‘There’s no need for you to pour your heart out at…this hour…’ Rafael’s mouth felt dry. He cleared his throat.
‘I want to,’ Amy said earnestly.
Now both her small hands were resting on his folded arms and he knew that he was reacting like any man would when confronted by a sexy woman wearing nothing but an oversized dressing gown. Even if the sexy woman was not the sort he could ever really be attracted to. On any other level, he told himself, bar the physical.
‘I am out of his league.’ She tried to imagine James being thrown in with her family and failed. James was charming but fastidious. He would talk to anybody but he socialised with people who laughed at the same things he did and enjoyed the same lavish lifestyle that he had. Right now, he would be one of the lads with all the juniors, but once back in England he wouldn’t dream of having any of them over to his house for dinner. It didn’t make him a nasty person, just one who had grown up in a completely different world from the rest of them. ‘I don’t know how I could ever have thought that he might be interested in me. I met some of his friends…when I’ve catered for them at the office…and the women are nothing like me. They’re all…posh…’ She giggled sheepishly and launched into an imitation of a posh London socialite discussing the weather.
When she laughed like that, he noticed her robe slithered open just a fraction. He could definitely see the swell of her breasts and he nearly groaned aloud.
‘Apology…accepted…’
He tried to shift back but, of course, pressed against the window ledge, he had zero room for manoeuvre. So he remained there, turned on, making sure she didn’t get any closer, hoping she didn’t look down. As horny as a teenager. Him! The man who controlled his enjoyments, who never found himself in the grip of wayward emotions!
‘Thank you.’ Amy meant it. From the bottom of her heart. Whatever emotions she happened to be feeling, she never stinted on it. And right now it happened to be regret.
She reached up, tiptoeing because he was so much taller than her, and closed her eyes. She meant to give him a peck on the cheek. Something warm, friendly and entirely appropriate.
Instead…
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE last woman Rafael had touched had been Elizabeth, and she was a tall, angular woman. In comparison, Amy was as slight and as fragile as a piece of bone china. He almost felt as though she would break if he was too rough.
Conflicting emotions rushed through him in a tidal wave. What the hell was he doing, pulling her into him? Kissing her as though his life depended on it? He couldn’t get enough of those soft lips opening up to the pressure of his hungry, questing mouth. She whimpered and his tenuous grasp over his self-control slipped just a notch further. This was nothing like he had ever felt before. This letting go was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.
He pulled away but it was hard, harder still to hold her at arm’s length, watch her clutch the giant towelling robe around her as she glared at him, cheeks flushed, mouth still quivering from the impact of his.
He raked his fingers through his hair. ‘That shouldn’t have happened.’
Amy opened her mouth to tell him that he was damned right, that she hadn’t come into his room to be accosted by him, that it would be no good trying to lay the blame at her door! Instead, she heard herself say, ‘Why not?’
When, she thought frantically, was she ever going to be able to rely on her mouth to say the right thing? When?
‘What I meant…’ she rushed headlong into the first excuse that popped into her head ‘…was why? Yes…why did what happened…happen?’
‘You’re right,’ Rafael murmured slowly. ‘Why not?’
‘That’s not what I intended to say!’
‘No.’ He gave her a slow, bone-meltingly sexy smile. ‘Truth has a nasty habit of ambushing us, hasn’t it?’ Any lingering doubts disappeared. Why had he been concerned? Why had he been trying to find answers to questions he had needlessly been asking himself? She had reduced the whole matter to two simple words; why not?
He wanted her, for reasons he couldn’t begin to explain, and she wanted him. And they were both adults. And therefore why not?
‘What you wanted to say is that you want me…’
Amy desperately wanted to disagree. She stared at him in mute, tortured silence as the hand that had gently pushed her away from him now began to lazily caress her arms.
‘Don’t even try to deny it,’ Rafael continued into the unbroken silence. ‘You make a very bad liar.’ He stroked her hair and felt the fair, silky mass tangle around his fingers.
