Santiago

I pace the veranda, my path taking me from the open doors to stop beside the pool where the light makes the water glow iridescent. I should be asleep, tomorrow is a big day and I need to be at my best, but the closer we come to getting some information the more unsettled I become.

I don’t know if I am more anxious about finding the girl or if my guilt about lying to Bella is driving my inability to sleep. But sleep I cannot.

It’s been three full days in her company and I remember with an ease of lusty recollection every moment we spent together before I ruined everything between us.

These days have been a revelation to me. Isabella and I may not be the same but we get along surprisingly well and in a way that makes me pause and think about why I refused to be with her in the first place.

The reasons are all still right there but spending time with her this way, just the two of us, makes me waver in my belief.

Years ago, I felt a raging passion for a woman and thought myself deeply in love. In fact, I was deeply in love and married her because I could not imagine my life without her.

For the first year we were blissfully happy, to the point I didn’t care that Nona hated her and even left the villa for a month to make her unhappiness known.

I didn’t even bat an eyelash, just went on with my life because it wasn’t in me to choose between the woman I loved and my family. To me it was an easy decision. My wife came first, so deep was my devotion.

Until I caught her with another man.

The memory hurts me, even now, years after we divorced and I promised myself never to be that foolish and blinded by love…I will never allow myself to feel that depth of emotion again. Never.

When Mia, Luc’s wife was here in Spain - before she married Luc, of course - I thought for a brief time that perhaps we would make a good life together.

She didn’t love me, not the way she loves Luc in that all-consuming fashion that I once felt for my own wife. And I liked her, a lot. She was beautiful in this strange way with her ugly clothes, untidy hair and big glasses two sizes too big for her little face.

I felt attraction, yes, for she is an attractive woman and I am a highly sexed man. But that was all. The affection we shared was more friendship and to me it was enough to make a good marriage wherein I could keep my heart out of the equation and still have the family I need to have as heir to the Alvarez dynasty.

Mia did not love me, though, and she deserved so much more. She wanted the passionate love and the man of her dreams, so I let her go. Not long after she left she came back, this time with her friend Fran and her bodyguard Isabella ‘Jamaica’ Roberts.

I was in lust the first time I saw Isabella. She is the first woman of her stature, six feet on flat feet, that I found sexy as hell. Nothing about her is delicate but compared to me she is tiny.

I adored her athletic body with the large breasts and round ass. Her hair is a lustrous brown with blue streaks that I suspect she wears to make a point, namely that she can do anything she wants.

The woman is sex on legs and adds an element of danger to every encounter because, according to Fran, she can kill a man with nothing more than her hands.

I loved that she was as shy and sweet as she was strong, all at the same time. It also made me crazy with lust that I could be myself in bed, rough when I needed to be rough and soft when the mood struck.

I couldn’t hurt her with my size and that was a great turn on for a man who is always aware of a female’s delicacy. With Bella she took whatever I gave, with passion, and asked for more, always ready to give me more of herself.

In return, she wanted love and that I could never give her. It’s not that I don’t think she isn’t deserving of love but rather that she is, so I decided to let her go.

She isn’t cut out to be in a marriage where I will never cede my heart and I want more than a wife who will be miserable with me. When she left the first time, or rather when I made her leave, it was like a knife wound to the gut.

I couldn’t get over how much I missed her, wanted her. The women were my attempt at forgetting her and it almost worked until the day I attended Luc and Mia’s wedding.

To say that it floored me when I saw her is like saying an elephant is just an animal. I drank copious amounts of alcohol for the first time in my life to ignore the lust and need burning within me.

When I woke up beside her in the hotel room, her sweet body curved against mine, her smell and taste in my senses I almost said to hell with nobility and demanded she go home with me.

The only thing that stopped me was when she woke and smiled at me sleepily, love shining from her eyes. It was like a bucket of ice cold water, waking me from an insane dream.

