by Anne Mather
‘No. No, I’m fine. Really.’
Somehow Ally found her voice again, tugging her arm urgently out of his possessive fingers. God, this was all she needed, she thought in anguish. For Raul to turn up and see her apparently getting too friendly with some other man. Not that she cared about his feelings, she told herself fiercely. She just hated the idea that he might feel some justification for the way he’d behaved.
‘Are you sure?’ Tom Adams didn’t want to let her go and although he’d been forced to surrender his hold on her arm, when she moved away, he came after her. ‘Let me see you up to your room.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’ And then, as an afterthought, ‘Um—thank you.’ But Ally felt a hysterical sob rising in her throat at his words. History did repeat itself, after all.
‘But you’re shaking,’ he insisted, and Ally closed her eyes against the uncharitable urge to push him away.
‘I’m just tired,’ she said, all too aware of their audience. ‘I—if you’ll excuse me.’
Tom Adams at last seemed to realise he wasn’t doing his cause any good by persisting. ‘Well, if you’re certain,’ he murmured, and she breathed more freely at the thought of making good her escape. Thankfully, the lifts were at this side of the lobby, enabling her to get up to her room without encountering Raul Ramirez. Now all she had to worry about was finding an acceptable excuse for Sam to give Suzanne as to why she had to return home. Immediately.
She’d pressed the button to summon the lift when Tom Adams came hurrying towards her again. ‘About tonight,’ he said, and Ally realised she was not going to shake him off. ‘I understand that you might not want to talk about it now, but if you’ll give me the number of your room, I’ll give you a ring later on.’
‘It’s Mrs Sloan, isn’t it?’
The voice was unmistakable. Rich and low, with just a hint of harshness to give it strength. Ally’s skin feathered at its sensual assault on her nerves, but what troubled her most were the memories it so effortlessly evoked. Memories of his hands on her skin, on her naked body, of his tongue laving her swollen nipples and his powerful body penetrating hers…
These pangs of sexual hunger were totally new to her. Jeff had never made her feel the way she was feeling now. But what scared her most was the power he had over her shattered senses and the desperate ache she could feel deep inside her that whatever happened she must hide from him.
‘Oh—Raul,’ she said, her eyes flickering towards him quickly and away again. She refused to mimic his sarcastic greeting and she was breaking every promise she’d made to herself by even speaking to him again. But that fleeting appraisal had embraced everything about him, from the hair that was visible above the opened collar of his sleeveless body shirt to the muscled thighs below his denim shorts. ‘Are you waiting for Julia?’
Tom Adams raised an enquiring brow as Raul’s eyes darkened with some emotion she couldn’t identify. ‘Do you two know one another?’ he asked, evidently deciding he had the stronger claim to her attention, and Ally’s lips pressed together in sudden impatience.
‘We’re acquainted,’ she responded shortly. She pressed the button to summon the lift. Then, because something more was expected of her, she added bitterly, ‘Not very well.’
Raul’s mouth thinned. He turned to Tom Adams. ‘Are you and Mrs Sloan old friends?’
‘No, we’re not.’ Before Tom Adams could reply, Ally intervened. ‘We met on the beach a few minutes ago,’ she told him, despising herself for the need she felt to make that clear to him. But she had to defend her reputation, she thought tightly, her expression hopefully mirroring the resentment she felt at his intrusion. The lift arrived and she stepped gratefully into it. ‘Excuse me.’
The doors were closing when Raul took her and Tom Adams by surprise by joining her. His hand, ostensibly moving to press the button for the floor he wanted, blocked any attempt she might have made to open the doors again, and the last thing she saw was Tom Adams’s shocked face before she was trapped in the enclosed cage of the lift with a man she both feared and despised.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded, but Raul wasn’t listening to her. With what she later decided was a suspicious familiarity with such things, he pressed the button that stalled the lift and then turned purposefully towards her.
Ally’s heart skipped a beat at the look in his eyes, and she backed away from him. But not far. When her foot encountered the panelled wall behind her, she knew she had nowhere else to go. Raul came to put one hand at either side of her head, supporting himself and imprisoning her, and she gazed up at him with wide, apprehensive eyes.
