A Touch of Notoriety

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘No, I—’ Beth cried out as Raphael turned the attention of his lips, teeth and tongue to her other breast, at the same time as he released his hold on that pleasurable spot deep inside her, his fingers continuing to graze against that sweet spot with every thrust, Beth’s pleasure riding higher still before she crashed, hurtled over the top in full and shuddering release.

  * * *

  Raphael held Beth in his arms, a worried frown marring his brow as the aftermath of her release continued to cause her to shake and quiver long after her body had attained its ultimate release, the wetness of the tears she had cried at the pinnacle of her climax still damp on her cheeks.

  Had he been too rough with her? Taken her too far too fast? Raphael hadn’t meant to frighten or alarm her; he had just gone past the point of being able to stop himself from accepting everything she so freely offered, and in return giving her everything back as he did all that he could to return the pleasure her uninhibited responses were giving him.

  But the continued trembling of her body as she lay curled against him, her hand resting limply across his chest, was unexpected—

  ‘It’s my turn now, I believe,’ she purred throatily as she moved out of his arms and up onto her knees beside him before reaching out to curve her fingers about his hot and throbbing shaft.

  Raphael drew in a sharp breath. ‘Beth—’

  ‘Shh.’ She lay one silencing fingertip against his lips as she moved down the bed before moving to kneel between his parted thighs. ‘You’re so beautiful here, Raphael,’ she murmured appreciatively, her breath a soft and torturous caress against the heat of the bulbously swollen top of his shaft.

  Raphael groaned as he felt the hot lap of her tongue against his burning flesh.

  ‘You taste delicious, too.’ Her tongue now lapped greedily over that bulbous top, before probing gently into the slitted tip and then over and around the lip, until she found and lingered over the sensitive skin just beneath.

  It was Raphael’s turn to tense his fingers into the sheet beneath him as he fought to maintain control as Beth raised her head before lowering her lips over him, at the same time as her fingers began to lightly pump his long and throbbing length, and her other hand cupped beneath the tautness of his sac.

  She made a low and satisfied humming noise in her throat as she found a rhythm to her caresses, Raphael groaning his pleasure each time she took him to the back of her throat, that humming sending electrified jolts of pleasure down the length of Raphael’s shaft as he felt the churning, boiling for release deep inside him. He reached down and placed his hands either side of her face to hold her exactly where she was as he gave himself up to the mindless need to thrust deep and hard into that hot delicious cavern.

  He was poised, in danger of falling over the brink of that release, until he finally found the strength to lift Beth’s head up and away from him, groaning as he instantly felt the warmth of her breath as a hot caress against his moist and still straining shaft.

  ‘I have changed my mind, I badly want to be inside you when you come a second time,’ he quickly explained as she looked down at him with hurt and questioning brown eyes. ‘And I need to get protection before I do that,’ he added regretfully, hating even the thought of that necessary layer of latex between himself and Beth.

  ‘Protection,’ Beth repeated blankly, feeling slightly dazed and more than a little bereft as Raphael moved to sit on the side of the bed, shoulders wide, his back long and muscled as he leant forward to pick up his trousers.

  ‘Unless…’ He glanced back at her over one of those shoulders. ‘I am clean if you are?’

  Beth blinked. ‘I just took a shower…’

  ‘That is not the sort of clean I meant,’ Raphael cajoled lightly as he turned fully to face her. ‘Oral contraception is not considered enough nowadays, Beth.’

  Contraception! Dear Lord, when Raphael had said just now that he was ‘clean’ he meant—he meant—

  How naïve could she get? How bloody naïve and—and stupid of her not to have realised Raphael was referring to healthily clean, as in having a doctor’s certified assurance that he was free of sexual disease.

  And how much of a mood killer was that!

  Beth hadn’t expected hearts and flowers from this man—that certainly would have been naïve of her with a man of Raphael’s age and experience!—but she hadn’t expected him to break off in the middle of the heat of their lovemaking to question her previous sexual habits, either!

