One Night in Madrid: Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife / The Spaniard's Defiant Virgin / The Spanish Duke's Virgin Bride

‘How doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter,’ she assured him, low-voiced and urgent.

She didn’t want him to think of it, didn’t want it to make him hesitate, perhaps even—oh, dear heaven, no—perhaps even make him stop. He couldn’t stop now or she felt that her heart would burst with the need that was pounding through her untried body. She didn’t need experience, or knowledge, to sense that something very special, something spectacular was so very close, almost within reach.

‘Alannah …’ Raul muttered, thick and rough, but she shook her head in denial of his concern, her body moving restlessly under his, opening even further.

‘Nothing matters—but this—but now—but us …’

And with a gentle touch, the deliberately provocative movements of her body that every feminine instinct taught her how to use, she fought to divert his thoughts on to other, more pleasurable paths. She knew she had succeeded when she heard his groan of surrender, felt the long body that covered her tense in a new and different way.

‘Yes,’ she whispered close against his ear. ‘Yes—please, Raul—please make me yours …’

Beyond the windows, the day was cold and grey, the dark clouds threatening rain once again. But here, in their own confined and private little world, there was nothing but heat and hunger, the burn of desire and the delight of touch, of deep, sensual, wonderful movement. A heat that grew and grew, building higher and higher with each glorious movement, each kiss, each caress that took her further and further from reality and into the throes of sensation that closed over her like a tidal wave, swamping her. Abandoning herself completely, she surrendered to it, gave herself up to the wonder of it until she lost all sense of anything but the soaring, blinding, blazing yearning for completion.

And suddenly she was no longer yearning but exploding, whirling and soaring high out of the world and into a delirium of pleasure that exploded in her mind, devastating it totally. Somewhere, a long, long way away, she heard Raul’s wild cry of delight as he followed her over the edge and their bodies clenched tightly together, frozen, suspended, clinging on to the last shuddering aftershocks of delight.

Only when they had ebbed away did she sigh and let herself collapse back on the bed, her breathing raw and ragged, her chest heaving, her body replete, her mind numb. And Raul came with her, his long body sprawled over hers in total abandonment as he dragged in heavy, almost painful breaths in the struggle to regain some sort of control. His powerful frame was slicked with sweat, his head limp and heavy against her breast. She could feel his heartbeat still racing hard against his ribcage, in matching time to her own.

It took a long time before his breathing finally slowed and with a long, contented sigh he rolled off her to lie on his back with one arm flung up across his eyes.

‘Dios,’ he muttered hoarsely. ‘If I had known it would be like this I would never have let you go …’

She’d always known, Alannah acknowledged in the privacy of her thoughts. She had thought that she’d forgotten—or tried to forget—just what an effect Raul had always had on her, the aching yearning, the blazing need that he could awaken simply by existing, it seemed. But the truth was that it was all just there, right below the surface, needing only a touch, a kiss, to set light to the still smouldering embers of her need for him and she had gone up in flames. Totally at his command.

And she had to face it now that it would always be that way. That she would never be free of Raul, but always tied to him, always in thrall to him and to her own need of him. It was a need that no one night, no thousands of nights could ever hope to appease. Instead it would take the rest of her life and she still wouldn’t be free of her hunger for him.

But for now at least that hunger was appeased, her body satiated. For now she felt settled, at ease, and as Raul turned on his side his strong arms came round her, safe and secure. Her body ached in so many places, but it was a wonderful, satisfied ache, one that matched the delight that still made her glow in every nerve, every inch of her skin. What had happened between them this evening had reminded both of them of what they had once shared. Even if this was all that she meant to Raul then surely from now on things had to be better.

At her side Raul stirred and, reaching out a hand, pulled up the duvet and flung it over her, enclosing them both in a soft, warm cave of down, cosy and snug. He was lying behind her now, with the length of his body pressed against hers, legs tangled together.

She cuddled closer, feeling his arms holding her tight. In the warmth and security of his embrace, she felt her eyes grow heavy, droop closed, warm waves of tiredness washing over her. For the first time in five days she felt the tension that had been with her every second slowly ease from her.

She was drifting away, almost going under, when Raul’s mood suddenly changed. He sighed, flung himself on his back, folding one arm behind his head as he stared up at the ceiling.

‘Alannah …’

Whatever else he was about to say was drowned out by the sound of a loud, intrusive rap at the door.

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘WHAT?’

