Nacho Figueras Presents (7 page)

K
at and Sebastian took off their shoes and walked along the edge of the sea. The sand was wet and warm, and the water hissed in and out over their bare feet as the tide came in. The beach was empty, and the moon was bright, and when she looked at him, her gray eyes gleamed silver in the pale light.

She was, thought Sebastian, even
more
than he had imagined she would be. She was beautiful, of course, but in an effortless way. Seb had grown so used to the “stick chicks” that flocked around the games and clubhouse, with all their glossy, hypergroomed surfaces and surgically enhanced lips and tits proudly on display, that he found himself oddly mesmerized by Kat's imperfections and flaws. The beauty mark above her lip, the two-inch scar on the inside of her elbow that shone silvery white against her smooth tan skin (a childhood accident, she told him, trailing her finger over it self-consciously), the way that her glossy black curls sprang out around her head like an unruly corona in the Florida humidity, the faint laugh lines that appeared around her pretty eyes every time she smiled…

And she was smart, and funny, and she told him scandalous, gossipy, hilarious stories about Hollywood, and made him laugh so hard his belly ached. And when he flattered or flirted, her cheeks would flush pink and her eyes sparkled, but at the same time, if he went over the top, he knew that she did not buy his bullshit. Not even one little bit. Because nothing got past this woman.
Nada.

She had argued with him playfully when the check arrived, demanding that he return her fifteen dollars so she could pay at least some of her share. He had grinned and handed the waiter his credit card, and told her that she was never getting that money back, he had earned it fair and square.

And now she walked alongside him, laughing and chattering about this and that in her husky, honey-sweet voice. Her legs were long enough that he barely had to adjust his stride, and her swinging hand kept grazing his arm and sending little shocks of pleasure through his body. All he could think about was the fact that he wanted to grab hold of her shoulders, lay her down in the sand, and kiss her until they both lost their breath.

“Wait,” he said, suddenly catching the last bit of her sentence, “did you just say that you've never ridden a horse?”

She bent to examine something shiny on the ground, poking at it with her toe, her long, black curls swinging perilously close to the wet sand. “Nope. Never have.”

“But you grew up in Wellington. How is that possible?”

She shot him a look over her shoulder. “We're not all in the horsey set around here, Sebastian. There are other parts of Wellington, you know.”

He frowned. “Well, of course, but—”

“I asked my parents for lessons once, when I was eight,” she said.

“And?”

“And they told me that they could afford to buy me one lesson, if that's what I really wanted, but that it would just be that one time and then not again.”

“So why didn't you do it?”

She straightened up. “I was afraid I'd like it too much,” she said lightly. “I thought it would better not to have tried it at all than to try it and miss it after.”

“Ah, is that why you were looking at the pictures in the barn instead of the ponies?”

She wrinkled her nose, surprised. “What do you mean? I looked at the ponies.”

“No, you passed right by them. You went straight for the photographs. I've never seen anyone do that. It's very hard not to look at those ponies.”

She shrugged. “Well, I'm a director. I'm visual. I like photographs.”

“I think you were still afraid you would like the ponies too much. Still holding back.”

She laughed. “Maybe so. Though I always thought the ability to hold back was the sign of high intelligence in a child.”

“Well, that reflects rather poorly on me, then, because I was the opposite as a boy. No impulse control whatsoever. I wanted what I wanted, and I did not like to wait.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Why do I have a feeling that you never quite grew out of that?”

He put his hand on his heart. “You wound me,
linda
.”

She laughed. “I'm fairly certain you'll recover.”

Her laughter, the way she teased him, it just made him want her even more. He caught her hand and pulled her toward him. “
Besame
,” he said softly.

She blinked. “Forgive my rusty Spanish, but doesn't that mean—”

He cut her off by gently placing his mouth upon hers.

Her lips were soft and warm, and he searched them slowly, first with his own lips and then with his tongue, just barely touching the outline of her mouth until she exhaled and stepped closer to him.

She settled her body against his and twined her hands into his hair, and he could feel her lush curves melting against him, her soft breasts pushing up against his chest, the way her hips cradled his groin, making him pulse with desire.

He loved kissing a woman this tall. He didn't have to bend to her mouth at all, and it was so easy to pull her even closer and go deep. She tasted amazing, like sweet lime and champagne and a trace of salt, and she smelled of that same intriguing bittersweet caramel fragrance he had noticed the first day they met. He went deeper still, and she pushed up against him and made a soft, warm sound in the back of her throat, and suddenly he was flooded with an electric hunger so sharp that he felt that he might lose control.