  It might be necessary nowadays, but it was also damned humiliating. And embarrassing.

  She sat back on her heels as she drew in a deep and ragged breath. ‘I’m clean, too, Raphael,’ she assured him dully.

  He nodded. ‘You also have been checked in the last three months?’

  ‘I—’ Beth paused, chewing on her bottom lip for several seconds before answering him. Her own mood had certainly been ruined by this conversation, and she had a feeling that what she was about to say was going to kill all Raphael’s desire, too… ‘I’ve never been checked, Raphael. Because there’s never been a need for me to do so.’ Her chin rose as if in challenge.

  It was Raphael’s turn to look at her blankly now, a frown appearing between his eyes as he watched Beth stand before picking up the towel she had discarded earlier, to once again wrap it firmly about her nakedness before fastening it tightly between her breasts.

  ‘I do not—’ That frown was erased as Raphael’s eyes widened incredulously. ‘Are you trying to tell me you are still a virgin?’

  Her eyes flashed darkly. ‘I’m not “trying” to tell you anything, Raphael. I am telling you I’m still a virgin!’

  ‘A virgin,’ he repeated flatly, his incredulous gaze remaining fixed on her as he ran a hand agitatedly through the shortness of his thick dark hair.

  Beth gave an annoyed frown at his reaction. ‘It’s unfashionable, I know,’ she drawled irritably. ‘But it isn’t exactly the contagious disease your tone seems to imply it is!’ He couldn’t have sounded more horrified if she had told him she had the plague!

  Raphael stood up abruptly, totally unconcerned with his own nakedness as he moved around the bed to stand just feet away from her. Although Beth couldn’t help noticing that the fierceness of his erection had deflated somewhat, that beautiful shaft jutting out at half-mast rather than erectly flush with his navel.

  ‘You are a virgin,’ he repeated carefully.

  ‘Yes.’ Beth knew she sounded defensive, but she just couldn’t help it; Raphael was behaving as if she were a lumbering dinosaur in a world of elegant gazelles!

  He gave a slow shake of his head. ‘And yet you were going to—minutes ago you were about to let me—’ His mouth firmed, his jaw tightening as his hands clenched into fists at his sides. ‘Beth, has no one told you that your virginity is a precious thing, and not to be given lightly?’

  Lightly? Raphael believed—he thought she had made love with him out of curiosity, like some sort of childish flexing of her sexual powers?

  She might have tried to avoid analysing her feelings for this man earlier, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t innately known what those feelings were. That somewhere, somehow, in amongst the hours they had spent arguing or annoying each other, and the hours she had spent denying she was Gabriela Navarro, she had managed to fall in love with him. Deeply, wildly, irrevocably in love. With Raphael Cardoba.

  No doubt something else Raphael didn’t want to hear…

  What a fool she was. What an absolute idiot, not to have realised before tonight what was happening to her. Not that she could have prevented herself from falling for Raphael; she knew falling in love wasn’t like that. She doubted her sister, Grace, would have fallen in love with a man as complicated as Cesar if it were! And now Beth had fallen in love with a man who was just as complicated. A man older and far more experienced than her. A man who seemed to have as many issues with his family as she had.

  A man who had earlier made no secret of the fact that h
is interest in her was purely sexual…

  Had been purely sexual.

  Because Beth had no doubts that her admission of physical innocence had managed to kill even that.

  ‘—drive back there now—Beth, are you even listening to me?’ Raphael prompted hardly as he realised her attention had wandered elsewhere.

  Although how she had managed to do that he had no idea, his own thoughts solely on the fact that he had almost taken her innocence tonight. He had thought that Beth, although perhaps not as experienced as he was, had at least been to bed with a man before tonight. The shock of realising she hadn’t, and that he had almost taken her innocence without thought or due consideration, would haunt him for a very long time.

  As it was, he was furious. Not with Beth. But with himself. How could he have been so stupid not to have realised, not to have known, that she had never taken a lover before tonight?

