all kinds of different dimensions on the way. Like a neglected kitten that had been brought inside and given food and shelter, she was looking up at him with something in her eyes which looked uncomfortably like trust.

He wanted to tell her not to trust him, that he never gave enough of himself to a woman to warrant such trust. But he knew from experience that even opening up a topic like that made women brighten. It made them think they were getting close to you. And there was only one way he wanted to get close to Kat Balfour…and no way was he going to give into it…

So why was his hand drifting down from her shoulder to her slender waist, the slick movement of his wrist bringing her soft body even closer? Like a drowning man he fought for control—a steely control and self-will which had always come as naturally to him as breathing. And to his fury and despair, he felt it slipping away from him.

‘Kat…’

‘Mmm?’ All she was doing was whispering her lips against the line of his jaw and there wasn’t anything so very wrong in that, was there? Not when he felt and smelt so warm and so vital.

‘Kat.’ Carlos swallowed, because the ability to speak coherently seemed suddenly to have deserted him. He felt his body tense with a sudden sense of urgency. ‘If I don’t get off this damn bed in a minute, I’m going to do something…something I’ll regret.’

‘Something like what?’

Just then she lifted her face to his, and the moment he felt her warm breath against his skin, Carlos knew that it was too late. ‘Something like…this.’

Feeling the last of his self-control desert him, he pulled her against his hard and hungry body. And with a small, angry curse, he began to plunder her lips with a hunger which now seemed unstoppable.

Chapter Eight

‘OH!’ KAT squirmed with pleasure as every fantasy she’d ever had about Carlos began to come true. She was in bed with the black-eyed Spaniard and he was kissing her—kissing her with the kind of passion she had somehow known existed, even if she’d never experienced it before. And somehow it didn’t surprise her a bit to realise that she’d found it, with him.

‘Oh!’ Moaning softly, her body jerked in disbelieving reaction as he captured her breast, his fingers playing with one pert nipple which peaked against her cotton pyjama top. Sharp sensations of pleasure shot across its tightened bud and she could feel it begin to flower beneath his expert caress. Words slipped straight from her mouth and into his. ‘Oh. That’s…gorgeous.’

‘You think I don’t know that?’ he growled.

Now the hand had slipped beneath the thin cotton top and made contact with the naked flesh there and she shuddered at that first intimate contact with her skin. ‘C-Carlos!’ she gasped.

‘You want more?’

Breath drying in her throat, she nodded.

‘How much more?’

‘I—’

‘This much?’

‘Yes. Oh, yes.’

Trailing his hand down, he let it skate over the warmth of her belly and down beyond that to the faint fuzz of hair to where she was warmer still. Slicking his fingertips with soft precision to delve into her honeyed heat, he felt her buck beneath his touch.

‘Carlos!’ she gasped again.

Oh, but she was responsive—instantly and gratifyingly so—yet Carlos was a little taken aback by her unashamed hunger. Hadn’t he expected her appetite to be jaded, as befitted a woman who must have enjoyed sex time and time and again? But instead she seemed almost wondrous…with a sense of near awe in her bright eyes as she cupped his face and kissed him back so passionately. Who would have thought it?

With the sleight of wrist which had made him so masterful in the ring, Carlos skimmed the little top up over her head and tossed it to the floor. Then he tugged at the matching bottoms, peeling them down over her hips before sliding them off completely. And, oh, she was beautiful—her body a creamy cascade of inviting curves and enticing shadows. ‘Mía bella,’ he ground out unsteadily, as he caught hold of her fingers.

Her breath gasped against his neck as he guided her hand to the hard ridge at his groin, clearly discernable even through the thick denim of his jeans. ‘C-Carlos,’ she stumbled, her cheeks growing hot at this very physical evidence of how much he wanted her.

‘I think I’m a little overdressed, don’t you, Princesa?’ he questioned unsteadily.

‘Y-yes.’ She should have been scared, but strangely enough fear was the last thing she was feeling as she heard the sound of his zip rasping down.

He moved away from her to remove the jeans from his aching flesh—and then he was naked and so was she, and Carlos could never remember feeling so hard and hot and hungry before. Because this was forbidden? he wondered fleetingly as he stroked his fingertips over her silken skin. He didn’t know—and right then, he didn’t care.

With one sure, swift movement, he moved on top of her and thought how light and how slender her body felt beneath his. ‘Now,’ he said huskily. ‘Where shall I begin, mía princesa?’

‘Anywhere,’ she whispered, praying that he wouldn’t expect her to take some sort of lead. To perform any kind of erotic act with him. The kind she’d heard her more experienced friends talk about. ‘Anywhere you like.’

His mouth was at her throat as his hand moved down to the silken surface of her thighs, feeling them part beneath the soft insistence of his touch. He kissed her for an age, tempering his own hunger as he felt her melt into ever more willing compliancy. He touched her in places which made her moan, until he felt the restless urging of her body—and only then did he allow his own hunger to spiral up inside him. Technique and restraint were forgotten as he found himself compelled by a primitive urge to fill this woman, and for a moment he tensed, before driving into her body with what felt like the most powerful thrust of his life.

‘Ah!’

A small sound was torn from her lips. A sound he’d never heard before. Feeling her flinch beneath that first exquisite thrust, Carlos lifted his head to see the briefest twist of discomfort cross her beautiful features. He stilled, his heart wrenching as he wrestled to take in the unbelievable implications of her reaction. ‘Kat?’ he questioned in disbelief.

Her eyes snapped open but she could read nothing in the dark, shuttered features, and suddenly Kat didn’t want him to say the words out loud. Didn’t want questions or explanations. Didn’t want him to do anything but to carry on. The pain had passed now and she wanted it—she wanted him—just the way she’d always wanted him.