‘I—I’ll scream,’ she said, but evidently her threat didn’t carry much conviction because he ignored it.
Bending towards her, he covered her lips with his and Ally’s senses swam at the possessive pressure of his mouth. His tongue probed the seam of her lips, sought entrance, stroked the soft inner flesh with increasing urgency. His arms folded against the wall of the lift, bringing his lean frame against her, allowing her to feel what their kissing was doing to him. Then, his hands parted her wrap and his hairy thigh pushed intimately between her legs.
Weakness enveloped her. In the last couple of days she’d actually begun to hope that he might be too ashamed to show his face at the hotel and that if she could just avoid any invitations to his home she might be able to salvage something of her holiday. But she’d been wrong. Seeing him there in the lobby had exploded that belief. And now, with his hips against hers and his arousal pressing unmistakably into her stomach, she was made acutely aware that he had no shame. Unless she did something about it—like now—he was going to drag her down to his level.
Somehow, she managed to drag one hand up to her face. Turning her head, she pressed her knuckles against her lips. ‘Please, don’t do this.’
‘Why not?’ His mouth sought another target, nuzzling her palm before trailing erotic kisses across her cheek and down the side of her neck. ‘You want me,’ he said, his fingers finding the high-cut edge of her swimsuit and slipping intimately between her legs. He blew in her ear. ‘You’re wet.’
Ally caught her breath at this blatant provocation but she managed to answer him. ‘I’ve—been swimming,’ she got out unsteadily, but he didn’t give up.
‘Hot and wet,’ he amended softly, stroking the pulsing nub of her womanhood. ‘I do know the difference.’
Ally gave a strangled sob. ‘Please,’ she begged. ‘Let me go. You’re not being fair…’
‘You have an old saying in your country,’ he began, but she wouldn’t let him finish.
‘Let go of me,’ she cried, her face contorted with emotion, and although she doubted her feelings had had anything to do with it, he abruptly released her and stepped back.
For a moment, Ally was too shocked to do anything. But then, when she came to her senses and reached for the button to start the lift again, once again he put himself between her and the panel. ‘Wait.’
‘Why should I?’ Ally was shaking so badly she was amazed she was still standing. If she ever got out of here, she’d make sure she was never alone with him again, she thought grimly. ‘I don’t think we have anything more to say to one another.’
Raul rocked back against the wall of the lift behind him. ‘You don’t mean that,’ he said flatly.
‘I do mean it.’ Ally was beyond thinking rationally. ‘You—you disgust me. I disgust myself. If I had my way, I’d never set eyes on you again.’
Raul gave her a weary look. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’ Ally straightened, folding the wrap he had dislodged more tightly about her waist. The fact that her actions didn’t do anything to ease the throbbing between her legs was depressing but she’d get over it. ‘I don’t know how you have the nerve to stand there and pretend that it doesn’t matter; that cheating on the woman you intend to marry means nothing to you. You’re—you’re despicable!’
‘Did I say that it didn’t matt
er?’ he asked harshly. ‘Did I say that I’m not ashamed of the way I’ve acted?’
Ally’s jaw dropped. ‘You don’t mean to pretend you are?’
Raul’s expression was bitter. ‘What do you take me for?’ he demanded. ‘Do you think I do this sort of thing on a regular basis? As some kind of sick validation of my manhood, perhaps? Go on. Don’t hold back. Tell it like it is.’
Ally swallowed. ‘Then why did you—?’
‘I don’t know.’ Raul spoke savagely. ‘I don’t know why I did it.’ Then he backed up. ‘Yes, I do.’ He scowled. ‘I did it because I couldn’t help myself. There: that should give you some satisfaction. I made love to you because after I’d kissed you, after I’d touched you, I couldn’t let you go.’
Ally moved her head disbelievingly from side to side. ‘That’s not true.’
Raul’s mouth compressed. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m not like that,’ said Ally fiercely. ‘I’m no femme fatale. I’m not beautiful or glamorous. I’m just me! Late thirties and overweight, and my feet are too big. Men don’t—well, until I spent that night with you, I’d never slept with anyone else but Jeff.’
