A Spanish Awakening Read Free Page B

in his own infallibility, and having beautiful women throw themselves at your feet was not exactly going to encourage humility, she reflected sourly.
    ‘You used to follow him around like a puppy.’
    The reminder brought a flush to her cheeks. ‘I’m not twelve, Dad.’ Actually, she had been thirteen when her brother had brought home his college friend, who had been the most beautiful young man she had ever imagined, let alone laid eyes on.
    He had been kind.
    Later he had been cruel.
    ‘And anyway, he
definitely
doesn’t like me.’ This was not a stab in the dark; it was actually an understatement. Two years on the memory of his blighting scorn no longer had the power to make her feel physically sick. Though she was a little way off laughing at it.
    ‘Don’t be stupid, Megan. Why would he not like you? I doubt if you even registered on his radar back then.’
    Is that meant to make me feel better? Megan wondered.
    ‘I did have hopes he might have fallen for Janie.’
    Why not? Megan thought. Everyone else had, or so it had seemed to her when she had watched, with wistful envy, her beautiful half-sister make male jaws drop wherever she went.
    ‘But I think that marriage of his was a done deal when they were both in their cradles. But that’s over and it’s different now. You’ve turned into quite an attractive young woman. No Janie, obviously.’
    Obviously, Megan thought, and her twisted smile was more philosophical than cynical as she said, ‘You mean Ilost twenty pounds.’ There was less of her but suddenly she was a lot more visible, at least to male eyes. ‘Look, Dad, I have to— Hold on, Dad,’ she added, turning in response to the pressure of a hand on her shoulder.
    The expression of polite enquiry on her face melted into one of wild-eyed panic as she tilted her face up at the man standing at her shoulder.
    He was the reason why she was suddenly not being jostled. People did not jostle Emilio Rios. It wasn’t just his physical presence, which was considerable, it was his aura.
    ‘You!’
Oh, God, how long had he been standing there? The thought that he had been listening made her feel queasy.
    Emilio Rios smiled and Megan’s lips parted. She had no control over the tiny sigh of female appreciation that emerged from her throat. Fortunately the level of noise in the place drowned it out.
    The smile did not reach his dark eyes, just deepened the fine lines fanning out from the corners, leaving the gleaming depths intent as without a word he framed her face with his big hands.
    A myriad emotions swirling in jumbled psychedelic chaos through her head, Megan stood immobile as she felt the warm brush of his breath against the fluttering pulse at the base of her neck, then the downy softness of her cheek as his dark features blurred out of focus as she struggled to escape the magnetic tug of his unblinking stare.
    Logic told her this was not happening, but it was. This wasn’t a dream; it was real. Dreams were not hot; he was. Across the inches barely separating them the heat of his body seeped through the fine creased linen of her jacket.
    Say something! Do something?
    She did neither, but he did.
    Emilio bent his head and covered her mouth with his.
    Scream, kick him, bite him, said the voice in her head.
    Instead she melted into him, her soft body moulding sinuously against the lean, hard length of him. Her lips parted with a silent sigh, not just allowing but inviting the bold, erotic penetration of his tongue.
    Need and enervating lust rolled over her, sweeping her along in its wake as she clung to him, her arms sliding around his middle.
    The crowds faded, her sense of self faded, all that remained was the taste of him filling her mouth, the texture of his warm lips. The hunger inside her responding with mindless enthusiasm to the erotic probing advances of his tongue.
    Then just as abruptly as it had begun it stopped and she was standing there deprived of the heat of his body, shaking and feeling