Her Irresistible Guardian Page 4

  “We’ll be in meetings with the hotel staff most of the day tomorrow, but I believe we can use Sunday for relaxing.” He gave her this next piece of information.

  Relaxing? Not a chance! All her nerves, neurones, hormones were on the alert for him. She could barely sit still, let alone relax! And they weren’t sitting that near each other either. His jet was all but small: the most comfortable and luxuriously decorated piece of technology she had ever seen. Nevertheless, she wasn’t going to be an added number on his list of endless and changeable lovers. They had a too long story for that. And she preferred her independence compared to the control-freak he appeared to be.

  “Was there any special reason for your choosing Mallorca?” He sat back nonchalant, his muscled arms resting on the seat, his powerfully long legs stretched ahead. He wore tailored grey trousers and white shirt, but no tie and no coat. A patch of his hairy virile chest showed on the couple of unbuttoned units on his collar.

  “It’s a mere three-hour flight from London, warm and the hotels offer many seminar packages, as this is a very common business destination.” She kept her voice neutral, but she didn’t know for how long she would succeed in that.

  He nodded and stared at her with his intense focus, causing goose-bumps to erupt all over her.

  It was past nine in the evening when they arrived at the hotel and occupied their rooms. Close rooms from one another weren’t available, so they were in different wards in the same floor.

  “Dinner in fifteen?” He asked, helping her with her bag.

  “Sounds fine, thanks. We can meet in the lobby.” Without giving him the chance to contradict her and find an excuse to come to her room, she closed the door.

  The hotel was in the city centre, but on the top of the hills overlooking the coast, seeded now with the evening lights which she admired, standing by her window.

  The temperature was warm and agreeable. She chose a summer dress, discreet and elegant for dinner, which transpired her lush body without being vulgar. Her silky cinnamon curls were falling around her heart-shaped face to the middle of her back, giving her translucent honey-eyes a special radiance. A touch of lip-gloss on her full lips completed her appearance.

  He stalked self-assured through the lobby, eyeing her as if he was her man. Her heart leapt and her female radars focused on his tall powerful figure. She had to keep her distance from him or she’d be butter-easily lost. He offered her his arm and she took it, remembering a distant day when he conducted her to the dance-floor in a prom. It was when she became thunderously aware of how she felt about him.

  They sat at the dimly lit dinner lounge under appreciative stares of men and women alike. Mark was sure there wasn’t a more beautiful woman in the entire world. And he ached from the want of her.

  They sat at a corner table and the waiter lit a candle for them. The flames played in her eyes, making them astoundingly bright. But when she saw the effect of the candle in Mark’s eyes, her breath got caught in her throat. It made his green eyes darker and mysterious with a barely concealed heated sensuality. Damn him for forcing her to come!

  The dinner elapsed tensely. Her body was all wired with the most varied hungers, except for food. She was able to eat and drink very little. She could hardly take her eyes from his couple-of-buttons opened collar. And what answers she gave to his polite questions were yet to be elucidated.

  “I gather you like it hot...” Mark was saying.

  Her eyes were hovering on his thin sensuous lips and she didn’t hear a word he said. “Excuse me?”

  He smiled amused. And his smile stunned her more than she could admit. He rarely smiled. He was a serious grave person who pursued perfection. His smile illuminated his face and it mesmerized her. “The sun, of course.”

  “Oh, yes, sure.” She babbled absent-mindedly.

  “And what else do you like hot?” His voice was deeper, hoarser. His eyes bored at her and she knew he was not talking about the weather, not in hell!

  “Tea.” She managed, but her throat sent it silky and low. The double edged communication was on.

  “I like it hot, if you ask me.” His darkened ogle caressed her lips, then her long creamy neck, going slowly down to her cleavage and the full breasts it promised.

  Her lips parted on their own accord as lightning-like sensations reaped her womb thoroughly. Reactively, she moistened her mouth and swallowed, trying desperately to keep dominion over herself.

  His stare narrowed as she was a prey. The mossy twin-perdition darted at her honey-pools and both were almost drowning in attraction.

