She heard the rap on the door and momentarily froze, even though she had been waiting for that rap with every straining inch of her body.
She had to take a few deep breaths before pulling open the door. Normally that did the trick whenever she was nervous, but this time it had the opposite effect of making those somersaults in her stomach even more frantic.
She involuntarily stepped back the minute she saw him, and he immediately took advantage and brushed past her into the small hallway.
The previous Saturday, Rafael had looked devastatingly handsome at his party, but this was the look she had grown accustomed to and loved most: that end-of-day, slightly dishevelled look. His hair always looked as though he had been running his fingers through it, and he had seldom walked through her door in the evening without his sleeves cuffed to the elbows and his tie stuffed into his briefcase or in a pocket somewhere. At the start of the day he looked powerful, at the end of the day he looked downright dangerous.
‘Going out?’ Rafael asked, swinging round to look at her, perfectly aware that thanks to his intervention she would be going nowhere tonight.
She was wearing another dress which he hadn’t seen before, another sexy number designed to show off her fabulous curves. For someone who had once preached the virtues of practical clothing, she seemed to have discovered the allure of the impractical wardrobe. First siren-red, now a turquoise that was exquisitely dramatic against her skin, and the way it clung … Having had an uninterested libido for the past few weeks, he now had the insane urge to strip her of her clingfilm garment and take her the way he’d used to when things had been going good between them. Before she’d tried to pin him into a corner and turn him back into the kind of man who had seen his ex-wife grow bored and demanding and eventually unfaithful.
For a few seconds, Cristina was seriously tempted to lie and tell him that, yes, she was just about to leave her apartment, but then where would she go? She had no date, and there was no way that she was going to circle the block like a fugitive just to pretend that she was as busy on the romance front as he obviously was.
‘I was,’ she confessed stiffly. ‘But something came up and my date had to cancel.’
‘Nothing worse than an unreliable date,’ Rafael purred smoothly, dragging his eyes off her and heading up the stairs so that she had no option but to follow him.
He was standing in front of the open fridge with a wine bottle in his hand by the time she joined him in the kitchen, and he took down a couple of wineglasses and placed them on the counter. ‘So who was the lucky guy?’ Rafael asked casually. ‘Anyone I know?’
‘James,’ Cristina mumbled. ‘Actually, I met him at your party last weekend.’
Rafael knitted his brows together in a frown and then raised his eyebrows in amused disbelief. ‘Not Goodman.’
‘As a matter of fact, yes.’ She accepted the glass of wine and thought of the blonde at the party, at which point she tried to look suitably gutted that she wasn’t going to be seeing James as planned.
There was a long and seemingly significant silence, and she reluctantly said, ‘Why?’ even though she could tell from that look on his face that that was precisely the question he had been waiting for.
‘I thought that might be the case,’ Rafael acknowledged, draining his glass and then leaning against the counter so that he could pin her down with his silvered gaze. ‘Call it a gut feeling.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I must have a highly developed telepathic side,’ he mused. ‘Because I got to thinking about you at the party, and I realised that I should probably come over and at least warn you that, if you’re thinking of finding Mr Right in the shape of Goodman, then you’re barking up the wrong tree.’
Cristina flushed and folded her arms. Come over? Warn her? Was she some sort of charity case? This confirmed everything she had been thinking. He had felt sorry for her and so had invited her to his little party, and he now not only felt sorry for her but he had also decided that she was somehow incapable of looking after herself.
‘Did you know that James would get in touch with me?’ she asked tightly.
Rafael was quick to deny any such thing. He suffered not the slightest tug of his conscience in doing so, because he could now see that she really was in need of his advice. He had tried to tell her that her suddenly revised dress code was not such a good idea, and as he could now see, she was in dire need of a few more words of caution.
‘I use him as an example,’ he said, oozing well-intentioned concern. ‘He’s typical of how a man will react in the presence of a woman who has her sexuality stamped all over her in neon lettering.’
