Billionaire, M.D.

Ten

“So you don’t have any memory of those debts.”

Cybele shook her head, feeling crushed by doubts and fears.

It didn’t sound as if Rodrigo believed her. She had a feeling Agnes hadn’t, either. Did they think Mel had incurred all those debts because of her? Worse, had he? If he had, how? Why?

Was that what Agnes had almost brought up during Mel’s funeral? She’d thought Mel, in his inability to express his emotions for her any other way, had showered her with extravagant stuff? Not that she could think what could be that extravagant.

If that hadn’t been the case, she could think of only one other way. She’d made demands of him, extensive, unreasonable ones, and he’d gone to insane lengths to meet them. But what could have forced him to do so? Threats to leave him? If that were true, then she hadn’t been only a heartless monster, but a manipulative, mercenary one, too.

She had to know. She couldn’t take another breath if she didn’t. “Do you know anything about them?”

Rodrigo’s frown deepened as he shook his head slowly. But his eyes were thoughtful. With suspicions? Deductions? Realizations?

“You know something. Please, tell me. I have to know.”

He looked down at her for a bone-shaking moment, moonlight coasting over his beauty, throwing its dominant slashes and hollows into a conflict of light and darkness, of confusion and certainty.

Then he shook his head again, as if he’d made up his mind. To her dismay, he ignored her plea. “What I want to know is what has taken those creditors so long to come forward.”

“They actually did as soon as Mel’s death was confirmed.”

“Then what has taken Agnes and Steven so long to relate this, and why have they come to you with this, and not me?”

She gave him his foster mother’s explanations. “They wanted to make sure of the claims first, and then they didn’t want to bother you. They thought they could take care of it themselves. They called me in case I knew something only a wife would know, that would help them resolve this mess. And because I’m involved in the lawsuits.”

“Well, they were wrong, on all counts.” She almost cried out at the incensed edge that entered his voice and expression. The words to beg him not to take it up with them, that they had enough to deal with, had almost shot from her lips when he exhaled forcibly. “Not that they need to know that. They’ve been through enough, and they were as usual misguidedly trying not to impose on me. I think those two still don’t believe me when I say they are my parents. But anyway, none of you have anything to worry about. I’ll take care of everything.”

She gaped at him. Was he real? Could she love him more?

All she could say was, “Thank you.”

He squeezed his eyes on a grimace. “Don’t.”

“I will thank you, so live with it.” He glowered at her. She went on, “And since I’m on a roll, throwing my problems in your lap, I need your opinion on another one. My arm.”

His eyes narrowed. “What about it?”

“My fractures have healed, but the nerve damage isn’t clearing. Eight weeks ago, you said I wouldn’t be able to operate for months. Were you being overly optimistic? Will I ever regain the precision I used to have and need as a surgeon?”

“It’s still early, Cybele.”

“Please, Rodrigo, just give it to me straight. And before you say anything conciliatory, remember that I’ll see through it.”

“I would never condescend to you like that.”

“Even to protect me from bad news?”

“Even then.”

She believed him. He would never lie to her. He would never lie, period. So she pressed on. Needing the truth. About this, if she couldn’t have it about anything else.

“Then tell me. I’m a left-handed surgeon who knows nothing else but to be one, and I need to know if in a few weeks I’ll be looking to start a new career path. As you pointed out before, the arm attached to my hand had extensive nerve damage…”

“And I performed a meticulous peripheral nerve repair.”

“Still, I have numbness and weakness, tremors-”

“It’s still too early to predict a final prognosis. We’ll start your active motion physiotherapy rehabilitation program the moment we have proof of perfect bone healing.”

“We have that now.”

“No, we don’t. You’re young and healthy and your bones look healed now, but I need them rock solid before I remove the cast. That won’t be a day before twelve weeks after the surgery. Then we’ll start your physiotherapy. We’ll focus first on controlling the pain and swelling that accompanies splint removal and restoration of motion. Then we’ll move to exercises to strengthen and stabilize the muscles around the wrist joint then to exercises to improve fine motor control and dexterity.”

“What if none of it works? What if I regain enough motor control and dexterity to be self-sufficient but not a surgeon?”

“If that happens, you still have nothing to worry about. If worse comes to worst, I’ll see to it that you change direction smoothly to whatever field of medicine will provide you with as much fulfillment. But I’m not giving up on your regaining full use of your arm and hand. I’m stopping at nothing until we get you back to normal. And don’t even think about how long it will take, or what you’ll do or where you’ll be until it happens. You have all the time in the world to retrain your hand, to regain every last bit of power and control. You have a home here for as long as you wish and accept to stay. You have me, Cybele. I’m here for you, anytime, all the time, whatever happens.”

And she couldn’t hold back anymore.

