As had Raul’s father, Matias. When Alannah had first arrived at the castillo and seen the old man for the first time in two years she had been shocked at the way that the passage of time and the shock of his personal loss had aged him, leaving him frail and unsteady on his feet, his dark eyes clouded by sorrow. He had almost wept when Raul had told him that he hoped to bring him a grandchild to hold in his arms just as soon as nature would allow it, and, seeing the tears that had sheened those eyes, so like his son’s, Alannah had known that, for this reason if for nothing else, because of the new meaning her marriage would bring to these two sad, lonely people, her mother and Raul’s father, she was doing the right thing.
And if by doing so she could fill her own life with the bitter-sweet delight of having Raul there with her every day, sharing his bed at night, with his beloved face the first thing she saw every morning and the last before she fell asleep at the end of the day, then she told herself that that would be enough. She would take what he would give her and not ask for more.
Or, rather, she would try not to ask for more.
But deep in her heart she knew that there was one thing she still yearned for.
Oh, not Raul’s love. She wasn’t such a fool as to dream of that. But he was marrying her to have a child. The longed-for grandchild for his father and her mother. The heir to all the Marcín estates.
‘We can heal our families, Alannah. We can’t replace what they’ve lost but we can offer them a future. A future with a grandchild to look forward to.’
But four months down the line, there was still no sign of the baby this marriage was all about.
And no sign of the proposed marriage either.
A cruel, icy little hand clutched at her heart at that thought. Four months ago Raul had been all fire and impatience, determined to arrange the marriage almost overnight, it seemed. But then, of course, there had been the possibility that she might already be pregnant to spur him on.
And she had hoped too.
But it seemed that no sooner had she allowed the dream to take root in her thoughts than fate had destroyed it overnight. There was to be no baby.
‘Not this time,’ Raul had said with unexpected calm when she had told him. ‘But we would have been expecting miracles for everything to go right all at once. We have time. And we can enjoy trying again.’
Alannah sighed again and ran her finger along the heavy stone ledge outside the open window, feeling the heat of the sun on her skin.
She wasn’t sure that ‘enjoy’ was strictly the right word.
Oh, there was no doubt at all that she reached the heights of pleasure in Raul’s arms and in his bed. Heights of pleasure that she had never imagined existed or thought that she would scale over and over again. And she knew that Raul’s sexual hunger for her was every bit as sharp and as urgent as it had been from the very first. He showed no sign at all of growing bored or even indifferent now that she was in his bed every night. But at the same time he showed no sign of feeling anything more. He told her she was beautiful, murmured husky, seductive compliments in her ear as she lay under him, open to him, giving herself to him.
But never, ever did he speak a single word of love.
And so the pleasure she enjoyed always came with a feeling that it was the very sharp edge of a double-edged sword. Every time that she made love to Raul it bound her closer and closer to him than she would ever have believed possible. She had given him her heart from the start but now it seemed that he possessed her totally, body and soul, and without him she would be just an empty shell. But he made love to her to ‘try again’. He came to bed with her because he wanted her, it was true, but always, always the thought of that baby they were to make between them was on his mind.
But up until now there was no sign of that longed-for child.
And no sign of the wedding either.
And if there was one way to make it painfully clear to her that Raul had only promised one as long as she delivered the other, then that was it. No baby, no wedding. He didn’t have to spell it out. It was as plain as day without a word being spoken.
Savagely Alannah dashed the back of her hand against her eyes to brush away the bitter tears she didn’t dare to let herself shed. If she started to cry then she feared she would never stop, and when Raul came home from Madrid where he had gone for the day, he would find her with red eyes and swollen lids and would demand to know the reason for her tears.
And she would never, ever be able to tell him.
Four months and no sign of a baby. Raul swung his car into the big stone-paved courtyard outside the castillo and pulled on the brake. Four months in which the whole purpose of this marriage seemed to have been put on hold—just not happening. Four months in which the much-needed heir to the Marcín dynasty had not yet made an appearance.
And it was obvious that Alannah was getting twitchy.
She always seemed to be on edge, barely able to hold a conversation with him, and not meeting his eyes when she did speak. And she often found some excuse not even to be in the same room as him. The only time and the only place where they communicated was in bed. There they had no need for words. There the simple, direct, uncomplicated bond that was the burning sexual passion they shared brought them together in complete empathy, their connection instinctive and intuitive. And the blazing fulfilment they achieved every time was simply mind-blowing.
In bed everything was perfect.
Or was it?
Getting out of the car, he opened the back door, reached in and picked up the huge bouquet of roses that lay on the back seat. Kicking the door shut again, he pressed the remote control to lock it and headed towards the big arched doorway into the castillo, his expression sombre, a frown drawing his dark brows together.
In bed everything was amazing. But perfect? Wasn’t the truth the fact that Alannah was only so responsive, so ardent, because she was desperate to make this baby that would mean so much to her mother? The baby that was the only reason they were together.
