by Lynne Graham
‘Raul, please...’ she moaned, hot with a debilitating and confusing mix of embarrassment and excitement.
‘Dios...but you are exquisite.’ His dark golden eyes blazed over her bare breasts with urgent appreciation and made her tremble.
With deft but impatient hands, Raul eased the nightgown tangled round her waist down over her slim hips, raising her knees to slide the garment finally free and discard it.
Smoothing a soothing hand over her shifting hips, he ran intent eyes over the slender length of her, her tiny waist, delicately rounded stomach, the cluster of dark curls crowning the juncture of her trembling thighs. As she made a sudden impulsive snatch at the sheet, he forestalled her, and gazed down at her with a wicked smile. ‘I’ve waited a long time to see you like this.’ Long brown fingers closed round her wrist and lingered. ‘Your pulse is going crazy. Admit it...it’s exciting to be looked at, appreciated and lusted over. What did you expect, querida? That I would fall on you like a clumsy, selfish boy and it would all be over in minutes? That is not how I make love...’
‘No...’ Polly conceded shakily, scarcely able to swallow, so constricted was her throat.
A dark line of colour lay over his superb cheekbones. ‘I want this to be good for you... I want you to spend all day aching for the moment when I take you in my arms again...’
Trembling like a leaf, with the heat surging through her in waves, Polly mumbled, ‘Ambitious...’
‘Always...in everything. It’s in my blood,’ Raul husked in agreement, running an exploring hand lightly over her outrageously sensitive breasts and forcing a gasp of startled reaction from her.
Helplessly she strained up to him, and with the tip of his tongue he provocatively traced the already reddened curve of her lips, so that she tipped her head back, openly inviting the hot, hard pressure of his mouth which every sense craved.
With a roughened laugh he tasted her again, sliding a hand beneath her hips and pressing her into contact with the aggressive thrust of his own arousal, and excitement drenched her in a blinding, burning wave. She moaned beneath that devastating mouth of his, need rising like a greedy fire as he let his fingers finally stroke and tug her achingly sensitive nipples. Freeing her swollen lips, he slid down the bed and employed that expert mouth on her tender breasts instead.
Pushing up against him, she twisted wildly, unprepared for the raw tide of sensation engulfing her now. Every intimate caress felt so unbearably good, yet all the time she strained and yearned helplessly for more, intoxicated by physical feelings she had never experienced before and ruled by their demands.
‘Easy, gatita,’ Raul muttered softly, pulling her to him, stilling her helpless squirmings with the momentary weight of one long, powerful thigh. ‘We’re not running a race...’
Polly snatched in a long, shuddering breath, focusing on him in a dazed kind of wonderment ‘I didn’t know it would be like this...’
‘Like a raging fire in which two can burn up with pleasure? ’ Raul bent over her and let his lips brush tenderly over hers.
She jerked as he eased her thighs apart and embarked on a more intimate invasion, touching her where she had never been touched before, discovering the damp silken ache at the centre of her. And he caressed her with such shrewd comprehension of what would excite her most that she was overwhelmed by the uncontrollable pleasure, sobbing against his broad shoulder, always longing and needing and finally begging for more as the desperate need for greater fulfilment rose to screaming proportions inside her.
And then Raul came smoothly over her, and surged into her before she could even get the chance to fear the unknown. As he thrust deeper there was a short, sharp pain that made her cry out, and then, a split second later, the most extraordinary and intense feeling of physical pleasure as he abruptly stilled to gaze with rather touching anxiety down at her.
‘I hoped it wouldn’t hurt,’ Raul confessed raggedly.
And Polly smiled a little dizzily up at him, at that moment loving him so much for caring that she was weak with the strength of the emotion shrilling through her.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ she swore unsteadily.
And then he moved within her again, and her eyes slid shut on the rush of sensation which was so indescribably seductive and controlling. If he had stopped she would have died, and she wrapped herself round him, utterly lost within the surging domination of his possession. He drove her up to the heights and she splintered there in ecstasy, glorying in his groan of intense physical pleasure as he slammed into her one last time with compulsive driving force.
