Lynne Graham- Contract Baby

by Contract Baby (lit)

  Raul rapped out instructions in Spanish. The maid bobbed her head in instant acquiescence and then sped off down the corridor again.

  Raul sent Polly a smouldering look of derision. ‘You need no longer fear my unwelcome approaches, mi esposa. The maid will convey your possessions to another room!’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Polly paced the floor in the beautiful guest room the housekeeper had allotted to her without once meeting her eyes. The shame of so new a bride being ejected from the marital bedroom had been fully felt on Polly’s behalf.

  Over the next couple of hours, Polly ran the gamut of fiercer emotions than she had ever known. She had never come across anyone with a temper as volatile as Raul’s. She had never dreamt that Raul might speak to her like that—even worse, look at her as he had. As if she was nothing to him, less than nothing, even, nothing but a pain and a nuisance, beneath his notice and utterly unworthy of any further attention.

  She went from rage at his having made such a public spectacle of their differences to. sudden all-engulfing pain at the sheer strength of that rejection. They had been to­gether perhaps twenty-four hours, yet everything had fallen apart. A voice in her mind just screamed that she couldn’t cope, couldn’t handle the situation. She wanted to take Luis and run…run and make Raul sorry, she registered. The tears flowed then, in shame at the manner in which her thoughts went round and round in circles but never lost the need to keep Raul at the very centre.

  Calmer, if no more happy once she had cried, she took a good, hard look at her own behaviour and didn’t like what she saw. And when she exerted herself to try and see things from Raul’s point of view, she just groaned and squirmed at her own foolish prickly resentment and insecurity.

  Gorgeous, woman-killing, much sought-after and feted guy becomes unwilling husband but makes decent effort to paper over the cracks. What with? Sex. What else? He doesn’t know anything else. Every other woman can’t wait to get him between the sheets to check out that fabled repu­tation, but his bride is inexplicably and therefore offen­sively reluctant. Not only reluctant but also sarcastic, jeal­ous, and seemingly incapable of behaving like a mature adult committed to getting their marriage of convenience up and running.

  And why had she behaved like an idiot?

  Because she loved him, Polly conceded painfully, and she wanted, needed to be so much more than a convenient body in Raul’s bed. And, worst of all, a sexually ignorant partner when he had to be accustomed to lovers with a considerable degree of sophistication and expertise, not to mention lithe and perfect bodies. So, out of stubborn pride and resentment over her own sense of inadequacy, she had driven him away.

  If she had told him straight off about that clash with Melina D’Agnolo, at least he would have understood why she was in such a prickly mood. But she had missed her opportunity and knew that it would be an act of insanity to risk opening such a subject with Raul now. In fact even the thumbscrews he had mentioned wouldn’t dredge Melina’s name from her lips…not when he already saw her as an obsessively jealous woman.

  And all his self-preserving male antennae were in perfect working order, Polly acknowledged at the lowest ebb of self-honesty. She was and had been jealous, and no doubt would be jealous again, because jealousy thrived on insecu­rity. And she did want to own Raul, body and soul.

  Seeing how swollen her eyes were in the mirror, she splashed her face over and over again with cold water. Then she washed her hair, put on a litte light make-up, some perfume and slid into one of the silk nighties he had given her. Creeping down the corridor like a burglar sneaking under the cover of darkness, she walked back into the mari­tal bedroom and clambered into the big wide bed to watchthe moonlight slant across the ceiling through the undrawn curtains.

  She must have fallen asleep, because she woke with a start later, hearing running feet and then raised anxious voices in the corridor outside. Thrusting her tumbled hair off her sleepy face, she switched on the light and lurched out of bed. Opening the bedroom door, she peered out.

  A clutch of gesticulating staff surrounded Raul. Liberally daubed in mud, and far from his usual immaculate self, he looked frantic, shooting out questions at volume, expressive hands moving at volatile speed to indicate his level of angry concern.

  ‘Raul… ?’ Polly called worriedly as he paused for breath. ‘What’s wrong?’

  The staff huddle twisted round with a general look of astonishment.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Raul thundered at her accusingly.

