With
infinite sweetness, Sonny stroked a finger across her tear-streaked
cheekbones, down the sides of her long elegant neck. “You are
so beautiful,” he whispered. “Preciosa.”
She trembled, an effect that his nearness always caused in her.
Before, she had resented it, had seen it as a weakness. But tonight
the tremors running through her body were echoed in his.
He uttered a deep sigh, his eyes blazing undeniable desire across
at her. “I-I know this is wrong…but, God help me, I can’t
ignore what’s between us anymore. Not for one more second.”
He touched his lips to her brow so lightly she almost didn’t
feel it. In Spanish, he whispered, “I’ve denied myself
all this time and for absolutely nothing. She was Fool’s gold
when here in my arms is the real thing.”
Alexis pulled back from him but didn’t sever the contact of
his hands upon her face. She reached up and traced his sensuous
bottom lip with one tapered, elegant finger. Staring at his mouth,
she whispered on a ragged sob, “It’s been so long.”
He nodded. So long since they’d really held each other, since
they’d kissed, since they’d loved each other into the
night. So long since they’d found solace together.
He leaned in until his lips were pressed against the fragrant skin
of her cheek. “It’s been an eternity,” he murmured.
“But that changes tonight.”
His kiss was light and tentative on her face, his lips tasting the
salt on her skin and removing the last vestiges of her tears. Inch
by delicious inch, he tasted his way to her mouth…that beautiful
mouth that had tantalized him so on that night when they’d
made Kristina.
Finally, he took her lips with his…slowly, gently, deeply,
reverently. As if he were savoring a delicate wine, sip by delectable
sip. But too quickly, he was intoxicated by her and lost his ability
to control his reactions. She was his drug, and like a man too long
denied a taste of it, he plunged headlong into his addiction.
For her part, she was drunk on the heady pleasures he brought to
her, too. This was one time when Alexis Davis did not mind yielding
control. In fact, she relished it.
Mindless with need, she moved with him to her bed, never once allowing
the connection between their mouths to be broken. She craved his
kiss. She had never missed anything as much as she’d missed
the slide of his tongue against hers, the taste of his mouth…mint
and scotch intermingled there…the fiery heat as he trailed
his lips down her neck to the hollow above her breastbone.
This was the man…the one who’d haunted her dreams…the
inhabitant of that secret place in her heart that no one else had
ever reached…
This was the man she’d wanted…ached for…every day
of the last two years, and she’d used all her energy to deny
it even to herself. She had no more power to deny it now. Her defenses
were obliterated in a brilliant explosion the second he touched
her.
The night became a heady, blurry mix of sensations…sound, taste,
and touch. Hushed declarations in Spanish, sweet gardenia scented
skin beneath his mouth, the long slow slide of limbs entangling
with one another, and hands intertwined upon sheets that were cool
cotton not satin this time…
But most of all, there was the sensation of two bodies, two souls
returning to a place long abandoned but never forgotten…a place
of peace. Home.
The bar at Jake’s was a lonely place to drink early in the
evening, but Carly Corinthos was determined to drink her fill and
then some. If it had to be alone, then so be it.
But as luck would have it, she wasn’t alone for long.
“When my men said you’d come here, I thought surely they
were wrong,” a husky voice whispered into her ear.
She would know him anywhere, even without the heady scent of the
expensive sandalwood cologne she recognized as uniquely his own.
Carly tipped her second bottle of beer to her lips without looking
round at Lorenzo Alcazar. When she’d swallowed a sizeable amount,
she asked him, “Why would you be so surprised that I’m
here?”
She imagined him glancing around the shabby place, his sensuous
lips curling in distaste. “It’s a common place…where
common women come to forget their troubles.”
“And?”
“You’re not common.”
“But I’m certainly troubled!” she retorted, her laugh
both bitter and humorless, and it was edged with tears she wouldn’t
shed. “You know what? I can give you a list of at least a hundred
people in this town who’d say that I’m common, too. Let’s
start with my own uncle, Luke. And then there’s my former lover,
Dr. Tony Jones, who by the way I stole from my loving mother, Bobbie.