‘Which proves what, exactly?’
‘Which proves—that apart from being too old for you, I’m not the kind of woman that—that any man would—’ She broke off and then continued less emotively, ‘I’m not like Suzanne or—or your mother, probably. I’m not sleek and sophisticated or—’
‘You’re talking rubbish,’ said Raul impatiently and, although she tried to evade him, he grabbed her arm and forced her round to face her reflection in the narrow mirror behind her. ‘Look at yourself,’ he commanded. ‘What do you see? Not the homely housewife you’re describing, is it? Be honest with yourself, Ally. You’re a lovely passionate woman. Age doesn’t come into it. You’re in your prime. Accept it. Enjoy it.’
Ally shook her head, but she couldn’t avoid the image that confronted her. It was true, she thought. She didn’t look much like the woman she was used to seeing in the bathroom mirror back home, but that was partly due to the sensual fullness of her mouth. Raul’s kisses had left their mark; left her, too, with high colour in her usually pale cheeks. Even her damp hair had a tumbled sexuality about it. She looked—wanton, she decided unhappily, which was not something she would ever have believed about herself. Raul had done this, she realised, and she should hate him for it.
He had let her go to step back and slump against the wall opposite and now she turned to confront him with accusing eyes. ‘And how am I supposed to enjoy it?’ she demanded, combing her fingers through her hair in an effort to tame its tousled strands. ‘By having an affair with you?’
‘No!’ With an exclamation of frustration, he pushed himself away from the wall. ‘No,’ he said again, angrily, his scowl causing deep furrows between his dark eyes. ‘That’s not what I meant at all. For God’s sake, Ally, I don’t like this situation any better than you do. It certainly wasn’t my intention to get involved with someone else.’
Ally shrank away from his fury, her stomach cramping painfully at his harsh words. ‘Then why did you?’ she asked, hardly aware that by offering the question she was prolonging their isolation. ‘Why did you?’
‘Do you think I haven’t asked myself that question?’ he snapped. ‘I should never have gone into your room; I know that now. The signs were there, goodness knows, but I chose to ignore them. I thought I was so cool, so in control of the situation. But I wasn’t.’
Ally made a helpless gesture. ‘I don’t understand—’
‘No, you don’t,’ he agreed flatly. He paused. ‘Didn’t you ever wonder why I should be staying at an airport hotel? I mean, I told you I’d been visiting the Boat Show. Surely you didn’t think that that was my base for the whole time I was there?’
Ally shifted uneasily. ‘I—didn’t think about it.’
‘No.’ His expression was ironic. ‘Well, I didn’t. Stay at Heathrow, I mean. I stayed in London. I only spent that one night at the airport. As you did.’
‘Then why—?’
‘Do you want the truth?’
‘Of course.’ But Ally was apprehensive.
‘Because Suzanne had spun this tale about her dear friend who was coming to visit. About what a rotten time you’d been having and how they were going to make sure you had a really good holiday.’
‘I don’t see—’ Ally began, but he cut her off.
‘I felt sorry for you,’ he said brutally, and Ally’s hand came to cover her mouth. ‘I felt sorry for you,’ he said again. ‘I thought, Here’s this pathetic little woman whose husband’s deserted her, spending a lonely night at an unfamiliar hotel before facing a long, possibly nerve-racking flight the next day. Why don’t I introduce myself to her, take her to dinner even, make her last night in England a pleasant one?’
Ally drew a trembling breath. ‘Well, thank you for sharing that with me,’ she said stiffly. ‘I—I had wondered—’
‘I said that was why I spent the night at the Regency,’ Raul interrupted her harshly. ‘I didn’t say that that was what happened. It wasn’t. For God’s sake, Ally, you know that.’
‘Do I?’ Her voice was low.
‘You should.’ He thrust his balled fists into the pockets of his shorts. ‘God, nothing worked out as I’d expected. I saw this attractive woman across the bar and I thought she might be you, but you said your name was Diana—’
Ally’s cheeks burned. ‘I did tell you my real name later.’
