Читать книгу Mills & Boon Stars Collection: Convenient Vows: A Royal Vow of Convenience / The Paternity Claim / The Housekeeper's Awakening - Шэрон Кендрик, Sharon Kendrick - Страница 12

CHAPTER THREE

SOMEHOW RAFE GOT her out of the pool and set her down onto the dripping tiles, his fingertips brushing wet strands of hair away from her face.

‘Let’s get you inside,’ he said, his voice unsteady.

But Sophie hesitated. It seemed so perfect right where they were. She was terrified that moving away from that moonlit spot might break the spell—and she couldn’t bear that to happen.

‘Why do we have to go inside?’ she whispered.

He gave a low and silky laugh. ‘Call me old-fashioned, but I’d prefer the first time to be in private. Maybe you’re one of those women who gets turned on by the prospect of discovery, but if that’s the case, don’t worry. I can promise you won’t need any added extras to make this a night to remember.’ He lowered his head to graze his mouth over hers. ‘Plus, I didn’t exactly arrive carrying condoms. It might have looked a little presumptuous, don’t you think?’

His introduction of such an intimate topic silenced her and Sophie let him take her by the hand through a side entrance to an area of the house which she’d never used before and which took them directly into his private quarters. Her damp feet were cooled by the marble floor as she looked around her, blinking in amazement, feeling as if she’d fallen asleep and woken up in another country. It was an incongruous sight—to find such luxury and opulence on an Outback cattle station—and she tried to take it all in as he led her through the different rooms. A study lined with rare, old books led into an enormous sitting room, the walls covered with beautiful paintings of the country he loved so much.

But her admiration of the fixtures and fittings dissolved once he took her into a bathroom as big and as luxurious as any found in her Isolaverdian palace—although with decidedly more masculine overtones. ‘It’s huge,’ she said dazedly.

He paused in the act of sliding a strap of her swimsuit down over one shoulder, his eyes glittering with devilment as they sent a glance slanting in the direction of his groin. ‘I assume that wasn’t just a flattering innuendo?’

She prayed he couldn’t see the faint rise of colour in her cheeks. She prayed he wouldn’t discover that she was new to all this. ‘I’m talking about your suite of rooms,’ she said primly.

His fingers moved towards the second strap. ‘You mean you didn’t come peeping, before I arrived?’

‘No, I...oh...’ She bit her lip as he tugged the damp fabric down over her breasts. ‘I certainly did not.’

He bent to fasten his lips over one cold nipple and then the other, tantalising the acutely sensitised and puckering skin with the faint graze of his teeth. She looked down to see his dark hair contrasted against her pale skin and spangles of pleasure rippled over her body as she buried her fingers in the damp tendrils.

A sudden fervour seemed to grip him as he finished peeling off her swimsuit before removing his own wet shorts and towelling her dry. And before she really had time to register that they were both naked, he picked her up and carried her into a vast bedroom, putting her down on a king-size bed. Part of her felt like a sacrificial lamb as she lay there, outlined against his sheets in the silvery moonlight—but the heated hunger of her body was powerful enough to make any anxieties melt away. Plus, he was just so beautiful. Powerful and strong, with long, muscular legs and narrow hips, his buttocks a paler colour than the deeper olive glow of his skin.

Sophie licked her lips. She’d never seen a naked man before—not unless you counted the famous statues which brought visitors flocking to the Isolaverdian national museum during the winter months. And those naked men were made of marble, usually with a fig leaf covering their modesty. It occurred to her that Rafe would have needed an entire bunch of fig leaves to cover his most intimate part and that maybe she should have been daunted by the stiff, proud column of his erection. But she wasn’t. As he moved over her, she just felt...eager.

‘Well, just look at you,’ he said unsteadily, as his fingertip trailed a slow path from her neck to her belly button. ‘Aren’t you gorgeous?’

She gave a wriggle of pleasure. ‘Am I?’

‘You know damned well you are. A million men must have told you so.’

His remark brought reality creeping into the room but Sophie didn’t want reality. She wanted to feel, not to think. She wanted to feel a man’s fingers on her skin. To be intimate with a man who desired her, not because of her position or her status—but because they had a powerful chemistry which could not be denied.