  She pulled her untouched dessert signalling the end of her meal. “It’s late.” She said in a groan that didn’t seem to be hers.

  He signed the bill, stood helping her with her chair and took her elbow. It was an electric silence in the lift and he had eyes only for her. But she couldn’t seem to be able to meet his intensely desirous glare.

  They reached her room; he took the card from her hand and opened the door. They glared at each other for a long moment and Amy was almost being engulfed in the heavily charged sexuality between them.

  “We have a busy day tomorrow. We’d better call it an evening. Thank you for the dinner.” It was either now or never. “Good night.” She forced a polite smile, grabbed her card and shut the door. She leaned on the closed door, eyes shut and a long sigh.

  It wasn’t so easy for Mark, though. His body was all ready for her and he reckoned it’d be difficult to cope with this perfidious sexual frustration. A cold shower would help him down there, but the flames that were burning him to ashes from the inside wouldn’t be so easily appeased.

  Next was a tiresome day after a badly slept night. They were around the hotel deciding about meeting-rooms and equipment; negotiating meals, services, accommodation and dates. It was already dark when they finished, but all had been settled.

  “We can go out for dinner and enjoy the night-life. What do you think?” Mark was up for a strong hold of her, she could sense.

  “Maybe. Let me just refresh a little and we can talk later, shall we?” She evaded carefully.

  “Sure.” Exiting the lift, each one went to their own room.

  Amy rushed for the shower, put on a flowery loose dress, a little make up and left her room in ten minutes. Like hell she’d spend an evening as the one before, feeling trapped and cornered by unwanted reactions to him! She descended by the stairs, left a written message to Mark saying she preferred to go out alone and took a taxi. She avoided thinking about what Mark would think or feel or do. If she did, she’d stay to keep him company and repeat last evening’s disgrace.

  The cab-driver recommended a stylish restaurant where she ate delicious paella with a tiny chalice of Lacrima wine. Then she went to a night-club where they played typical Spanish modern music. She met a Danish girl her age, who was also alone, and they had a wonderful time together. Amy never drank alcohol when alone, for safety issues. It was early morning when she bid Trine good-bye and took the taxi back.

  As he left Amy at the lift, after the meetings, Mark went to his room, took a shower and dressed smart. He called her room, but no answer. Maybe she was still in the shower or something. He couldn’t wait to be with her again. Even after that busy day. She was infecting his blood to no end. He called again, to no avail. So he walked to her room and knocked nothing. He went down expecting her to be sitting in the lobby. She wasn’t, so he asked at the reception. It was when they gave him her note. A Vulcan of fury erupted in the depths of him. How dared she leave him? Ignore him? Thwart him? The brat! To think that he had envisioned a totally different weekend. No woman had ever done that to him. And he was fuming, with a sense of frustration too big to swallow.

  So he went out to dinner at a luxury restaurant, where unaccompanied women fancied him non-stop. He didn’t have stomach for any. He wanted her! Only her. Coming back he sat at the lobby bar with a whisky in his hand and an eye at the front door. The world felt colourless without her. That was
the truth. He remembered how life was suspended in a limbo during her college years. How gloomy the last two Christmas were as she hadn’t come home! By now his anger had faded and he could see the reason behind it. But he didn’t dare name it.

  For good measure, Amy entered the hotel by the car park. She knew Mark would be waiting for her. It had happened so many times before. She passed behind the lobby bar and saw him sitting there, back to her, watching the front door, as she had predicted. His head was bent and he watched his full glass intently. The tall muscled figure of him emanated an impression of deepness. The view of him clicked a subtle thing inside her. It was just a trifle of compunction. There was something else, though, and she couldn’t define what exactly. She slipped to her room; she had taken the room card with her. She reposed her head on her pillow and slept with a lumpy sensation inside her.

