A Touch of Notoriety

by Carole Mortimer

  Beth looked at him searchingly for several seconds, once again noting that quiet but lethal strength that proclaimed him a predator; the clenched fists at his sides, the determined set of his jaw and the piercing blue of his narrowed eyes. All indications that this man, beneath the expensive trappings of civility he wore so well—those designer label suits, and the silk shirts and ties—was in fact a fighting machine. Lean, dangerous and, by his own admission, ultimately deadly.

  And yet…

  ‘I trust you not to hurt me, Raphael,’ she assured him huskily.

  He blinked. ‘You trust me?’

  ‘Not to physically hurt me, yes.’ Emotionally was another matter, however…

  Beth’s emotions in regard to the Navarro family might have knocked her emotions all over the place at the moment, but not so much that she didn’t know how physically attracted she was to Raphael—or how much of a mistake it would be for her to allow it to become anything more than that. That dark edge of danger, clinging to him like a second skin, was also a warning to any and all who might try to get to the emotions hidden beneath that skin.

  The broodingly dangerous Raphael Cordoba was way, way out of her league.

  Those piercing blue eyes glowed fiercely for several seconds. ‘Very well.’ He nodded abruptly. ‘I will leave you to change while I go and do the same, and meet you upstairs in the gym on the floor above this one in ten minutes.’ He turned on his heel and strode from the bedroom as suddenly as he had entered it.

  Leaving Beth to stare after him as she wondered how many times Raphael had been called upon to use those specialised skills, both during his years in the army and the past ten years he had spent as Cesar’s Head of Security.

  * * *

  Out of her league or not, Beth would have to be made of steel not to be affected by Raphael’s appearance when she met him upstairs in the gym ten minutes later!

  A black sleeveless vest clung to the perfectly muscled contours of his chest, revealing equally muscular and smoothly bronzed arms, the silky dark hair on his chest visible above the low neckline of that sleeveless vest, loose-fitting soft black cotton trousers resting low down on the leanness of his hips, his legs long and powerful, his feet bare. He looked every bit a bronzed sculpture, the swarthiness of his face harshly chiselled, every part of that lean and muscled body perfectly toned.

  ‘Ready?’

  Beth had to drag her gaze up from all that muscled perfection in order to meet his piercing blue gaze. Her throat moved as she swallowed before attempting to answer him off-handedly. ‘Don’t I look ready?’

  Oh, yes, she looked ready—but for what, Raphael was unsure. Her blond hair was secured back in a tight plait down the length of her spine, and she was wearing a vest top and loose trousers similar to his own. Perfectly suitable attire in which to fight. An impression that was totally nullified by the full swell of her breasts beneath that white vest-top, the nipples pressing against that light material revealed as being dark and dusky—and just as plump and aroused as the berries they resembled.

  And she was expecting Raphael to fight her when she looked like that?

  ‘Cesar never does anything by halves, does he?’ Beth looked about her appreciatively at all of the state-of-the-art equipment: several sets of weights, a running machine, rowing machine, several other bits of equipment that she had no idea what they were used for, along with a sauna and a shower, and a blue martial arts mat that dominated the centre of the room.

  ‘Not even falling in love,’ Raphael acknowledged dryly.

  Beth turned to smile at him as she slipped off her flip-flops beside the mat. ‘And he does love my big sister, Grace, very much, doesn’t he?’

  He nodded. ‘She is more than woman enough to match Cesar’s strength of character, yes.’

  Beth’s smile faded as she felt a sharp pang of—of what, at Raphael’s obvious admiration for Grace? Jealousy? Towards her own sister? Surely not? Although there was no doubting Raphael’s admiration for Grace. ‘Do I detect a slight infatuation for my big sister, Raphael?’ she taunted in an effort to cover up her discomfort at the mere idea of Raphael being interested in Grace.

  He raised dark brows. ‘Infatuation is for adolescents.’

  His slightly contemptuous tone implied he obviously considered her amongst that category—not a cheering thought when Beth only had to look at him to feel that tug of desire in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘Maybe a little lust, then?’ she came back tartly.