  Yes, Beth had an answer for everything. And yes, she gave every appearance of being a modern young woman with a definite mind of her own. And she had also been the one to inform him earlier that he either took up the offer to become her lover tonight or she would find another man who would. But even then, even then, she hadn’t given any indication that she had taken any previous lovers.

  The question as to why she had chosen him to be her first lover was the least of Raphael’s concerns at this moment. Getting Beth home—at least, back to Cesar’s estate in Hampshire—and far away from any breath of scandal being attached to her name, because of the time she had spent here with him tonight, was Raphael’s main priority. Everything else could be discussed at a later date.

  Or not, if the challenging tilt to Beth’s chin was any indication…

  ‘Get dressed,’ Raphael instructed harshly as he bent to collect up his own clothes.

  She focused on him with effort. ‘Dressed?’

  He nodded abruptly. ‘We are only about an hour away from the estate, and in the circumstances it would be best if we returned there tonight, after all.’

  Best for whom? Beth wondered heavily as Raphael turned his back on her to begin pulling on his own clothes, and leaving her with no choice but to go back into the adjoining bathroom, where her clothes were, and lock the door before redressing.

  Not that she thought there was any chance of Raphael entering the bathroom uninvited; he had made it more than clear that he had no intention of remaining in this hotel bedroom with her for another minute longer than he needed to!

  Raphael didn’t speak to her when she came back into the bedroom a few minutes later to find him once again dressed in his three-piece suit, white shirt and meticulously knotted tie—and looking absolutely nothing like the sensual and predatory man who had made love to her such a short time ago. And whom she had made love to.

  Instead he looked grimly remote as he opened the bedroom door for her to precede him out of the room and down the stairs, handing her the keys to the car so that she could continue outside as he disappeared to settle the bill with the landlord.

  Any dignity Beth might have managed to salvage, after Raphael’s rejection of her when he realised her physical innocence, completely evaporated at the realisation she had just spent two hours in a hotel bedroom with a man before checking out again.

  Oh, God…

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  BETH’S TOTAL MISERY continued during their silent breakfast together the following morning, after a restless and sleepless night on her part. Although Raphael, apart from that brooding silence, behaved and appeared as coolly distant as ever, his expression harsh, despite his casual appearance in a pair of black denims and blue shirt.

  Not that either of them ate any breakfast, the aching pain in the pit of Beth’s stomach robbing her of any appetite for food, and Raphael seeming equally uninterested as the two of them just drank several cups of coffee together in that total silence.

  Raphael finally spoke as they cleared away at the end of the meal. ‘Cesar sent the jet for us overnight, and it is now refuelling and waiting at the private airport in preparation for flying us back to Argentina today.’

  That Raphael couldn’t wait to get back to Buenos Aires, before no doubt discharging all responsibility for her, was more than obvious from his frostily aloof manner and the arctic chill of his gaze as he looked down his arrogant nose at her.

  Beth gave a tight smile as she straightened from loading the dishwasher, ironically wearing similar clothes to Raphael: black denims and a green cotton shirt. ‘I guess those alterations to my house weren’t necessary, after all!’

  Raphael’s eyes narrowed. ‘They will be very necessary when you decide to return to England.’

  ‘And when do you think that will be?’ she came back dryly. ‘If Cesar has his way, his little sister will never be allowed to leave Argentina ever again!’

  Raphael scowled darkly. ‘I had thought you had more self-determination than to allow Cesar to dictate your movements in future.’

  Beth rounded on him fiercely, her eyes flashing darkly and her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

  ‘How dare you talk to me like that? I haven’t finished yet,’ she added warningly as Raphael would have spoken. ‘How do you have the nerve to stand there, talking down to me because I’ve decided to at least try to be Esther and Carlos’s daughter, when your relationship with your own father is so obviously non-existent?’

  Beth had spent quite a lot of the previous night sitting in a bedroom chair staring out of the window as she thought about her future as Gabriela Navarro—when she wasn’t thinking about Raphael and reliving the humiliation of his rejection of her, and his terse goodnight to her once they were back at the estate, that was! For all her words of rebellion before she and Raphael left Argentina, Beth simply couldn’t see the Navarro family happily letting her trot off back to England, and her house and job here, once Grace and Cesar were married.

