Free The Best Bet by Hebby Roman Page A

on the bed, registering what they meant for the first time. It was obvious he meant what he said. He wanted to pay for the suite and move to another room.
    Like her father, Rafael Escobedo was a man of honor. Working at the resort, she’d become cynical, learning that most people were out for what they could get, especially if it was free. But Rafael was different. He had a conscience and that was a refreshing revelation.
    He stood a heart’s beat away, his dark eyes caressing her. The spicy clean male smell of him surrounded her. Uncrossing her arms and letting them fall, she felt singularly unprotected. Open and vulnerable to this man, she trembled with unknown possibilities, as if she stood on the edge of a deep chasm with no bottom in sight.
    Her gaze fastened on his mouth, his sensuously mobile mouth. An invisible chord bound them. A gossamer web of unseen threads pulled at her, compelling her. Should she do what she wanted to do? Should she?
    Taking a step toward him, she felt as if she were crossing the desert, as if she were traversing a wasteland without the promise of an oasis at the end. She took a step forward into his arms and rose on tiptoe, touching her mouth to his. A butterfly kiss.
    The contact was brief but explosive. Her senses reeled when she felt the warm molding of his lips against hers. Shaken, she stepped back.
    His arms came up, capturing her, enfolding her into his embrace. He took possession of her mouth with his and his lips moved over hers. His kiss was warm and wet, and he caressed her lips with his. His mouth explored hers—his kiss strong and sultry, filled with passion, hard and soft at the same time.
    His kiss was so soft, yet so demanding that it filled her with an aching sensation—a desire that reverberated through her, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, plucking a need within her, filling her with a slow-kindling passion that rose from the very marrow of her bones.
    She clung to him, lost in the magic of their mouths fused together. He teased her, nibbling at her lower lip, flicking his tongue over the sensitive flesh. Sighing into his mouth, she surrendered to the delicious feelings roiling through her.
    How she’d longed for this, to be held and cherished. To feel passion seep slowly through her veins, to have her heart beat double-time. Reveling in the sensations, she felt alive for the first time in a long time.
    At his gentle but insidious pressure, her lips parted, welcoming him inside. Tentatively, she touched her tongue to his, savoring the hot velvet nap of him, the prickly rough abrasion of his intimate flesh intertwined with her own. Opening her mouth wider, she tasted him fully, devouring the essence of him, hungry beyond measure, starved and needy. Their tongues danced, mated and fell apart, explored and retreated.
    Cradling her face in his hands, he lifted his mouth from hers, breaking the kiss. His soft brown eyes were liquid with tenderness, brimming with unspoken feelings.
    “Does this mean you forgive me?” he asked.
    “ Claro. ”
    “You speak Spanish?”
    “I’m not fluent.”
    “Then I’ll teach you.”
    “I’d like that.”
    She took the promise he offered, the promise of tomorrow, inside of her, hoping that he meant it, wanting him to mean it. But at the same time, a tomorrow with him filled her with fear. What if she wasn’t ready? She’d purposely avoided any form of a relationship so that she could concentrate on her studies and career. But this was different, so different.
    “When do we start?” he asked.
    She backed up a step. Reluctantly, he released her, dropping his hands to his sides, as if locking temptation away.
    “You mean start the lessons? As soon as possible, I’d think.”
    “Glad you said that.” He smiled. “Can I see you tonight after you finish working?”
    “I think that can be arranged.”
    “Dinner and a show?”
    Wrinkling her nose, she asked, “Which show? I’ve seen most of them, you know.”
    His