One Night In Collection

by Various Authors

  ‘It’s been a while,’ she mumbled shyly.

  He stared down at her pink cheeks and saw that she was embarrassed, and he felt an unexpected surge of tenderness mixed with arrogant male satisfaction that she had obviously not had a lover for months—or maybe even longer.

  ‘Then we’ll take it slowly,’ he assured her. But, as he sank deeper inside her and established a sensual rhythm that matched the pounding beat of his heart, his resolve was tested to its limits. She was the most responsive lover he had ever known, he could already feel his pleasure building and knew that he would not be able to hold back for long.

  The slight discomfort she had felt when Diego had first thrust into her was less than Rachel had expected and soon forgotten as he slowly filled her. It was good; better than good—awesome, amazing, she thought shakily as she curved her legs around his hips and drew him deeper into her. She caught her breath when he withdrew almost completely and then drove into her again and again, faster now as his pace became more urgent.

  She could not think, could only feel, every cell in her body attuned to the intense sensations he was arousing in her. She had not expected the act of lovemaking to be so beautiful; to feel that not just her body but her soul was joined with Diego, and for some inexplicable reason tears stung her eyes. She blinked them away frantically and pressed her face into the tanned column of his throat, brushing her mouth over the pulse that jerked beneath his skin.

  She never wanted him to stop, and yet there had to be an end—he could not keep up this frenetic rhythm for ever. The throbbing ache low in her pelvis was growing ever more insistent. And then suddenly she was hovering on the brink of the unknown, and she was almost afraid of what would come next as Diego thrust deeper and harder than before and she felt herself explode in a shattering wave of ecstasy. Spasm after spasm of pleasure ripped through her, so intense that she cried out and clung to his sweat-slicked shoulders while he slammed into her and then gave a harsh groan, his big body shuddering and his head thrown back as he reached his own spectacular climax.

  For a few moments afterwards they remained joined, and Rachel revelled in the weight and warmth of his body pressing down on her. She could stay like this for ever, she thought dreamily as she slid her fingers through his hair and stroked her hands across his massive shoulders. She felt safe and protected in the arms of this big, powerful man—and after her childhood, where she had received little care or affection, the feeling that she somehow belonged with Diego was sweetly seductive. But it was also dangerous, she conceded when he finally rolled off her and tucked his arms behind his head. For a few seconds she felt bereft and longed to cuddle up to him, but instinct warned her that he would be horrified if she clung to him.

  Instead, she affected a tiny yawn, even though she had never felt more awake in her life, and allowed her lashes to drift down so that she could stare at him without him being aware of her compulsion to study every minute detail of his face until it was imprinted on her memory for ever.

  Diego turned his head and glanced at Rachel. Her long eyelashes fanned her cheeks and her lips were slightly parted, reddened and swollen from the demanding pressure of his mouth. With her golden hair spilling over the pillow, she looked young and ridiculously innocent, and he felt a curious tugging sensation in his chest. He had known that sex with her would be good, and it had exceeded all his expectations, but he had not expected the experience to be so … shattering— a complete union of body and mind that had left him feeling more content than he could ever remember.

  ‘You haven’t done this much before, have you?’ he murmured.

  Her lashes flew upwards and cornflower-blue eyes regarded him warily. ‘What do you mean?’ Had he realised that it had been her first time? If so, he did not appear to be annoyed, Rachel decided, her flutter of panic fading.

  ‘I mean, I do not think you have had many lovers,’ Diego said carefully. He did not understand why he was probing for information about her exes. Never before had he been curious about a woman’s past history, and it shouldn’t matter to him if Rachel had had dozens of other men, he brooded irritably.

  Rachel was silent for so long that he thought she was not going to answer. ‘Not many, no,’ she admitted quietly, blushing profusely. ‘I’m sorry if I disappointed you.’

