Masquerade (21 page)

Luz turned on to her back and floated like an exotic mermaid playing in the sunshine, her lustrous black hair trailing behind her. In the broad afternoon glare the outline of hills, olive groves and vineyards rising behind the town were visible in the distance and immediately above her, perched high, was the quaint little brown church with its green bench where she had often sat to gaze at the sea, the ships and the port. It seemed so remote, standing sentinel up there on the cliffs.

That is when Luz saw him. He was standing at the top of the cliffs, not far from the church, on a huge grey rock that stretched like a tongue over the sea. Dressed only in Bermuda shorts, his muscled torso bronzed from the sun, he was very still, a hand shielding his eyes, gazing down at her. The empathy between them was such that, in the first moment of seeing the man silhouetted up there against the sky, Luz knew without a shadow of a doubt it was Leandro.

But she did not anticipate what happened next. She watched wide-eyed, holding her breath, her heart beating furiously as the faraway figure sprang into the air and plunged over the cliff. His lean limbs uncoiled slowly in the air, like the wings of a magnificent bird. Arms stretched out in front of him, he dived headfirst, his body a lean, sinewy line, darting like a missile into the depths of the sea.

There was another breathless moment while he disappeared into the blue abyss when Luz waited for him to resurface. And then his head came up in the sunlit spray as he swam towards her with a powerful over-arm stroke. She hurried to meet him, her heart leaping tumultuously in her breast. Both reached the bobbing red buoy a little out of breath. The droplets on Leandro’s head glistened like diamonds; his green eyes the limpid colour of peridot. He leant his strongly muscled arms on the anchored float and passed a hand over his face and hair to sweep off the surplus water.

‘I was walking along the cliff, hoping you would turn up somewhere. Then I saw you in the water. Even though I couldn’t see you clearly, I knew it was you.’ He laughed, his gaze travelling over her face.

Luz smiled, flushed with pleasure. ‘I knew it was you, too, but I never expected you to launch yourself into the air the way you did. You nearly gave me a heart attack.’ Her voice was low and unsteady, due in part to the light glinting off his broad, wet shoulders submerged in the water.

He shrugged, green eyes sparkling. ‘I’ve told you, we’re sea gypsies. Besides, we
gitanos
are pretty good acrobats. I’ve never worked in a circus but I’m sure many of my forbears did. It’s in our blood.’

They were treading water, their eyes locked, as if the other was something precious they had lost and found again at a most unexpected moment, in a most unexpected place. All alone, completely closed to the world around them.

‘You always appear out of nowhere when I least expect it and then you disappear just as suddenly, like a dream. Sometimes I wonder if you’re even real,’ she pondered. ‘I find it a little unnerving.’ Her voice was hesitant, trying to suppress the slight reproach in it.

‘You can’t hold a gypsy, Doña Luz … we roam the world freely as the seas and the wind,’ he whispered, confounding her with a grin of utter boyish mischievousness.

The current suddenly pulled them together. Their bodies collided. Only then did Luz remember she was bare from head to toe. Leandro shuddered and his eyes flared as he clearly felt her nakedness against him. He let go of the buoy and took her in his arms.

‘Do you still doubt that I’m real?’ he murmured.

‘No, I don’t,’ she whispered and, despite the cool of the water, heat rushed through her body, pulsating between her thighs. His mouth found hers; his lips were firm, cool and mobile, his kiss deep, passionate and familiar. Luz wrapped her thighs around his hips, feeling the length of his firm arousal. She clung to him; all thought and reason and past resolve evaporating, her skin fluttering beneath his touch, intoxicated by love, by desire and by the sun.

Leandro was now ploughing into the surf with one arm as he held her against him with the other, keeping them both afloat. He swam powerfully towards the shore, striking out with strong strokes, and with vigorous thrusts of his leg muscles.

He carried her, naked and dripping, out of the sea and laid her on the towel she had rolled out on the sand earlier. Though the sun was still warm, she was shivering uncontrollably. Torrents of words rushed to her tongue but were not uttered. He covered her with his hard body, still wet from the sea, and held her tightly in his warmth for a while without moving. At last Luz was where she had longed to be. She was aware of his smooth, tanned skin and beneath it the solid
outline of his back and shoulders. His broad chest, with its tantalizing dark hair, was pressed against her naked breasts and his breath grew more ragged. Her heart was pounding loudly, or was it his she could hear? But it was of no importance: nothing mattered but the storm of emotion and the ache inside her crying out for the song of his lovemaking. So he sang.

