Santiago's Love-Child. KIM LAWRENCE

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СКАЧАТЬ exchanging a few polite words with the couple, who were apparently frequent visitors to the hotel, the handsome stranger had walked away. It had only been later in the evening that Lily had found out his identity—his name was Santiago Morais, and he owned the hotel, and, so it appeared, a whole lot else.

      He had barely even acknowledged she was there.

      Except for a kind of stiff inclination of his head in her general direction, no eye contact—even the most generous of judges would have to conclude that it had been pretty thin material for a night’s steamy fantasies. The eyes across a crowded room, soul-mate stuff had been a product of her overactive imagination.

      She was shaking her head over her own pathetic self-delusion as she heaved herself out of the pool and sat, knees up to her chin, eyes closed and head tilted back to catch the warmth of the early-morning rays.

      When she opened them the cause of her sleepless night, Santiago Morais, was standing there looking down at her.

      ‘Good morning. I trust you slept well?’ In contrast to his formal enquiry there was nothing vaguely formal about the restless febrile glitter she saw in his deep-set, heavy-lidded eyes before he slid a pair of designer shades on.

      Lily didn’t say anything, partly because the sight of him casually peeling off his shirt had paralysed her vocal cords.

      She watched, too shocked to guard her expression as he dragged a hand through his dark hair and set off a sequence of distracting muscle-rippling. He really didn’t have an ounce of surplus flesh on his athletically lean frame.

      ‘I didn’t sleep well at all,’ he revealed without waiting for Lily to answer his question.

      ‘Sorry,’ she croaked, thinking he didn’t look as if he’d had a disturbed night. He was oozing an indecent degree of vitality, or was that testosterone? Things deep in her pelvis tightened and ached as she focused hazily on his criminally sexy mouth. Bad idea!

      Don’t drool, be objective, Lily, she warned herself severely.

      ‘Did you have a good swim?’ he asked, unzipping his jeans to reveal a flat stomach with perfect muscle definition and a light dusting of dark hair.

      ‘I was just leaving.’

      He had been watching her…? The thought caused a secret shiver to pass through Lily’s body. She lifted her arm in a concealing arc over her tingling nipples, and pulled herself up onto her knees just as the worn denim of his jeans slid down his narrow hips.

      As she took in his muscular thighs complete with a light dusting of body hair her breath quickened to the point where she was not so much breathing as noisily gasping for air.

      If only for the sake of her own traumatised heart, she knew she ought to avert her eyes. Heaven knew, she tried, but she couldn’t; her eyes were glued to his body. He was so beautiful. She could remember feeling awkward, clumsy and overweight in comparison to his sleek hardness.

      ‘I meant to lose some weight for this summer,’ she explained, feeling the sudden need to apologise for her appearance.

      Above his designer shades Santiago’s sable brows lifted. Behind the dark lenses it was hard to see what he was thinking, but she could guess—Crazy woman, where is security when I need it?

      She smiled to show she was actually sane. ‘But you know how it is.’ Stupid, of course he doesn’t.

      Her attention was irresistibly drawn back to his body. By this point he had stripped down to a pair of black swimming shorts that left enough to the imagination to send her temperature soaring several degrees.

      The sensation she experienced when she looked at his streamlined golden body was a lot as she imagined drowning might be. The inability to breathe; the heavy pounding of her heart…only drowning would feel cold and she was hot…very hot! She took a deep, shaky breath as she struggled to get her breathing back on track and averted her eyes from the arrow of dark hair that dived below the waistband of his shorts.

      ‘Why would you want to lose any pounds?’

      Lily didn’t take Santiago’s bewilderment seriously. ‘You’ve got very nice manners, but I know I’m fat,’ she explained matter-of-factly. ‘I can’t even blame it on my genes; apparently my mother was slim.’ Her grandmother, who like many people equated extra pounds with laziness, had been fond of regretfully observing that Lily had missed out on her mother’s good looks.

      ‘Fat…!’ His incredulity gave way to laughter, deep, warm laughter. Through the smoky lenses of his sunglasses she was aware of his eyes moving in a broad, caressing sweep down the length of her body. When he reached her toes he released a long, appreciative sigh. ‘You are not fat!’ He dismissed the claim with a contemptuous motion of his hand.

      Lily was so startled when, without warning, he dropped down onto his heels until his eyes were almost level with hers that it didn’t even occur to her to protest when he reached across and took her chin in his hand.

      He looked into her round, startled eyes. His slow smile made her stomach flip. In this enlightened age Lily wasn’t sure if predatory should be turning her on.

      ‘What you are is soft…’ His voice was deep and dark and textured like deepest velvet. She trembled violently as his thumb moved in a circular motion over the apple of her smooth cheek and she experienced another debilitating rush of heat. ‘And lush.’ His glance settled on her slightly parted lips. ‘And very, very feminine. An hourglass figure is something that men will always admire.’

      Gordon hadn’t thought so, and Lily felt qualified to disagree. ‘Not all men,’ she contended huskily.

      He dismissed this unappreciative minority with a contemptuous shrug. ‘Why do you constantly run yourself down?’ he wondered, letting his hand fall from her face and frowning.

      ‘I don’t,’ she protested, placing the back of her hand against the place his fingers had touched her skin and feeling ridiculously bereft.

      He looked amused. ‘It is obviously an ingrained pattern of behaviour.’

      ‘That’s me, a hopeless case. Look, it’s been very nice talking to you…’ Surreal was much nearer the mark. There was no mystery about why she was hopelessly attracted to him, the mystery was why he should even pretend to feel similarly about her. ‘But I really must be—’ His deep voice cut smoothly across her.

      ‘Not hopeless, querida. An appreciative lover, someone who could teach you to enjoy your own body, could cure you.’

      Having begun to get to her feet, Lily sank back down as her legs literally folded beneath her. ‘Are you offering?’ In her head it sounded ironic, the sort of slick comeback that invited laughter. Unfortunately it actually emerged sounding humiliatingly hopeful.

      ‘And if I was would you be interested?’

      Lily didn’t smile; she was too busy panicking. To take him seriously would obviously be a major mistake and a direct route to total humiliation. ‘I suppose that’s your idea of a joke,’ she snapped.

      ‘I am not laughing,’ he pointed out tautly.

      Lily, who had noticed this, swallowed. There was a driven intensity in his manner that she didn’t СКАЧАТЬ