Читать книгу Raul's Revenge - JACQUELINE BAIRD, Jacqueline Baird - Страница 8

CHAPTER THREE

RAUL’S kiss was so overpowering that Penny was lost in it in seconds; she forgot where they were and that they had an audience; she hungered for him with a desperation she had not thought possible. Once more in his arms, her tongue twining with his, she clawed unconsciously at the fine silk of his shirt, popping his buttons in her haste to feel the satin skin beneath, while Raul’s hands roamed freely down her back, cupping her buttocks, hauling her into the hard cradle of his hips, making her intimately aware of his aroused state.

‘Dios,’ he groaned against her mouth, and when he lifted his head, his dark gaze burned down into the blue depths of her passion-glazed eyes. “That was some welcome, Penny. Can I take it you missed me, hmm?’

‘Yes, every minute,’ she agreed, an ecstatic smile lighting her lovely face.

‘Did you miss anything else?’ he demanded hardly, straightening to his full height and stepping back.

‘Only you.’ She moved and, standing on tiptoe, nipped at his square jaw. It was as high as she could reach. His strong hands curved around her shoulders, holding her firmly away from him, and through the euphoric haze at seeing him again it slowly dawned on Penny that he was deliberately keeping her at a distance.

‘Raul?’ she husked tentatively as his dark eyes slid down the length of her body with a possessive arrogance, then back to her flushed face, a silent demand in their black depths. Wide, puzzled blue eyes met his narrowed, predatory gaze and a tremor of something very like fear slithered down her spine. Raul exuded a raw, animal magnetism, an aura of power and vitality that suddenly seemed oddly threatening. And what on earth did he mean? Who else could she have missed? It didn’t make sense.

‘You’re sure about that?’ he queried, the corner of his mouth twisting in a cynical smile.

‘Of course,’ she said emphatically. Surely he knew how much she’d missed him, loved him...? ‘What is it, Raul? What’s wrong?’ She twisted her hand in his shirt in agitation and another button popped.

‘Nothing—nothing at all. But unless you want to shock poor Ava completely—’ his hands dropped to catch hers at his chest, and, entwining their fingers, he lowered her hands to her sides ‘—I think you’d better stop trying to rip my shirt off.’ His dark head bent, and, his voice lowering to a husky drawl, he added, ‘Not that I mind. I seem to remember denying you a siesta in Dubai; now seems a good time to correct the omission.’

She had forgotten all about the older woman. Penny glanced over her shoulder to see Ava standing by the table, her brown eyes wide and round and ever so slightly shocked. ‘I think you’re right.’ She turned back to Raul, her lips twitching. ‘We don’t want to offend her sensibilities, and suddenly I feel incredibly tired.’ She chuckled, inwardly relieved that it was only Ava’s presence inhibiting Raul, and nothing more sinister.

Penny opened her eyes and yawned widely. The sun was setting, the last rays streaking the room with a warm rosy light. She turned on her side and smiled, a languorous sexy curl to her mouth as her gaze feasted on Raul lying flat on his back beside her. His chest rose and fell slowly in the steady rhythm of sleep.

With his eyes closed he looked younger and somehow vulnerable. The ridiculously long sweep of his dark lashes curved on his high cheekbones, almost feminine in their thick lusciousness. But it was certainly the only slightly feminine thing about him, Penny thought dreamily, and, raising up on one elbow, she studied his sprawling, nude body.

They had spent all afternoon in bed and had finally fallen into an exhausted sleep. Now just looking at Raul made her shiver with the rekindling of passion. She reached out a small hand and ran it lightly over his broad shoulder and across his massive chest, her fingers entwining in the surprisingly soft chest hair. She grazed a small male nipple and still her hand moved down.

It was incredibly sweet to have him at her mercy, to let her hand roam lower over the taut, flat stomach, to feel his hard, warm body, to linger over the muscles of his thighs. She lowered her head and kissed him softly, not wanting to wake him, simply to love him freely with her hands and mouth.

‘Woman, behave.’ Raul’s hand grasped her wrist like a manacle and in seconds their positions were reversed. Penny was flat on her back and Raul was looking down into her startled eyes. ‘You’re insatiable,’ he chuckled. ‘I never imagined when I first took you to bed what a sleeping tiger I was arousing.’

‘Tigress, surely?’ she husked, shivering in delight as his glittering dark eyes swept her naked body with a sensuous, knowing triumph. ‘You’re the only tiger around here, with your gold-flecked eyes,’ she corrected him throatily.