Cristina was torn between feeling treacherously flattered that he’d thought her sexy and pure outrage that he’d had the cheek to swan over to her house to continue his silly preaching at her.
‘I don’t need you to give me a lecture on men,’ she muttered, staring down at the pointed tips of her high-heeled shoes, very glad she had decided to stick them on—even though she could feel the beginnings of a blister on her right heel, and would have liked nothing more than to kick them off and slip into her comfortable bedroom slippers.
‘Not if your intention is to work your way through a series of Mr Wrongs before you hit upon Mr Right.’ He was in front of her practically before Cristina had time to raise startled eyes and take the necessary evasive action. Of course she should never have let him into her apartment, she had only herself to blame for the mortifying discomfort into which she was now plunged. But the minute Rafael spoke, every good-intentioned bone in her body turned to water. She had heard that deeply, sexy drawl at the end of the line and had melted.
‘How can you preach to me about … about sleeping around?’ she flung back at him defensively. ‘You’ve already got someone else in your life! Or was that Cindy woman just a good friend?’
‘We’re not talking about me. I’m fully capable of handling myself.’
‘I know that. It’s the women you handle yourself with that are the ones in need of the sympathy vote.’
Why was she defending Goodman? Rafael thought savagely. She couldn’t really believe that the man was anything but trouble as far as women were concerned? He was about to make that very point when he realised that she had lumped him into exactly the same category. It was a thought that was frankly outrageous, considering he had proposed marriage to her!
‘Whatever impression you may have had,’ he said, his brilliant eyes fixed on her downturned face, ‘Cindy and I were never lovers.’
Cristina knew that it was foolish to be gladdened by that piece of information. It took nothing away from the fact that he had seen her as a convenience in his life rather than the driving love of it. They still stood at opposite sides of an unbreachable chasm. Nevertheless, she couldn’t prevent a flood of pure happiness from pouring through her, and she decided that it was just nice to know that she hadn’t been so instantly forgotten.
‘Goodman has a reputation,’ Rafael told her abruptly. ‘And, yes, I know you’re probably tarring me with the same brush, but you have yet to know James.’
‘He seemed perfectly all right to me.’ She raised her head and looked him straight in the eyes, which made it difficult for her to stay in control of her wits which he had an unnerving ability to scatter.
‘If by “perfectly all right”, you mean he spent the evening leering at your breasts …’
‘I suppose now you’re going to give me that talk about how unsuitable my dress was. I suppose you’re going to tell me that what I’m wearing now is unsuitable as well …’
That focused Rafael’s gaze exclusively on her body, which she was offering to his scrutiny, her hands hanging limply at her sides as she awaited the expected verdict.
Like an accumulated and unstoppable force, Rafael felt a charge of desire so powerful that he balled his hands into clenched fists in an attempt to control it. But his head was running wildly out of control, remem
bering the feel of her under his hands, and the taste of her as she’d writhed beneath him.
His nostrils flared and he heard himself asking, in a harsh undertone, ‘Is this the first time you’re seeing him this week? Did he touch you? Have you been to bed with him?’ These were questions which in all fairness he couldn’t ask the man himself, not without sounding like an enraged and jealous lover, but he found himself asking them now and hanging on for her response.
‘Of course I haven’t been to bed with him! When do you imagine that would have taken place? I only met him last weekend!’
‘That says nothing,’ Rafael dismissed scathingly.
‘I’m not that type of girl. I thought you knew that much about me.’
‘Look at you! I once imagined that you weren’t the kind of girl who dressed to impress men, but I was wrong about that, so I can be wrong about everything else as well!’
‘I’m not dressing to impress men!’
