by Annie West
She stepped in then halted. She shouldn’t be here in his private apartments.
The door closed, silence enveloping them. Her breathing was overloud as she sought for something to say.
‘Come.’ A hand at her elbow propelled her forward. ‘You need food. You ate nothing at the reception.’
‘How do you know?’ For much of the reception they’d been on opposite sides of the room.
‘I watched you.’
She started, stunned at the idea of Raul concentrating on her all the time he’d chatted with dignitaries. The notion sent a ribbon of heat through her.
‘And you had just one glass of champagne.’
Her gaze melded with his. The kindling heat she saw made her look hastily away.
‘Maybe a bite of something would be a good idea.’ Then she’d go. She felt too aware of him beside her.
Aware of herself too, in a new, unsettling way. Of the swish of rich fabric around her legs as she moved. Of the tight clasp of the fitted bodice at her waist and breasts as she struggled to draw in oxygen. The fabric of her bra seemed suddenly abrasive, drawing her nipples to taut peaks.
She stepped away, only to stop again abruptly. Her eyes widened. ‘This looks … intimate.’ It sounded like an accusation.
‘Does it matter?’
‘Of course it matters!’ Luisa bit her lip at her high pitched response. She sounded like a schoolgirl, not a mature woman.
A low table was drawn up before a massive sofa long enough for even Raul to recline full length. Velvet cushions made it look plush and inviting. A foil-topped bottle nestled in a silver cooler. Cold lobster lay sumptuously arrayed beside a bowl of fresh ice that cradled gleaming beads of caviar.
Luisa stepped back abruptly, only to find Raul behind her. She spun round, hands planted on his chest as if to ward him off. So why did her fingers curl into his jacket?
Hurriedly she retreated. ‘Is this someone’s idea of a joke? It’s like a clichéd set for a seduction.’
‘You don’t like lobster?’
‘Well, yes.’ She’d only tried it here in the castle and had loved every mouthful.
‘Or fruit?’ He gestured and she spied a platter of her favourite fruits: peaches and cherries and glowing navel oranges. Beside them was a bowl of fresh berries. Beyond that a basket of bread rolls—not the fine dinner rolls that graced the royal table but the malty whole-grain bread, thick with seeds, that she’d discovered when she’d invited herself to the kitchens. Traditional peasant fare, she was told. The best bread she’d tasted.
Luisa leaned closer. Beyond that were fat curls of butter, a board of cheeses and a silver bowl of cashews. Her favourites.
A familiar jar at the end of the table caught her eye. Mary’s spidery writing on the label: raspberry jam.
Luisa blinked hard, her pulse thudding. She reached out and stroked the thick glass jar of her aunt’s home-made jam, the jam she’d been helping make since she was a child. A taste of home. Luisa could barely believe he’d taken the trouble to ask Mary for this.
Raul hadn’t just clapped his hands and ordered a feast. This was just for her. Something special. His unexpected thought-fulness blindsided her.
‘How did you …?’ Her throat closed on emotion.
‘How did I know you prefer fruit to gateaux, cheeses to chocolate?’
Shaken, Luisa turned. He stood so close she saw again that sparkle of gold in his dark green gaze.
‘Because I notice everything about you.’ His voice was deliciously deep. ‘You are my wife now. I want you to be happy.’ The warmth in his tone made her tremble inside.
Not even to herself would she admit how those words eased her wounded soul.
‘But not like this.’ Her wide gesture encompassed the sofa, the crystal flutes, the whole seductive scene. ‘We agreed to a marriage of convenience!’
Was she trying to convince herself or him? From the moment she’d stepped into his chamber she’d had the delicious sense of walking on a knife-edge of excitement.
Raul said nothing. Yet his look heated her skin. His mouth was a sensual line of temptation she had to resist.
Luisa’s heart drummed an urgent tattoo. Part of her wanted nothing more than to touch him. To feel his power beneath her hand. That was why she forced her hands behind her back and kept them there.