  ‘In bed…sleeping,’ Polly mumbled in bewilderment. ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?’ Raul roared back in apparent disbelief. The staff were now all slowly rolling back like a quiet tide in the direction of the stairs. Raul strode past her into the bedroom, shooting the rumpled bed a speaking glance of seeming amazement.

  ‘Lesson three on being a proper wife.’ Polly whispered her prepared opening sentence before she could lose her nerve. ‘Never let the sun go down on a row.’

  ‘It’s rising…the sun,’ Raul informed her half under his breath and, bending down, he scooped her unresisting body up into his arms, crossed the room and settled her back on the bed.

  Frowning, not following that oddly strained if true re­mark, as the dawn light was indeed already burnishing the night sky, Polly gazed uncertainly up at him. ‘What was going on out there?’ Dark colour flared over his superb cheekbones and his wide, sensual mouth hardened. ‘You weren’t where you were supposed to be. I thought you’d bolted again.’

  ‘B-bolted where?’ Polly asked, with some difficulty squashing the incautious giggle trying to break free of her taut throat.

  ‘How do I know? There’s two helicopters out there, a whole collection of cars, a stable full of horses! If you wanted to bolt, it wouldn’t be much of a challenge to find the means,’ Raul informed her grimly as he stood over her, six foot plus of dark, menacing authority. ‘My bed was the last place I expected to find you!’

  So he hadn’t even looked. He had jumped to conclusions. He had checked the bedroom she should have been in and immediately raised the alarm. Although she was deeply em­barrassed by that candid admission that he hadn’t dreamt she would have the nerve to take up residence in his bed, she was also rather relieved to register that Raul was not omnipotent. He could not yet forecast her every move. But she turned her head away from the light, fearful that he would see too much in her expressive face.

  ‘Do you want me to go?’ she asked with studied casualness.

  ‘No…I can recognise an olive tree when I’m handed one.’

  ‘You mean an olive branch,’ she contradicted gently.

  ‘No, when you put on silk, scent, mascara and lipstick for my benefit, and arrange yourself like a little bridal sac­rifice in my bed…’ Raul murmured almost roughly as he stared down at her, brilliant eyes reflecting only the light in his darkly handsome features ‘…it’s definitely not just a branch, it’s a whole tree…in fact, it might well be the equivalent of an orchard.’ He thrust impatient fingers through his disordered hair and shook his head ruefully. ‘Dios mio…what am I talking about?’

  Standing there, talking like that, he seemed disturbingly different. He was still regarding her with a piercing, nar­row-eyed intensity that didn’t seem to be making him anymore comfortable than it was making her. In fact, he looked pretty pale beneath his healthy bronze skin. As Polly was already achingly self-conscious about lying there in his bed, his reactions were increasing her anxiety level. Here she was, offering an invitation to the best of her ability, but maybe he no longer even wanted that invitation!

  The tense silence seemed to scream in her ears. ‘You must’ve been out riding for a long time…’ she commented, desperate to break that nerve-straining quiet.

  ‘I went some distance. I called in with…with a neigh­bour.’ His stubborn jawline clenched, handsome mouth compressing, strong face suddenly shadowing as he strode towards the bathroom. ‘I’m filthy. I need a shower.’

/>   Pink-cheeked now, Polly studied him the same way a crossword addict without talent studies the crime de la crime of challenges, desperate for a hint of true inspiration. He stepped out of view, and she listened then to the strangely intimate sounds of a man undressing: the thud of his boots hitting the tiled floor, the snap as he presumably undid the waistband of his jodhpurs…

  Oh, dear heaven, if Raul no longer even wanted her to share his bed, how did she get out of this situation without losing face?

  ‘Maybe I should go back to my room,’ Polly practically whispered.

  Sudden silence fell.

  Bare-chested and barefoot, Raul appeared in the door­way, all rampant virility with rumpled hair and the jodhpurs which had an indecently faithful fit to his long, lean thighs undone at his waist. ‘Whatever you feel most comfortable doing.’

  On receipt of that refusal to state an opinion either way— which from a male of Raul’s domineering temperament was particularly hard to take—Polly blinked in bemused cha­grin.