‘I didn’t come in here to…to…’
‘Make a pass a me?’ He let his finger slide along the smooth column of her neck, down to the V of the robe, which she had primly pulled tight around her. ‘How am I to believe that when you come into my bedroom practically naked…?’
Amy was justifiably horrified. All she had to do now was scramble her horror into some healthy anger and storm out. Unfortunately his finger was doing all kinds of things to her nervous system. Sending it into mad, racing overdrive for starters.
‘I’m not “practically naked”!’ She drew the robe tighter around her. A nun couldn’t be more heavily protected! However, she was excruciatingly aware of her nudity underneath, of her nipples rubbing against the coarse cotton, turning them into erect, sensitised peaks. ‘And I didn’t come here…’
‘I know. If you were the sort of woman who came into my room to proposition me, with nothing on but a flimsy dressing gown, then I wouldn’t be interested. But that wouldn’t be you, would it?’ He bent down and teased her parted mouth with his tongue. He could have had her there and then, his need was so overpowering, but he fought down the impulse to rush. He wanted to take this slowly, wanted to savour the taste of every bit of her.
‘There’s no need for you to apologise about…anything.’ He caressed her neck as he continued to kiss her. He couldn’t even break apart to talk so he murmured into her mouth.
Amy felt her bones turn to jelly. This was utter madness! Impulsive or not, she had never been so impulsive that she had hopped into bed with a man because she fancied him. There had always been a build-up. Dates, the gradual exploration of personalities, some sort of real friendship. This was in another league altogether. It was primitive, fast and brutal in the way it had caught her off guard. This was no delicate, gradual process. She didn’t want him pulling away. She didn’t even want him talking. She just wanted him to yank open her towelling robe and drag her onto the bed! What next? she wondered shakily. Would the ground suddenly start moving under her feet, as it did in soppy love songs when two people kissed?
In a daze, she was aware of him pulling her towards the bed. She was also aware that he was as fantastically turned on as she was. She felt faint. Against his boxers, his erection was huge.
Rafael leaned over her. Her fair hair spilled across the pillow and she was still clutching that robe as if her life depended on it.
‘There’s still time for you to…change your mind.’ He dredged up the last civilised bone in his body. ‘The door’s right there and I won’t stop you if you decide you want to use it.’
Amy eyed it. ‘I don’t normally…do this sort of thing…’
‘What sort of thing? The men sort of thing?’
‘The jumping-into-bed-with-a-man-after-one-day sort of thing…’
‘I knew we’d find something in common. I’m going to take my boxers off now. Think you want me to do that?’
Amy nodded as her vocal cords gave up on her.
She watched and gulped. She wasn’t one to make comparisons but…
Rafael frowned. ‘What’s the matter?’ If she was going to back out now! He doubted whether a cold shower would come anywhere close to doing the trick. He slid onto the bed next to her and turned her to face him.
‘You’re gripping that robe for dear life. Why? If you want me…’
‘You’re…quite big, aren’t you?’
<
br /> Rafael looked at her in frank astonishment. ‘Six foot one. I wouldn’t call myself a giant.’
‘No. I mean…down there…’
The penny dropped and Rafael smiled slowly at her. ‘And that scares you?’ He gently eased her clenched fist from the robe and guided it down until she tentatively circled him with her fingers.
Yes, she thought wildly, but it was also impressive.
‘Some simple biology,’ he breathed unsteadily as her hand found its own rhythm and he was free to let his own hands wander, under the robe and along her waist, then upwards to her breast. At this point he had to cling to his self-control, especially as her rhythm was now quickening. ‘A woman is built to accommodate a man, whatever his size. And you’ll have to stop…doing what you’re doing…’ he put his hand over hers ‘…or else I won’t be responsible for my body doing what comes naturally…’
His breathing steadied but it took a while and gave him a glimpse of a forgotten world. The world in which passion ruled intellect and sex was purely pleasurable rather than an essentially well-mannered meeting of bodies. How long had it been since he had had to fight not to lose control?
He pushed her onto her back and pinned her hands against the pillow so that he could straddle her. The robe had dropped open, revealing the perfection of her breasts.