I left, as hard and fast as my feet would carry me only to return again because I couldn’t resist. I was there to ask her to be mine with all the limits I had already pre-set on my life and what I would and would not do.

She was with Cassidy though and I know, deep down, that it’s not fair for me to be angry about that. I’d had other women and attempted to erase her from my memory.

And then she told me she was pregnant, after that damn photo I saw of her with Cassidy. I reacted badly, very badly, allowing the anger and sense of betrayal to rule my actions.

By the time I regained my senses she was hurt, the baby was gone and I felt as if my life had been ripped away. It hurt, a lot. I locked myself in my apartment in the city and drank until I couldn’t move or see straight, the guilt and self-disgust I felt for myself so strong I could not go to her.

I hate myself; I could not bear to see the same hate in her eyes.

So I stayed away, seeing her only when Mia let me visit and sometimes if I was lucky when I was on business in Italy and Luc would tip me off about where she was.

I’ve practically stalked Bella for the last months, waiting and biding my time. Because I will have her back and this time I will not let her go. I just need to find a way to make her want me again.

Before any of this happened, all it took for her to want me was a look, one simple touch and she was mine. Now all she does is stare through me or pretend she is my friend by keeping her anger at bay and smiling her empty smiles.

It’s driving me insane.

Breathing out a tired sigh, I lower myself to the lounger and breathe in the cooler night air, my mind working frantically because I want Bella to stay, I just do not know if she will after she discovers the whole truth.

I should have told her, I know this, but when I first saw her in the lobby of the Halifax building, her eyes blazing a degree of hatred that almost brought me to my knees, I knew that love had to come first, before the truth.

I may not be capable of love after my wife, but I need it from Isabella, as selfish as it is.

“Can’t sleep?”

I turn at the sound of her voice and shake my head, her soft footfalls almost silent as she comes closer and lies back on the opposite seat.

“I am terrified that this will not work,” I say, referring to keeping her while I know she thinks of the child.

“We’ll find her, Santiago, I promise, even if I have to look under every rock on this planet.”

I smile, adoring the vehemence and the utter trust she has in herself to make that promise. It also gives me a sense of hope that she would feel enough for me to want to help.

I pray to God above that she will still feel that way later, if she ever discovers everything that I have kept from her.

“Thank you, Bella.”

“Enough with the thanks, Santiago, I’m just doing my job. Technically, you’re my boss so I have to make this work,” she says primly, getting a startled laugh out of me.

Leave it to Bella to sort through it all and find that excuse to keep me at arm’s length.

“Sì, yes, perhaps that is true in a way,” I murmur, every kinky boss fantasy any red-blooded man has ever had flashing in my thoughts.

I have a desk in my study, one that has yet to see a woman bent over it. I grin at her, plotting the best way to have that fantasy become a reality and she rolls her eyes, huffing in disgust.

“You are such a guy.”

“Yes.” I grin unrepentantly, preening because I am a man, completely a man when it comes to Bella and I am glad she knows it.

She snorts, leaning back to look up at the star-studded sky.

“What are you willing to let me do if we don’t get results tomorrow?”

The question is so left field from the easy mood we are both in that I still and turn to look at her, sighing deeply when she meets my gaze head on and refuses to look away.

What am I willing to do? I cannot answer that question because I do not know. The child needs to be found, I will not rest until that happens but as for allowing others to step in, I also cannot do this.

They would start looking into everything and I don’t…I am not ready for that. All I want is a quiet, simple process where everyone involved focuses on the facts and finding the girl.

She is the one at the heart of the matter, history that happened six years ago.

“I do not know, Isabella. This revelation has been…hard for me to deal with. Nona was so angry when we first discovered the child’s existence. I have never seen her so devastated and angry. I swore to her that I would find the girl and right all the wrongs that have been done but I also have to consider the fallout,” I say softly, stiltedly, not wanting to reveal anything that I will have to lie about.

I have already told enough lies as it is.

