by Lynne Graham
Polly uttered a strangled moan low in her throat, hands sweeping up to dig possessively into his luxuriant black hair and hold him to her. Without warning, Raul broke free to raise his head, dark golden eyes intent on her hectically flushed face as he strode out into the hall and started down the corridor. ‘Dios...I could make love to you all night, but I know you’re not ready for that yet,’ he groaned in frank frustration.
Surfacing in turmoil from that predatory kiss, Polly gasped, ‘Where on earth do you think you’re taking me?’
Unerringly finding the master bedroom, opposite the guest room in which Luis slept, Raul shouldered wide the door, strode across the carpet and deposited her with almost exaggerated gentleness on the vast divan bed. He hit the light switch by the bed, dimly illuminating the room. Then he straightened with an indolent smile.
Polly reared up, bracing herself on her hands, her hair tumbling round her pink cheeks, her eyes very blue as she studied him in shaken disbelief. ‘Do you honestly think I’m about to go to bed with you?’
It didn’t take Raul two seconds to respond to that question. Surveying her steadily, he jerked loose his silk tie. ‘Sí...you’re my wife.’
‘This is not a normal marriage!’ Polly argued, still gazing at him with very wide and incredulous eyes.
‘That’s been our biggest problem. The sooner this marriage becomes “normal” the better,’ Raul delivered, discarding his tie and sliding fluidly out of his jacket to pitch it on a nearby chair. ‘It’s time to forget how we started out—’
‘But we didn’t start anything!’ Polly slung back, watching him unbutton his tailored silk shirt with the transfixed aspect of a woman unable to credit that he was actually undressing in front of her. ‘I was pregnant before we even met!’
‘Stop complicating things. You were pregnant with my baby. That created a special intimacy from the outset. Naturally that made a difference to how I reacted to you—’
‘In Vermont?’ Polly threw in helplessly. ‘When you dropped in out of the blue whenever it suited you?’
‘It’s difficult to be casual any other way.’
‘I bet you always suit yourself!’ Polly condemned thinly.
Raul gave her a wondering and decidedly amused appraisal. ‘Five-foot-nothing tall and you’re nagging at me like a little shrew!’ he marvelled.
Polly could feel her temper rising like a rocket desperate to go into orbit. ‘I want you to treat me seriously, Raul.’
‘Then say something relevant to the present,’ he advised rather drily. ‘Vermont was months ago. Vermont was when I still believed I was going to collect my child and walk away. We’ve moved on a lot since then.’
He peeled off his shirt.
Polly stared, throat closing, tongue cleaving to the roof of her dry mouth. He was incredibly beautifully built. All sleek bronzed skin and muscles, a hazy triangle of dark curls sprinkling his impressive torso. She blushed and averted her eyes. ‘I’m not ready to share a bedroom with you yet,’ she informed him tautly.
‘I’m ready enough for both of us,’ Raul said with amused assurance.
Without looking at him, Polly sat forward and linked her hands round her upraised knees. ‘But I wasn’t prepared for this... Before you came here tonight, I thought we’d be applying for an annulment to end our marriage,’ she reminded him tensely. ‘And sex isn’t something I can treat casually—’
‘Bueno...I’m delighted to hear it.’
‘And...I haven’t done this before,’ Polly completed jerkily.
The silence spread for endless seconds that clawed cruelly at her nerves.
‘Como?’ Raul breathed in a near whisper.
Polly snatched in a shaky breath and simply squeezed her eyes tight shut. ‘I’ve never had a lover.’
‘That’s not possible,’ Raul informed her.
‘Yes it is!’ Polly said, almost fiercely in her embarrassment, desperate to drop the subject but registering by his audibly shattered responses that there was no current prospect of an easy escape.
‘Look at me!’ Raul commanded.
Her hot face a study of mingled chagrin and resentment, Polly glanced up and collided with incredulous dark golden eyes. ‘Some women don’t sleep around!’ she snapped.