‘Grr...’ Raul teased, and, bending, rubbed his unshaven jaw against her soft cheek. ‘Only around you, Penny.’ He lifted his head. ‘You must know I adore you.’

She sighed as his hand trailed across her body to cup one full, round breast. ‘And I you; all you have to do is touch me and you can have m-e-e-e.’ She ended on a moan as he rolled one taut nipple between his thumb and finger, sending arrows of sensation through her ultrasensitive flesh.

‘Much as I would like to take up your offer, I can’t.’ He brushed his mouth briefly over hers. ‘I have work to do if I am to take you to London at the weekend.’

Penny beamed up at him. ‘You mean that?’

‘Yes. I promised and I am a man of my word.’ He rolled over and got to his feet, and she stared at him, her breath catching in her throat.

At that moment she loved him more than life. Raul, her lover, was back. How could she have imagined for a second that she was bored? She would spend her life waiting for Raul if she had to, but she didn’t need to. He was here and he was keeping his promise to take her to London. He did love her. Ava was right; it was only a matter of time before they married.

Her loving gaze roamed over him and a surprised gasp escaped her as he turned and smiled down at her, magnificent in his nudity. Contrary to what he had said, he could not hide his body’s readiness to take up her offer.

‘It isn’t so shocking,’ he said, his voice deep and tinged with laughter as he caught her wayward gaze. ‘My body might be weak but my mind is strong, and I do have some calls to make.’

She lifted her eyes to his. ‘I think you might have got that quote the wrong way around.’ She let her glance slide back down the long, hard length of him. ‘Weak is hardly an accurate description from where I am,’ she joked.

‘Tigress.’ And lips twitching, Raul bent down and brushed a cheeky kiss across the twin peaks of her full breasts. ‘Get up, get a shower and put something pretty on this sexy body that won’t distract me. Then come downstairs, and after we have eaten we’ll talk.’ Swinging on his heel, he walked off.

Penny sighed happily and, turning on her stomach, savoured the lingering scent of Raul and love on the crumpled sheets. She heard him moving around, dressing, but was too sated and lazy to move.

For the next few days Penny thought that life was perfect... They shared breakfast in the secluded courtyard and then Raul locked himself in the study for the morning, but after lunch he was all hers.

They spent an afternoon in the marvellous old city of Granada in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. They strolled hand in hand around the Alhambra palace, built for the Moorish rulers hundreds of years earlier.

Penny gazed in awestruck wonder at the ostentatious luxury. The walls carved with swirls of ornate stucco, the tons of white marble and coloured glass, and the ceilings, hand-carved from cedarwood, designed to represent heaven, almost convinced her that she was already there!

Later, sharing a picnic, which had been lovingly supplied by Ava, in the gardens where the constant splash of running water and dripping fountains lent a pleasant coolness to the air, Penny smiled at Raul’s reclining figure and was convinced. Heaven could not possibly be better...

Singing happily to herself, Penny descended the grand staircase. She had finished the packing, and at nine o’clock the next morning they would be on a flight out of Alicante, arriving in London Friday lunchtime. She had called Amy and arranged to call at the apartment on Sunday, to catch up on the news.

She was dressed in a simple green silk slip of a gown, tiny straps supporting the soft fabric that clung loosely to her lithe body, the hemline ending just above her knees to reveal her long, shapely legs. On her feet delicate wedge-heeled gold and green sandals glittered as she skipped lightly down the stairs.

She had left her blonde hair loose to curl enticingly over her shoulders and down her back because she knew that Raul preferred it that way. She was totally unaware of how stunning she looked. The glow of love had given her fine features an incandescent beauty, her softly swollen lips needed no lipstick, and her blue eyes sparkled with the inner radiance of a woman who knew she was loved.

‘Penelope.’ The voice was harsh.

Penny’s foot hesitated on the bottom step of the stairs; her heart thumped in her breast. Raul was standing in the entrance, elegantly dressed in a dark business suit, the sun behind him outlining his huge frame in a halo of fire. For a second he looked like the devil incarnate. His business meeting must have finished early, she thought inconsequentially.

‘Raul, you’re back.’ She moved towards him, a tentative smile pulling at her wide mouth.

‘Too late, it would seem, to stop your idiocy,’ he drawled scathingly.

‘My idiocy?’ She shook her head, her fair hair floating around her naked shoulders. What on earth was he talking about? Her eyes searched his rugged face and she shivered inside.

‘Don’t play the blue-eyed innocent with me, Penny. I’m too old to be fooled.’ And the contempt in his voice flicked her like a whiplash.

‘Please, Raul.’ She lifted her hand to his chest but he swept her aside.

