His Revenge Seduction: The Mélendez Forgotten Marriage / The Konstantos Marriage Demand / For Revenge or Redemption?

His smile was on the edge of mocking. ‘Because I know you, Emelia. I know how you respond to me. A couple of minutes more and you would have been begging for it.’

There was nothing figurative about the slap Emelia landed on the side of Javier’s face. It jerked his head back, made his nostrils flare and his mouth tighten to a flat line of tension. ‘You know, you really shouldn’t have done that,’ he said with a coolness she was sure he was nowhere near feeling.

Emelia refused to wilt under his hard black gaze. ‘You insulted me. You practically called me a wanton tramp.’

One of his hands rubbed at the red hand-sized mark on his jaw. ‘So if someone allegedly insults you it’s OK to use violence?’ he asked.

She bit the inside of her mouth, suddenly ashamed of how she had reacted, but there was no way she was going to apologise to him. She turned and searched for her bikini, struggling to put it back on while still in the water. She was conscious of Javier’s eyes following her every movement and her resentment and anger hardened like a golf ball-sized lump in the middle of her chest. Once she was covered, she stomped up the pool steps, snatching up her towel on the way past the sun lounger where she had left it.

The moment Emelia came out of the en suite bathroom after a lengthy shower she knew something was amiss. Her eyes went to the bed where a black leather briefcase was lying at the foot of it. She heard the sound of someone moving about in the walk-in wardrobe and, clutching her bathrobe a little tighter, spun around to find Aldana coming out with some spare coat hangers.

‘What’s going on?’ Emelia asked in Spanish.

The housekeeper gave her a pursed-lipped look. ‘Señor Mélendez instructed me to hang his clothes.’

Emelia’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘What? In…in here?’

Aldana gave a shrug as she walked past. ‘It is none of my business what he wants or why. I just do as I am told. He wanted me to bring his things back in here where they belong.’

The housekeeper left before Emelia could respond and within seconds Javier strode in. She turned on him, her eyes flashing with fury. ‘Qué diablos está pasando?’ she asked. ‘What the hell is going on?’

He stood very still for a moment before responding in Spanish. ‘I could ask you the very same thing. What the hell is going on? Especially as it seems at least some part of your memory has returned without you telling me.’

Emelia felt her cheeks fill with colour. ‘I…I was going to tell you…’

‘When did it happen?’ he asked.

She could barely hold his gaze as she confessed. ‘I found myself understanding it and speaking it from the start. I don’t know why. It was just…there.’

‘How convenient.’

Emelia’s hands tightened where they clutched the neckline of her bathrobe. ‘I know what you’re thinking but it’s not true. I don’t remember anything else. I swear to you.’

He gave her a cynical smile that contained no trace of amusement. ‘I met Pedro the stable boy on my way in earlier,’ he said. ‘He was full of excitement over how you remembered your mare’s name without any prompting from him.’

Emelia pressed her lips together. ‘I forgot I remembered…’ It sounded as stupid as she felt and she lowered her gaze from the hard probe of his, hating herself for blushing.

‘He also told me you have finally ridden your horse,’ he said.

‘I can’t explain why I never rode Callida before.’ She looked up at him again. ‘You must have been very annoyed with me after spending so much money on such a beautiful animal.’

He held her gaze for a long moment. ‘It wasn’t the first present you rejected of late,’ he said. ‘It seemed over the last few weeks nothing I did for you or bought for you could please you.’

Emelia wondered if she had been hankering after more from him than what money could buy. It seemed much more in line with her true character. She had been given expensive gifts for most of her life but they hadn’t made her feel any more secure.

Javier used two fingers to lift her chin, searing her gaze with his. ‘I want you to tell me the moment you remember anything else, do you understand? I don’t care what time of day it is or if I am away or here. Just tell me.’

She let out an uneven breath as she stepped out from under his hold. ‘You can’t force me to remember you, Javier. It doesn’t happen like that. I read up about it. Sometimes the memories are blocked because of trauma, either physical or emotional or maybe even both.’

A muscle worked in his jaw, the silence stretching and stretching like a threadbare piece of elastic.