His mouth was sizzling hot when it came down on hers and she was lost. It seemed to explode into her as he sucked at her lips and her tongue with a primitive, starved ferocity, drinking up her soul. She welcomed his assaulting overture with a wanton fervour that fuelled the already raging flame Luz could sense within him. As though wild for the taste of her, his lips moved from her mouth to her cheek, down to her neck. A sob of raw desire caught in her throat, every part of her pulsating and alive as he continued to seek out her soft vulnerable places, branding them with the fire of his kisses.

The sea appeared to be dancing in the afternoon sunshine.

The tempo of Leandro’s lovemaking deepened as his hands joined his lips, a new instrument in the orchestration of foreplay and sensuality. As he explored, Luz’s eyes closed, shutting out the world around them, while his palms trailed over her slim curves, bathing her with the heat that radiated from him. Her body opened up to him like a flower in the sunlight, inviting, yielding, relishing this intimate contact as she spiralled smoothly down into a whirlpool of shameless, voluptuous pleasure.

She moaned beneath him as the heat of his body flooded back into her skin and she felt his throbbing hardness press against her, powerful and insistent. The intolerable need to touch him made her dizzy. Luz knew she was inexperienced in this field in which he was master, but let her intuition guide her: a little hesitantly, her fingers trailed feverishly over the muscles of his arms, his shoulders and down the arch of his ribs and his back.

Leandro’s athletic frame shook with tension as she found and unfastened the button of his shorts. She helped him slide them off, desperate to feel the strength of his virility against her softness.
He groaned as they touched, the contact of skin on skin scorching them both. Flames of passion burst between them as she arched and he pressed, brushing, rubbing, and they moved against each other in perfect unison.

A gust of wind rippled the ocean as the sun’s rays played on its surface, making rainbows through the spray that broke on the rocks.

Luz slid her palms across his quivering flesh, feeling his need spiral with every stroke and caress. With her lips she explored the contours of his beautiful body, tasting the salt on his skin. His breathing became laboured, the sounds rasping in his throat. Gaining in confidence, her hands moved lower and her fingers touched him tentatively, softly, marvelling at his sizeable manhood. Staring down into her face, Leandro let out a rough gasp and she watched as a more intense quiver of excitement shot through him; and so the pressure of her fingers became bolder and more intimate, guided by the gratifying feeling of his encouraging response. She had not expected him to react to her touch in this way; the thundering heart against her breast and the fierce arousal that pushed against her were living proof of what she was doing to him and she rejoiced in the pleasure she was giving.

Luz met his penetrating gaze and watched as the colour in his eyes deepened to dark green; they were almost black now. She read a quiet question in them and was suddenly aware he was holding back as he fought to control a need oscillating dangerously on a knife-edge.

Did she want to jump off this wild rollercoaster before it led them into an abyss from which there was no return? Was she prepared to leap into the unknown? Did she want him to be the first? There was probably no future for them together, and it was a gift Luz could only make once. If she had any misgivings, then she must stop him now; he was letting her decide.

But he did not need her to answer: Luz wanted to be his. There was no hesitation and there would be no inhibition either. The response was there, vibrating irrefutably between them. Her body was crying out for his; it was clear in her wildly dilated blue eyes, in
the flame that stained her face, in the burgeoning, rosy twin peaks of her small breasts that were taunt and throbbing, and in the tiny bud at the centre of her, all swollen and moist. Every part of her was waiting, pleading to be stroked and soothed, to be relieved from the ache and the longing deep within her, which only he, Leandro, had the power to fulfil.

The sea, less tranquil now, foamed, splashed and dashed with almost frolicsome delight over the numerous small islets, some of which were no more than big rocks in the sea.

Leandro responded to the potent, erotic invitation of her arousal.
‘Mi amor, mi querida amor,’
he murmured, his voice caressing and vibrant with desire, his eyes blazing with his own need. His lips searched hers hungrily, hard and possessive. One hand found the sweet curve of her breasts, while the other found its way to the moist bud between her thighs.

Luz’s eyes closed; her mind, her limbs, her soul, her entire being drenched in sensual pleasure … She had never dreamed of such delicious agony. The more she moaned with ecstasy, the more he explored and caressed until every inch of her flesh was on fire, every nerve in her body was quivering, and every cell in her brain crying out for him to fill the waiting void within her.

The wind had strengthened a little. Now the sea rushed into the deep holes in the rocks with an echoing roar. The trapped water, trying to escape the way it had come in, was met with a slamming, booming impact as the next wave banged and battered its way in.