Alannah started sharply, turning in the bed towards Raul as he froze, looking down into her upturned face, seeing the way her deep green eyes widened in shock, her face losing colour.

‘Who …?’ Her lips formed the word silently in the same moment that they heard a voice on the other side of the door.

‘Porter, sir. Come to collect your bag.’

‘Infierno!’

Raul’s gaze, still unfocused from the storm of passion that had assailed him, went to where the case he had packed such a short time earlier still stood by the door in the sitting room.

With another muttered curse in his native language he flung back the covers, jacknifed up and out of the bed, snatching up the shirt and trousers he had tossed aside so recently. It was the work of seconds to pull them on. A quick glance back down at her face saw the shock and consternation that was written there as Alannah frantically pulled the covers up high over her exposed breasts.

‘Wait here. I’ll deal with this.’

Raking his hands though his ruffled hair in a hasty attempt to smooth away the evidence of her clutching fingers, he hurried from the room, shutting the door carefully behind him.

It was as he crossed the sitting room that he noticed how Alannah’s shoes had fallen onto the floor in the heat of their passion earlier and now lay tumbled on the carpet. Recalling the look of panic on her face and knowing that she would hate it if anyone realised what had happened, he kicked them out of sight under the settee as he headed for the door.

After handing over the case and a tip, the generosity of which made the man blink in stunned delight, he dismissed the porter thankfully, leaning back against the door and closing his eyes momentarily with a deep sigh. But even as relief at having dealt with one situation relaxed his shoulders for a moment, the thought of another yet to be sorted out had him tensing up again.

What the devil had just happened?

He had vowed never to see Alannah Redfern again; never to let her back into his life. And yet as soon as fate had forced them together he had acted as blindly, as stupidly, as crazily as some horny adolescent at the mercy of his hormones.

He had been off balance, true. This week had left his brain clouded, his emotions raw, but that was no excuse. One kiss, one touch and he had been in the power of his libido and it was as if all the time he had spent maturing, learning control, becoming a man and not a wayward boy, had been stripped away, leaving him a prey to his most basic, most primitive desires in a second.

But then Alannah had always been able to do that to him. From the moment they had first met, less than three years before, he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her. Her body called to his in the way that no other woman had ever done, before or since, and he had never felt so out of control, so much as if his life wasn’t his own. He hadn’t liked it then—and he liked it one hell of a lot less now.

Because nothing was as he had believed it to be.

Last time he had proposed marriage to her. And she had laughed in his face and walked away to be with another man—or so she had claimed. But the woman he had taken to bed just now had been a virgin, as innocent as she had been two years ago.

Which meant that two days ago, when he had believed that she was coming on to him in order to get what she wanted from him, in fact.

In fact, what?

Pushing both hands through his hair again, he turned back into the room, and, seeing the mobile phone still lying on the table where he had slammed it, picked it up and pressed the speed-dial button for Carlos. When the chauffeur answered he spoke quickly to his driver, keeping it as brief as possible. Alannah would be waiting and he was impatient to get back to her.

He didn’t think he had been very long, but by the time he opened the door into the bedroom it was obvious that he had taken too much time. And Alannah’s mood had changed as a result.

She was no longer in the bed where he’d left her. Instead, she was up and had dressed again … at least, as well as she could, with the buttons—as many of them as were left intact—fastened up and her dress pulled together where she could close the gaps that revealed the pale green silk and lace of her bra, the peachy tones of her flesh.

But it was her expression that concerned him most. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, the stiffness of her body, spine straight, head held high, and the frozen, stiff-mouthed, distant-eyed look that told of a very different frame of mind from that of the ardent, sensual woman he had had in his arms no more than a few minutes before.

Silently and savagely cursing the ill-timed appearance of the porter, Raul hid his frustration behind a smile.

‘He’s gone now. You can relax.’

Relaxing looked like the last thing on her mind as she got up from the bed, fingers clutching tightly at the front of her dress, dragging it closed where it gaped worst.

‘If you’d arrange for that car to take me home now,’ she said in a small, stiff, oh-so-typically-English voice, ‘I’d be very much obliged.’

Raul’s breath hissed in through his teeth in a sound of fierce exasperation.

‘And I’d be obliged if you’d stop freezing up and come back here so that I can kiss you again—’

Green eyes clashed with gold, hers so defiant that he felt he could almost see the sparks flashing from them and snapping in the air. Oh, damn that porter to hell! His timing just couldn’t have been worse.