  ‘But you can sleep here just as easily,’ Raul pointed out with a careless shrug. v’Fine…’ Polly managed to splutter, turning over on her side to glower with stinging eyes at the dawn rilling the sky with such vibrant colour. The unfeeling louse didn’t want an orchard of olive branches. Her so sophisticated, sexy and immensely self-assured husband was trying to let her down gently. And now she was stuck, because if she jumped out of bed and fled she was going to look really stupid and pathetic! And, furthermore, Raul would then work out for himself that her olive branch had been rather more emotionally motivated than she’d chosen to admit.

  She listened to the shower switching off and grimaced. The lights went out. The mattress gave at the other side of the bed.

  ‘If you sleep any closer to the edge, you might fall out,’ Raul remarked lazily.

  ‘I don’t want to get in your way!’ Polly snapped child­ishly.

  Raul released his breath in an audible hiss. ‘You don’t have anything to fear, gatita. I realise that I’ve been…inconsiderate,’ he selected after an uncharacteristic hesitation.

  Stiff as a board, Polly strove to work out the intent of that unexpected admission.

  ‘Naturally I want you to be happy,’ Raul informed her out of the blue.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Of course. Why so amazed?’ Raul queried. ‘What else would I want?’

  ‘You want the best for Luis,’ Polly breathed, not quite levelly. ‘I understand that—’

  ‘Dios…when I thought you’d gone I never even thought to check on our son!’ His slightly dazed tone was that of a male belatedly making that connection and not best pleased by it.

  Good heavens, Polly thought in shock over that aston­ishing admission. Raul had actually thought of her first, put her first? Instantly it was as if a tight little knot of resentment was jerked loose inside her. She no longer felt like an unwanted wife, to be tolerated only because their son needed his mother. And she wondered when Raul’s single-minded focus on Luis had stretched to include her as a person of some import in his own life. But she really didn’t care when that minor miracle had taken place, she was just so very grateful that it had.

  ‘I wouldn’t bolt again…as you put it,’ she shared awk­wardly.

  ‘I can forgive you for Vermont. That was understand­able. The clinic too…you panicked. That’s all in the past now.’

  Polly turned over. ‘But coming here was still a big thing for me…’

  ‘No less a challenge for me, querida.’ Raul reached for her clenched fingers where they lay above the sheet, and calmly tugged her across the divide between them.

  Her bream caught in her throat as he eased her into his arms. Gazing up at him, she drank in the hard bones form­ing that lean, strong face, her stomach fluttering, her heart­beat racing, every fibre of her body pitched in anticipation of his next move.

  Raul rubbed a blunt forefinger gently over the ripe full­ness of her parted lips and looked down at her. A sigh feathered in her throat, her eyes widening, dark blue pools of unconscious invitation. ‘I…I was just nervous earlier,’ she confided.

  ‘You have beautiful eyes. That was the first thing I ever noticed about you.’

  ‘In Vermont?’

  ‘I saw you long before then.’

  Her brow furrowed. ‘But howT

  ‘Your photograph, then your initial interview with my lawyer. Trick mirror. I was in the office next door,’ he confided without apology.

  ‘Devious,’ she said breathlessly, her heart hammering as she stared up into mesmeric golden eyes.‘Cautious,’ Raul contradicted.

  The hard heat of his lean, virile body was seeping into her by pervasive degrees. She was so outrageously con­scious of his proximity that she was keeping her lungs go­ing on tiny little pants. ‘Kiss me,’ she muttered, before she could lose her nerve.

  ‘I’m burning up to possess you,’ Raul breathed thickly. ‘I won’t stop at kissing.’

  She trembled and, closing her eyes, reached up to press her lips against his. Teasingly he circled her mouth with bis own, refusing to deepen the pressure, and in sudden driving impatience Polly sank her fingers into the depths of his luxuriant black hair to pull him down to her.

  Vibrant amusement shimmered in his eyes as he held himself above her. ‘Is that a yes?’

  Shaken then by her own boldness, she met the reckless golden glitter of sensual threat in his gaze and started melt­ing down deep inside, the weighted languor of anticipation sentencing her to stillness. Helplessly she nodded.