Did he read her desire? His brilliant green eyes were hot with an inner blaze and Luisa realised how close she came to being singed.
‘We married for legal reasons.’ Her words were slurred because her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth. ‘So you can inherit. Remember?’
‘I remember.’ His voice was low, resonating through her body to places she didn’t know existed before. ‘I remember how it felt to kiss you too. Do you recall that, Luisa? The fire between us? The need?’
She shook her head and her veil swirled between them. It snagged on the gold braiding that marched across his tunic, emphasising the breadth of his chest.
‘It wasn’t like that. You just …’
Her throat closed as he untangled her veil. His fingers were centimetres from her breast and she sucked her breath in, trying not to think of him touching her there.
But breathing meant movement. Her breast brushed his hand. She gasped as sensation pierced her and she trembled.
He didn’t look up but she saw his lips curve.
‘I’m not some passing amusement.’ She gritted her teeth, trying not to breathe too heavily.
‘I never thought you were. I take you much too seriously for that.’ His eyes snared hers and she forgot about breathing. His hands dropped away to hold hers, warm and firm. ‘You are my bride. You’ll be the mother of my children. I don’t take you lightly at all.’
His mouth curved up in the sort of smile mothers had warned their daughters about for centuries. Luisa felt its impact like a judder of power right down to the soles of her feet.
Her heart raced—in indignation she assured herself. Yet indignation had nothing to do with the hunger coiling inside or the febrile heat flooding her body.
‘I never agreed to share your bed.’
She tried to summon anger but discovered instead a jittery thrill of dangerous excitement.
‘You don’t want children?’ His brows rose.
‘Of course I want—’ She stopped and tried to harness her skittering thoughts. ‘One day.’ Once she’d dreamed of a family. But with Raul? She’d thought this a paper marriage. Or had she deliberately deceived herself? Heat poured across her skin and eddied deep in her womb.
The trouble was he tempted her with the very thing she’d tried unsuccessfully to deny wanting: him. From the first she’d been unable to prevent herself responding to him at the most basic level.
He took desire for granted but for her it was momentous. Life-changing. She’d learnt distrust too young.
His smile would reduce a lesser woman to a puddle of longing. Luisa it merely turned to jelly. Her knees gave way with a suddenness that astounded her.
Why didn’t it surprise her when he swept her up against his chest in one fluid, easy move?
‘I never said …’
He crossed the room as if she weighed nothing, entering another chamber and kicking shut the door. This room held a wide bed that seemed to stretch for hectares. The sight of it dried her mouth.
He lowered her and Luisa shut her eyes, wishing she didn’t delight in the friction of each slow, tormenting centimetre as she slid against him.
‘I thought you had spirit, Luisa. Why are you afraid?’ His tone sharpened. ‘Did someone hurt you?’
Her eyes snapped open at his husky anger.
‘No. I wasn’t hurt.’ Not physically at least.
Yet he was right. She was afraid: of these new overwhelming feelings. Afraid she’d lose herself if she gave in to this longing. That it was a betrayal of her moral code—giving herself to a man she didn’t love.
Yet standing here, bereft now of his touch, feeling the heat
of his breath on her face and his body so close, desire twisted deep. Hunger for an intimacy she’d never had. Would never have with love, not now she’d given herself in a cold, practical bargain.
He’d robbed her of that chance.
The realisation was an icy hand on her heart.
She’d never experience true love. Would never have what her parents had shared. That was what she’d always hoped for, especially after the disaster of her first romance.
The knowledge doused her fears and made her angry as never before. Scorching fury rose, stronger than regret or doubt.
Raul had taken so much from her.
‘Is it so wrong to find pleasure together?’ He voiced the thoughts that already ran, pure temptation, through her head. ‘You disappoint me, Luisa. I thought you woman enough to admit what you feel.’