Rafael drew his breath in swiftly. Her big, rosy nipples begged for his attention. With deliberate slowness, he peeled the robe back further.
Amy squirmed in eager anticipation. Rafael was holding her down, but she felt faint with excitement. She almost didn’t want him to let her go, but then if he hadn’t, how could he do what he was doing now? Kissing her neck until she quivered? Moving slowly down so that he could begin to suckle on her nipple, which was such an agonisingly pleasurable sensation that Amy could only gasp and wriggle against his determined mouth.
He slid his hands under her waist so that she was arched even more up towards him, a willing offering for him to take.
With feverish excitement, Amy wound her fingers through his hair. Instead of closing her eyes, she looked down at him as he explored her breasts with his mouth and tongue, watched with mounting heat as his dark head moved between them, pleasuring first one then the other.
She tried to push herself up so that she could touch him as well, but he was having none of it. He just wouldn’t let her.
His tongue trailing across her stomach made her groan aloud and she did close her eyes as his hands moved to slide under her bottom, levering her up so that he could nuzzle the soft hair between her legs.
She moaned and then sucked in her breath sharply because now he was no longer nuzzling but exploring her with his tongue and mouth.
To open her eyes and look at him moving on her would have been too unbearably erotic.
But when his questing tongue continued flicking against her over-sensitised nub, she had to reach down and tug him gently away or else risk her own early and unwanted orgasm!
‘Not yet,’ was all she could manage to croak.
She wanted to touch him too. Had to! Had to lick his flat brown nipples, then do her own tactile exploration of his magnificent body. He was amazingly well muscled. Not surprising given his profession, but it was still a heady turn-on to contour the flat, hard planes of his stomach with her hand.
Then she pleasured him as he had her, making it slow and leisurely.
They both knew when the moment was right. Never before had Rafael felt so in tune with someone else’s body. It was almost as if she could communicate to him through her senses.
He entered her the good, old-fashioned way. Time enough for a more adventurous approach. Right now…right now Rafael just needed her too much.
He was carried away by his body’s driving needs and no longer in charge of the steering wheel. It was only afterwards as they were lying next to one another that a sudden thought occurred to Rafael.
‘We didn’t use any protection.’
Amy had to make an effort to join in with his perfectly serious, sensible line of conversation. All she wanted to do was enjoy this wonderful feeling of perfect contentment and play with his hair. Just as she was doing at the moment. Reluctantly, she propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him.
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘We didn’t. I guess…things just happened too quickly. One minute I was standing at your door with my ready-made apology, the next minute we were somehow in bed together. Not much in-depth chat in between.’
‘Which could be a problem.’
‘Well, what if I told you that I wasn’t protected?’
Amy didn’t know what she had expected in response to this provocative remark, but she hadn’t expected the complete stillness, the closed, shuttered expression.
‘It’s no joking matter, Amy. Are you or aren’t you?’
She pulled back, suddenly disturbed by his response, then she told herself shakily that of course she was being paranoid. ‘Of course I’m protected,’ she told him truthfully. ‘You needn’t worry that I’m going to show up on your doorstep in a year’s time with an unexpected present in a basket. I’m not that irresponsible!’
‘No. Old habits die hard,’ Rafael said, also truthfully. ‘Making sure a woman has no agenda is just something I’ve become accustomed to doing over the years…’
‘What kind of agenda would a woman have…?’ With you? she nearly added, having more or less made her mind up that Rafael’s staggering sexual self-assurance was due to the fact that he had affairs with the rich and possibly famous who stayed at the house. Well, it wasn’t as though they would be looking to him as a meal ticket, was it?
‘The usual kind.’ Rafael shrugged.
‘You’re a commitment phobe…’ Amy said slowly. She didn’t know why it hurt to think that he was laying down warnings about getting involved with him, considering there was no chance of that as she was going to be returning to England within days.
And even if she had been staying on, even if she had been spending the rest of her life living next to him, did she really imagine that he would be contemplating marriage and kids on the first night they had slept together?