So she coiled her arms around his neck and looked up at him, invitation vying with reprimand in her voice.

‘I don’t want to talk about other men right now,’ she said honestly.

His smile was hard as he cupped one breast with possessive arrogance, grinding his hips a little, so that she could feel the hard brush of his erection against her skin.

‘Me neither,’ he said.

He began to stroke her, the slow graze of his fingers exploring her. She gasped when his thumb first brushed against the tight bud above so much honeyed warmth, but within seconds she was hungrily anticipating more. Each practised stroke of his finger took her deeper—deep into a place of almost unimaginable pleasure and she heard him laugh as she gasped his name out loud. It felt as if her body was opening up to him, sensation flooding through her with relentless, rhythmical beats, and Sophie began to move restlessly, wanting more. And although he must have sensed her impatience, he took his time—eking out the pleasure, second by delicious second. He stroked her until she was writhing beneath him and, although she was eager to explore his body, she was shy about touching him there. Because what if she did the wrong thing? What if she destroyed the magic with some clumsy caress? Her lips sought his as she lifted her hips up, so that she could feel the weight of his erection pressing into her belly.

He made some little curse beneath his breath as he drew away and reached inside the drawer of the nightstand and Sophie stiffened as he tore open a little foil packet, scarcely able to believe that it was going to happen. After all the years of waiting, of saving her innocence for a man whose parents had bartered with her parents for her hand in marriage, she was about to lose her virginity in the anonymity of the Australian Outback, with the man who was paying her wages. A man who had promised her no tomorrows and scorned the idea of love. And yet she didn’t care. It was as if she’d been living in a dark cave which was about to be flooded by something brilliant and beautiful—and her life would never be the same again.

She watched as he began to stroke on the rubber and lifted his gaze, curving her a complicit smile as if silently acknowledging her enjoyment of the floorshow. Would he be shocked if he knew what she was really thinking—that she’d never seen either a condom or an erection before? Was he going to be disappointed once the truth was out and wouldn’t it be better to tell him now?

Instinct overrode her brief spike of conscience as she coiled her arms around his neck. Because this was an education, she reminded herself fiercely. A rite of passage. Something she needed to do to shake off the shackles of innocence and join the ranks of real women. Nothing more than that. This was what modern, normal people did. They met, they were attracted to one another—and they had sex. Why spoil it by revealing all her hang-ups and compromise her anonymity in the process?

He was moving over her and it felt slightly scary as he guided himself towards her—to where she was so hot and sticky. She tried not to tense up as he eased himself inside her, but he was so big she couldn’t help herself gasping out. For a moment he stilled, lifting his head to look at her—an expression of incomprehension etched onto his dark features.

His one-word question was incredulous. ‘You—?’

‘Yes,’ she gasped as her hips jerked forwards all of their own accord, so that he went in even deeper. ‘But don’t stop, Rafe. Please don’t stop.’

Rafe gave a strangled groan as he went deeper into her tight heat. How could he possibly have stopped when she was raining urgent kisses all over his shoulder and squeezing her pelvic muscles in a way which instantly made him want to come?

This really was just going to be once, he told himself grimly—so he had better make it something she would remember for the rest of her life. The best sex she would ever have. The only sex she would ever have—with him. Holding back his own hunger, he began to tease her clitoris with his finger as he thrust in and out of her, making her moan with pleasure—her cries getting louder with each penetration. He halted and lifted his head to look at her as a cold kind of anger rippled over his skin.

‘Keep quiet,’ he ordered. ‘I don’t want you waking the men.’

But she didn’t—or couldn’t—keep quiet. Least of all when she began to come and he sensed that her gasps of disbelief were going to morph into cries of ecstasy. So he bent his head to kiss her, and the frantic touch of her lips seemed to intensify his own orgasm—and suddenly it was his cry being stifled by her kiss and the balance of power had shifted and he didn’t like that either.