She mutters something under her breath, a habit she has when she’s annoyed and I lean back, looking up at the stars, just happy to have her so close beside me.

“I don’t get the big deal. So what if people find out your brother had a lost love child that he did or did not know about before he died! A lot of people, celebrities even, have skeletons in their closets, Santiago. All that really matters is the kid.”

“Yes, and yet it is not just myself or Nona I must consider. I have an entire family who will be at the mercy of the press if this gets out before I can get everything done. I know the truth will get out, Isabella, I just do not want it out there before I can do what is right,”  I say softly, wondering if I have it in me to do it.

She sighs, rolling her head to look at me and I see her beautiful face bathed in silver moonlight and want her so badly, my cock becomes engorged and beats with the pulse of my desire.

I remember what it is to have Isabella, her usually strong personality submitting to me, her lithe body beneath mine, wet and burning for me. I am almost insane with lust every time I look at her, the memory of her sex so ready and tight taking my cock inside the liquid depths…

“So, if we find something tomorrow and we have the ability to get to her quickly, what then? Have you considered that this kid is what, six years old and could have been placed with a good family?” she asks, bringing forth something that I have not wanted to consider.

If she hasn’t been, it would be easy, but wishing it so would be to wish that the child has suffered years of unhappiness. So, I do not know what I wish to be true in that case and honestly, I cannot say I enjoy the thoughts.

If she was lucky, and my heart prays that she was, then I would be taking her from a loving family, parents she considers her own. Would she hate me for that, be angry that I took her back?

How can I do something like that? How can I not when she is my blood?

“I do not know what to think, Bella. One part of me hopes that she has found a loving family, while another reels against it because it would hurt her for me to take her away from them. The choices are not good, not one of them,” I say, my voice raw.

She does something then that both shocks and thrills me, reaching over to take my hand and offer me comfort.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I was about ten and my mom and dad both got locked up in the drunk tank for a night?”

I do not like these stories about her childhood. They make me so angry I am grateful that her parents are not a part of her life anymore in any way.

“No,” I mumble, keeping her hand in mine when she tries to pull away.

“Well, I was ten and my parents decided to have a blow out one night. They locked me in my room to make sure I didn’t get in the way and invited a whole bunch of people around. It was crazy. I heard noises and shouting and even a fight breaking out. It got so bad the cops showed up and my mom ran into my room and shoved me in the closet, made me promise not to come out. At the time I thought it was because thing were violent but I should have known she was only covering her own ass,” she says, snorting loudly with her memories.

“I stayed there all night and fell asleep. I was stuck in the closet, couldn’t get out because she’d locked it from the outside. It turns out they had all been arrested for disturbing the peace and some idiot had thrown a brick in the air and damaged a neighbor’s car…anyway, so they get locked up but I’m still in the closet the next morning and it’s so hot in there and I need to pee and I get hungry…by nightfall, I’d peed myself and I was so thirsty and hot from lack of clean air, I think I passed out. I woke up in the hospital. One of the neighbors called the cops and asked if they’d seen me so they came back to check.”

Holy mother of God. If it is possible to hate people I truly think I hate her parents. Violently.

“So, this social worker shows up at the hospital and they put me in this temporary place but see, it’s not…home. I could hate my folks and hate my house but when you’re used to it, it’s what you need somehow. I kept running away to get home and then eventually they just gave up and my parents got custody again because they’d complied and gone into AA. It didn’t last but it’s not like I expected it to. Anyway, that’s all. Sometimes it’s not easy. If I’d just given those people a chance, if they’d wanted to take the time to make me feel happy there…the child, if you want her here and you take the time to show her she’s loved and wanted, I think it’ll be okay. All children need is love and security, Santiago, they adapt astonishingly easily with those things in their lives.”

My heart lurches with hope and I turn to stare at her in the moonlight, not with lust, though the wanting is always there, but with true affection because she is so right for me.