His father was getting twitchy too, Raul acknowledged to himself as he strode up the wide stone steps and into the cool, shadowy tiled hall. Matias was anxious to know when the grandchild he wanted so much would make its appearance. And every month when the answer was, ‘Not yet, Padre …’ he would shake his head and mutter under his breath.
And both Matias and Alannah’s mother wanted to know when the wedding would be. Why hadn’t they set a date yet? What were their plans?
They didn’t have plans, Raul acknowledged, heading up the stairs towards his bedroom. Alannah had showed no sign of being interested in the ceremony; she appeared to be content with things the way they were. And the truth was that so was he. More content than he had been for years. He had the woman he wanted in his home. She was there every day when he came back; she was in his bed every night.
In fact, if it wasn’t for his father’s age, he would have been happy to wait for the baby to come along as nature dictated.
But Alannah had agreed to have that baby only because of what it would mean to her mother and to Matias. That was her only reason for being here. And it was obvious that she was getting restless at the thought that it might never happen.
She was at the window when he entered the room, standing leaning against the wide stone sill, looking out towards the mountains on the far horizon, so absorbed that she hadn’t heard him come in, and for a moment he could simply stand and watch her, acknowledging all over again the way that her unique beauty hit home afresh every time he saw her.
She was wearing a loose blue-green dress, darker than the one she had worn on the day she had come to his hotel to return his phone, and with a swirling abstract pattern on it that made him think of the depths of the sea when the sun and the shadows mixed on it. Her feet were bare, one set of pink-tipped toes that tapped restlessly on the floor the only trace of movement about her, the rest of her slender body so still that she might have been a statue carved from marble. Certainly her skin was p
ale enough for it, but no marble had ever had the glorious rich colour of the swathe of her hair that fell loose around her face and onto her shoulders, soft strands of it stirring gently in the faint breeze. Seeing it, he itched to bury his fingers in the silky red-gold strands, to feel them slide along his palm, breathe in the intensely personal scent of them, press his mouth against them.
The way she leaned against the sill pressed her breasts onto the ledge of her folded arms, revealing the pale curves in the scooped neckline of her dress, the soft swell of them drying his mouth with need in the space of a heartbeat. It was not even seven hours since that morning, when he had forced himself from the bed where he had made slow, deeply sensual love to her as she came awake in his arms, and yet already his body was as hungry for her as if he had been away for seven days—seven months.
‘Raul?’
Some movement he had made had caught her attention. She’d turned her head to see him standing in the doorway. The moments of quiet observation, of the freedom to watch her without constraint, were gone and he was back with the puzzle that was Alannah.
‘You’re early.’
And she was none too pleased about it, to judge from the rough edge to her voice. She preferred to be alone and not to be troubled by his company—and yet this was the woman who could not seem to get enough of him in bed.
Just what had happened to change the sweet, free-spirited innocent he had met almost three years ago into this withdrawn and strangely distant creature? It was as if she was always holding something back, and he had no idea just what that ‘something’ might be.
‘I wasn’t expecting you yet.’
‘Buenas tardes, Alannah.’
He pitched his voice at a carefully casual note, not wanting her to guess at any of his thoughts. Moving into the room, he dropped a swift kiss onto her soft mouth, touching her cheek briefly with his free hand.
‘I couldn’t stay away—I missed you.’
‘Missed me?’ She sounded frankly sceptical. ‘You’ve only been away for a few hours.’
‘Hours in which all I could think of was how beautiful you looked when I left you this morning—lying in my bed with your hair spread out around you on the pillows, and your skin still glowing from my love-making. I couldn’t concentrate on any of the meetings I had and I drove like a maniac all the way home. I only stopped to buy these.’
‘Flowers?’
Alannah stared at the huge bouquet of roses in deep, rich pink as he held them out to her. In the same moment that her heart leapt at the thought that he had bought her flowers—and such beautiful flowers—another very different feeling twisted a cruel knife deep in her already vulnerable heart as her mind went back over what he had said.
… all I could think of was how beautiful you looked when I left you this morning—lying in my bed with your hair spread out around you on the pillows, and your skin still glowing from my lovemaking.
That ‘beautiful’ should have delighted her but he had made no secret of how much he was attracted to her; how much he desired her. And he was still thinking of her in purely sexual terms, thinking of the slow, sensual way he had made love to her this morning as she came awake in his arms.
Sexual and deeply possessive terms: ‘in my bed … your skin still glowing from my lovemaking.’ He might have asked her to be his wife but she was still just a mistress in the way he thought of her. A mistress who was there to bring him pleasure at the end of his day, to warm his bed and tend to his needs. A mistress who could be discarded at any moment, if—when—he grew tired of her. If she didn’t meet the terms of his proposal.
She would only become his wife when she fulfilled her part of the bargain. When she became pregnant with the baby he wanted, then and then only would he seal his part of the bargain with a wedding ring.