Raul moved closer to the bed, his frowning bemusement doing nothing to reduce her suspicion that he now saw her as some kind of freak. ‘But you were at university...you must’ve had at least one relationship.’
‘Not a physical one. I don’t believe in intimacy without commitment,’ Polly admitted stiffly, doggedly fighting her own discomfiture. ‘And “commitment” is a dirty word to a lot of men these days. I may be out of step with the times, but I’m not ashamed of my views.’
‘Technically still a virgin,’ Raul murmured sibilantly, letting his glittering golden gaze roam over her with hungry intent. ‘I’m very surprised—but, since I shall be your first lover, I think I can handle the situation. And, as my wife, you can hardly question the level of my commitment.’
That proud and confident assurance hovered there for a split second. Polly lost colour and dragged her troubled eyes from him to focus on the bare pink toes which protruded from below the hem of her nightgown. ‘But you didn’t want that commitment,’ she reminded him in a strained tone
‘I’ll get used to it.’
Polly swallowed hard and took her courage in both hands, determined to go to the heart of her misgivings and be frank. ‘But if we share a bed, Raul...I expect you to be faithful.’
The silence thickened and lay heavily.
‘No woman tells me what to do,’ Raul countered with ferocious bite. ‘And that includes you!’
Polly froze, and then stared at the fancy silk bedspread until it blurred below her shaken eyes. Then she angled her head back and forced herself to meet the onslaught of his chilling dark eyes. ‘I think fidelity is the least commitment you could make.’
‘Dios...’ Raul growled, reaching for his discarded shirt in an abrupt movement and pulling it back on. ‘So you have found another weapon. Off the top of my head I could name a dozen married men and women cheating on their spouses...do you think they didn’t make promises?’
Polly’s heart was beating so fast it felt as if it was sitting at the foot of her throat. ‘But that’s not—’
‘This marriage is on trial, as every new relationship is. Do you think living together like brother and sister is a fair test of any relationship between a man and a woman?’ Raul derided with lancing scorn, black eyes raking mercilessly over her disconcerted face. ‘Do you fondly imagine that I will be a good little celibate boy while you sit back and smugly weigh up whether or not you can trust me enough to reward me with the right to share your bed?’
‘I didn’t mean it like that, Raul!’ Polly argued strickenly as she sprang off the bed.
‘So far you have had everything your way, but here it stops,’ Raul delivered, his cold rage unconcealed. ‘If you refuse to behave like a normal wife, don’t expect me to behave like a husband!’
Shocked and distressed by the savage anger she had provoked, Polly clutched at his arm as he reached for his jacket, ‘Raul, I—’
He swung back and closed a powerful arm round her slight body, imprisoning her. He meshed long fingers into her hair, forcing her eyes to meet his. ‘First you bargain with my son, then you bargain with sex.’
Breathless and trembling, she gazed up at him, lost herself in the brilliance of his shimmering dark eyes. ‘No!’ she protested painfully.
Bending, Raul slid his arm below her slim hips and lifted her unceremoniously up to his level, crushing her swelling breasts into the muscular wall of his chest. Her nostrils flared on the enervating, hot, husky male scent of him. Hard black eyes assailed hers and held them by pure force of personality. ‘You will not dictate terms to me. You will not demand empty and meaningless guarantees. A proper wife doesn’t put a price on her body!’
‘I...I wasn’t doing that—’
&nb
sp; ‘The marriage is on trial...I am not!’ Raul stressed forcefully. ‘I will not be judged on the basis of my past!’
Polly couldn’t get breath into her lungs. Soft lips parting, she snatched in tiny little pants, drowning against her volition in the power of those compelling dark eyes.
‘You’re such a little hypocrite,’ Raul delivered in a contemptuous undertone, scanning her dilated pupils and flushed cheeks. A sensually intent glitter flared in his assessing gaze, giving him the look of a tiger about to spring as he cupped her chin, lean fingers lingering to smoothly stroke the smooth curve of her jaw. ‘This close to me, you’re like a stick of dynamite hoping for a match!’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about—’
Striding over to the bed, Raul lowered her and followed her down onto the divan in one smooth, lithe motion. ‘Then let me show you...’