And so he did what he had been fantasizing about doing all night. He led her away from the water and laid her down upon the warm sand and covered her body with his own.

He held himself just barely above her with his one good arm as he reached down and crushed his mouth to hers, trying desperately to fill all the space between them.

She responded avidly, moaning and twisting under him, and he pulled back for a second to search her face.

“Please,” she said, and that was all the encouragement he needed, dipping his mouth to her throat and tasting her skin, trailing his way down to her collarbone, dragging his tongue across her salty-sweet flesh.

She closed her eyes and arched up toward him, and he throbbed against her in response and wanted to rip her clothes from her body, but then growled in frustration since his one good hand was being used to hold himself up.

She opened her eyes, and her gaze flicked to the cast on his wrist. “Switch with me,” she whispered.

He rolled over onto his back, and she followed, straddling him in the sand and leaning down to kiss him, her tongue exploring his mouth as he caressed her long, graceful neck and then finally reached the sweet, bare skin on her back, now gritty with sand, that had been haunting him all evening. He trailed his hand down farther and found her almost naked bottom, and it was as exquisite as he had known it would be, firm and round and warm, and he groaned happily as he fit his palm against her, wishing he had two good hands so he could feel all of her at once.

She broke off kissing him. “Do you think,” she said hoarsely, “that we should find someplace more private?”

He pushed himself up and looked around. The beach was deserted. The only light from the restaurant was far behind. “I think we're alone,” he said.

She responded by reaching down and unbuttoning his shirt, kissing her way down his chest with every button she opened.

He inhaled sharply. Each touch of her mouth was like a lit match against his skin. He could feel her all through his body, and he was so hard that he thought he might explode like a schoolboy if he let her go any longer.

He brought his mouth to her soft, full breast, feeling the rough pattern of lace under the cotton of her dress and then the bud of her nipple. He cupped her with his hand and sucked through the cloth until she gasped and bucked her hips, and he felt the nub rise and harden under the wet fabric.

“Sebastian,” she moaned. “Oh God, that feels so good.”

She reached down and unzipped his pants, pulling down his boxer briefs so that he sprang free, hard as a rock and aching under her hand. She rubbed herself against him, sliding up and down, pleasuring herself. She was so hot and soft and wet, and the friction of her G-string against his sensitive skin nearly drove him mad with desire.

“
Linda
,” he panted, “I don't have a—”

She hushed him with a kiss and reached for the purse that she had discarded in the sand next to them, pulling out a foil chain of condoms.

He grinned at her appreciatively, and she shrugged, looking the tiniest bit embarrassed.

“I like a girl who comes prepared,” he murmured.

She ripped open a packet with her teeth and, looking at the cast on his wrist, said, “Let me help you,” as she rolled it down over his throbbing cock and then straddled him again, and slowly, ever so slowly, slid herself down onto him. He watched her face as he filled her, as she arched her head back, and her cheeks flushed, and her eyes closed in pleasure. He thought that he had never seen a woman so breathtaking, so uninhibitedly beautiful. She seemed to be holding nothing back, taking everything she wanted as she slowly stroked up and then down again.

He let her take the lead until he could stand it no longer, and then he thrust himself up into her, making her shudder and cry out. He reached underneath her dress and touched the warm, wet center of her, slowly circling with his thumb as he rocked his hips and moved within her. She bent her face to his, gasping against his cheek, and her hair fell around his neck like heavy, warm silk. Her breasts flattened against his chest, and he could feel her tighten and start to clench and shake, and suddenly her hips were jerking against his. She cried out his name, and he felt her muscles contract over and over again. She threw her head back, met his gaze, and in that excruciatingly powerful moment, he found his release.

And it was like nothing,
nothing
, he had ever felt before.

He felt shattered, enraptured, pierced through with the beauty of the moment—as if there was nothing in his entire world but her glimmering gray eyes, the sound of her voice calling out his name, and the glorious feeling of his body dissolving into hers.

He thrust into her one final time, and then she collapsed on top of him, laying her body over his as their breathing finally slowed. They listened to the hiss of the sea and rested in the soft, warm sand.

He gently kissed her face, and thought to himself that she felt so good, so
right
, and that he never wanted to be anywhere else. That he would stay here forever if she let him…

And then he laughed softly, because he really had never felt these things before. And honestly?

It kind of scared the living hell out of him.