  Diego refused to question why he was so inordinately pleased with her reply. ‘You were incredible, querida,’ he assured her in a deep growl that made the tiny hairs on her body stand on end. ‘Does this feel as if I was disappointed?’ he murmured as he took her hand and placed it on his hardening manhood.

  Rachel caught her breath when she felt him swell beneath her fingertips until his erection was a rigid shaft of muscle. ‘Do you want to do it again?’ she asked him in a startled voice. Her heartbeat was only just returning to normal, but the idea that he wanted her again, so soon after the first time, sent her pulse-rate soaring.

  She must know the effect that her breathlessly innocent query had on him, Diego brooded as savage hunger surged through him. It was a clever trick designed to make a man feel as though he was her first lover, but the knowledge that she was an adept game player did not lessen his desire, and he gave a self-derisive laugh as he slid his hand between her legs and discovered her slick wetness.

  ‘What do you think?’ he said harshly and, without giving her time to reply, he moved over her and entered her with one hard, powerful thrust, smothering her soft gasp with his mouth as he began the whole delicious process of making love to her all over again.

  Rachel was used to waking early, and when she opened her eyes the bedroom was shadowed with the pearly grey light that preceded dawn. She stretched, and winced as the effects of the previous night on her untutored body made themselves known. Diego was still asleep; she could hear the rhythmic sound of his breathing and she turned her head and studied him, absorbing the masculine beauty of his sculpted features and the faint dark stubble on his chin with a faint sense of desperation that she would probably never lie like this with him again.

  She had no experience of how to behave after a one-night stand. Should she wait for him to wake up, and maybe they would share a leisurely breakfast? Recalling the sparse contents of his fridge, breakfast seemed unlikely. And she could not picture herself making small talk with him when memories of the incredible and sometimes shocking things he had done to her last night were making her blush.

  She needed some time alone to come to terms with the fact that she had given her virginity to a man who was practically a stranger. She knew very little about him, other than that he owned a ranch just outside Buenos Aires. He never spoke of his family or his private life and although sex with him last night had been incredible, and she definitely did not regret it, she was no nearer to understanding what made Diego Ortega tick.

  It seemed sensible to slip away now, before he or the rest of the estate were awake, but she was reluctant to move. Diego was lying on his back with one arm flung across her stomach—although, when he had finally allowed her to fall asleep, he had rolled away from her onto his side of the bed. Some time during the night their bodies had drawn closer together and she felt loath to break the connection between them.

  But the feeling of closeness was a dangerous illusion, she told herself firmly as she eased carefully from beneath the sheet. The morning air was cool and she shivered as she donned her skirt and flimsy top. At this hour she would normally be wearing jodhpurs and a thick sweatshirt, and she prayed none of the estate workers would be about to comment on her appearance.

  ‘What are you doing, querida? Do you know what the time is?’ The seductive drawl—husky from sleep—sent a frisson of fierce awareness down her spine.

  Diego propped himself up on one elbow and surveyed Rachel indolently. It had been an amazing night. He had known instinctively that sex between them would be mind-blowing, and he hadn’t been wrong. His body had been utterly sated when he’d finally fallen asleep, but the sight of her in the pale light of dawn, flushed and st
ill sleepy, with her golden hair rippling down her back, caused a familiar tightening in his groin and he acknowledged that one night of her was not going to be nearly enough.

  ‘Why are you up so early?’ he murmured.

  ‘I’m a stable-hand—one of the requisites of my job is to get up early.’

  His eyes narrowed as he caught the faint defensive note in her voice. ‘Not on a Sunday,’ he said lazily. He patted the sheet. ‘Come back to bed.’

  ‘Horses have to be fed and turned out, even on a Sunday.’ Rachel ignored the fact that this was her Sunday off and fought her longing to do as Diego had said and get back into bed with him. The sultry gleam in his eyes told her that he was not inviting her to go back to sleep, and her body was clamouring to experience his soul-shattering brand of magic one more time. ‘I need to go,’ she muttered, forcing herself to walk over to the door.