Luisa stared up into his hot gaze and wanted nothing more than to wipe away his smug self-satisfaction. For him desire was easy. No longing for love. No doubts or fears.
A tumble of images cascaded in her head. Turning on her heel and storming out. Or walking serenely, with a cool pitying expression on her face as she left him behind. None of them did justice to the roiling tide of emotion he’d unleashed.
Instead Luisa stepped in, slamming hard against his body. She took his face in her palms and kissed him full on the mouth. She leaned in to him till, with a flurry of billowing silk, they collapsed onto the bed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT WAS like holding a flame, or a bolt of lightning.
Luisa was all urgent energy. Her touch, her body, igniting explosions in his blood.
Sensation speared through him. White light flickered behind his eyelids as she pushed her tongue into his mouth in an angry, urgent mating. There was little finesse but her hunger incited the most possessive urges.
She grabbed his scalp as if to imprison him with her scorching passion.
Raul welcomed it, meeting her questing tongue in a desperate kiss that was more like a battle for supremacy than a caress.
He felt alive as never before, caught by a throbbing force that drove every thought from his head but one.
The need for Luisa. Now.
He growled in his throat as he lashed one arm around her waist and the other lower, clamping his hand on her bunched skirts to pull her tight against his groin as he sank back on the wide bed. He was on fire.
Splayed over him, she wriggled as if she too couldn’t get close enough. He pushed his hips up and felt her legs slide satisfyingly wide to surround him.
Yes!
It was as if she’d smashed the lock on his self-control. All those primitive urges that he, as a civilised man, had learned to suppress, roared to the surface, stripped bare by this woman who kissed as if she hated him.
He knew passion, used it as a release from the difficulties of life under the spotlight. But never had it been this blistering current of untrammelled power.
Again he rocked up into her encompassing heat and she pushed down to meet him with a jerky movement that spoke of need rather than grace.
Raul scrabbled at the mass of her skirts, pulling it higher and higher around her back till finally he touched silky bare skin. His pulse throbbed in his throat and his groin simultaneously as he clamped both hands to the taut warm silk over her backside. He could almost swear flames crackled around them.
The sound of her cry, a wordless mew of encouragement against his mouth, notched the tension impossibly higher.
Holding her tight, he drew her pelvis to his in a circling movement and sparks ignited in his blood.
A moment later he had her on her back, a tumble of silk and lace and femininity. Hands around her slim waist, he tugged her higher up the bed with a strength born of urgency.
She was flushed, her eyes a narrow glitter of heaven, her lips open and inviting as she gulped in air. Her breasts strained against the tight bodice and he allowed himself a moment’s diversion. He covered one breast with his hand, feeling her arch into his touch, her nipple a pebbled tease to his palm. He rotated his hand, squeezing gently and she groaned, her eyes slitting shut and her body moving restlessly.
With his other hand Raul was already busy scooping metres of silk up and away to uncover her calves, her thighs. But a man could do two things at once. He ducked his head and kissed her open-mouthed on the breast, drawing lace and silk and her hard little nipple against his tongue.
Her hands clamped his head close and her breath was a hiss of delight. Beneath him she twisted and bucked as if seeking the weight of his body on hers.
He’d never had a woman so wild for him. No games, no subtlety, just a devastating need that matched his own.
Such pure passion was liberating.
Raul let his hand skim up Luisa’s thighs to her panties, pressing hard and discovering damp proof of her need. It was all the encouragement he required.
Seconds later he’d loosened his trousers and freed himself enough to slide his length against her hot apex in a move so arousing he had to pause and gather his scattered wits.
Luisa wouldn’t wait. She circled her hips in hungry little movements that tore at the last vestige of his control.
Propped on one arm, Raul ripped away the delicate fabric of her panties and settled himself on her.
‘Is this what you want?’ His voice was thick, rough with desire and the promise of unsurpassed pleasure.
Azure fire blazed from her eyes. He read passion and something fierce and unfamiliar. But her body eased beneath him. She was enticingly soft, reassuringly strong and vibrating with erotic energy.