Leandro paused once more but Luz opened her eyes, feeling his hesitation, and touched his face. Her eyes met his in a silent cry for him as her fingers moved to the back of his head and wound themselves tightly in his hair. It was enough. Leandro slid his hands under Luz and lifted her gently as he parted her thighs, supporting her with his arms. Instinctively she arched towards him, hips pressed against his, craving the feel of him inside her.

Then as she felt his hardness push against the wall of her femininity for a split second her delirious moan was edged with
alarm. His driving thrust was like a burning spear as he conquered her and she cried out his name. It was a cry of pain and of passion, of aching need and release. As though in triumph, the gulls perched on the rocks nearby rose in flight and seemed to echo the thin sound.

He froze and raised his head, looking down at her, breathing heavily; his eyes wide with shocked surprise. ‘Luz,
mi querida amor,
you’re still … I didn’t …’ he gasped before she stilled his mouth with her fingers.

‘It’s all right, it’s what I want, Leandro. It’s you that I want. Now.’ She smiled up at him and their eyes locked, enraptured, both still hungry with desire and primal longing. She drew his head back down to her, kissing him deeply. Gradually, the pain subsided and she felt the delicious warmth of him in her centre. She wrapped her thighs around him, hugging his body closer to her, an explicit demand for his force to thrust deeper into her again.

And then they were moving together, rocking to the same rhythm, their enthralled bodies in tune with each other, rising and falling in an erotic feast. It was like trying to hold on to a dream so it would never end. Their whole beings were centred on the waves of exquisite pleasure that raced through them, savouring each precious moment. They were free and wild, a man and a woman joined as one, writhing on the edge of ecstasy in total abandonment.

Release when it came was an explosive thunderclap of liquid fire as they soared together to the pinnacle of ecstasy. Their bodies convulsed feverishly, their minds empty to everything but the heavenly space in which they were floating. After those dizzy heights, they lay clasped together, still panting and trembling, weak, languid and sated with the warm honey of fulfilment; the finale to their beautiful song.

A
ship’s siren blasted rudely, blotting out all other sounds and bringing them back down to earth. The smudge of smoke from her funnel trailed in soft grey plumage against the sky. Now that the wind had dropped, the air was soft and warm, and filled with the golden, limpid light that always came before dusk.

Leandro’s arms still encircled Luz, locking her in his embrace. The heat and the scent of his masculine body wrapped around her. He caressed her with a soothing hand, submerging her with his warmth. As he lifted his head, strands of bleached chestnut hair fell across his face. She pushed them away and he stared down at her, a bleak expression darkening his features.

Luz sat up, covering herself with her towel as he rolled over. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked, alarmed at his sudden change of mood.

And though he smiled up at her, she thought there was an odd look on his face, as though it was an effort for him to smile. He was so near, yet he seemed so far away. Her mind frantically searched for a reason why shock was now churning in his gaze. She wanted to probe, to find out what he was thinking, and still she remained simply watchful.

Leandro sat up but looked away from her, a muscle in his cheek contracting. He let out a strained breath.

‘Do you have any idea what you do to me?’ he whispered.

Then, without waiting for Luz’s answer, he pulled her against him once more. His arms tightened around her as though he never wanted to let her go and he buried his face in her neck, trembling violently.

Luz didn’t know what to think. The only thing clear to her was that he was in distress. Her fingers ran slowly through the strands of his hair, caressing him soothingly as they sat in the sand holding each other.

‘I love you,’ she murmured, her lips close to his ear.

Leandro lifted his head, his face etched with pain, and his eyes shone as they met her steady gaze. He drew a ragged breath. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘And all I’ve done to repay you is behave in a blind, selfish way.’

He had not spoken of his love for her but only of his blindness, his selfishness. Luz’s romantic haze shifted and pulled apart. As realization started to dawn, an uneasy feeling crept in with it. She forced a smile to her lips. ‘Nothing happened today that I didn’t want,’ she said quietly.

‘Maybe, but I had no right to accept such a precious gift,’ he whispered as though to himself. ‘It was your first time and you chose me. Did I hurt you?’ He frowned and touched her cheek lightly with his thumb.

‘Everything I felt was wonderful …’

‘I didn’t realize … If only I’d known, I would never have allowed myself to touch you.’

She looked at him intently. ‘Someone once told me there is no shield from the forces of destiny,’ she murmured, repeating the words he had said to her at the masked ball. Whatever he was trying to say to her now, she didn’t care to hear. ‘We both wanted this. It was boiling inside us from the first moment we laid eyes on each other. Isn’t that what you told me not so long ago?’

‘Still, I shouldn’t have … It shouldn’t have happened, not now … not like this,’ he repeated dully and pulled away, sitting with his forearms resting on his knees.