Before she could even guess his intention, he had anchored her in place with one long, powerful thigh and brought his hard, mobile mouth crashing down on hers. With his tongue he plundered the sensitive interior with raw, erotic thoroughness. She groaned, plunged helplessly into the grip of mindless pleasure. He slid a hand beneath her, arching her up into contact with the aggressive thrust of his arousal, sending a cascade of fire trickling through her veins to accelerate every pulse.
Raul lifted his head. Her eyes were dazed, her ripe mouth reddened and swollen. Looking up at that lean, strong face, she trembled, caught up in a spell she was too weak to fight. With a slumberous smile, Raul flicked loose the tiny pearl buttons on the lace bodice of her nightie. And all the time Polly was involuntarily watching him, studying the black density and length of the lashes fanning his high cheekbones—the sole feminising influence in those hardboned features—the luxuriant ebony hair tumbled by her fingers on to his brow, the blue-black shadow already roughening his strong jawline. All male, stunningly sexy
‘You have beautiful breasts,’ Raul sighed.
Disconcerted, she followed the direction of his gaze. Thunderstruck, she stiffened and flushed at the sight of her own breasts, rising bare and shameless for his appraisal, her nipples already distended into wanton pink buds. ‘Raul...?’ she mumbled unevenly, lying there, wanting to cover herself, wanting to move, and yet inexplicably powerless to attempt to do either.
He allowed his thumb to delicately rub over one prominent peak, and her whole body jerked on the wave of sudden sensation that made her teeth grit in sensual shock and fired an insistent throb between her thighs.
‘And you are so responsive,’ he husked, angling back from her and then, without any warning whatsoever, smoothly sliding off the bed to spring upright again.
She suddenly found herself lying there alone and exposed, and a muffled cry of dismay escaped Polly. She rolled over onto her stomach, shaken, bewildered eyes pinned to Raul. Hooking his jacket on one forefinger, he glanced back at her from the door, bronzed face saturnine, black eyes several degrees below freezing.
‘I could take you any time I wanted...and I will,’ he swore, soft and low.
‘You can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do!’
‘Oh, yes, I can, gatita. Haven’t the last five minutes taught you anything?’ Raul skimmed back with merciless cool. ‘You have an amazing capacity to lose yourself in passion. By the time I’m finished with you, you will be begging me to share the marital bed!’
Polly was already so devastated by what he had just done to her that she just gaped at him, heart sinking like a stone, stomach clenching sickly. A cruelly humiliating and deliberate demonstration of sexual power from a male who had homed in like a predator on her one weakness. Him. She was appalled by a depth of diabolic calculation alien to her own more open nature.
‘A car will pick you up tomorrow evening. We’re flying home,’ Raul drawled indolently as he sauntered out through the door. ‘Buenas noches, Señora Zaforteza.’
She listened to him walk down the corridor, her hands bunched into fists. She wanted to scream with angry frustration and pain. She hated him, but she hated herself more. He had kissed her and nothing else had mattered. Now her body ached with guilty, unfulfilled passion, the enemy of every fine principle she had ever believed in. She was finally finding out how hard it was to withstand physical temptation.
And Raul? she thought furiously. Raul had simply walked away, content to have made his point in the most ego-crushing manner available.
CHAPTER SIX
POLLY sat in a comfortable seat in the spacious cabin of Raul’s private jet and suppressed a sigh. Luis was asleep in his skycot and Raul had still to arrive. He had been delayed.
She glanced curiously at Irena, the young and pretty stewardess watching out for Raul’s arrival. A sultry brunette, she looked like a model in her smart uniform, but in spite of the long wait she had coolly avoided any real contact with her employer’s wife. A man’s woman, uninterested in her own sex, Polly had decided.
Hearing the sound of feet on the metal steps outside, seeing Irena’s face blossom into surprising warmth as she moved out of view to greet Raul, Polly was annoyed to recognise her own powerful sense of anticipation—and, mortifyingly, her childish stab of envy that the brunette should get to see him first. Swallowing hard on that lowering awareness, she studied the carpet, fighting to contain her own dangerously volatile emotions.
