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pushing all his earlier thoughts of patience, of slow sensuality, right out of his mind. ‘Cassandra, querida , you are all that a man could ever ask for in a woman—in a lover.’
    His strong, tanned legs pushed at her slimmer, paler ones, opening her to him so that he lay between them, the essential heat and hardness of him just nudging against her exposed flesh.
    ‘Joaquin…’
    It was a soft, moaning whisper, the sound of his name an enticement, a caress and a reproof all in one.
    And the reproof was because she was getting impatient. He could see it in her face, read the gathering storm of hunger in her eyes.
    That was what he had always enjoyed so much about this woman.
    The fact that she not only matched his desire head-on, but that her own passion often surged ahead, leaving him breathless with the need to equal her, satiate her, appease the hunger her demands woke in him.
    He had never had a sexual partner like her. Never known someone who satisfied all his fantasies in one glorious, sensual, physical package, and yet somehow always managed to leave him hungry, looking for more.
    Cassie’s clutching hands held him where he was, close on top of her body. The soft, sweet pressure of her breasts against his chest was a torment of sensuous delight, making him harden even more.
    With his lips taking delicate, nipping little caresses, he kissed his way down her neck, making her stir and murmur faintly, tilting her head back against the cushions. The movement opened the way to the rest of her upper body, taking his kisses over the slopes of her breasts, one after the other, so she arced ever higher, exposing the hardened, thrusting nipples to tempt him.
    A temptation there was no way in hell he could resist.
    ‘Oh, dear heaven…!’
    The uncontrolled cry escaped her as his mouth fastened tight over the pink nub, suckling hard, grazing the skin faintly with his teeth.
    ‘Oh, Joaquin…’
    Her body convulsed under his, her legs opening wider, exposing the innermost core of her, inviting…
    With a single, forceful, uncontrollable thrust, he answered that invitation, taking himself into her body and into the realms of pure sensation in the space of a split second.
    There was no room for thought in his head. No room for anything but sheer physical delight. Hunger, passion, burning, blazing excitement that exploded inside his brain, took him higher, further…
    And Cassandra came with him every inch of the way.
    Having been together for a year, their bodies were attuned. Each knew the other’s private pleasure spots, and used that knowledge shamelessly to entice, to tantalise, to arouse even further. And the warmth of the sun, playing over bare flesh, the evening scent of the plants in the garden, the sound of the birds chirping in the trees, were extra enhancements to the erotic pleasure that swamped their thoughts.
    They were lost, abandoned. Totally absorbed in each other. Totally given up to each other, the primitive rhythm pulsing harder, hotter, faster, higher. Until it took them right over the edge and into the mind-blowing explosion of perfect ecstasy, falling headlong into an oblivion of delight.
    As their breathing gradually slowed, Joaquin buried his face against her neck, under the now-dry, tangled fall of her hair, and kissed away the faint sheen of perspiration from her skin.
    ‘This is why you’re mine, Cassandra,’ he muttered, his voice thick and rough with satisfaction. ‘This is why we’re together, why we’ve stayed together. Why we’ve lasted this long.’
    His breath escaped in a long sigh that stirred her almost-dry hair.
    ‘You’re mine !’ he declared possessively, making it plain that that was as much as he wanted.
    And at that moment, replete and totally exhausted by the blazing, primitive ardour of their lovemaking, Cassandra allowed herself to believe that perhaps, after all, for now that might just be enough for her too.

CHAPTER THREE
    T HAT comforting delusion stayed with her at