Eyes welling with tears from the sheer raw intensity of her emotions, Polly held him tight within the circle of her arms, revelling in the sweetness of her new right to do that, openly and unashamedly, without fear of revealing too much. And she marvelled at how much closer she felt to Raul now. She wanted those timeless, tranquil moments to last for ever. He was an absolutely fantastic lover, she decided. Lying in that gloriously intimate embrace and knowing that she had satisfied him, in spite of her inexperience, filled her with new pride and confidence.
In that same instant of heady contentment Raul pulled away from her and sprawled back against the pillows again. He flipped his tousled dark head over and surveyed her with deceptively indolent dark golden eyes that gleamed with satisfaction. ‘You see, love isn’t necessary to sexual gratification. ’
Already hurt by the speed of his withdrawal from physical proximity, Polly gazed back at him with a sinking sensation in her stomach. ‘Is there a point to that comment?’ she asked tautly.
‘I think you get the point.’
‘It’s a re-run of the “don’t expect too much from me,” escape hatch for the commitment-shy male, is it?’ Polly condemned on a rush of bitter pain that filled her with a furious need to strike back. ‘You are just so terrified of emotion I actually feel sorry for you, but why should you worry about disappointing me? After all, you’ve been disappointing me one way or another ever since the first day we met!’
Stunned by that ringing and unexpected indictment, any pretense of indolence now abandoned, Raul stared at her, eyes dangerous as black ice. ‘Is that a fact?’ he breathed unevenly—only so thick was his accent it sounded much more like, ‘Ees-zat-a-fat?’, so she knew she had hit home very hard.
Polly snatched up her nightie and pulled it over her head with trembling hands. ‘Yes...but it hardly matters,’ she assured him with a skimming look of scorn. ‘I have nothing to lose and I’m not lowering my needs to the level of yours. You’re on probation, Raul.’
So incensed was he by that patronising little speech, he threw back the sheet and sprang out of bed. ‘I... Raul Zaforteza...on probation?’ he gritted in savage disbelief.
Squaring her slight shoulders, Polly was unrepentant. ‘And so far you are not doing very well. You seem to think you’ve done me one very big favour marrying me...but ask me how I feel five months from now—’
‘Por qué? What the hell is going to happen in five months?’ Raul raked at her across the depth of the bedroom.
‘I will inherit my godmother’s money, and if I’m not happy with you, I’m not spending the rest of my life in misery.’
‘Misery?’ Raul ground out in outrage.
‘I’m not,’ Polly told him, and meant it. ‘You needn’t think you can toss diamond jewellery at me to keep me happy. Diamonds are quite pretty, but not something I feel I have to have.’
‘Pretty?’ Raul echoed in rampant disbelief.
‘Other things mean much more to me...respect, affection, caring. I do appreciate that you have probably spent the entirety of your adult life giving extravagant gifts to women because you can’t cope with emotional demands, but—’
‘How dare you say I cannot cope?’ Volatile golden eyes slammed into hers in a look as hostile as a physical assault.
‘You said it yourself. You said you walk away when things get difficult.’ Polly made that incendiary reminder with reluctance.
Rau
l studied her with a seething, wordless incomprehension that twisted her heart inside out. Then he spun away, presenting her with the long golden sweep of his flawless back to wrench open a drawer and start to haul on a pair of black jeans. She knew he didn’t even trust himself to speak. She knew he was infuriated by the sudden struggle speaking English had become because he was in such an ungovernable rage.
‘I realize I’m far from perfect, and that a lot of things I do and say must irritate you...but I don’t think I deserve to feel that you only came home tonight to have sex with me,’ Polly told him, her eyes stinging so hard she had to open her eyes very wide to hold the tears back. ‘Like I’m some sort of novelty act... and then, right after it, regardless of my feelings, you have to gloat—’
On that charge, Raul swung back. ‘All I said was that love was not necessary to—’
Polly drew in a deep, shuddering breath. ‘And why did you say that?’ she whispered painfully, suddenly sick and tired of pretending. ‘You knew it wasn’t true. You must know how I feel about you. I think you’ve always known...’