  His mouth thinned disapprovingly. ‘That would be entirely inappropriate in regard to the future wife of the man to whom I am as close as a brother.’

  Beth shot him a scathing glance. ‘That wouldn’t necessarily stop you from feeling that way inside.’

  ‘I do not feel lustful towards your sister!’ A nerve pulsed in Raphael’s tightly clenched jaw.

  ‘Protest much?’ she came back tautly.

  Raphael regarded her through narrowed lids, easily noting the glitter—of scorn or anger, he was not sure—in the dark brown depths of her eyes, the slight curl to her top lip, her chin tilted up in challenge. ‘Are you attempting to bait me, Beth?’ he finally murmured softly.

  She shrugged bared shoulders. ‘Merely trying to ascertain how you feel towards my big sister, and whether or not someone should warn Cesar he has a rival.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘No, not me.’ She sighed her impatience. ‘Cesar is altogether too arrogant as it is. A little healthy competition would do his overinflated ego the world of good!’

  ‘Grace has earned my admiration and respect, nothing more,’

  Raphael bit out tautly.

  ‘Lucky Grace…’

  He eyed Beth sharply as he heard her softly murmured response. Because she did not believe she had also earned his admiration and respect? Did Beth want his admiration and respect? Somehow he very much doubted that; Beth Blake gave the impression that she didn’t want or require any man’s admiration and respect!

  ‘Shall we?’ she prompted sharply as she stepped onto the mat.

  Raphael’s mouth twisted derisively as he took in Beth’s fighting stance at the same time as his gaze lingered on the utter femininity of the red painted nails on her bared feet.

  ‘Don’t let them fool you,’ Beth assured him tauntingly as she saw the direction of Raphael’s slightly contemptuous blue gaze. ‘And don’t hold back, either,’ she warned as he stepped onto the mat and faced her.

  A warning she soon had reason to regret when, despite that black belt in karate, she found herself thrown flat on her back three times in as many minutes, and knocking all of the air out of her lungs each time it happened!

  She stood up after the last throw, breathing hard, but more determined than ever as she saw that Raphael hadn’t even broken out in a sweat from their exertions, whereas the last few minutes had not only freed several untidy tendrils of her hair from its confining plait, but also reduced her to being, not only sticky hot, but decidedly out of breath. ‘Is that the best you have?’ she taunted.

  Raphael gave a grimly wicked smile. ‘I am just warming up.’

  That was what Beth was afraid of!

  ‘You have tells, you know,’ he added with infuriating calm.

  She blinked. ‘What?’

  He shrugged those deliciously muscled and bronzed shoulders. ‘You glance very slightly to whichever side you intend to throw me, allowing me to shift balance in preparation for that attack.’

  ‘I do not!’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Raphael nodded. ‘In the same way that a poker player might remain still when he has a good hand of cards, but cannot stop himself from pulling on his ear lobe when he is about to make a bluff call.’

  She would show him ‘tells’…!

  ‘Now you are concentrating too hard on not revealing those tells rather than the moves you are about to make,’ Raphael drawled a few seconds later as Beth once again lay flat on her back at his bared feet.

  ‘Has anyone ever told you
that you’re incredibly annoying?’ Beth muttered as she sat up.

  ‘It has been mentioned before, yes.’ He grinned unabashedly. ‘And implied several times by you, too, I believe.’

  She later blamed that grin for what happened next—that self-satisfied and wholly superior grin!—because it wasn’t just annoying, it was infuriating!

  So much so that Beth reacted purely on instinct, her feet lashing out at Raphael’s calves, his grin completely disappearing as she followed that kick with a scissor movement that totally knocked him off his feet, allowing Beth to leap on top of him, her body lying flush with his as she pinned his shoulders to the mat.

  Only to then become totally aware of every lean and muscled inch of him. Including the hard and pulsing length of his arousal pressing into the soft well between her thighs…!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘WHAT HAPPENS NOW?’ Raphael prompted huskily, his breath a soft caress against Beth’s heated cheeks as he looked up at her between narrowed lids, making no attempt to move out from beneath her much softer curves.