Luz drew a long, shaky breath. ‘In what other way would you have had it? Leandro, this was an incredible, spontaneous explosion of love. Nothing could have stopped it.’ She knelt back on her heels. Her body was still burning from his lovemaking but now her mind
was filling with cool, quiet dread. Surely she had not been the only one to feel how perfect it had been?

He stared at her for a moment. ‘I’ve defiled your innocence. Can’t you see, Luz? I took advantage of you.’ His tone had become brisk as he passed a weary hand over his brow.

‘How can you have taken advantage of me if I was willing?’ she asked softly.

Leandro let out a mocking, self-deprecating laugh that sounded more like a cry of despair.
‘Madre de Dios!
Because I’m a gypsy bastard!’

Under the red glow of the setting sun, the whiplash of his words echoed eerily on the lonely beach. His eyes moved over her, wild and intense; the fire in them scorched her skin. For a split second she thought he was going to say something more, but he turned his face away again and the moment was gone.

Luz felt the struggle in him, just as it was in her. All she’d ever wanted was here beside her, his coppery skin glowing under the softening light of the day, but his eyes were too angry and remote for her to reach him. His bitterness stunned her and she wanted to understand what was beneath it. Gypsy or hidalgo, she would have taken him, but a mist of confusion rolled in with his reaction and strangled her throat. She raised an unsteady hand towards his arm, wanting to silently convey the love she felt for him, and then let it fall back on to the sand. His body language indicated all he wanted now was distance from her.

A golden light from the dying sun spread like a paling sheet on the washed sky. Without touching, each one lost in thought, they watched a liner move forward slowly, doggedly, into the great expanse of the sea.

When he spoke again, his voice was slightly raw. ‘For what it’s worth, Luz, I’ve never felt this way about a woman … but we must both forget what has happened today. I will disappear from your life.’

‘For what it’s worth …’ she repeated. What was all this worth to him, she wondered? Could he not see how much it meant to
her
?
And how could either of them forget what had happened? Wild-eyed, Luz raised a hand to her forehead, trying to stop the dizzying thoughts that left her reeling from such a blow.

Had she weaved romantic notions around herself and him without even realizing it? What a sentimental fool she’d been. All along he had known that she was in love with him and still he chose to push her away.

‘So, you’re disappearing again.’

‘Luz …’ Leandro’s green irises gleamed fiercely as he gazed into hers, and his palm reached out to touch her cheek. She flinched, evading it, and swallowed a lump of hysteria.

‘Don’t pull back from me, Luz,’ he whispered.

She cursed herself as her heart went out to him, even though her body seemed to freeze.

‘I’ve just given you the most precious thing that a woman can give to a man and you announce that we mustn’t see each other again. And you expect me not to pull back from you?’

Leandro stared at her, compelling her to look at him. She tried to remain rigidly composed but she was melting inside, knowing there was nowhere for her to hide for he could read in her deep-blue eyes the passion, desire and need that ref lected his own. She was swimming against the current; once more he was in control. The hand that had been gently cupping her face now closed possessively around it. Leandro focused intently on her features as if to etch them on his mind. Then he drew back, his breathing unsteady.

Dusk spread slowly across the sky. Luz stared silently at him. The inevitable truth cut through her like a knife to the stomach and left her bleeding: Leandro was leaving her and she had to let him go. Her eyes turned to skim the surface of the ocean but she found no refuge in the beauty of the dark, sparkling depths that usually moved her at this hour. So this was how things were done in his world. Love was cast like a spell, potent and fierce, and then longing and love thrown aside, broken.

It was not yet night. The evening was startlingly clear; an early single star gazed down at them, twinkling brightly in the darkening sky. The briny tang of seaweed was carried on the fresh breeze now whipping up. In the silence the only sounds were of the lapping of water against the motorboat, which Luz had moored close by, and the gentle swish of the sea breaking over the low rocks.

It was turning cold. They rose as though by common consent and put on their clothes. There was nothing more to be said. Slowly they paced side by side to the boat in bemused silence, without a backward glance. Luz stared straight ahead of her, close to tears. She was making a determined effort to forget that for a few precious moments they had nestled in each other’s arms and had loved one another in a rapturous communion of body and soul.

When they climbed into the boat, she turned and caught in the gathering darkness an urgent questioning in Leandro’s look that matched the confusion in her heart. But what point was there in raking over what had already been said? Throughout the twenty-minute journey back she could feel his eyes on her but, even if she had looked up at him, she would not have seen him through the mist clouding her vision.

Leandro was the first to get out of the boat. He held out his hand to help her but Luz chose not to see it, convinced now that if she valued her own peace of mind, she must never have anything to do with the gypsy again.