Raul went very still. Dense black lashes dropped low, spectacular eyes betraying only a glint of gold, ferocious tension tightening his bronzed skin over his fabulous bone structure. ‘You’re going to regret this...’
‘No, I won’t. I’m past caring,’ Polly muttered with perfect truth. ‘I love you to death, and you probably knew it before I did! If you’d had a single shred of decency you would’ve backed off in Vermont. In the same way you knew exactly why I wanted to marry you...yet you told Digby I was a gold-digger and a blackmailer. It’s like a big black secret you won’t acknowledge, but I won’t live a lie, Raul.’
Utterly drained by that stark baring of her own tormented emotions, Polly slid out of the bed and walked towards the door.
‘Dios...I can’t give you love!’ Raul launched at her with positive savagery.
‘But with a little effort you could make a reasonable stab at respect, if not anything else. Because if you don’t,’ Polly whispered jaggedly, torn in two with pain and the regret he had so accurately forecast she would feel, ‘I’ll stop loving you, and love is all you have to hold me. I won’t be a doormat...I won’t be walked on.’
Without looking back, she flipped the door shut behind her. She was in a complete daze, shock at what she had done and said hitting her all at once. She was shaking all over, moving towards the sanctuary of the guest room she had abandoned earlier on jellied knees. But somehow she didn’t feel like crying any more. What had passed between her and Raul had been too devastating. A shame something she had found so wonderful, so beautiful, had had to end in such emotional agony.
Raul simply couldn’t have allowed it to stay that good. He had had to open that smart mouth of his and blow everything apart. Make her feel like a one-night stand instead of a wife who loved him—and who he knew damned well loved him! In the clear dawn light she lay down on the bed, a giant, aching hole where her heart had been. She didn’t want a heart that hurt her so much.
When the door opened again, she sat up with a start. Raul thrust the door shut behind him and studied her, brilliant black eyes incisive.
‘I too have faults,’ Raul murmured. ‘But, unlike you, I acknowledge them.’
‘What are you saying?’ Feeling worn and drained, Polly simply bowed her head defensively over her raised knees.
‘Yes, I disappointed you in Vermont...but then you disappointed me too.’
Disconcerted by that assurance, Polly lifted her head. Raul held her questioning look with unflinching cool.
‘If you had been the truly honest woman you like to believe you are, you would have told me that you were pregnant then. But, when it suited your purposes to remain silent, you were as neglectful of the truth as I was about my real identity. I think we’re about equal on the score of disappointing each other,’ Raul completed drily.
A slow, painful pink had surged into Polly’s cheeks. It shook her to be faced with the fact that she had also made mistakes—not least by ignoring reality when it seemed to be within her own interests to do so. She had never come close to telling Raul that she was a surrogate mum-to-be, had been too frightened he would reject her in disgust. How ironic it was that he had known all along, and even judged her on that cowardly silence!
‘I suppose you’re right,’ she contrived to force out rather hoarsely.
‘As for last night, and your conviction that I only returned to have sex with you—do you really think I am so immature or so desperate for sexual release?’ At that searing demand, Polly twisted her head away, no longer caring how he translated such a reaction. ‘I’m here now because I accepted that I shouldn’t have left you in the first place, and that such behaviour would only reinforce your fears about our future.’
Polly linked her fingers fiercely tight together. All rage put behind him, Raul’s ice-cool and rational rebuttal of her angry accusations was a cruelly effective weapon of humiliation. ‘OK,’ she got out, when she couldn’t bear his expectant silence any longer.
‘And do you really think that threatening to leave me in five months’ time is likely to add to the stability of our marriage?’
Polly flinched as if he had cracked a whip over her. She felt like a child being told off for bad behaviour.
‘Now I think you’re going to sulk,’ Raul forecast, with an even more lowering air of adult restraint.