‘So what you are saying is you might be subconsciously blocking all memory of our life together?’ he finally said.

Emelia released her bottom lip from the savaging of her teeth. ‘I’m not sure if that’s what has happened or not,’ she said. ‘Was there something that happened that might have caused me to do that? Something deeply upsetting, I mean.’

The silence stretched again, even further this time.

‘I was away the day you left for London,’ Javier said heavily. He waited a beat before continuing. ‘I had only just come back from Moscow when we had an argument. I flew straight back afterwards.’

Emelia felt a frown tugging at her forehead. ‘What did we argue about?’

His eyes met hers briefly before moving away to focus on a point beyond her left shoulder. ‘The papers had printed some rubbish about me being involved with someone in Russia, a nightclub singer.’

Emelia felt a fist wrap itself around her heart. ‘Was it…was it true?’

His dark eyes flashed with irritation as they came back to hers. ‘Of course it wasn’t true. I have to deal with those rumours all the time. I thought you were OK about it. We’d talked about it early in our marriage. We used to laugh about some of the stuff that was printed.

I warned you what it would be like, that there would be constant rumours, often set off by business rivals.’

He stopped to scrape a hand through his hair. ‘But this time for some reason you refused to accept my explanation. You got it in your head that I was playing up behind your back. It seemed nothing I said would change your mind.’

‘So we had an argument…’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid it was a bit of an ugly scene.’

Emelia raised her brows questioningly. ‘How ugly?’

He let out a long tense breath. ‘There was a lot of shouting and name calling. We were both angry and upset. I should have cut the argument short but I was annoyed because you seemed determined to want our marriage to be something it was never intended to be.’

Emelia sent him a let’s-see-if-you-can-deny-this look. ‘So apparently I wasn’t too happy you had married me to gain access to your father’s estate, right?’

His dark gaze turned flinty. ‘That was one of the things we argued about, yes. While I was away, my father’s mistress had rung you and filled your head with that and other such nonsense to get back at me. But the truth is my reasons for marrying you had very little to do with my father’s will.’

She rolled her eyes in disbelief. ‘Oh, come now, Javier. You talk of our marriage as some sort of business proposal, rules and regulations and me suddenly stepping outside of them. What the hell was the point of being married if not because we loved each other?’

‘Love was not part of the deal,’ he said, shocking Emelia into silence. ‘I wanted a wife. Some of the business people I deal with are old-fashioned and conservative in their views. They feel more comfortable dealing with a man in a seemingly stable relationship. I know it sounds a little cold-blooded but you were quite happy to take on the corporate wife role. We were ideally matched physically. It was all I wanted from you and you from me.’

She stood looking at him with her emotions reeling. How could she have agreed to such a marriage? A relationship based on sex and nothing else? Had she turned into a clone of her father’s set, in spite of her determination not to? She had become a trophy wife, an exotic bird in a gilded cage. Indulged and pampered until her mind went numb.

Javier let out another breath and sent his hand through his hair again. ‘Emelia…’ He hesitated for a moment before he continued. ‘You might not remember it but we made love during that last argument.’

Emelia felt her brows lift again but remained silent.

His gaze remained steady on hers. ‘In hindsight, it was perhaps not the best way to leave things between us. There was so much left unresolved. I have had cause to wonder if that is why you rushed off to London the way you did.’

Emelia searched her mind for some trace of that scene but nothing came to her. ‘Did I explain why I left? In a note or something?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

Hope flickered in her chest. ‘Can I see it?’

‘I tore it into shreds,’ he said, his mouth tightening at the memory. ‘I got home from Moscow two days after you left. That is another thing I am not particularly proud of. I should have come straight to London as soon as I knew you were there. I was packing a bag when I got the call about the accident.’

‘What did I say in the note?’ Emelia asked.

He looked at her silently for several moments. ‘You said you were leaving me, that you no longer wanted to continue with our marriage. You wanted out.’