  ‘It’s 5:00 a.m.’ Diego could not hide his frustration when it became apparent that Rachel was actually going to leave. Women did not usually walk out on him after a night in his bed. In fact, this was the first time ever, and another first was his brief flare of self-doubt that he had not satisfied her last night. He dismissed it instantly as he recalled how she had writhed beneath him. No way had she been faking it. He had given her orgasm after orgasm, and the moans and cries she had emitted as she’d tossed her head from side to side on the pillow had been ample proof that he had pleased her.

  ‘If I wait any longer people might see me leaving the cottage,’ she mumbled.

  ‘What people?’

  ‘People who work on the estate—groundsmen, the other grooms—my colleagues!’ Rachel said tersely, flushing when Diego stared at her as if she had taken leave of her senses. ‘I don’t want anyone to know I spent the night here.’

  Diego shook his head, mystified by Rachel’s change of mood from the sensual sex kitten of last night to someone who was decidedly on edge this morning. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because word will get round that we had a one-night stand,’ she told him impatiently. ‘I’d prefer not to have my private life open to public discussion, and I assumed you would feel the same way.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks,’ Diego stated with such supreme arrogance that Rachel’s temper simmered. ‘And what makes you think that either of us would be content with only one night together? We were dynamite between the sheets and I want you in my bed every night.’

  Every night while he was staying at Hardwick, Rachel quickly reminded herself as her heart leapt. She could not suppress her excitement that he seemed to want an affair with her, but it was vital to remember that their relationship would only be temporary.

  ‘I don’t object to seeing you again,’ she said carefully, ‘but I don’t want anyone else to know about us. In a few weeks you’ll go back to Argentina, but I’ll still work here after you’ve gone and I hate the idea of being the subject of gossip.’

  ‘So you don’t object to seeing me again?’ he repeated in a dangerously soft tone. Dark brows winged upwards in an expression of haughty disdain. ‘How very magnanimous of you, querida,’ Diego snapped, outraged that Rachel seemed to think she could call the shots in their relationship. ‘But how exactly are we to meet up in secret? Do you intend for us to creep through the estate after dark like criminals? If you are ashamed of being with me, then I can see little point in continuing with this,’ he stated coldly.

  Rachel’s stomach dipped at the finality in his voice, but at the same time her temper flared. ‘I’m not ashamed of being with you, but I think you should try seeing it from my point of view,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t want to be for ever known locally as the woman who once had a brief fling with the notorious playboy Diego Ortega. I do have some pride, you know.’

  ‘Then I suggest you take your pride and get out,’ Diego growled furiously, struggling to contain his outrage at the notion of engaging in some cloak-and-dagger affair with Rachel. In his past, every woman he had ever dated had been eager to broadcast their affair with him, and he had always hated the publicity. But, far from being pleased that Rachel wanted to keep her relationship with him a secret, he was deeply insulted. He glared at her, waiting for her to back down, but her mouth was set in a mutinous line and she glared right back at him.

  ‘Fine,’ she said crisply as she yanked open the door. ‘Well, it was nice knowing you …’ She broke off abruptly, and Diego felt a spurt of satisfaction when her face burned with fiery colour.

  ‘Ditto,’ he drawled sardonically, still not quite able to believe that she would walk out of the door. ‘Just remember when you are tossing and turning in your lonely bed tonight that you can thank your pride for the sexual frustration which prevents you from sleeping.’

  His arrogance was unbelievable! Rachel made a strangled sound as she marched out onto the landing and she vented her temper by slamming the door after her and then kicked it for good measure, incensed by the sound of Diego’s mocking laughter following her down the stairs.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  RACHEL might have guessed that a day that had started off so badly would get progressively worse. Keeping to the woodland paths, she saw no one on her journey back to her caravan, but once there she was too worked up to relax—her anger with Diego mixed with a growing feeling that once again she had handled things badly. Far from regarding her as a one night stand, Diego had made it clear that he had hoped to have an affair with her, at least for the duration of his stay at Hardwick—and she had thrown his invitation straight back in his face.