  Her throat moved convulsively as she swallowed, her cheeks flushed, that gleam of triumph slowly fading from her eyes to be replaced by wariness as she obviously became fully aware of the precariousness of her position.

  The pink tip of her tongue appeared between her lips as she moistened them before answering him softly. ‘I’m not really sure…’

  Neither was Raphael. Instinct—and the demands of his aroused body—told him to wrap his arms about this woman before rolling over and putting her beneath him, to nudge her legs apart before settling between them as he kissed her into pleasurable submission. Logic and good sense told him that would not only be an incredibly stupid move on his part, but also a dangerous one.

  As he had feared, his instinct won…

  ‘What—?’ Beth barely had time to voice a protest as she felt steel bands move about her waist—Raphael’s arms?—as he rolled to the side and then above her, pinning her hands with his either side of her head, before his lips—those sculptured and incredibly sensual lips!—came down and claimed hers in a kiss that sent any thought of further protest completely out of her head. A kiss that owed nothing to gentle exploration and everything to fierce, possessive need as Raphael’s lips devoured and claimed.

  Beth returned that hunger, her lips parting as Raphael’s tongue moved across them in a rasping caress before plunging deeply, hotly, into the heat of her mouth. She arched beneath him as he moved his thighs against and into her in a slow and seductive rhythm, freeing her hands to move them caressingly over the muscled contours of his chest to the warmth of his naked shoulders and then down over the flexing muscles of his back to the firmness of his bottom.

  Steel encased in velvet. Every hard, delicious inch of Raphael was solid muscle encased in velvet-soft flesh. His chest. Shoulders. Back. Bottom. The hard and throbbing length of his aroused shaft as it moved so enticingly between her thighs…!

  This man, a man Beth had once accused of possessing the emotions of a robot, was as physically aroused as she was!

  She groaned low in her throat as she felt one of Raphael’s hands now cupping her breast, the thin material of her T-shirt no barrier to the pleasure of the sweeping caress of his thumb across the achingly aroused nipple, and sending shards of that pleasure coursing through her body even as it increased the throbbing, damp heat between her swollen and moist thighs.

  Beth gazed up at Raphael in mute appeal as he wrenched his mouth from hers to move his weight off her as he looked down at her searchingly with eyes that were as dark as midnight, a flush to the hardness of his cheeks.

  ‘Your breasts fit perfectly into the palm of my hand,’ he murmured gruffly.

  ‘Do they?’ The sexual tension between them was so heavy and thick with expectation that Beth could barely breathe.

  ‘I wonder if…’ Those sculptured lips slightly parted as he continued to hold her gaze as he slowly lowered his head and placed his mouth on her breasts through her T-shirt before he gently drew the tight bud of her nipple into the heat of his mouth and suckled deeply.

  Beth’s lids fluttered closed, her breath now coming in ragged gasps as she instinctively arched her back, pushing her nipple deeper into the burning heat of Raphael’s mouth, wanting more, wanting— Oh, God, wanting—

  She gasped, her fingers digging painfully into Raphael’s shoulders, as she felt the heat of his hand cup between her parted thighs before pressing against the swollen nub nestled there in the same rhythm as he suckled deeply on her aching nipple, Beth immediately becoming lost to this duel assault on her senses, the pleasure rising, and then rising higher still, until she felt on the point of—

  A deep gurgling sound preceded a low rumble, breaking through that haze of pleasure as Raphael stilled above her before releasing her nipple and raising his head to look down at her enquiringly, his eyes glittering a dark and amused blue.

  Beth licked her lips. ‘Was that my stomach rumbling or yours?’

  His mouth quirked into a mocking smile. ‘I believe it was yours…’

  How embarrassing was that? She was alone with, and being kissed by, the most gorgeously handsome man she had ever met in her life, the two of them were making love together—to the degree she was poised on the edge of climax!—and her uncooperative stomach chose that moment to let her know it was time she put some food inside it!

  Something that Raphael, at least, found amusing, if the laughter gleaming in those dark blue eyes as he looked down at her was any indication.