‘Please,’ she whispered, her voice slurred with the pleasure of feeling him inside her—and a thought flew into her mind before she could stop it. That this was what her body had been made for. To have Carlos Guerrero’s joined so intimately with hers. That this was exactly where she was supposed to be—and her heart turned over with longing. ‘Make love to me.’

If Carlos hadn’t been deep inside her, he might have objected to her choice of words—for what did this have to do with love? If her tight, virginal hotness hadn’t been clamped around him in the most delicious way he could ever recall, he might even have had the strength to pull away from her.

But it was too late for that. Her innocence had been taken—unwittingly—by him. He couldn’t undo what had already been done, so why not make the most of it?

His own hunger now put on hold, Carlos proceeded to employ every pleasurable technique he had ever learnt in the arms of a woman. And there were plenty of those. He knew that virgins notoriously had a disappointing introduction to sex and rarely orgasmed. Well, not this one. Oh, no. Miss Kat Balfour may have sprung on him the biggest surprise of all, but she would leave his bed knowing real pleasure.

He teased her and played with her. Withdrawing from her so that she gasped aloud with instinctive alarm that he wasn’t going to continue. As if he would stop now! First tantalising her with the tip of his manhood as she gave breathless little moans of pleasure, he then drove deep inside her, so that the moans became gasps of pure joy.

He did it to her slow. Then fast. And just about every variation in between. And when he felt her pleasure begin to build to an unstoppable peak, he watched her. Felt her. Enjoyed the exquisite sensation as she spasmed around him. Saw her lips part and her back arch—and the corresponding rosy flush which bloomed all over her breasts. Heard the way she gasped his name.

Only then did he let go, allowing his own orgasm to wash over him with bittersweet waves which had never seemed quite so intense nor so long-lasting.

His body was still shuddering as he withdrew from her, taking a moment to steady his breath before turning to look at her, where she was lying back against the bank of pillows, her body looking completely relaxed and satiated but her eyes wary, and watchful. But not nearly as wary as him.

Because Kat Balfour had just detonated his image of her as a sexually experienced party animal and blown it clean out of the water. It had thrown him off balance—unsettled him—and Carlos didn’t do unsettled. After sex he was used to turning over and going to sleep—not lying there as feelings of disbelief and anger began to build up inside him. Propping himself up on one elbow, he surveyed her flushed face and kiss-bruised lips.

‘So,’ he drawled. ‘Am I supposed to be flattered?’

There was an odd, fraught silence as his question echoed round the cabin and Kat found herself feeling lost, the dying waves of her first-ever orgasm now muddied by the mocking tone of his words. A sudden chill iced her skin. His beautiful golden-olive body was sprawled naked amid the rumpled bedclothes and it should have felt perfect. But the expression on his face drove home the cold-blooded nature of his question, leaving her wondering what she could possibly say in response. Because wouldn’t a lie or an evasion only sound hollow?

Play it as cool as he is, she told herself, even though her heart felt as raw as her newly awoken senses.

‘Flattered?’ she answered softly. ‘I don’t know. You tell me.’

Black eyes iced into her. ‘But that’s precisely the point, isn’t it? If there was any telling to be done, then it should have been you. Telling me.’ He gave a short and disbelieving laugh, saying the words aloud in some vain hope that she might deny them. ‘That you’d never had sex with a man before.’

Kat swallowed. He made her virtue sound like a moral offence! But still she was determined to keep calm. She tried for her best light, cocktail-party tone. ‘Is that how it’s usually done, then—some kind of confession from the woman before it all begins?’

His face darkened. ‘I wouldn’t know, since you’re the first virgin I’ve ever had.’

She tried to be flip. ‘And did you like it?’

‘Of course I liked it!’ he bit out. ‘It just might have been better if you’d warned me.’

Warned him? You warned people about ice on the road or about high winds at sea, but surely it was the wrong word to use when talking about the fact that a woman was completely innocent of men. Suddenly, faced by the censure which blazed from his eyes, Kat found the shaming words slipping from her lips, as if trying to offer him some kind of explanation. ‘I thought…I thought it might spoil the mood.’

There was a pause. ‘Damn right it would have done.’ In fact, it would have spoilt the mood so completely that he would have dragged himself from her cabin—no matter how hot and how aching he’d been—and spent a night in bed alone with his frustration.

But instead…Instead, he had taken the sweet, curvaceous body she had offered him so willingly. Had entered her with a fierce hunger of his own and discovered that he was thrusting into hot virgin tightness. Carlos winced, for he was macho enough and old-fashioned enough to acknowledge virginity as sacred territory. And somehow he felt as if she’d tricked him into taking her. The protectiveness he had been feeling towards her after her nightmare had somehow been warped by what had just happened. As if she had cast some dark net over him and dragged him forcibly into her inner life—a place he had no desire to be.

And now…What the hell did he do now?

‘Madre de Dios, I can scarcely believe it,’ he exclaimed softly. ‘You always look like you…’

Kat’s heart missed a beat. ‘Like I what, Carlos?’

He shrugged but didn’t falter. ‘Well, let’s face it—you hardly dress or act like an innocent, do you?’

It hurt—and yet it was true, wasn’t it? Apart from these past few days, she always dressed in haute couture—and sometimes those clothes were very provocative. Kat now saw that she might be guilty of sending out the wrong message entirely. And coupled with the way she’d come onto him at last year’s Balfour Ball, who could blame him for thinking that she was a woman of the world, with many lovers in her past?