  Amy awoke mid-morning and went down for breakfast. Mark was probably still asleep, she reckoned. She decided she didn’t want to spend such a warm sunny day in her room. Another note at the reception and she took a taxi to a beach on the other side of the island. The taxi arrived at a small turquoise-water and sugar-sand beach, deserted, as far as she could see. She settled a time for the driver come to pick her up and walked to a large ancient tree with a beach chair and her bag. Unfastening her sarong, she sat under the shade in her tiny bikini and spread her sun lotion over her creamy skin. Amy contemplated the beautiful untouched scenario and felt a deep serenity.

  She had been sitting for ten minutes when she saw someone coming in her direction. A muscled tall god in shorts and tee shirt. Her heart stopped! Mark. He had surely followed her taxi, the goddamn man! This weekend was definitely a cat and mouse game, was it? He was carrying a big thermos box and beach gear.

  “Good morning, Amy.” As polite as the king.

  “Good morning, Mark.” She answered casually, even though the turmoil of his presence was unavoidable.

  “I had hired a van and a driver to take us around, but seemed you had other plans.” He sounded polite, yes, but his voice was kind of edgy, betraying how vexed he might be.

  “Well, I didn’t see you at breakfast, so I decided to enjoy the sun my way.” She made the dumb mistake of looking at him. He was undressing. “Where were you?” she asked without taking her eyes from him.

  He took off his shorts and his swimming trunk clung to him as a second skin, revealing all her voluminous torments. Then it was the turn of the tee shirt. And her eyes feasted. His perfectly muscled, now tanned, body showed in all its glory: the thick neck, the big biceps, the hard chest, his six-packed belly, the lean muscles of his legs. A thin silky layer of dark hair designed his chest and led down in a tempting trail, worth caressing slowly, to his appetizing manhood. Her mouth fell opened, not to mention those prickling invisible, but very notable, sensations. She immediately concluded that her relaxing calm day was ruined inexorably. How would she have peace with this disquieting god by her side?

  “Stalking you, of course!” He answered the question she had forgotten all about. “Lest you had another attack of independent woman, as it actually happened.” He grinned cynically.

  “You are despicable!” she said indignant.

  “Did you enjoy your evening yesterday?” He’d never be stupid to the point of telling her he could barely sleep, because of needlish suspicious that she might have met someone, the slippery woman.

  “Very much! I dined paella, went to a night-club and met a Danish girl whom I made friends with.”

  “Good for you!”

  “You then?”

  “Nothing much, really. Dinner and a drink at the lounge bar.” His voice exceedingly nonchalant.

  “Fine.” And she lay back, sunbathing, as before he came. Only now she had to block her mind from the self-consciousness of his presence. His too close, too magnetic presence.

  As she closed her eyes, he took the opportunity to enjoy the view of her. He two-piece multi-coloured patches of cloth she wore covered very little of her full breasts or round hips, but the tiny straps around these put in evidence her narrow waist and her perfect legs. A man had to be made of marble not to be affected. Maybe she sensed his predatory stare, because she suddenly opened her eyes and met his.

  Electricity filled the air, as it happened with boring regularity. His stare always incited in her the mad impulse of lying down in an offer for him. Now his twin-perdition stare induced her to stretch and spread her legs, while heat gathered in her lower abdomen. Holly Heaven! Either she made an effort to break this spell or they’d be entangled in seconds. She forced her lax legs to stand up and go for a swim. Sea water would surely do her good.

  She dived into the deep blue Mediterranean and the tepid water involved her, soothing her. She swam vigorously for some time to spend the tension in her. She stopped and stood with the water at her chest, her hair dripping on her back. She sighed at the view of the luxuriant landscape. She felt a current around her legs and in seconds Mark was standing behind her. Breath stuck in her throat. Why didn’t this indecently gorgeous man leave her alone, for God’s sake?

  He took her by her shoulders and pulled her to him, awakening every millimetre of her body. “The most beautiful mermaid of the Sea Kingdom is visiting mere mortals.” He murmured in deep male voice in her ear.

  The inner writhing waves reaping through her body were building into a storm. She sighed lengthy and her head fell back on his inflated-muscles chest. His hands slid down her arms, circling her narrow waist. His head bent to her ear-lobe and his sinfully sensuous mouth caught it sucking it to desperation. Then his devilishly skilled tongue licked the long extension of her neck and her shapely shoulders tasting the salt on her sensitive wet skin. She felt her womb tighten in hunger.