‘Okay. Just Goodman.’ He waited in the expectation that she would deny such a provocative accusation, and was even more furious when she failed to do so. If she had just accepted his marriage proposal and everything it entailed, he would not be in this position now. It almost seemed to Rafael that she had taken a stance and then had proceeded to turn herself into a completely different human being. He had thought her perfect wife material: docile, good-natured, uncomplicated, with the added bonus of being very sexy indeed, especially in comparison to his usual diet of stick-thin women. She was, he had thought with satisfaction, the ultimate traditional woman and as such just the sort of person to compliment his demanding lifestyle, to accept his unpredictable work hours with no hint of complaint.
He looked at her now, felt that stirring in him again, and tactfully backed away out of natural reach.
He cursed himself for having been such a fool. He might have known that nothing in life was as simple or as straightforward as it appeared. As they said, there was no such thing as a free lunch.
‘Well?’ he demanded aggressively, unable to relinquish the sour taste in his mouth when he thought of her getting dressed in the turquoise cling-film with the sole intention of appealing to that toad Goodman.
‘Well what?’
Rafael caught himself in the nick of time. He was travelling down a dangerous road. He knew that. He was, above all else, supremely self-controlled and yet here he was, behaving like a kid with a severe temper tantrum.
‘Well …’ He turned away, in the mood for another glass of wine. ‘I came here out of concern. You’re new at this game, but if you dress like that …’ he informed her bluntly as he poured them both another glass. ‘You’re going to be sending out all the wrong messages.’
‘Rafael …’ Cristina remembered how complimentary Anthea had been on the subject of her new wardrobe, and really who was better equipped to judge a woman’s wardrobe than another woman? Anthea would have told her if anything she had tried on was wrong. She had been more than frank when it had come to telling her that she looked too round in something, or too drained of colour, or too short, or too anything else for that matter. ‘Loads of other women dress in tight clothes.’
‘Loads of other women don’t have your shape.’ Rafael thought of the ultra-thin women he had dated. They had certainly worn tight clothes and had looked good, but never as sexy as she did.
‘I realise I could lose a few pounds …’
‘You misunderstand me.’ He swallowed a couple mouthfuls of wine and watched her narrowly over the rim of his glass. ‘On you, with your body, tight dresses are a temptation no man in his right mind could resist. You’ve seen how Goodman couldn’t keep his eyes off you, and he wasn’t the only guy.’
‘You managed all right,’ Cristina was horrified to hear herself tell him, and she immediately papered over the gaffe by adding brightly, ‘I guess that was because you had your girlfriend there.’ The girlfriend he hadn’t slept with! Was that because he’d thought, secretly, that she was sexier than the pneumatic blonde? Hadn’t he just said that in a tight dress she was a temptation ‘no man in his right mind could resist’? Her wayward mind happily travelled down this road for a while and then screeched to an abrupt halt when she considered that perhaps it was a question of respect. Perhaps Rafael wasn’t leaping into bed with her because he was giving the relationship time to grow and develop and, for Rafael, that would be a really big thing.
‘I know you haven’t slept with her, but I guess you’ve just decided to take things slowly?’
Rafael was supremely uninterested in any conversation to do with Cindy. What he really wanted to do was pick up on that stray remark, hurriedly retracted. No. What he really wanted to do was rip off that dress and lose himself in that fabulous hourglass body of hers.
‘How do you know?’ he asked thickly, taking a step towards her while she stumbled back a step, so that for a few seconds they were doing a little dance of advance and retreat.
‘Know what?’ Cristina squeaked. Her body felt suddenly hot and prickly, and she could feel her nipples tightening, her legs going wobbly. It was almost impossible not to relive that scorching passion that could sweep her away into a universe of her own, impossible for her lips not to feel suddenly dry and her lungs suddenly deprived of air.
‘What are you doing?’ Cristina asked, feverishly aware of the way her wayward body was behaving and of the few inches separating them.
Rafael didn’t answer. Instead he drew one lean finger along her collarbone and felt her shudder. ‘What makes you think that I wasn’t one of those guys watching you?’ he murmured, his blue, deep-set eyes gleaming in perfect acknowledgment of her response. She might have put on the dress for Goodman, but right now he was the only man on her mind. He could read it from her huge eyes staring at him with mesmerised fascination, from the dilated pupils, and from the way she was moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue.