T
he next day, Kat opened her door and found Sebastian standing on her front porch, holding a stack of compact leather-bound journals. They smelled faintly floral. “They're
en español
,” he said. “You will need me to translate. It might take days, but I am willing to make the sacrifice.”

Kat smiled at his boldness, but inwardly she squirmed. She had awoken that morning with a groan of remorse. She never slept with a man on the first date (or at least, not since college) and yet not only had she had sex with Sebastian—she'd had sex with him
in public
. They had been out there for anyone to see. They could have been arrested, for God's sake. She cringed, imagining calling her mother at the hospital.

“Oh hi, Mama. I know you're at Daddy's sick bed, but do you mind mortgaging the cottage and coming down to jail to bail me out for public indecency and exhibitionism?”

And she couldn't even blame it on the wine. She'd had a few glasses, but she'd been perfectly clearheaded by the time things had really started up with Sebastian. No, it hadn't been the wine at all—it had been
him
. He had made her drunk with his intoxicating mix of sweetness, and wicked humor, and wit, and his outrageous, absurd, ridiculous amount of sex appeal.

The man was just hot. When he'd kissed her, that was the end and the beginning and everything in between. No one had ever made her feel the things he had just by simply placing his mouth over hers. She had been helpless to deny his need.

No, she corrected herself, the truth was, she'd been helpless to deny her
own
need.

And afterward, when they had been shamelessly lying there on the sand, in full view of God and whoever might stroll by, she had thought,
a busload of nuns could pull up and see us in this moment, and I wouldn't even bother to raise my head from his shoulder. I would just wave and smile and let them all judge. I don't care. It was worth it.

But now here she was, face to face with him again, and she could hardly look him in the eye. Though she had to admit to herself that she wasn't sure if her inability to look at him grew out of regret or because she knew that, when she finally met his gaze, things would simply start up all over again.

Her mother had gone to work for the day, and her father had been moved to the rehabilitation center and had made it very clear he did not want Kat there looking over his shoulder while he learned to walk again. So she had her days free. They would be alone in the house for hours.

This was not a good idea.

But still, he had brought the journals. And he was willing to translate, which was incredibly thoughtful, and—she finally allowed herself to really look at him—oh no, he looked
so good
.

He was wearing jeans and a thin white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to accommodate the cast on one side and his muscular brown forearm on the other. The shirt looked soft and perfectly worn, and was exquisitely tailored to fit his broad shoulders and chest, tapering down to his narrow waist. His jet-black hair was just long enough to curl under his ears and past his open collar. His eye was still bruised, but no longer swollen.

She could smell him. A heady, clean mix of salt and musk, with just a hint of something sweet and citrusy. She glanced into his bright green eyes and she suddenly had a flash of him under her, filling her, the sharp thrust of him that had sent convulsive shivers through her body, that made her skin burn and the breath leave her lungs. The way his eyes had seared into hers in that final moment of release…

She briefly squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them again. “Come in,” she said, trying to sound as casual as possible. “I'll make you some lunch in trade for your translation services.”

He smiled slyly. “I am willing to start with lunch, Katarina, but translating
español
can be very taxing work, you know. There might have to be better incentives.”

Kat swallowed and tried to sound brisk. “Well then, maybe I can make dessert as well.”

And then, before he could answer, she whirled around and headed toward the kitchen. “I have some amazing tomatoes from my mama's garden,” she called out to him.
Damn.
Her voice had the slightest tremor; she was sure he would notice. “I'll make a Caprese salad, does that sound good?”

“
Sí
, delicious.” He sounded amused. He definitely knew that she was holding herself back.

She studiously avoided looking his way as she busied herself in the kitchen, slicing cheese and tomatoes and warming a loaf of bread.

“What can I do to help?” he asked.

“Oh, actually, you can go out back to the garden and pick some basil. You know what that looks like, right?”

He shot her an insolent look. “Yes, I know what basil looks like.”

He went outside, and she continued to prepare the salad. After the cheese and tomatoes were arranged in perfect scalloped slices on a big green platter, she opened the back door and walked barefoot out into the yard to find him.

From the backyard, Kat could hear, but not see, the ocean. Her parents never had the kind of money that would allow for a view, but if Kat followed a crooked little path that skirted the house across the way, she could be on a small, pebbly beach within five minutes.

The garden was small but absolutely packed with vegetation. Her mother had an extremely green thumb and had turned their quarter-acre lot into a carefully cultivated jungle of greenery.

