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

‘I don’t think so—I don’t think that this is a good idea.’

‘You don’t think!’ Raul exploded. ‘You don’t. No, look …’ he amended hastily, seeing the way she stepped back at his outburst, the clouded look that had come into her eyes. ‘Alannah, querida—just stop this nonsense. Just don’t think. It doesn’t help matters.’

‘Help what?’

‘Thinking just gets in the way—what we have doesn’t need thought, or sense, it just needs this …’

He reached for her, wanting to kiss her back into the hot, hungry state she had been in just moments before, The hot, hungry, demanding state where she had been clutching at his arms, his back, his hair, anything she could get her hands on to hold him closer, bringing him as tight against her body as he could be. But she dodged away from his hand, moving to the far side of the room, where she faced him, stubborn defiance stamped into every line of her face.

‘This isn’t going to happen again,’ she flung at him, stamping her foot in emphasis, though because she was barefooted and the carpet was soft and thick the result was obviously not what she had hoped for. The glare she turned on him warned him not to laugh, so he swallowed down his amusement though some of it still lingered in his voice.

‘Of course it’s going to happen again. We can’t stop it—we don’t have any say in the matter.’

‘On the contrary—I have plenty of say in the matter and what I’m saying is no.’

‘That’s not what you were saying just now—in there.’

A tilt of his dark head indicated the abandoned bed, where the covers and pillows were still crumpled and in disarray.

‘Are you going to claim that—?’

‘I’m not claiming anything,’ Alannah cut in on him sharply. ‘Only that I want to go home. And you have a plane to catch. And I have no intention of being slotted in for a quick tumble to while away the time between now and the point where you have to leave. So if you will please call your driver …’

‘I’ve called him already,’ Raul pointed out.

If her problem was that she thought he was going to spare her only a minimum of time then she couldn’t be more wrong. He had no intention of rushing this. There was no way in hell that she was going to be just a ‘quick tumble’.

‘And told him not to come at the time we originally arranged but to leave it until I called him. But if you’re worried about the plane then—’

‘I don’t give a damn about the plane! I’m well aware of the fact that Don High and Mighty Il Duque Raul Marcín has the power and the money to have a private plane at his beck and call so that all you have to do is snap your fingers and the pilot is ready to fly as and when you command. But you needn’t think that you can do the same with me.’

Now he couldn’t hold back the laughter. This was just too ridiculous.

‘I don’t have to snap my fingers—just use them to touch you, and you’ll be mine to do exactly as I command.’

He moved forward, hand raised, fingers spread, to show her just how stupid this all was. But she started like a nervous horse, edging backwards again, and this time her hand actually came up and dashed his aside with a sharp slap before she whirled away from him, moving swiftly to the other side of the room.

‘Don’t you dare! I don’t want this!’

‘You don’t want …’

This time his laughter was cold, hard, no trace of humour in it anywhere.

‘You little liar,’ he said in a low, deadly tone. ‘You wanted it only too much just now—so what the hell has changed your mind?’

‘I’ll tell you what’s changed my mind.’

Her chin came up, her eyes flashing even more, and Raul couldn’t help but be distracted by the way that the unevenness of her breathing made the precariously fastened dress gape even more, exposing the smooth swell of her breasts, rising and falling in the most provocative way.

‘Please do.’

‘You changed it!’

‘I did? And how?’

‘Isn’t it obvious? You come sauntering back in here, clearly expecting that I’ll be waiting for you—just dying to finish what we started! I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you didn’t think that I might have stayed naked and ready in this bed—’ a wild gesture with one hand indicated the bed that now stood between them ‘—to save time!’ ‘I told you—’

‘Yes, I know what you told me. You told me that you had already phoned your driver—that you were so sure of your conquest that you didn’t bother to check whether I was still—still up for it—before you postponed your travel plans so that you could have a quick—’

‘Don’t you dare!’ Raul broke in on a roar of fury. ‘You know it wasn’t like that.’

‘Do I? Do I really? So tell me, Raul, just what was it like?’

‘You wanted it as much as I did.’

‘Wanted. You’re right there, Raul. The word is wanted. Past. I might have wanted—wanted you—but you made one big mistake. You gave me time to think … time to have second—and third, and, believe me, fourth—thoughts about this. And I came to the conclusion—the only wise, the only sensible conclusion—that I do not want anything more to do with you. I should never have come here—I would never have come here if it hadn’t been for your damn phone and I’ve given you that back—so now it’s goodbye, and this time it’s for ever!’

Hell and damnation, no! Rejection of everything she said was like a red haze in Raul’s mind. It couldn’t stop now. Not like this. This wasn’t going to happen again. She wasn’t going to walk out on him all over again, not when he had just rediscovered that sensual satisfaction—the deepest, most perfect satisfaction—that he only ever found with her.

He’d tried to find it elsewhere—tried for two long, frustrating years. And no woman had ever even come close. He would do anything, pay any price, resort to any blackmail, just to have this woman where she belonged—in his bed.

‘You’re not leaving.’

‘No? Just watch me.’

She flounced past him, tossing that glorious red hair as she did so. He knew from the flashing, sideways, wary look she gave him that she expected him to try and grab at her, hold her back, so he derived a dark satisfaction from wrong-footing her, instead leaning back against the wall, folding his arms across his chest and watching her, waiting a nicely calculated moment.

‘Don’t you think that you’d be better off with something on your feet?’ he drawled at last, just in time to stop her halfway across the room.

‘What?’

Alannah stopped dead, half turned back, then looked down at her bare feet, pale against the deep burgundy colour of the carpet.

‘Where—?’ she began, but Raul ignored her and cut across her indignant question.

‘And were you really planning to walk through the hotel—and all the way back to your flat—dressed, or perhaps I should say undressed, like that?’

As he spoke he let his cool gaze slide from her angry face and down over her body, lingering deliberately at the spot where three buttons were missing and the front of her dress gaped wide over the lace of her bra.

She looked a total mess, Alannah admitted, while he … well, his clothes were faintly crumpled from their time on the floor and on anyone else that should have looked untidy, even messy, but somehow on Raul they had a very different effect. He looked ruffled, relaxed—and real. Light-years away from his normal smooth, sleek, business-suited self—and very, very sexy. It was impossible to look at him, at the expanse of broad chest exposed by the still unbuttoned shirt, and not think of how just a short time before she had lain with her head pillowed on that chest, the crisp dark hairs tickling her cheek as she heard his breathing slow, the thundering of his heart gradually ease as he too recovered from the wild ferocity of their lovemaking.

Gasping in shock, she felt the hot colour flood her cheeks as she grabbed at her dress again, pulling the pieces back together as closely as she could. But holding it there meant that she had no way of opening the door. And she still had to find.

‘Where are my shoes?’

Close to something like panic, she scanned the room, searching for any sign of the pale leather pumps she had worn on her way here. She couldn’t see them anywhere.

‘Raul …’