Cristina made a strangulated little sound. Having backed up all of five inches, she now found herself pressed against the counter and thereby at his mercy as he placed his big hands squarely on either side of her, blocking all hope of an exit. Not that she actually wanted an exit, a small, wicked voice was whispering in her head. It was horrible and it was humiliating but she was liking this, liking his body so close to hers that she could just reach out and touch him, spread her fingers across his hard, muscled chest.
She closed her eyes and reached up to him, blindly seeking out his mouth while her breasts squashed against his chest. The clingy turquoise dress unzipped at the back. All he had to do was pull it down, all ten inches of it, and her body would be free; she would be able to feel his hand on her bare skin. She would think about the consequences later. Right now every nerve in her body was straining to feel him against her. In her head she had a never-ending train of images that just seemed to go round and round as if on a continual loop. Images of his lips on hers, his dark head at her breasts as he suckled on her nipples, his fingers exploring her body, every yearning, craving inch of it.
She reached behind her with one hand and yanked down the zipper. She was barely conscious of doing it, but it felt good as she wriggled the dress down so that she was now bare from the waist up. No bra. The back was low-cut and, as luck had had it, she didn’t possess the right bra for the style and so had decided to do without one. Thanks to Rafael, she was far less self-conscious of her breasts than she used to be.
Rafael had dreamed of this body, a dark dream which he had done his utmost to shove to the back of his mind and to bury under all the reasons why their relationship had split apart at the seams. But it had been there all along, barely contained in the mental box into which it had been shoved.
This hit him like a sudden blow beneath the belt as his hand came into contact with her flesh. He cupped one of her breasts, rubbed his finger abrasively over the nipple and felt it stiffen under his touch.
Then, like a freight train which you heard approaching in the distance but didn’t actually impact until it had r
ammed right into you, it struck him that she wasn’t wearing a bra. She had climbed into this dress with Goodman in mind, not him.
In a matter of a few seconds, his mood plummeted into the depths of fury. He couldn’t remember why he had come here in the first place. Yes, he had put Goodman off, but had he really thought that the manoeuvre had been anything but a temporary delay? He wondered whether she had responded to him just because she had been feeling horny. Her date had stood her up and he was there.
She had confessed—it now seemed like years ago—that she loved him. Her love had certainly been of a very passing nature if she could slip into this sexy little number in the expectations of going to bed with another man.
Once his thoughts began travelling down that route, they began to consume every corner of his mind.
‘I really don’t think so, do you?’ he said, dropping his hands and turning away, because he knew his weakness with her and it was lust. He didn’t want to have even the smallest glimpse of that exquisite body.
His abrupt withdrawal was like a bucket of freezing water thrown over her. Cristina looked at that erect back which smacked of cold dismissal with a sinking heart, then she quickly, with shame, pulled her dress up. She couldn’t reach behind her to do up the zipper, not without a minor struggle, and she was heavily conscious of it gaping open behind like a mocking reminder of her willingness to drop all her fast-held principles at a single touch.
‘I don’t know why I was worried about Goodman taking advantage of you in your dazzling new finery …’ He swung round to look at her with distaste. ‘You obviously more than know where the revealing outfits are going to take you. God knows, you’ve probably got the contraceptives in readiness on the bedroom table.’
Cristina, hurt, angry and now feeling manipulated, raised her hand without thinking and hit him hard across the face. She looked in horror first at the stinging palm of her hand, and then at his cheek as the imprint of her fingers slowly formed a red stain across the side of his face. The apology died on her lips when she saw his expression. He was looking at her as if she were something that had crawled out from underneath a rock. He had never looked at her like that, not even when she had handed him back his engagement ring.
His Suitable Bride Page 15