That was the only thing Leroy gave her. And he sometimes took it away. Like tonight. She had just received the news that her childhood friend, Sarah, had died. She had been sobbing quietly when Leroy had sat beside her and with such tenderness asked her what was wrong.
Hannah had blubbered it out. And then like the fool she was, she asked if she could be excused from the dinner to mourn tonight.
Leroy’s face had hardened, “Whiny, spoiled bitch. I’ve been looking for you for an hour. You’ve mourned plenty enough. Now get dressed, get ready. This dinner depends on my life and you are going to be there, my dear wife.”
And he had left, leaving the naïve girl now knowing who she was: a trophy wife.
Right now, she carefully slipped away when Leroy was deep in politics--she liked to talk, but every time she tried to participate, Leroy would insult her. She weaved through people animated in conversation and finally stepped on the terrace overlooking the Olympic-size pool, the one-level guest house and the beach leading to the Atlantic Ocean.
She sucked in humid, salty air through shaking shoulders and a thickened throat. She impatiently wiped away the mist in her eyes, focusing on the pool.
How the hell had Hannah gotten herself like this? Being nothing but a pawn, nothing more than a prisoner. She braced one hand around the railing, running another hand impatiently through her wild, dark brown curls and sighed. And that sigh seemed to be the strongest of remedies for the emotions churning through her. A long blink of her eyes restored her composure.
“Perdona, senorita?” the velvety baritone was not Leroy’s. A local.
One more blink and a softer sigh and Hannah turned to the stranger, the welcoming smile upon her lips, “Parles anglès? Sóc dels Estats Units.” Those were the only two phrases she had managed to master: Do you speak English? I’m from America.
“Yes,” the man’s English was spoke in a charming accent. “I apologize, senorita. Your eyes make me think of a Spanish woman.”
Hannah’s lips curved in a genuine yet tentative smile. “What’s your name?”
“Andres Arroyo,” he bowed to her, the gesture not mocking or exaggerated but humble. “And yours?”
“Hannah Justen,” she replied. She held out a hand and Andres took it. But instead of shaking it, he brushed his lips over her knuckles. And for some reason, that sent an uncharacteristic shiver through her. She rarely shivered in situations like this--let alone at a man kissing her hand, a man she had just met.
“I assume you are a companion of someone invited?” he asked, straightening as he let go of her hand.
“My husband,” she leaned back against the railing, both hands braced on it. “Leroy Justen,”
“The ambassador for the United States?” one sharply arched brow lifted.
Hannah nodded.
Andres’s lips pursed. And for some reason, Hannah felt moisture between her legs. She tore her eyes away from those full lips, meeting eyes that seemed like warm, bottomless pools of chocolate. And she felt herself holding on tight to the railing as Andres stepped closer.
“I see sorrow in your eyes,” he murmured, warm breath feathering over the planes of her face. “Is it because of him?”
Hannah hesitated. Foreign people always seemed to have a sixth sense for this kind of thing. And that was probably why she found she couldn’t lie to him, why she found herself nodding.
And she didn’t feel an ounce of discomfort when Andres stepped closer, close enough that her silk-covered breasts made acquaintance with the starched cotton of his dress shirt. Or when he braced himself on the balcony, inner thighs grazing on her hips. Or when he lowered his mouth to her ear to whisper:
“I can take away your pain. I can make you happy, senorita. Better than Mr. Leroy.”
A feeble protest began to form on Hannah’s lips but Andres interrupted, “No, Mrs. Justen. I know. I see the way you act. You are not happy, senorita. Help me ease your pain…please.” And he pressed the softest kiss along her jaw line. The tenderness made her sigh, made her inhale his clean, woodsy scent. Blended with the perfect amount of cologne.
She’d only had sex once in her twenty-five years of life. And that was on Leroy and Hannah’s wedding night. The basic expectations of a married couple. She remembered feeling tears sting her eyes as she laid awake afterwards, feeling only the faintest glimmer of pleasure echo in her. Back then, she’d expected…more for her first time. Instead she had received a twenty-second wonder with no passion, no attention. It had been all about Leroy. It had always been about Leroy.
And that was why she wanted to go with Andres. All the marriage, it’d been about her husband. She’d been called the worst things Satan couldn’t dream of at the slightest bit of resistance and yet he expected her to go to every party with him, dress up in garments that were anything but formal. Now, Andres was offering something for herself. A choice.
“This is crazy,” she murmured. Her last bit of resistance.
“I know, senorita. I know.” Andres’s thumbs rubbed soothing circles along her knuckles. “I wish it was different.”
That simple motion, those apologizing lines broke her shield. She turned her head and she had a split second to open her mouth before Andres kissed her. Tender caresses, hesitant strokes. Hannah was in control. And she relished it. Needed it.
The press of the terrace rail in her bum reminded her where they were. What they were doing…when her husband could walk out at any moment.
“Andres,” she eased her mouth away, stared in eyes blazing with heat. “Not…not here.”
When he stepped out of her space, led a lustful shell of the politician’s wife in the ballroom, she expected to snap out of her reverie, restore her sanity.
Instead, she stood as stoic as a post as Andres smoothly waffled his way through the doorman’s piercing gaze. Then she was outside, the stars blazing like car headlights instead of the gentle illumination they were. The moon was their own personal spotlight, turning the man next to her in some resemblance of a Greek god statue.
All that mattered was Andres. With Andres, she was no longer the politician’s wife.
She was a woman.
“Where, my darling?” he murmured at one point, fingering the deep scoop of her neckline, where it showed an ample part of her cleavage.
“Yours,” she managed to breathe out. At an incalculable stretch of time, they were opening the door. They were in a luxurious hotel room. Andres was kissing her, sweeping his tongue in the cavern of her mouth with a measured fervor. Yet the ardor intensified when Hannah responded with all of her.
Her strength.
Her heat.
Her need.
Her fingers were fumbling open his dress shirt, pulling it off to touch the skin beneath, the muscle. The skin was the most sensuous of satin, an appropriate covering for the strength beneath. A clatter. A pressure point in her bottom. A split second later, she landed against something that felt like polished wood. A dresser.
His lips were on her neck, making her scorching and molten inside. His fingers twisted and tangled in her hair as did her own in his.
He hiked her legs around his hips, lifted her up and to the bedroom…
She was in heaven: her fingers wrestling with gravity to take off his pants, his fingers lingering on the satin covering one more time before the dress was removed. And then the scraps of cotton and lace were off and Hannah went sailing over the cliff and in oblivion.
“So how you doing?” he asked a long time later.
Hannah smiled sleepily, feeling content and completely wasted on the no-strings sex she’d just gone through, “Can I think about that for a minute?”
Andres’s ribs resonated with the chuckle that was his reply. A soft kiss to the nape and Hannah sighed, her eyes fluttering open. The moonlight silvered her lover’s body, making him seem too ethereal. Hannah pressed a hand to his abdomen to make sure he was real. Good, he was solid.
Oh, God. The liquefying, mind-numbing effect of the past hour and half had her basically zonked out. All she wanted was him next to her right here. To freeze this moment in time so that she could savor the warmth of his skin, the solidity of his muscles, the manipulation of his mouth…on her neck, beneath her ear, in the hollow of her shoulder. All she could manage was a serrated breath.
“Andres…” she curled up against him. “Lemme sleep.”
“You’ll never sleep, senorita. Not while I have you in my grasp.”
Hannah could hardly wait.
A/N: Mods, if this is too explicit, let me know. I just wrote this in like twenty minutes.