If only she truly was the woman he wanted as his wife, she couldn’t help thinking as she glanced up into the deep set bronze eyes, seeing the way he was watching her, the faint creases at the corners of the hooded lids. If she was then this moment when he had come home early would be so special for her. She would be overjoyed to see him, would be able to run to him, throw herself into his arms, kiss him in delighted greeting. Whisper her love for him in his ear. If only …
She was delighted to see him. It was the rest that got in the way, holding her back from the way she really wanted to respond.
So instead she schooled her expression into polite appreciation, cooled her voice to mirror the same as she continued, ‘Why have you brought me flowers?’
‘Do I need a reason to bring my … to bring you flowers?’
The hesitation was tiny but it was there. And, because it came so close to the way that she had already been thinking, the slight pause, the tiny silence seemed to scrape over nerves already stretched too tight and rawly exposed.
Raul didn’t know what to call her. Terms like wife or bride were not the ones that came to mind. She wasn’t even truly his fiancée, though her left hand wore the ring he had insisted on giving her for form’s sake, as part of the plan to help their grieving parents. Emotional words, my love, my darling, wouldn’t even enter his mind.
So how did he think of her? Had she come closest of all with that ‘mistress’ she had thought of earlier? And yes, Raul might bring his mistress flowers. The mistress he had left in his bed that morning; the mistress he had made love to before leaving the house, and whom he anticipated making love to again just as soon as he could.
No.
There was that cruel stab of harsh reality piercing right into her soul as she forced herself to face the truth. However much Raul might call it lovemaking, even though she herself had so described what they had done here, in the big bed with the huge carved wooden headboard, no matter how many times they did it and how much pleasure he gave her—they gave each other—it was never, ever making love. There was some vital element missing, an imbalance that put all the loving on to her side of the scales and left Raul’s feelings dangerously light in that area. And that turned what they did, so often and so pleasurably, into ‘having sex’ and never the wonder that was making love.
‘No?’ he questioned, a previously unheard edge in his voice. ‘No, I don’t need a reason or no … you don’t want the flowers?’
It took her another second to realise that in the middle of her thoughts she had spoken that ‘No’ aloud and Raul had taken it to mean that she was talking about the flowers. And if she wasn’t going to have to explain what she had really been thinking about then she had to cover her tracks pretty hastily.
‘No, of course you don’t need an excuse to bring me flowers. Thank you.’
It was as she moved forward to press a swift kiss of gratitude on his lean cheek that she caught the flash of something in his eyes, something that, like that note in his voice, was new and incomprehensible to her. But she didn’t have time to try and decipher it because, in the minute that her lips neared his strong jaw, Raul suddenly turned his head quickly so that it was not his cheek that made contact with them but his mouth.
His hot, hungry, demanding mouth.
And it was like a match landing on bone-dry brushwood, the spark, the flare, the flame instantaneous and wild, the roaring conflagration of need swamping them in a second, burning up thought, driving away restraint, and leaving only yearning, hotly demanding hunger in their place.
The bouquet fell from Raul’s hand, finding a nearby chair instead of the floor only by good luck, not management, and with his hands now free he hauled her close to him, crushed her up against him as he took her mouth in a searing, thought-obliterating kiss.
Alannah’s lips opened under his, inviting him to deepen the kiss, and he followed her encouragement without hesitation, plundering her mouth, sending them spinning into a roaring hurricane of need that spun her out of reality and into a world of total sensation. She flung her arms up around his neck and gave herself up to it, putting all the need, the loneliness, the sense of loss and despair she had felt throu
gh the day into her response.
And was shocked to meet with something that in another man she would have described as just the same reaction as her own. There was a new rawness in Raul’s kiss, a new urgency in the caress of his hands. It was as if he had been parted from her for days, weeks—and not just the few brief hours they had been apart.
She was swung up into his arms, carried to the bed, her clothing somehow disposed of—as was his—and all the while his mouth clung to hers—or hers to his, she had no way of knowing which—with a wild and primitive hunger that was beyond words, beyond thought, locked solely in the realms of need, of total surrender to the moment.
Their coming together was fast and furious, a lightning storm of burning passion and heated desire. And yet somehow they were also the most giving moments she had known with this man, the closest he had ever come to what she would have given the name of love-making if she had been asked. Unlike the long, slow sex of that morning, when he had indulged every sensual need he had, and given her back the same delight a thousand fold, this time had a new and—there was that word again—a very raw edge to it. One that she had never known before, and didn’t understand. But she knew how it made her feel, the way it wrenched her from reality and brought her tumbling wildly out of the world, crying out his name on a sound of stunned completion as everything she knew exploded about her, shattered into tiny pieces that instinctively she knew she could never put back together in the same way again.
It was almost as if …
She lost herself before her mind could complete the sentence, dropping into a pulsing haze of oblivion from which she only recovered slowly. More slowly than ever before. It was only as her mind gradually cleared and her thoughts started to swim up to the surface of rationality once again that reality hit her savagely right in her heart.
It was almost as if … she had thought, knowing that then she would have completed the sentence, It was almost as if … he had finally realised how much he cared about her.
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