  His powerful arms closed firmly around her waist and he pulled her close to him lifting her from the smooth sand on the bottom of the sun-sparkling sea. His hard-as-a-rock manhood nested in between her buttocks. Her mouth emitted a sensuous wanton groan. How deliciously small she was. She fit in his arms delightfully and he wanted to wrap her in him forever.

  His desire for her was taking him to the rims of insanity. His mind could only produce images of what he wanted to do with her. He wanted in her. Deep, thrust until he lost touch with reality. One of his thumbs hooked on the thin strap around her hips, pulling it down. He palmed her backside fully, revelling on the smoothness of it. The sea currents juggled their bodies, making them rub on each other.

  She had become a sack of sensations. One of her arms rose to hold his thick neck, which stretched her body for his utter satisfaction. It was when his thumb left the strap and all his fingers sneaked inside the insignificant patch of cloth. His fore-finger found her lubricous and ready.

  “I need you, Amy!” A hoarse plead. “I need to be inside you. Now!”

  His voice revolved the fire in her and spread it to every single cell in her body. She struggled to keep her clear thought on the surface of a drowning desire. But the latter was surpassing the former, surging in her like a Vulcan, burning her entire body in its wake. She was empty, oh, so in need of him!

  Laughter and loud cheerful voices sounded in the back of her foggy mind. All of a sudden Mark released her and she felt sadly lost in the middle of that mass of water. She turned and saw a group of youngsters arriving at the beach. They wore caps and tee shirts with the Dutch flag. As a fish, she dived away from him and left the water.

  As she sat on their flight back, Amy was exhausted. Physically, for having to cope with the sexual tension that never abandoned her body; and emotionally, for having to resist it so forcefully.

  They had left the beach soon after the youngsters arrived. She sent an SMS to the taxi driver calling the drive off and they went to Palmas downtown for an informal lunch. Little had they talked, having each one been immersed in their own thoughts. Then it was hotel, packing and flight.

  Chapter VI

  A week later Amy received word that MBS had successfully concluded the implement
ation of a new security system for a global bank. The whole company was involved in the project and everyone worked extremely hard. Additionally the customer was more than satisfied. So her department came up with the idea to praise the staff by giving that Friday off. Only the customer support department would do their shifts.

  She approved the idea assuming Mark would agree with it. He had been very little in the office due to several external meetings. She published the news in the Intranet and forgot all about it. That Thursday she sent a reminder e-mail to all the staff, including Mark and left. Arriving home she had a relaxing shower, dinner and sat in her bedroom armchair with a book. The decoration still held the shades of pink of her school days. Mrs Smith suggested they changed it, but Amy liked the memories it contained.

  Mark had been very busy that week in meetings that could result in a new project. He hadn’t had time to check the Intranet or Thursday afternoon’s e-mail, for that matter.

  “Mr Benton,” his a-hundred-per cent efficient middle-aged secretary put her head through the door.

  “Yes, Ms Scott.” He lifted his head from the laptop keyboard, absent-mindedly.

  “If you don’t need anything else, I think I’m leaving.” She walked into the room and smiled politely.

  “Of course, it’s getting late.” And his eyes went back to the screen.

  “Ok. Have a nice weekend, then.”

  She was turning to leave as Mark’s predator’s eyes darted to her with a frown. “Weekend?” He grinned amused. “The week is not over yet, Ms Scott.”

  “Oh, Mr Benton, haven’t you read the news on the Intranet? Or the HR manager e-mail?” She eyed him oddly. “They gave us tomorrow free as praise for our hard-work with the bank.”

  Mark was taken totally by surprise. And anger. How dare she give a free day to the staff without consulting him first? “Oh, yes. Time flies, doesn’t it?” He tried to disguise his ignorance on that. “I forgot it is already Thursday.” He added for good measure, or else the company would be buzzing with gossip next week.