She panted for him yet he wanted to hear the words. Why, he had no idea.
He fitted one hand to her upthrust breast and felt her jolt beneath him.
‘Tell me, Luisa.’ He pushed against her, torturing himself as much as her with the luscious friction of body on body. ‘What do you want?’
Her eyes widened and he felt himself sink into their brilliance. She rose, tugging his head down and her mouth took his, greedily, tongue swirling and plunging.
Raul struggled against the force of her ardour and his own pleasure. But it was too much. Too close.
With a muffled groan he gave in and reciprocated, tasting her, almost taming her mouth with his then retreating so the kiss became a mutual give and take of sensual combat.
Using his thighs, he nudged her legs wider and settled himself at her entrance. He slid one hand over blonde downy hair to find the nub of her pleasure. One stroke and she shivered. A second stroke and she shuddered.
‘Raul!’ His name was a tiny, breathless gasp that shattered his fragile control.
A moment later, his mouth claiming hers, he drove inside. Pressure screamed through him as tight, hot, silken walls enclosed him. Tighter than was surely possible. Raul felt her tremble around him, her raised thighs quaking against his hips.
Stunned, he made to draw back but Luisa fastened her hands in his hair and kissed him with a desperation that made his head swim. Or was that from the relief of finally being sheathed in her body?
She wrapped her legs around him and he sank deeper, lodging fully in exquisite pleasure. He braced himself as the trembling spread from her body to his, making his nape prickle and every muscle quake with tension.
It was no good. Stillness was impossible. Clamping his hands on her hips, he slid back, seeing stars behind closed eyelids as sensation rushed through him.
Another second and he thrust again, harder, longer, as he gave in to the force of a desire that had ridden him ever since that night in Paris.
‘I’m sorry. I can’t …’ His words were swallowed by the roar of blood pounding in his ears.
Dimly he heard a cry rend the air. Luisa convulsed around him, tearing at his strength and his consciousness as he lost himself in delight.
Frantically his body pumped, driven by a force so strong only Luisa’s gasps anchored him to reality. His movements crescendoed, wringing out every last vestige of white-hot pleasure, til
l, with lungs bursting and the world spinning away, Raul sank into oblivion.
Despite his weight on her, Luisa felt as if she were floating. Echoes of incredible pleasure shimmered through limbs taut with the aftershock of tension.
Finally she gathered the strength to move a fraction and let her legs, impossibly heavy, sink to the cushioned mattress. She felt the hint of an ache in untried muscles but even that felt satisfying. Her arms clasped Raul tight. She could barely breathe but the feel of him blanketing her was … comforting.
Stunned, she thought about opening her eyes, but the notion of reality intruding on the single most remarkable experience of her life stopped her.
Even now she couldn’t put a name to the feelings that had burst out of nowhere when she’d confronted Raul at their wedding reception. Or when he’d dared her to make love with him. No … have sex with him.
She swallowed, trying to ignore the strange winded sensation in the region of her heart.
If that was having sex, what would making love be like?
How could something so glorious have come out of such turbulent emotions?
Luisa waited for shame to engulf her. For regret that she’d given herself to a man who, though her husband, didn’t truly care for her, didn’t love her.
Yes, there was regret. Sadness that she’d never know what it was like to be with a man she loved and who loved her.
Yet she couldn’t hide from the fact that with Raul she’d felt … different, glorious, powerful. The words didn’t do justice to the sensation of soaring, of life and excitement and pleasure bubbling through her veins when they’d come together. Even when they argued it was there, a hidden promise that egged her on to defy him.
What did it mean? Luisa’s brow knotted as she tried to work through her feelings. But she was too dazed by the enormity of what had just happened. Thinking was too hard when simply lying here with Raul was so wonderful.
A knuckle gently grazed her brow. ‘Don’t frown. It’s not the end of the world.’