Polly struggled, and finally managed to swallow the enormous lump in her throat. ‘I think you’re probably right.’
CHAPTER NINE
RAUL’S equestrian centre was a vastly impressive installation set about a mile from the ranch. Polly settled Luis into his stroller and wandered down the asphalt lane in the sweltering heat, striving not to look like a woman out in search of her husband. But the truth was she was getting desperate, for she had seen virtually nothing of Raul over the past few days.
Indeed, after those twin earth-shattering scenes at dawn, she had initially expected to find Raul a good thousand miles away on business by the time he appeared the following day. Why? Because he was thoroughly fed up with her! Fed up with the virtual minefield she had already made of their marriage of convenience and fed up with her overemotional reactions. What had happened to patience? Calm? Reasoned restraint?
But in the cruellest possible way she had Raul trapped. He might not be able to respond to emotional demands, but, challenged with an accusation of cowardice, sheer horror that she might be right would keep him on the spot. Only ‘on the spot’ at the ranch unfortunately seemed to mean that he could avoid her just as effectively.
He had a suite of rooms he used as offices on the ground floor, and staff who flew in and out as if helicopters were buses. He rose at dawn and went riding every morning and never returned to the ranch for breakfast. Either he was engaged in business the rest of the day or down at the equestrian centre. But every evening they dined together in the stifling formality of the dining room.
And, terrifyingly, it was as if that confrontation several days earlier had never happened—only now there was a divide the width of the Atlantic ocean between them. Raul didn’t need to walk away to hold her at a distance. He could make civil conversation, express a courteous desire to know what she had done with her day, discuss Luis and generally treat her like an honoured house guest with whom, regrettably, he didn’t have very much time to spend. Oh, yes, and leave her to sleep in a guest room bed without a visible ounce of regret.
So now, when Polly espied Raul chatting to a fair-haired man in front of the state-of-the-art stables, she attempted to appear slightly surprised to run into him. She wanted to behave normally, but without giving him the impression she had deliberately sought him out.
Embarrassingly sexual butterflies erupted in her tummy as she watched him lithely straighten from his elegant lounging position against the rail. As always, he looked stupendous, black hair flopping over his bronzed brow, dark. deep-set eyes narrowed, wide shoulders outlined by a black
polo shirt, lean hips and long powerful thighs sheathed in skintight jodhpurs, polished boots gleaming in the sunshine.
‘Fancy seeing you here’ might well be interpreted as sarcasm, so she gave Raul a purposely casual smile. Her heartbeat thundered with suppressed excitement against her breastbone, ensuring that she swiftly removed her attention from him again. ‘Luis and I are just out for a walk,’ she announced, and then wanted to bite her tongue out because she sounded positively fatuous.
‘This is Patrick Gorman, Polly.’ Raul introduced the slim, fair-haired younger man already extending his hand to her. ‘He runs the breeding programme for the polo ponies.’
‘Delighted to meet you, Mrs Zaforteza.’
‘You’re English!’ Polly registered with surprise and pleasure. ‘And I think I recognise that accent. Newcastle?’
‘Spot on!’
Polly laughed. ‘I was born in Blyth, but my parents moved south when I was six.’
‘That’s why you don’t have a hint of a Geordie accent.’ Giving her an appreciative grin, Patrick bent over the stroller. ‘I’m crazy about babies!’ he exclaimed, squatting down to get a closer look at Luis, where he was contentedly drowsing under the parasol. ‘He’s incredibly little, isn’t he?’
‘He’s actually quite big for his age,’ Polly asserted proudly, thinking how wonderfully well this supposedly accidental meeting with Raul was going, because Patrick was the chatty type which naturally helped to break the ice.
‘My niece is a year old, and quite a handful last time I saw her,’ Patrick told her cheerfully.
‘Luis doesn’t do much more than eat and sleep at the minute.’
‘You have a lot of fun ahead of you,’ Patrick Gorman smiled. ‘Since Raul has some calls to make, would you like me to show you around this operation?’