Emelia rubbed at her forehead, as if that would unlock the memories stored inside her head. OK, so she had been leaving him. That much was pretty certain. Was it because she had become tired of their shallow relationship, as Izabella had suggested? Emelia knew she must have been very unhappy to have come to that decision. Unhappy or desperate. ‘The rumours…’ she said. ‘You mentioned a few days ago there was some speculation about my relationship with Peter Marshall. Did you afford me the same level of trust you expected of me, in similar if not the same circumstances?’

He visibly tensed; all of his muscles seemed to contract as if sprayed with fast setting glue. ‘I am the first to admit that I was jealous of your relationship with him,’ he said, biting each word out from between his clenched teeth. ‘He seemed at great pains whenever I was around to show me just how close you were. He was always touching you, slinging an arm around your waist or shoulders. It made me want to lash out.’

Emelia frowned at his vehement confession. ‘Peter was a touchy-feely sort of person. It was just his way. I am sure I would have told you that right from the start.’

His eyes flashed with heat. ‘You did, but it still annoyed the hell out of me.’

He was jealous. He hated admitting it, Emelia was sure, but he was positively vibrating with it. She could see it in the way he held himself, his hands clenching and unclenching as if he wanted to hit something.

He paced the room a couple of times before he came back to stand in front of her. ‘If I was wrong about your relationship with Marshall then I am sorry,’ he said. ‘All the evidence pointed to you being guilty of an affair, but in hindsight there are probably numerous explanations for why you were in that car with him.’

Emelia felt a weight come off her shoulders. ‘You truly believe I wasn’t unfaithful?’

He held her look for endless seconds. ‘Let’s just let it go,’ he said on a long breath. ‘I don’t want to be reminded of the mistakes I have made in the past. We have to concentrate on the here and now. I want to see you get well again. I feel it is my fault you were almost killed. I cannot forgive myself for driving you away in such an emotionally charged state. I should have insisted we sit down and sort things out like two rational adults. Instead, I let business take precedence, hoping things would settle down by the time I got back.’

Emelia stood looking at him in silence. His gruff admission of guilt stirred her deep inside. She could tell it was unfamiliar territory for him. He didn’t seem the type to readily admit when he was in the wrong.

She breathed in the clean male scent of him as he stood so broodingly before her. He had showered and changed into a polo shirt and casual trousers. His hair was still damp, ink-black and curling at the ends where it needed a trim. She wanted to run her hands through it the way she used to do…She jolted as if he had struck her, staring up at him, her heart beating like a hyperactive hammer.

‘What’s wrong?’he asked, taking her by the shoulders.

She looked up into his face, frowning as she tried to focus on the sliver of memory that had made its way through. As if by their own volition, her hands went to his hair, her fingers playing with the silky strands in slow, measured strokes. She saw his throat move up and down and, glancing at his mouth, she felt another tiny flicker of recognition. Her right hand went to his lips, her fingers tracing over the tense line, again and again until it finally softened, the slight rasp of his evening shadow as she stroked the leanness of his jaw, the only sound, apart from their breathing, in the silence.

‘Emelia—’ his voice was low and deep and scratchy ‘—what have you remembered?’

She looked into his dark eyes. ‘Your hair…I remembered running my fingers through it…lots and lots of times…It’s longer now, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, I’ve been too busy to get it cut.’ His grip on her shoulders tightened and his eyes were intense as they held hers. ‘Can you remember anything else?’ he asked.

‘I’m not sure…’ Emelia tried to focus again. ‘It was just a fleeting thing. Like a flashback or something.’

His hands slipped down from her shoulders to encircle her wrists, his thumbs absently stroking her. ‘Don’t force it. It will come when it wants to. We have to be patient.’ He let out a rough sounding sigh and added ruefully, ‘I have to be patient.’

Emelia felt the drugging warmth of his touch on the undersides of her wrists. Her blood leapt in her veins and she wondered if he could feel the way he affected her. Her belly was turning into a warm pool of longing, her legs unsteady as his eyes came to hers, holding them for a pulsing moment.

Time seemed to slow and then stand impossibly still.

Without a word, he lifted one of his hands to the curve of her cheek, cupping her face gently, his thumb moving back and forth in a mesmerising touch that seemed to stroke away every single reason why she should ease back out of his embrace. Instead, she found herself stepping closer, her body touching his from chest to thigh, feeling the stirring of his body against her, the hot hard heat of him lighting a fire that she now realised had smouldered within her from the moment she had woken up in the hospital and encountered his dark unreadable gaze.