They hadn’t even been on a date together! At least, not really. Taking someone out because you felt sorry for them didn’t count as a date and sleeping with someone because there happened to be a spark of mutual physical attraction didn’t count as love.
She wondered where that word had come from and frowned.
‘I wouldn’t say I’m phobic about the matter,’ Rafael inserted. ‘Why are you looking so worried? Being careful is part of my nature.’
‘Am I looking worried?’ Amy laughed blithely. ‘Does that sound like a worried laugh to you?’ There, that was more like it! She was here, they had just made fabulous love and every part of her just wanted to carry on enjoying the man next to her while she could.
‘Did I hurt you?’
‘Hurt me? How?’
‘By wanting to be sure that contraception was in place.’
‘No. No, you didn’t. And why should you have?’ Amy looked at him seriously. ‘I would be worried sick if we had had sex without protection. Men always seem to think that they’re the ones who would be put out if a woman they slept with became pregnant. They never stop to think that the woman would probably be in a much more difficult situation! Do you ask all the women you sleep with if they’re on the pill?’
‘No, because I generally take the matter in hand myself.’ Rafael was beginning to wonder how the conversation had managed to become so prolonged. As always, she was running away with it and somehow dragging him behind her in her wake.
‘What do you mean?’
‘What do you think I mean?’ He leant forward to kiss her mouth and she wriggled away so that she could give him a stern look.
‘Okay. I get the picture. But why are you so afraid of commitment?’
Rafael groaned. ‘Are we going to spend the rest of the night talking?’ he asked. ‘Because I can think of better th
ings to do.’ He gave her a hot, brooding look that sent her pulses racing.
‘Like what?’ Amy asked innocently, moving fractionally closer to him so that she could rub her body against his.
‘I think you know…’
She did and this time they made love languorously, exploring each other’s bodies as the hands on the clock ticked past, rolling night into day and finally, completely sated, they fell asleep wrapped around each other.
Amy woke to find an empty space where Rafael should have been. Immediately she thought about their commitment conversation, which had been abandoned in the haze of making love. She wondered whether he had got cold feet and disappeared back to the safety of his gardener’s cottage.
But he hadn’t.
He strolled in, wearing nothing but his boxer shorts and carrying a tray on which were bagels, jams and cups of frothy cappuccino that he had bought from the nearest café.
‘You should have woken me up!’ Amy squirmed into a sitting position and Rafael watched as her very delectable breasts peeped over the top of the duvet cover. On cue, he hardened in immediate response.
‘You looked too peaceful.’ He deposited the tray on the bed next to her and sat down. ‘Now, before we eat anything…’He snapped open the lid of the small glass jar of jam and dipped his finger in, then he proceeded to coat her nipples with jam while Amy giggled, only catching her breath as he began to suck off the sticky, sweet stuff. He did a very thorough job, licking until her nipples were shiny and everywhere inside her was melting and wanting more of the same attention.
‘There,’ Rafael said. Then he laughed when she adopted a pleading voice and said, with wrenching femininity, ‘Please, sir, can I have some more…?’
‘I think that can be arranged in a minute. For now. Coffee. Bagels. We New Yorkans are very good at bagels. We make the best in the world.’ He tore off a piece and fed it to her. This felt like a holiday to him. He had made a couple of work-related calls on the way to the corner shop and had checked his emails first thing before she had awakened, but aside from that work had disappeared off the radar. And here he was, feeding bread to a woman in what any impartial outsider might have labelled a romantic gesture. Except romance had never been his thing. A night spent with a woman would always involve him leaving at the crack of dawn for work, after bestowing the perfunctory kiss on the cheek to his sleeping partner, if indeed she was still asleep. Usually, like him, she would have been up and raring to go as well. And if it had been a weekend, he might have got up at a more leisurely time, but the new day would have seen him in front of the newspaper, checking on the stock markets, having grabbed a quick bite with his partner. And the quick bite would never have been in bed!
Kept by the Spanish Billionaire Page 11