Rolling to my feet, I came up and stop when I’m standing directly over her, the sight of her body in the small shorts and vest tee sending arrows of lust through me.

My body is yelling at me to strip her bare, lick her between her legs until she’s soaked and begging for release and then thrust every inch of me inside her heat.

Instead I lean down, slowly, letting her see my intention. Her eyes go wide and she brings her hands up to my chest but that’s where they stay, she doesn’t push at me.

“Santiago, what are you doing?”

I can see the pulse point beating erratically in her neck and knowing her heart beat has accelerated turns me on even more, this is a bad idea, very bad, seeing as I have a hard cock with nowhere to go, but I need just one taste.

Slowly, Santiago, I caution myself. You need to seduce her heart back to you, not have her see you as a bastard because all you give her is sex.

I want the sex badly, very badly, but I’d rather suffer the pain of unsatisfied arousal now to win her than slake myself on her body and lose her for good.

Silently bending, I press my lips to hers, keeping my mouth closed as the pillowy, soft cushions touch mine. It’s sweet but unsatisfying. I want to press her mouth open and push my tongue deep.

Kissing Bella was always a hugely arousing part of foreplay. She enjoys it so much, gets wet from just my taste in her mouth.

I keep the contact light, my arms touching the lounger at her shoulders, no part of me touching her save for my lips. Bella closes her eyes, her breath stuttering out of her nose and I hear her moan softly before her tongue comes out to flick at the seam of my lips.

I shudder, striving for control as she pushes her tongue into my mouth. I let her lead the kiss, giving her control for this once because if I don’t I may lose my mind and take her.

We kiss for what feels like hours before I pull back, breathing hard, to stare down at her. Bella is aroused, as I knew she would be, her nipples tight and hard against her shirt, her legs open as the scent of her arousal colors the air.

God, I want her, I think, rubbing a palm down to quail the erection in my cotton sleep pants. I’m obscenely aroused right now but I don’t care. I can’t take my eyes off her as she undulates and clenches her legs, searching for relief.

Go, Santiago, walk way, I tell myself even as something inside my head snaps. She gasps when I rip her shorts and underwear off in one jerking movement and bites into her lip when I fall to my knees, wrap both hands around her thighs and pull her to the edge of the lounger.

“Santi-”

The words end on a muffled gasp drowned out by my own growls when I open her and press my mouth directly to her pink folds. Her taste is a sticky, musky slide over my tongue that has my cock thumping its own demand.

I ignore it and open her with my thumbs, licking a path from her gripping entrance to the hard nub at the top of her slit. She bucks when I close my lips around her, sucking hard on the little kernel, just the way she likes me to.

I want to stay here forever and just drink her down but we’re out in the open and I’m so hard I can feel beads of pre-come wetting the fabric of my pants.

So I eat her furiously, swiping down to push my tongue inside before going back to sucking her nub. I repeat this over and over until she’s right on the edge of release, her thighs quivering beside my head.

When she’s almost there, just on the precipice I push two large, thick fingers into her, deep and suck down hard. She bucks hard against me, hitting her peak with a muffled scream while her sex clenches strongly around my fingers and flutters around my fingers.

God above, I want inside her now, so deep she’ll experience that pleasurable pain of over fullness.

I give her sex one last lick, pull my saturated fingers out and rise, breathing unsteadily.

“Santiago-”

“Come, Bella.” I growl, holding my hand out to her while she looks at me through drowsy eyes.

She takes my hand and gets to her feet, slightly unsteady so I bend and pick her up, cradling her limp body to my chest. She doesn’t utter a word, just watches me as I carry her back inside to the room and lay her on the cool sheets.

“Santi-”

“Sleep well, Bella. Sweet dreams.”

I turn and leave before she can say a word or I lose my control. I should go have a cold shower to assuage the pain of unsated lust but I choose to feel it, sitting in the dark for hours with the slow throb aching through my body.

I relish the feeling, knowing that by the time I have my Bella again it will be explosive.