‘Emelia.’

The way he said her name was her undoing. Low and deep, an urgency in the uttering of the syllables, a need that she could feel resonating in her own body, like a tuning fork being struck too hard, humming, vibrating and quivering with want.

She lifted her mouth to the slow descent of his, her arms snaking around his middle, her breasts pressed up against his hard chest, a feeling, as his lips sealed hers and his hands cradled her head, that she had finally come home…

Chapter Seven

EMELIA sighed with pleasure as Javier’s mouth urged hers into a heated response. Desire was like a punch, hitting her hard as his tongue deftly searched for hers. He found it, toyed with it, stroking and stabbing, calling it into a dance that mimicked what was to come. Her body felt as if spot fires had been set all through it, the blood raced and thundered in her veins as his kiss grew all the more insistent, all the more hotly sensual. The delicate network of nerves in her core twanged with need, her breasts tightened and tingled where they were pressed against him, and her mouth was slippery and wet and hot with greedy want as it fed off his.

His hands moved from cupping her face to pressing against the small of her back, bringing her hard against him. Emelia felt the outline of his erection; it stirred something deep and primal in her. Her thighs trembled as she felt the slickness of need anointing her. She sent her hands on their own journey of discovery: the hard planes of his back and shoulders, the taut trimness of his waist, the leanness of his hips and the heat and throbbing of his blood rising so proud and insistent from between his legs.

He groaned against her mouth, something unintelligible, a mixture of Spanish, English and desperation as her fingers freed him from his clothing. He stepped out of the pool of his trousers, his shoes thudding to the floor as he succumbed to her touch. She felt another punch of lust in her belly. She wondered if this was how it had been from the start of their relationship. Physical attraction that was unstoppable, not underpinned with feelings other than primal lust.

Javier shrugged himself out of his shirt, tossing it aside before he started to work on hers. He pulled her top away from one of her shoulders, his hot mouth caressing the smooth flesh he had uncovered. Emelia gave herself up to the heady feel of his lips and teeth, her legs quivering with expectation as he continued the sensual journey, removing her clothes and replacing them with his mouth until she was standing in nothing but her lacy knickers.

His eyes were almost completely black as he stood looking at her, his hands on her hips, his touch sending livewires of need to her core.

Emelia’s fingers splayed over his chest, the hard smooth muscles delighting her, the thunder of his heartbeat against her palm. She pressed a hot wet kiss to his throat, moving down, through the rough dark hair that narrowed from his chest to his groin. She went to her knees in front of him and he sprang up against her, hard, hot and swollen. She breathed over him, the air from her mouth making him tense all over. She touched him with the tip of her tongue, a light experimental taste that had him gripping her by the shoulders, his fingers digging in almost painfully as he anchored himself. She stroked her tongue along the satin length of him, feeling each pulsing ridge of his flesh, delighting in the way his breathing intervals shortened, the way the muscles of his abdomen clenched and his fingers dug even deeper into the flesh of her shoulders.

Before she could complete her sensual mission he hauled her back up to her feet, his eyes almost feverish with desire as they locked on hers. ‘Enough of that for now,’ he said. ‘I won’t last.’

Emelia could feel the pressure building inside him and wanted to feel it inside her, to feel him stretching her, filling her, possessing her totally, irrevocably.

His mouth came back to hers, hungrily, feeding off her with a new desperation as his body pulsed with urgency against hers. His hand cupped her feminine mound, a possessive touch that made every hair on her scalp lift in anticipation. The lacy barrier of her knickers only intensified the scalding heat of his touch. She arched up against him, an unspoken need crying out from every pore of her flesh.

He moved her to the bed, guiding her, pushing her, urging her with his mouth still seared to hers, his tongue enslaving hers.