‘Sorry, I’m late...’ Raul drawled with infuriating cool, crossing the cabin to peruse his slumbering son and comment, in a tone of satisfaction and pride, ‘Luis is always so peaceful.’
‘You’ve never seen him any other way. Actually, your son kept me up half the night!’ Polly complained thinly, before she could think better of it.
Disorientatingly, Raul laughed as he sank lithely down opposite her, forcing her to look at him for the first time. And his sheer stunning impact simply slaughtered her carefully prepared outer shield of tranquillity. Last night he had finally ripped away her defences and made her betray herself in his arms. Now she discovered there could be no pretense of indifference or detachment, not when her nails were already digging painfully into her palms, her skin dampening, her breathing quickening, her eyes unable to rest any place but on him.
Those bronzed features, already as familiar to her as her own yet still possessed of the most intense charismatic appeal. The lean, arrogant nose, the spectacular dark, deep-set eyes, the wide, hard mouth, the aggressive jawline. Drop-dead gorgeous, and yet every angle of that darkly handsome face was stamped with immense strength and character.
‘At the hato...the ranch, the whole household will revolve round our son,’ Raul promised with quiet amusement. ‘He will be spoiled by so many willing helpers that your nights should be undisturbed from now on.’
Polly could see no reflection of her own highwire tension in him. He talked briefly, lightly about their destination. The isolated ranch where his ancestors bad lived for generations was on the cattle plains he called the llanos. It would be very hot, possibly quite wet as the rainy season wasn’t quite over yet, Raul warned in the sort of bracing, healthy, dismissive tone she suspected the hardy might use to refer to a hellhole they loved and honoured as home, regardless of its deficiencies.
Soon after the jet had taken off, Raul released his belt and leant forward to unsnap Polly’s. Rising, he curved strong hands over her taut shoulders to urge her up into the circle of his arms.
‘What are you—?’
‘Lesson one on being a proper wife,’ Raul murmured with amused dark eyes as he scanned her bewildered face. ‘Even when you’re really mad at me, you should always look glad to see me when we’ve been apart.’
That close to that lithe, lean body, Polly trembled. ‘You are so changeable,’ she condemned shakily. ‘You were furious with me last night—’
‘I’m just not used to a negative response in the bedroom,’ Raul countered with velvet-soft satire. ‘And when I’ve been forced to ride roughshod over my every reservation to become a legally wedded husband, that negative response
took some swallowing.’
‘But I tried to explain how I felt—’
‘Not with an explanation I can take seriously, Polly,’ Raul interrupted with conviction. ‘You want me. I want you. You have a wedding ring to satisfy your principles. Sex is only a physical hunger, an appetite...not something important enough to become a divisive issue between us.’
Polly blinked, striving to think that through and shrinking from the feelings she experienced in response. Not important ? An appetite, something to be casually, even carelessly satisfied as and when the need took him? Such terminology ensured that there was little danger of her overestimating the extent of her own attractions, she conceded in fierce pain.
A firm hand caught her chin, tipping up her face, making her meet the passionate gold of his intent gaze. ‘If you expect too much from me, I am certain to disappoint you. Don’t do that to us. Be satisfied with what we have,’ Raul warned almost roughly.
Polly flung her head back. ‘And what do we have?’
In answer, he attacked on her weakest flank. He lifted her up into his powerful arms, his sensual mouth took hers and she was lost, filled with the mindless pleasure of simply being there. All she was capable of at that moment was feeling—feeling what he could make her feel. The wild, sweet excitement as seductive as a drug, the shivering sensitivity of her own body crushed into the wonderfully masculine strength of his, heady sensation born at every point where they touched.
He released her lips and she discovered she was sprawled across his lap like a wanton, without any memory of how she had got there. Struggling to catch her breath, she stared into the stunning eyes level with her own. Long brown fingers framed her flushed cheekbones and eased her back from him.