There was a white picket fence around the edges of the yard, draped in pink rambling roses and twining vines of fragrant yellow honeysuckle. There was a cluster of citrus trees—lime and lemon and orange—which smelled heavenly no matter what the season and provided leafy green privacy from the neighbors. There was a small reflecting pool, choked with flowering water lilies, where the occasional wavering flash of an overgrown goldfish came into view amid the dark leaves and waxy white petals.

The kitchen garden was the crown jewel, though, surrounded by neatly trimmed hedges of rosemary and partially shaded by an arbor covered in grapevines. It was packed with an astounding amount of fruit, vegetables, and flowers for cutting. Her mother hadn't let a single inch of space go unused.

Kat laughed when she found Sebastian standing amid the herbs, looking lost, while staring at a particularly brilliant patch of jade green plants.

The exact color of his eyes, she thought to herself, and smiled.

“I thought you said you knew what basil looked like,” she teased him.

He looked up. “I do. This is basil, I'm sure of it. But”—he swept his arm toward another cluster of darker green—“I am fairly certain that this is as well. And that, too,” he said as he pointed to the other end of the garden. “I did not want to bring you the wrong kind.”

Kat squinted and looked. He was right. “Oh. Maybe there's more than one kind.”

He raised his eyebrow. “Something you failed to mention.”

She moved into the garden, feeling the round, warm pea gravel crunch underneath her feet. She bent and picked a large leaf of the herb and inhaled the spicy-sweet scent. “This kind will do.”

“All this”—he waved his arms around as if to take it all in—“it's like the Garden of Eden. So much…what's the word?
Abundancia.
”

She smiled as she picked the basil. “My mother's motto has always been ‘Why not more?'”

He laughed and stepped toward her, wrapping his arm around her waist. “I like your mother,” he said. “We have a similar outlook on life.”

Kat knew she should move away, but instead, she turned toward him, resting her hands full of basil around his neck and nestling her hips up against his.

“Ah,
linda
,” he murmured, smiling down at her and stroking her hair, “you look so pretty in this garden. Like a barefoot
gitana
—a gypsy queen.”

Kat shook her head at his over-the-top poetics, but felt her cheeks warm, secretly pleased.

He smiled at her some more, and she couldn't help herself. “
Besame
,” she whispered.

He laughed. A deep, seductive chuckle. “
Ay, mandona
—bossy girl—using my own words against me. Are you always this demanding?”

He leaned forward and placed his mouth close to hers. She could feel his breath tremble against her lips.

“Of course I am,” she sighed. “I'm a director, after all.”

He laughed again and closed the distance between them, kissing her tenderly—searching and slow—but she didn't have patience for that. She didn't need warming up. She wanted the deep, urgent kisses he had given her the night before. She wanted to be kissed so hard that it would leave her lips bruised and swollen. She felt flushed with need, as if she could throw herself into his arms and wrap herself around him, meld her body to his, and still not get close enough.

He seemed to sense her craving because he suddenly pulled her toward him with a deep, masculine sound, and gave her exactly the kind of kiss she had been yearning for. He kissed her with such furious desire that she could practically taste blood in her mouth, and when she ground her hips against him and felt him throb in response, her entire body seemed to go up in flames.

He broke the kiss and looked at her. “Katarina,” he panted raggedly, “you don't know what you do to me.”

But she did know. She knew exactly what she did to him. Because he did it to
her
.

She wanted him. She wanted him right where they were standing, in her mother's garden. She ached for this man in a way that felt almost dangerous. But she peeled herself away and forced herself to gather up the basil she had dropped and tried to calm her breathing. “Let's eat lunch,” she said. “And maybe have a glass of wine. And while we eat, you can read me a little from Victoria's journals.”

“And after lunch?” he said. His voice was tight with desire.

She met his eyes, and the pupils were so dark and dilated that his gaze had practically gone black.

Her mouth had gone dry. It was hard to swallow. “Like I said earlier,” she said. “Dessert.”

He looked at her for another moment, his face naked with longing, and then he sighed and said, “You know, I understand that you mean something else when you say ‘dessert' and please know that I absolutely want what you are hinting at, and all that it implies, but”—a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth—“I really must know. Will there be actual dessert?”

She snorted, the tension broken. “Did I not just tell you about my mother? That kitchen is full of sweets.”

“
Sí, sí.
‘Why not more?'” he quoted happily. “Okay, good. Because,” he said slyly, “there is absolutely no reason why we can't have
both
kinds of dessert.”

She let out a groan and turned back toward the cottage.

“In fact,” he said, hurrying after her, “I bet we can think of some very clever ways to combine the two…”