  ‘It is past time you were fed, it would seem,’ he bit out harshly. He rose agilely to his feet before holding out his hand to help Beth stand up beside him, the expression in his eyes hidden by hooded lids.

  A Beth who was totally aware of the dampness of her T-shirt against her bared breast, as indication of the intimacies they had just shared…

  * * *

  Intimacies Raphael gave no indication of so much as remembering, let alone being affected by, fifteen minutes later as he moved efficiently about the kitchen preparing the steaks and potatoes for their dinner, while Beth washed and prepared the salad.

  Beth didn’t know whether to be relieved or irritated by his behaviour. A lot of both, perhaps. Relieved that she wasn’t being put through feeling awkward in his company. But irritated, just the same, by the way Raphael seemed to have succeeded in putting the incident—apocalyptic as far as Beth was concerned!—completely from his mind. She had dated often in the past, even shared a passionate kiss or two with several of the men she had dated, but she had never been aroused by those kisses in the way she was even now just being in the same room with Raphael, let alone allowed them to touch her intimately. More than touch her intimately…!

  Her gaze had avoided meeting Raphael’s earlier as she had mumbled her excuses before stumbling from the gym and hurrying down to her bedroom, breathing a sigh of relief once she was able to lean back against the closed bedroom door. Which was when she had caught sight of her reflection in the dressing-table mirror directly across from her…

  Her hair was a tangled mess as it escaped the confines of her plait, her eyes looked feverishly bright, her cheeks flushed, lips slightly swollen, but worst of all had been the sight of the damp patch on the left side of her T-shirt, that moisture making the white material almost transparent, and so blatantly revealing the turgid ripeness of her nipple…!

  A nipple still red and achingly engorged from the intimate ministrations of Raphael’s lips, tongue and teeth, Beth had discovered when she drew the T-shirt over her head before throwing it across the room in disgust.

  Which was why, once she had showered, she had chosen to dress in a black bra beneath a black blouse over the top of faded denims, before brushing her hair dry so that it lay in a soft and silky sheen against the black blouse.

  A pale foundation had taken care of her flushed cheeks, but there was very little Beth could do to hide the fact that her lips remained slightly puffy and swollen from t
he fierceness of the kisses she and Raphael had shared…

  Not that she need have worried too much about her appearance when Raphael—again looking dangerously handsome in a black T-shirt and black denims—had only given her a cursory glance as she entered the kitchen, before then proceeding to continue preparing dinner as if she weren’t there.

  Which only succeeded in increasing her feelings of irritation. ‘Would you prefer to eat in here or in the dining room?’ she prompted sharply.

  ‘In here is fine.’ Raphael didn’t so much as glance her way as he grilled the steaks.

  ‘Scared I might misunderstand if we were to eat in the formal dining room together, with maybe a candle or two alight in the middle of the table?’ Beth taunted as she placed knives and forks on the kitchen table for the two of them, along with the condiments.

  Raphael did glance back at her then. ‘Very little scares me, Beth,’ he assured her coolly.

  A coolness that only made Beth’s temper burn even hotter. ‘So we’re just going to pretend earlier didn’t happen?’

  He raised dark brows. ‘I had hoped so, but obviously I was wrong.’

  Her hands clenched at her sides. ‘Don’t take that superior tone with me.’

  ‘What tone do you want me to take, Beth?’ Raphael sighed as he turned fully to face her. ‘Or perhaps you require an apology?’ He grimaced. ‘Very well. I should not have kissed you earlier, let alone touched you in the way that I did—’

  ‘You’re just making the situation worse!’

  Raphael didn’t see how it could get any worse. He had overstepped a line earlier, had breeched that barrier so necessary between protector and the person being protected. A lapse in judgement that seriously jeopardised his ability to protect Beth in the way that she should be protected. A breach, if Beth’s challenging behaviour now was an indication, she was unwilling to overlook, and so making it impossible for Raphael to do so, either.

  He frowned grimly. ‘I believe it would be better, for both of us, if we were to forgot what happened earlier—’

  ‘Can you forget it?’