‘I know you did. But by then it was too late.’
‘Too late?’ She was confused.
‘Yeah.’ He sighed. ‘You see, I’d been attracted to— Diana, and I’d decided that I didn’t care where Suzanne’s friend was hiding herself.’
Ally stared at him. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Nevertheless, it’s the truth. Then, as you began talking about your family, I realised you might actually be the woman I had originally come to meet.’ He paused. ‘Surely you can see how the mix-up occurred?’
‘I can see that it was too late for you to be truthful with me,’ retorted Ally angrily. ‘As soon as you knew who I was—’
‘What would you have had me do?’ He blew out a breath. ‘You forget. By then I didn’t want to tell you who I was.’
Ally quivered. ‘Because you’d decided to take advantage of the situation?’
‘You know better than that.’ He scowled. ‘Goddammit, Ally, I didn’t force my way into your bedroom.’
‘But you didn’t refuse my invitation, did you?’
‘No.’ He conceded the point. ‘But surely you must admit that what happened afterwards wasn’t entirely my fault?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Well, I do. Hell, why do you think I left you as I did? I knew that what I’d done was unforgivable, and I couldn’t stand to face you in daylight.’
‘So you sneaked away like a thief in the night!’
‘If it pleases you to think of it like that.’ Raul drew a deep breath. ‘I’m not proud of what I did, Ally. That’s why I want you to know—’
‘I think we’ve said all there is to say,’ Ally interrupted him tensely. She knew she couldn’t take much more of this. Turning her head aside, she made her eyes search the control panel for the switch that would start the lift moving again. She had heard the hysterical note in her voice and, desperately trying to tamp it down, she moved towards the doors. ‘Is this the button?’
‘Ally!’
‘You don’t have to worry,’ she told him tensely. ‘I’ll be leaving in a couple of days. I don’t want to prolong this fiasco any more than you do.’ Her lips curled. ‘Your dirty little secret’s safe with me.’
He swore then, but Ally wasn’t listening. With a little lurch, she’d set the lift on its upward journey and this time he didn’t attempt to intervene. When the doors opened at the third floor he didn’t move, and as there were two couples waiting to get in, she was able to wal
k away without a backward glance. She heard one of the men say something to Raul about the unreliability of hotel lifts, but she didn’t hear his answer. With a shiver of apprehension, she opened the door to her room and slipped inside with an aching sense of relief…
CHAPTER SIX
ALLY was sitting in the Patio Restaurant, making an effort to eat a chef’s salad, when Suzanne slid into the chair opposite. Her friend was looking unusually hot and flustered and Ally hoped her appearance had nothing to do with her.
She’d already ascertained that Raul had left the premises. A casual chat with the receptionist had gleaned the information that Señor Ramirez had left an hour ago. Luisa, who was a very friendly girl, needed little encouragement to expound the merits of her employer’s daughter’s boyfriend. He was so nice and so good-looking, she’d exclaimed. Julia was so lucky to be going out with a man like him.
Not to mention the fact that his father was one of the richest men in the islands, Ally had appended cynically. Since being here, she’d discovered that both Suzanne and Peter regarded that as a major consideration. She’d been surprised at how mercenary they’d both become in middle age, and she could only assume it was the struggle they’d had to make the hotel a success that was colouring their judgement.
And after this morning…
But she didn’t want to think about that. She’d already tried to ring her daughter, but apparently she was not yet home from work. Although she was still studying for a degree in Business Studies, Sam had taken a part-time job at a local fast food restaurant to supplement her student loan and, considering that England was five hours ahead of Nassau time, Ally had expected her to be in.
She’d catch her later, she assured herself, and, assuming an enquiring smile for Suzanne’s benefit, she said, ‘You look flushed.’ She hesitated. ‘Is something wrong?’
Suzanne shook her head. ‘You don’t want to hear about my troubles,’ she said, raising a hand to summon the waiter and ordering herself a black coffee. She took a deep breath. ‘I saw you going swimming earlier. Did you have a good time?’