  With a slashing smile that turned her heart over, Raul lowered his imperious dark head. ‘You have to understand that this is a first for me too,’ he shared silkily. ‘I’ve never had a virgin in my bed. It makes you very special.’

  ‘I never know whether you’re being ironic or sincere,’ Polly muttered tautly.

  ‘Only a very stupid man would be ironic on his wedding night,’ Raul asserted as he brought his hard, mobile mouth passionately down on hers.

  He kissed her with innate eroticism, parting her lips, let­ting his tongue plunge deep into the honeyed warmth within, seeking out and finding every tender spot. Clutching at him, she was madly conscious of every slight movement he made, and wholly at the mercy of the wild, sweet, se­ductive feelings sweeping through her quivering body. It was a passionate, urgent exploration that betrayed his very masculine hunger, a growl of satisfaction escaping histhroat before he lifted his head again, surveying her with shameless satisfaction.

  ‘I told you that you would come to me, mi esposa.’

  Her lashes fluttered up. She gave him a dazed look of reproach, too shaken by the effect he was having on her to muster a tart response. He came back to her again, tasting her, delving deep and then skimming the tender roof of her mouth in a flickering, provocative caress until she was gasping for breath but still hanging onto him.

  Leaning back from her then, an unashamedly predatory smile on his sensual mouth, Raul trailed the ribbon straps of her nightgown slowly down over her slight shoulders, brushing them down her arms and then carefully slipping her hands free at the wrists.

  ‘I want to look at all of you,’ he breathed huskily. ‘Touch all of you. Taste every smooth, silken inch of that pale, perfect skin and then sink so deep into you, you won’t know where I end and you begin.’

  Transfixed, and hectically flushed, Polly stared up at him, utterly overpowered by the tiny little tremors already rack­ing her taut length, the tormenting throb of heat she could feel between her slender thighs. Torn between fascination and shyness, she watched him smoothly tug down the bod­ice of her nightgown so that her small, firm breasts sprang free, her nipples already wantonly distended rosy buds.

  ‘Raul, please…’ she moaned, hot with a debilitating and confusing mix of embarrassment and excitement.

  ‘Digs…but you are exquisite.’ His dark golden eyes blazed over her bare breasts with urgent appreciation and made her tremble.

  With deft
but impatient hands, Raul eased the nightgown tangled round her waist down over her slim hips, raising her knees to slide the garment finally free and discard it.

  Smoothing a soothing hand over her shifting hips, he ran intent eyes over the slender length of her, her tiny waist, delicately rounded stomach, the cluster of dark curls crown­ing the juncture of her trembling thighs. As she made asudden impulsive snatch at the sheet, he forestalled her, and gazed down at her with a wicked smile. ‘I’ve waited a long time to see you like this.’ Long brown fingers closed round her wrist and lingered. ‘Your pulse is going crazy. Admit it…it’s exciting to be looked at, appreciated and lusted over. What did you expect, querida? That I would fall on you like a clumsy, selfish boy and it would all be over in minutes? That is not how I make love…’

  ‘No…’ Polly conceded shakily, scarcely able to swallow, so constricted was her throat.

  A dark line of colour lay over his superb cheekbones. ‘I want this to be good for you…I want you to spend all day aching for the moment when I take you in my arms again…’

  Trembling like a leaf, with the heat surging through her in waves, Polly mumbled, ‘Ambitious…’

  ‘Always…in everything. It’s in my blood,’ Raul husked in agreement, running an exploring hand lightly over her outrageously sensitive breasts and forcing a gasp of startled reaction from her.

  Helplessly she strained up to him, and with the tip of his tongue he provocatively traced the already reddened curve of her lips, so that she tipped her head back, openly inviting the hot, hard pressure of his mouth which every sense craved.

  With a roughened laugh he tasted her again, sliding a hand beneath her hips and pressing her into contact with the aggressive thrust of his own arousal, and excitement drenched her in a blinding, burning wave. She moaned be­neath that devastating mouth of his, need rising like a greedy fire as he let his fingers finally stroke and tug her achingly sensitive nipples. Freeing her swollen lips, he slid down the bed and employed that expert mouth on her tender breasts instead.