Read Online California Royale by Deborah Smith - Free Book Online Page A

of treatment comes with it,” he replied hoarsely. He dipped his head and kissed a clean spot on her neck. “Hell, you’re not really sorry about my hair. You’re enjoying every second of what you did to me. You enjoy being reckless and bawdy. I knew those urges were hidden under that golden princess exterior of yours.”
    She sighed in a way that acknowledged that truth. “Oh, Alejandro, this is ridiculous and wonderful and—”
    “Alejandro?” he repeated softly.
    Shea wiped mud from his face and nodded sheepishly. “Do you mind? I think it’s a wonderful name.”
    He smiled, his teeth looking so white against the mud-stained background of his face that she laughed again. He laughed too, then. “No one else calls me Alejandro. If you want to, that makes it special.”
    “It is special. You’re special. If you weren’t, I wouldn’t be sitting in this tub of mud with you. I wouldn’t havekissed you.” She looked a little concerned. “I don’t know what’s going to happen between us, but—”
    “Sssh. A very famous philosopher once said.
Que sera, sera
. What will be, will be.”
    “Famous philosopher, my foot. That was Doris Day,” Shea retorted, chuckling.
    “Yeah, so, but Doris was right.” He was smiling at her, but slowly the smile faded, replaced by a look that was hungry and serious.
    “I don’t want to lose you,” she whispered.
    “Lose me?” he asked in a soft, worried voice. “No way.”
    “I’m not very good at relationships.”
    “But what about your friend?” Duke spoke gently. “The one who was killed.”
    Shea shook her head. “We weren’t … like this. There was more friendship than passion.” She laid one hand alongside Duke’s jaw, as if to reassure both him and herself as she looked into his dark, sympathetic eyes. “I grew up lonely, Alejandro. No father, and a mother who had too many problems to spend much time caring what happened to me. I’ve learned to keep people at a distance so if they don’t care about me, it won’t hurt.”
    “Oh,
querida
,” he said huskily, “I care about you, and I’ll try not to hurt you.”
    Shea kissed him again, and her torso sank lower into the mud. Her stomach met his, and even the mud couldn’t obscure the hard ridge of his aroused body. She nearly groaned at the open, ready feeling that surged through her own body in response.
    “Part of me wants to make love to you right here,” Shea whispered against his mouth. “And part of me—mostly the estate manager part—wants to vamoose before anyone sees us.”
    He took a deep breath, and she knew that he wastrying to calm his own impulses. For her sake, he was trying. And suddenly Shea knew just how easy it was to fall in love with him.
    “
Querida
, there’s all the time in the world,” he whispered. Smiling stoically he planted a kiss on her nose.
    “Alejandro, I don’t think it would be a good idea if I gave you a massage today.” Shea hugged him in apology. “Things are happening so fast, and that would only make them move faster. I’ll get one of the others to …”
    “No. It’s all right.” He nuzzled her ear. “I don’t want anyone’s hands on me but yours. I’ll wait.”
    She had never really felt special to anyone. The feeling now, of being so special to Duke that he didn’t want anyone else to touch him, made tears rise in her eyes.
    She hugged him fiercely, then pushed herself back from him, but he trailed his hands along her arms and grasped both her hands. They faced each other in the tub full of mud. Shea looked down at herself, at her clothes covered in mud, at the stuff all over her arms. She looked at Duke, who still resembled a chocolate confection. They shared quirky little smiles that quickly grew into chuckles and then into full-fledged laughter.
    Being a manager came naturally to Shea, and she assumed that it was both an inborn trait and a survival technique learned during her childhood. By the time she was ten years old she had