  She was thankful when one of the other grooms phoned her, pleading a hangover from last night’s party and begging her to work his shift at the stables. At least being busy would stop her from dwelling on things she’d rather not think about, she brooded as she cycled into the yard. Things like her wanton response when Diego had made love to her, and the fact that, thanks to her stubborn streak and hot temper, he now wanted nothing more to do with her.

  The cool dawn gave way to another unusually warm day for May, and by mid-morning Rachel felt hot and tired after a serious lack of sleep the previous night. Usually she always took extra care around Earl Hardwick’s bad tempered mare, Poppy, but for once she was careless and forgot to muzzle the horse before starting to groom her. Poppy was at her most uncooperative, shaking her head wildly before snapping her teeth into an expanse of bared flesh—eliciting a startled cry of pain from Rachel as she stared at the bite mark on her upper arm.

  The bite had broken her skin and when she met Alex later in the afternoon the bandage she’d tied around the wound was soaked with blood. Alex took one look at it and ignoring her protests, bundled her into his car and drove her to the accident and emergency unit of the local hospital.

  ‘You can’t take chances, Rache,’ he told her when she emerged two hours later with her arm swathed in a sterile dressing and clutching a week’s course of antibiotics. ‘Animal bites are prone to infection.’

  The doctor who had dressed her wound had said the same thing, and as soon as Rachel got home she followed his advice and took a double dose of the antibiotic before she set about scrubbing the interior of the caravan in an effort to expend some of her restless energy. She would not waste another second thinking about Diego, she told herself when she dumped the now curled and brown roses he had given her two weeks ago in the bin. She was kneeling in front of her tiny fridge, debating whether the cheese would be safe to eat if she scraped the mould off it, when the sound of a familiar, toe-curlingly sexy voice made her jump to her feet.

  ‘You can’t possibly be contemplating eating that, not unless you want another trip to the hospital with food poisoning.’ Diego walked up the steps of the caravan and filled the doorway, looking so gorgeous in faded denims and a white T-shirt which contrasted with his bronzed skin that Rachel’s heart seemed to temporarily stop beating. ‘How’s the arm?’

  ‘Fine,’ she replied automatically, despite the fact that her wound was throbbing painfully. She frowned. ‘How
did you know…?’

  He shrugged. ‘Word travels fast on the estate.’

  ‘Exactly my point,’ Rachel muttered tersely. ‘If anyone had seen me coming out of your cottage this morning in the clothes I’d been wearing the night before, gossip would have swept through the estate faster than wildfire.’

  ‘I realise that now.’ His quietly spoken comment was so surprising after their earlier row that Rachel stared at him, wishing she could see his expression, which was hidden behind his designer shades. ‘Everyone at Hardwick seems to know everyone else’s business,’ Diego said, sounding faintly irritated. It was his first experience of life in a close-knit rural community and he was amazed by the fascination that everyone, from Earl Hardwick down to the assistant gardener, took in their neighbours’ day-to-day affairs.

  He had spent most of the day in a furious temper after Rachel had walked out on him, but by late afternoon his anger had faded as he acknowledged she had every right to want to protect her privacy. Last night had been amazing, and he’d come to the conclusion that the passion they had shared had been too electrifying to throw away.

  He glanced at her, noting the wariness in her eyes, and wondered if she had any idea how badly he wanted her. What was it about this delicate English girl with her pale-as-milk skin and a dusting of gold freckles on her nose that he found such a turn on? he brooded irritably. Her close-fitting jodhpurs emphasised her boyishly slim hips and her tight, faded T-shirt looked fit for the rag bag. But, despite her lack of sophistication, he ached to release the clip that secured her hair in an untidy knot on top of her head and run his fingers through the heavy silk, and he was already envisaging pushing her shirt up so that he could cradle her firm breasts in his hands.