‘Will you not let me help you, Luz?’

‘I don’t need help. I can manage on my own, thank you.’

The air between them, usually crackling with a powerful charge, was now thick with unexpressed emotion but neither could manage any more words. Luz caught something unfathomable in Leandro’s gaze before he turned away from her and her heart gave one final lurch before she ordered it to be still.

She must walk away without a backward look, but she did look back and watched him go with an unbearable sense of loss, her eyes following him as he disappeared over the dunes. Part of her mind
taunted her: he’d had her, enjoyed her and now he was moving on. The shock and disbelief were such that it gave way to nothing but a strange emptiness deep inside her. The real hurt would come afterwards.

A short time later, as evening faded into night, Leandro lay back on the soft dunes among cactuses and wild shrubs watching the old lighthouse come alive. In Cádiz, the cobalt-blue sky always darkened and thickened in the couple of hours before nightfall. Shadows devoured him, bruising his soul, while he marvelled at how the evening’s slow descent matched his own. Under the ever-changing skyscape, high above the sea, a sweep of glorious coastline dimmed as it unfolded.

He looked on as the last ferry of the day plied its way into Cádiz Harbour. A small crowd of travellers had gathered at the port’s terminal gate, waiting to embark. Here was the leisure of enforced patience, for nothing would hasten the arrival of the multi-storey boat. It docked and discharged its passengers before reloading. As darkness settled, the ramp was raised and the ferry gradually vanished into the night. It was more satisfying to watch it go, he decided. He was not a patient man.

As the balmy breeze caressed him, he contemplated the obvious: the texture of the sand, the bands of iridescence where waves ran up the beach, the sea sparkling like diamonds under a silver half-moon. Memories of Luz floated through his mind to keep him company. It was not the burn of passion that stirred him now but an emotion that was tender and cherishing.

As they had walked in silence back to the boat, he had wanted to ask her again if she was all right, but he sensed with that rare intuition so unique to lovers that she had withdrawn from him. Though it had cost him dearly, he had forced himself to lie to her and now he must keep his distance. That he had claimed her
virginity still resounded like a shockwave through him; he’d taken it for granted that, like most liberal Englishwomen of her age, she’d already had physical experience of men. What a fool, he should have known better – there was a purity to Luz’s beauty that shone like the evening star on a clear Andalucían night. He’d read the challenging question in her eyes, the confusion and hurt as they’d climbed into the boat. There were so many ways in which he’d been a fool, but there was also so much he had to unravel before he could answer her with the truth.

The craving to touch her had been overwhelming and yet he had not done so, afraid he would be unable to quench the strong flames of desire still blazing through him like an uncontrollable fire. Covertly, his eyes had dwelt on her soft, satiny skin and the purity of her profile: how fresh she had looked, and so utterly defenceless. His heart aching, he thought wildly,
ti adoro querida, perdóname, forgive me, Luz
. He had stared at her continuously until they arrived at the shore and it was all he could do to stop himself from taking her in his arms, clasping her close to him, never to let her go. But the reality was not that simple. When he came to think of it, life for a long time had been anything but simple.
‘You can’t escape who you are.’
Isn’t that what his uncle had told him?

Leandro settled back in the dunes. In the distance the old lighthouse threw its steady beam out into the night. Gradually a deep understanding came to him, so overpowering in its strength that he sensed it almost physically – a kind of ecstatic pain, so much easier to bear than the pangs of guilt that had gnawed away at him for weeks. He could see light at the end of the tunnel.

The secret fires slumbering in Leandro’s heart burst into flames and he knew that things could not continue as they were any longer. It would take decisiveness, determination and courage to deal with the situation – a certain amount of tact, too – but he couldn’t see any alternative. He must take the bull by the horns and act. What he was about to do would threaten his very existence as a
gitano
, dishonour the ways of his people perhaps, and offend their sense of justice.
Yet he had his own sense of
lachirí
and he could no longer bear this battle within himself, even if it pitted him against his own kind and made an enemy of them, even if he had to die to do it. He would carry his war right into that enemy’s camp and meet whatever challenge awaited him, whatever fate would now be his. But his adversary was like a wild animal when crossed. He had to do this without awakening the creature’s wrath, which would be fierce and unforgiving.

He thought again of his life: of the world of the
gitanos
, these people who lived by implacable, harsh rules but who were part of him; of his mother, consumed by a slow illness that would eventually kill her. She could be a passionate, vindictive woman to others –
Il
Diabólica
– terrible and ruthless in her fury, but also the most loving and caring person when it came to him, her beloved eldest son.