She surged into him, tried to burrow inside him, her working arm shaking with the ferociousness of her hug. And she wept. She loved him so much, was so thankful he existed, it was agony.

He stilled, let her hug him and hold onto him and drench him in her tears. Then he wrapped her in his arms, caressed her from head to back, his lips by her ear, murmuring gentle and soothing words. Her heart expanded so quickly with a flood of love, it almost ruptured. Her tears gushed faster, her quakes nearly rattling flesh from bone.

He at last growled something as though agonized, snatched her from gravity’s grasp into his, lifted her until she felt she’d float out to sea if he relinquished his hold.

He didn’t, crushed her in his arms, squeezed her to his flesh until he forced every shudder and tear out of her.

Long after he’d dissipated her storm, he swayed with her, as if slow dancing the Sardana again, pressing her head into his shoulder, his other arm bearing her weight effortlessly as he raggedly swore to her in a loop of English and Catalan that he was there for her, that she’d never be without him. His movements morphed from soothing to inflaming to excruciating. But it was his promises that wrenched at the tethers of her heart.

For she knew he would honor every promise. He would remain in her life and that of her baby’s. As the protector, the benefactor, the dutiful, doting uncle. And every time she saw him or heard from him it would pour fresh desperation on the desolation of loving him and never being able to have him.

She had to get away. Today. Now. Her mind was disintegrating, and she couldn’t risk causing herself a deeper injury. Her baby needed her healthy and whole.

“Cybele…” He shifted his grip on her, and his hardness dug into her thigh.

She groped for air, arousal thundering through her. Voices inside her yelled that this was just a male reaction to having a female writhing in his arms, that it meant nothing.

She couldn’t listen. It didn’t matter. He was aroused. This could be her only chance to be with him. And she had to take it. She needed the memory, the knowledge that she’d shared her body with him to see her through the barrenness of a life without him.

She rubbed her face into his neck, opened her lips on his pulse. It bounded against her tongue, as if trying to drive deeper into her mouth, mate with her. Every steel muscle she was wrapped around expanded, bunched, buzzed. She whimpered at the feel of his flesh beneath her lips, the texture, the taste, at the sheer delight of breathing him in, absorbing his potency. “Cybele, querida…” He began to put her down and she clung, captured his lips before he said any more, before he could tell her no.

She couldn’t take no for an answer. Not this time. She had to have this time.

She caught his groans on her tongue, licked his lips of every breath, suckled his depths dry of every sound. She arched into his arousal, confessing hers without words. Then with them. “Rodrigo-I want you.” That came out a torn sob. “If you want me, please-just take me. Don’t hold back. Don’t think. Don’t worry. No consequences or considerations. No tomorrows.”

Rodrigo surrendered to Cybele, let her take of him what she would, his response so vast it was like a hurricane building momentum before it unleashed its destruction.

But her tremulous words replayed in his mind as she rained petal softness and fragrant warmth all over his face, crooning and whimpering her pleas for his response, her offer of herself. He felt things burning inside him as he held back, the significance of her words expanding in his mind.

Carte blanche. That was what she was giving him. With her body, with herself. No strings. No promises. No expectations.

Because she didn’t want any? Because her need was only sexual? Or because she couldn’t handle more than that? But what if she couldn’t handle even that? If he gave her what she thought she wanted and ended up damaging her more?

And though he was nearly mindless now, powerless against the force of her desire, he’d conditioned himself to protect her from his own. “Cybele, you’re distraught-”

She sealed his lips again, stopping his objection, her tongue begging entry, her kisses growing fevered, singeing the last of his control. “With need for you. I sometimes feel it will shatter me. I know what I’m asking. Please, Rodrigo, please…just give me this time.” This time. She thought he could stop at once, that he could possess her then walk away? It wasn’t carte blanche, just a one-time offer? Would all that need she talked about then be quenched? Did she not feel more for him because her emotions had been buried with Mel, even if she didn’t remember?

That thought gave him the strength to put her down, step out of reach when she stumbled to embrace him again.

Her arms fell to her sides, her shoulders hunching as she suddenly looked fragile and lost.

Then her tears flowed again, so thick it seemed they shriveled up her face. “Oh, no-y-you already showed me that you don’t want me, and I-I came on to you again…”

She choked up, stumbled around and disappeared from the roof.

He should let her go. Talk to her again when his body wasn’t pummeling him in demand for hers. But even if he could survive his own disappointment, he couldn’t survive hers. He couldn’t let her think he didn’t want her. He had to show her the truth, even if the price was having her only once. He would take anything he could have of her, give her anything she needed.

He tore after her, burst into her room, found her crumpled facedown on her bed, good arm thrown over one of the bouquets he’d flooded her room with. She lurched at his entry, half-twisted to watch his approach, her wet gaze wounded and wary.