Emelia gasped as he peeled her knickers away, the brush of lace against her thighs nothing to what it felt like to have his mouth do the same. His hot breath whispered down her thighs and up again and then against her feminine folds, his fingers gently separating her, his tongue tasting her like an exotic elixir. She whimpered as the sensations rippled through her, everything in her fizzled and sparked with feeling. She writhed under his erotic touch, panting against the building crescendo. Her fingers dug into the cover on the bed, her heart racing as he continued his shockingly intimate caress until she finally exploded. It was a hundred sensations at once: a cataclysmic eruption, a tidal wave, a landslide, every nerve twitching in the aftermath, her chest rising and falling as her breathing fought to return to normal. She felt limbless, floating on a cloud of release, wondering how many times he had done this to her. How could she have forgotten such rapture?

But it was not over.

Javier moved up over her, his strong thighs gently nudging hers apart, his erection brushing against her swollen flesh. His expression was contorted with concentration, a fierce determination to keep control. She felt it in the way he held himself as if he was worried he would hurt her in his own quest for release. She reassured him by stroking his back, urging him to complete the union, positioning her body to receive him, aching to feel that musky male thickness inside her.

He groaned as he surged into her slick warmth, the skin of his back lifting under her fingertips. She felt him check himself but she was having none of it. She urged him on again, lifting her hips to meet the downward thrust of his, the pumping action of his body sending waves of shivering delight through her. His breathing quickened, his body rocking with increasing speed, carrying her along with him on the racing breakneck tide. She felt the stabbing heat of him, the primal rush of her senses pulling her into another vortex. She arched some more, the tight ache beginning all over again as he thrust all the harder and faster. She panted beneath the sweat-slicked heat of him, the hairs on his chest tickling her breasts, her molten core tingling for that final trigger that would send her to paradise once more.

He slid one of his hands down between their rocking bodies, his fingers finding the swollen-with-need pearl of her body, the stroking motion tipping her over the edge into oblivion.

As she was swirling back from the abyss of pleasure she felt him work himself to orgasm, the way he thrust on, his breathing ragged and heavy, his primalsounding grunts as he finally let go making her shiver all over in response.

The silence was heavy and scented with sex.

Emelia opened her eyes after timeless minutes to see Javier propped up on his elbows, looking down at her with those unreadable black eyes. She felt shy all of a sudden. She had not thought her body capable of such feeling, of such powerful mind-blowing responses. He had stirred her so deeply, and not just physically. It was more than that, so much more. She felt a feather brush over her heart. She felt a fluttering feeling in her stomach, like the wings of a small bird. She tried to hold on to the image that had appeared like a ghost inside her mind, but it vaporised into nothingness before she could make sense of it.

Javier brushed a damp strand of her hair back from her face. ‘You have a faraway look on your face,’ he said.

Emelia blinked herself back to the present. ‘I thought I remembered something else but it’s gone.’

As if sensing her frustration, he bent his head and kissed her forehead softly. ‘As long as you don’t forget this,’ he said, kissing both of her eyebrows in turn. ‘And this.’ He kissed the end of her nose. ‘And this.’ He kissed the corner of her mouth and she turned her head so her lips met his.

The heat leapt from his mouth to hers, the lightning flash of his tongue meeting hers causing an instant conflagration of the senses. Emelia felt the stiffening of his body where it was still encased in hers, the rapid rise of her pulse in time with his as he started moving within her. She ran her fingers through his hair, down over his shoulders, his back and then grasped the firm flesh of his buttocks, relishing the tension she could feel building in his body.

‘It is always this way between us,’ he growled against her mouth. ‘Once is never enough. I want you like I want no other woman. This need, it never goes away.’

Emelia felt a spurt of feminine pride that she had captivated his desire in such a way. ‘I want you too,’ she said, giving herself up to his passionately determined kiss.

He left her mouth to suckle on her breasts, a light teasing movement of his lips that left her breathless for more. He kissed the sensitive underside of each breast before coming back to her mouth, crushing it beneath his as his need for release built.

This time his lovemaking was fast and furious, as if all the frustration at her not remembering could only be expressed through the passionate connection of their bodies. He rolled her over until she was on top, his hands cupping her breasts as his dark eyes held hers. ‘You like it like this, querida,’ he said in a deep gravelly voice. ‘Make yourself come against me. Let me watch you.’