‘In my study...now.’

She followed him. Noting the tension in his broad back, she chewed nervously at her bottom lip. Something had upset him, but what?

She had barely put a foot in the oak-panelled study before he turned on her, and, slamming the door behind her, he rested one hand on the hard wood and stared down into her confused face. But this was not the man who had left her a handful of hours earlier. His dark eyes were as hard as jet, and as unyielding.

‘What the hell have you been doing, woman?’ he demanded icily.

‘P-p-packing,’ she stammered, totally intimidated by the cold rage in his dark eyes.

‘Don’t be facetious; it does not suit you.’

‘I...’ Trapped against the door, with his huge body towering over her, Penny touched the tip of her tongue to her dry lips. ‘I wasn’t—’

‘Who on earth gave you the right to insult my neighbours, to order a friend from my house in my absence?’

She felt the colour drain from her face. She stared at him helplessly. The shock of being confronted in such a way by the man she loved was totally numbing.

‘How dared you do such a thing?’ A cruel smile twisted across his face. ‘On what authority?’

‘On what authority’. The words echoed in her brain. They were lovers, partners—or so she had thought. Obviously Raul’s idea of a partnership was not the same as hers.

Angry colour flooded Penny’s cheeks. The nerve of the man, yelling at her as if she were no more than a servant in his home. Not even that—he was unfailingly polite to Ava and Carlos. What was the matter with her? She was letting Raul intimidate her yet again, as he had in the beginning when she had mentioned marriage, and again in Dubai, when he had packed her off to Spain. Was she a woman or a doormat? she asked herself.

Her spine stiffening, she looked straight into his dark, furious eyes. ‘I was under the impression that we were partners, and in your absence I was to treat your house as my own,’ she said, her voice coolly measured in sharp contrast to her rapidly beating heart. ‘If I misunderstood you, I’m sorry.’

A dark flush covered his hard face and he had the grace to look ashamed at his outburst, but not for long... ‘Yes, yes, but not to the extent of insulting my neighbours.’ He stormed across the room and then swung back to face her, running his large hand through his dark hair in angry frustration. ‘You will have to apologise to Dulcie, not me.’

‘I presume you are referring to that hateful woman, Dulciana Maria Costas. She marched into the house and was unspeakably rude to poor Ava. I told her to leave, as any other right-minded person would have done, and if you think for a second I will apologise to the woman forget it.’ Penny glared at him and folded her arms across her chest.

His mouth thinned to a hard line. ‘Dulcie does not speak English. How do you know what was said?’ he sneeringly demanded.

‘Because my Spanish is good; I understood perfectly and acted accordingly.’

‘Nonsense, Penny, you must have misunderstood. I have known Dulcie all my life. Unlike you, she would not deliberately insult anyone,’ he said with cutting sarcasm.

‘Obviously you have no such qualms,’ she shot back, but his words bruised her heart. Nonsensical was she? Along with ‘dumb’ and ‘idiocy’ it all added up to a man who had no respect for her as a person. Suddenly with blinding clarity she recognised what she had become. From an intelligent, ambitious woman she had turned into a fool for love. She blinked rapidly to hold back the tears, not sure if they were tears of sorrow or pure rage.

She shook her head in disbelief, and stared at Raul as though she had never seen him before. ‘How could you take the word of an old fiancée you have not seen for years against mine?’

‘I see Ava has been gossiping.’ One dark brow arched sardonically. ‘I might have guessed. You saw Dulcie as a rival and were smitten by the green-eyed god. Really, Penny, how childish.’

He could not have said anything more likely to enrage her. Childish was she? And jealous, to boot! She had not known who the damn woman was in the first place.

‘Rubbish! I didn’t even know the woman was your ex-fiancee until later. You certainly never mentioned her,’ she spat back, her body tense with outrage and a deepening hurt that she did her best to disguise.

‘My past relationships are none of your business,’ Raul informed her with icy precision. ‘It is the present that concerns you, and in half an hour Senor Costas and his daughter will be arriving for dinner.’

Penny’s mouth fell open in surprise and she spluttered, ‘You invited...?’ She could not go on, she was so furious, her body rigid with the effort to control her rage.

‘Yes. And I expect you to apologise for your behaviour the other day, and, hopefully, we can enjoy a civilised meal.’ She caught the implacable expression in his eyes, and her breath stopped in her throat as she realised what he had said.

Slowly she moved towards him, her cheeks scarlet, her anger so livid that she was shaking with it. She registered the arrogant stance of his tall body, the hands tucked easily into the pockets of his trousers.