He came down on his knees at the foot of the bed. Her smooth legs, which had tanned honey-colored under his agonized eyes these past weeks, were exposed as the long, traditionally Catalan red skirt he’d picked for her to wear today rode up above her knees.

He wanted to drag her to him, slam her into his flesh, overpower and invade her, brand her, devour her whole.

He wanted to cherish her, savor and pleasure her more.

She gasped as he slipped off her shoes, tried to turn to him fully. He stopped her with a gentle hand at the small of her back. She subsided with a whimpering exhalation, watched him with her lip caught in her teeth as he prowled on all fours, advancing over her, kissing and suckling his way from the soles of her feet, up her legs, her thighs, her buttocks and back, her nape. She lay beneath him, quaking and moaning at each touch until he traced the lines of her shuddering profile. The moment he reached her lips, she cried out, twisted onto her back, surged up to cling to his lips in a desperate, soul-wrenching kiss.

Without severing their meld, he scooped her up and stepped off the bed. She relinquished his lips on a gasp of surprise.

“I want you in my bed, querida.”

She moaned, shook her head. “No, please.” He jerked in alarm. She didn’t want to be in his bed? He started to put her down when she buried her face and lips in his neck. “Here. Among the roses.” “Dios, si…”

He’d fantasized about having her in his bed from the day he’d first laid eyes on her. Even when she’d become a forbidden fantasy, her image, and the visualization of all the things he’d burned to do to her, with her, even when he’d hated her and himself and the whole world for it, had been what had fueled his self-pleasuring, providing the only relief he’d had.

He’d covered his bed with the royal blue of her eyes. The rest of the room echoed the mahogany of her hair and the honey of her skin. He’d needed to sleep surrounded by her.

But this was far better than his fantasies. To have her here, among the blazing-red beauty of his blatant confession that she was his most important woman. His most important person.

He hadn’t meant to confess it, but couldn’t stop himself. He also hadn’t dreamed it would lead to this. To beyond his dreams.

He laid her back on the bed, stood back taking her in. Unique, a ravishing human rose, her beauty eclipsing that of the flowers he’d filled her room with. She must have realized their significance, encouraging her to divulge her own need.

He felt his clothes dissolve off his body under the pressure of his own, under her wide-eyed awe, her breathless encouragement.

Then he was all over her again, caressing her elastic-waist skirt from her silky legs, kneading her jacket off, then the ensemble blouse over her head. Her bra and panties followed as he traced the tide of peach flooding her from toes to cheeks, tasting each tremor strumming her every fiber.

Then he was looking down on what no fantasy had conjured. Thankfully. Or he would have lost his mind for real long ago.

He remained above her, arms surrounding her head, thighs imprisoning hers, vibrating as the sight, the scent and sounds of her surrender pulverized his intentions to be infinitely slow and gentle. Blood thundered in his head, in his loins, tearing the last tatters of control from his grasp in a riptide.

Then she took it all out of his hands, her hand trembling over his back in entreaty, its power absolute.

He surrendered, moved between her shaking thighs, pressed her shuddering breasts beneath his aching chest. Then she conquered him, irrevocably.

Her lips trembled on his forehead, his name a litany of tremulous passion and longing as she enveloped him, clasped him to her body as if her life depended on his existence, his closeness, on knowing he was there, as if she couldn’t believe he was.

Tenderness swamped him, choked him. He had to show her, prove to her, that he was there, was hers. He’d already given her all he had. All he had left to give her was his passion, his body.

He rose on his knees, cupped her head in one hand, her buttocks in the other, tilted one for his kiss, the other for his penetration. He bathed the head of his erection in her welcoming wetness, absorbed her cries of pleasure at the first contact of their intimate flesh, drank her pleas to take her, fill her.

He succumbed to the mercilessness of her need and his, drew back to watch her eyes as he started to drive into her, to join them. Her flesh fluttered around his advance, hot and tight almost beyond endurance, seeming to drag him inside and trying to push him out at once, begging for his invasion while resisting it.

He tried again and again, until she was writhing beneath him, eyes streaming, her whole body shaking and stained in the flush of uncontrollable arousal and unbearable frustration.

His mind filled with confusion and colliding diagnoses.

“Please, just do it, Rodrigo, hard, just take me.”

The agony in her sobs was the last straw. He had to give her what she needed, couldn’t draw his next breath if he didn’t.

He thrust past her resistance, buried half of his shaft inside her rigid tightness.

It was only when her shriek tore through him that he understood what was that ripping sensation he’d felt as he’d driven into her. And he no longer understood anything.

It was impossible. Incomprehensible.

She was a virgin?