  Quite what she was supposed to do as Gabriela Navarro, Beth had no idea, never having had any dealings with heiresses, Argentinian or otherwise. But she had a feeling that it would involve hours and hours of shopping for suitable clothes, so that she could be taken out to suitable parties and dinner parties, and be introduced to suitable people. People as rich and privileged as the Navarro family.

  All of which sounded like total misery to Beth.

  At the same time as she knew she owed it to Esther and Carlos, her real parents, to at least try to fit into their world. To try to become their daughter again. Even if it was the last thing she felt like doing.

  The first thing she felt like doing was getting as far away from Raphael Cordoba, and those humiliating memories of last night, as she possibly could!

  And instead she was now going to spend hours and hours on a plane with him, suffering in silence while he continued to ignore her…

  ‘I was not talking down to you—’

  ‘It certainly sounded like it to me,’ she came back determinedly. ‘And from the little I know about your own situation, you appear to have walked out on your own family years ago, and never looked back!’

  ‘That is not true.’ A nerve pulsed in Raphael’s tightly clenched jaw. ‘I see all of my sisters whenever my other responsibilities allow.’

  ‘Which doesn’t appear to be very often,’ Beth scorned. ‘And you don’t see your father at all. Why is that, Raphael?’

  Raphael was beginning to wish he hadn’t told Beth anything about his family. Most especially of the strained relationship that now existed between himself and his father.

  ‘Or is it your stepmother you’re avoiding?’ Beth prompted astutely. ‘Maybe because you begrudge your father the happiness of a second marriage?’

  ‘My father’s second marriage ended some years ago,’ Raphael bit out tautly. ‘And the only thing I begrudged was having his young wife make sexual advances to me—’ Raphael broke off abruptly as he realised his anger had made him say far too much. Reveal far too much. ‘It is time I—’

  ‘Your stepmother made sexual
advances to you?’ Beth repeated incredulously.

  Raphael easily read the all-too-familiar tenacity of Beth’s expression. ‘Yes,’ he hissed.

  ‘She tried to seduce you? Even though she was married to your father?’

  ‘I think “seduce” is too polite a word for what Margarita intended in regard to her stepson, from the age of sixteen to nineteen, every time he returned for the school holidays,’ he drawled scathingly.

  ‘You were only sixteen when she first tried to seduce you?’ Beth’s eyes were wide. ‘Why didn’t you tell your father what was happening? Explain the situation to him and—’

  ‘And what, Beth?’ Raphael moved away impatiently. ‘Expect that he would believe my word for what had happened over the word of the young and beautiful wife with whom he was totally besotted?’ He eyed her mockingly.

  ‘Your father knew about her—her sexual interest in you?’

  ‘He eventually knew Margarita’s version of things, yes,’ Raphael bit out flatly.

  ‘How?’

  ‘You really do not want to know—’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I really do, Raphael.’ Beth nodded determinedly.

  He sighed his impatience with her stubbornness. ‘Remember that you were the one who asked me to tell you this,’ he warned harshly as he drew in a deep breath before speaking again. ‘I was out in the stables one day and she came into the stall where I was working, unbuttoning her blouse as she did so, revealing that she wore nothing beneath. I told her—as I had told her so many times before—that I was not interested in her in that way. She left her blouse partway unbuttoned and came towards me, her intentions obvious in her gaze and the lascivious expression on her face.’ Raphael’s own expression was bleak as he remembered the day that had changed his life for ever. ‘I was too busy trying to fend off her attentions to realise that someone else had entered the stables, but apparently Margarita was not. To my surprise she suddenly pulled away from me and began screaming as she started pulling and tearing her blouse. By the time my father had hurried to the stall where we both were, Margarita had mussed her hair into a tangled mess and ripped several buttons from her blouse, the material itself gaping open to reveal her bared breasts.’