Then there’s each and every Quartermaine on earth. And S-Sonny--”
“Is this what you plan to do, Carly? Let him drive you to despair?”
She slugged down a couple more swallows of beer, then crooked her
finger at the bartender to bring her another. “Yep,” she
muttered irreverently.
She gasped as a pair of strong arms seized her suddenly and swiveled
her round on the barstool. Now she sat almost nose to nose with
her lover, as he bent over her with steely determination in his
dark eyes.
“Do you imagine I am going to sit by and watch you self-destruct?”
he demanded, his voice raw with anger. “Watch you sacrifice
yourself on the altar of Sonny Corinthos? I don’t enjoy martyrdom,
Carly. It’s not to my taste.”
She looked at his face, yet her eyes rested somewhere in the vicinity
of his chin. “I didn’t ask you to come here…or to
stay with me and watch anything. You can leave if you don’t
want to see this common woman sit in a common bar and get drunk
on some common beer.”
When pressed to the wall, Carly did what she did best…what
she’d been doing all day…and all her life: she heaped
anguish on someone else.
“And just for the record: I don’t give a damn what you
feel about my choices, Lorenzo. Your feelings mean next to nothing
right now.”
“That much is painfully obvious,” he said, his head lifting
to an autocratic angle. At the moment, he looked every inch the
powerful, arrogant, Latin male he was. “What is this we have
together, Carly? A relationship or a means to an end? A love affair
or a way to punish your husband for his inattention?”
“It’s more than inattention! Don’t make it sound
like I’m having some little wifely tantrum. This is serious.
He is bonded to another woman—”
“What woman?”
“Alexis Davis, his damn attorney…former attorney…mother
of his child…whatever label fits. I prefer bitch!”
Carly was now shaking with rage. “She prances around with her
high-powered suits, her twenty dollar words, and her Harvard education.
Thinking she’s better than everyone else. She’s not even
attractive.”
Lorenzo grinned calmly which only enraged her more. “I beg
to differ there. There’s no love lost between Ms. Davis and
myself for obvious reasons. But even I will acknowledge that she’s
an attractive woman.”
“Whose damn side are you on?”
“I am trying to be on yours. And that means forcing you to
face the truth. If Corinthos has taken a lover now, can you really
criticize him? You and I have been with each other for some time.”
Carly’s eyes narrowed. “It’s NOT the same,”
she insisted. “She has been in his life forever…in his
HEART forever. He never gave ME a chance. So it’s him who broke
his vows first!”
One regal eyebrow arched as he considered her words. “What
does it matter who strayed first? It’s done. You both have
to accept that you’re not meant for each other; if you were,
there would be no affairs to speak of now.”
Carly merely grunted in response and reached for her third bottle
of beer, but Lorenzo extracted it from her hand and snapped it down
decisively on top of the bar. His arms on either side of her effectively
trapped her in place on the stool.
“Look at me,” he said, his voice deadly flat and deadly
serious. “You need to look at me and know who you’re dealing
with. I’m not Jason or any of the other countless minions who’ve
allowed you to wrap them around your fingers. Do I matter to you
or not? Because I do not intend to sit idly by while you lament
your lost husband. I will not be your weapon in this emotional war
you’ve declared against him. Nor will I continue to be your
secret fling. I do have my pride, Carly, and I won’t allow
you to trample it into the ground every time you get angry at Sonny
Corinthos.”
Lorenzo’s long finger found her jaw and trailed lightly down
it and across her mouth. With the most endearing tenderness, he
lowered his mouth to hers and placed a single kiss there.
Then he whispered, “This is the time to choose: chase a man
who apparently has someone else in his heart…or live a full,
passionate life with someone who prizes you above all others.”
Carly leveled her gaze on his eyes at last, and she saw the sincerity
and emotion there. Right before he turned and walked toward the
exit. She knew that this should have been an easy decision. Her
mind screamed at her: choose Lorenzo. Choose him now. Don’t
let him walk out that door. Call him back.