He could feel her contracting around him as his body jerked like a puppet whose strings had been cut, and only when nature had finished with him and emptied him of all his seed did he have the strength to pull out. To roll away from her and close his mind to the rapturous look on her face as her eyelids fluttered to a close. To ignore the ruffled hair and dreamy expression of someone who had just experienced sex for the first time. Because although he wanted to lick her breasts and slide his hand between her thighs again and make her come all over his fingers, he didn’t intend touching her until she’d given him some kind of explanation.

A virgin! Dazedly, he shook his head. Whoever would have guessed it, when she’d agreed to have casual sex without any degree of hesitation? She’d been so up for it that they could have done it in the swimming pool. Or in the garden. If he’d laid her out on the kitchen table where she buttered bread each morning, he reckoned she still would have given him the green light. Why, she’d acted like someone completely at ease with her own sexuality—right up to the moment when he’d thrust inside her and she’d made that broken little cry. Why the hell hadn’t she told him she was innocent—and at least given him the option of whether or not he wanted to be the first?

And yet it had been amazing, hadn’t it? The most amazing sex he could remember?

Pushing away the rogue thought, he didn’t speak until he was certain his words would come out as measured and controlled. But even then his throat felt constricted and he could feel another rush of heat to his groin as he remembered easing into her slick tightness.

‘You’re certainly a woman of surprises,’ he said. ‘You don’t happen to have any more hidden up your sleeve?’

Sophie froze as she realised it was probably the most astute question he could have asked in the circumstances. What would he say if he realised what else she wasn’t telling him? She kept her eyes shut, not daring to open them, afraid of what they might reveal—when she wasn’t even sure herself. She felt...what?

She swallowed.

Complete? Yes. Satisfied? Very. She felt shy yet strangely confident, because she’d done it and it had worked. She’d had sex! She’d had an orgasm! Underneath all the glitz and the unusual upbringing, she was no different from any other woman—and that thought gave her hope for the future. It made her feel strong. As if she was capable of pretty much anything she set her mind to. And Rafe had touched her as she’d always dreamed a man might do. Not in a reverential way. Not treating her as if she were made of porcelain or making her acutely aware of her ‘blue blood’—but treating her just like a woman. And before he’d made love to her, he’d hugged her, hadn’t he? Held her close. He’d picked her up and carried her. Cradled her tight against his wet chest—and that had blown her away nearly as much as the sex, because she wasn’t used to physical contact. Even as a child, her parents had never been demonstrative. The Queen used to appear before dinner—all dressed up in her finery—and one of the palace nannies would troop the royal children in for a quick kiss goodnight. Why, she’d been touched more tonight than in her entire life.

Sophie sighed as she wriggled against the rumpled bedsheet, not sure whether she wanted to slide beneath it with her happy, private thoughts, or to dance around the room in celebration. But what she wanted most of all was to tiptoe her fingers over Rafe’s silky flesh and have him kiss her again. She wanted him to wipe that curiously judgemental expression from his face—because what did it matter that she’d never had sex before? She wondered what the etiquette for dealing with a situation like this was and how ironic that she, an expert in etiquette, should be at such a loss.

Well, she wasn’t going to cower away like someone who was ashamed, because she wasn’t. Maybe she should just let him know how much she’d enjoyed it and then maybe he would do it to her all over again.

She felt liquid heat pooling low in her stomach as her eyelashes fluttered open and she was unprepared for the punch of emotion she felt as she looked at him—the man who up until a few minutes ago had been deep inside her. He looked the same, and yet he seemed different—but then she’d never seen him naked in the moonlight before, or softened by the intimacy of sex. Her gaze drifted over his powerful dark body, outlined against the rumpled white sheets, because surely what had just happened gave her the right to study him like this. Something melted deep inside her as she felt her heart skip a beat. How was it possible to want him again so quickly—and did he want her, too?

Her tongue slid out to moisten her lips. ‘That was—’

‘Don’t tell me.’ His voice was a hard and cynical drawl. ‘Amazing? Wonderful? Women usually say it was the best sex they’ve ever had, although I suppose in your case that would be difficult to gauge since it’s the only sex you’ve ever had.’

Sophie went very still, thinking he must be making a joke—and a joke in very poor taste—to discuss his other lovers at such a sensitive time. But as her eyes sought his face she could see no trace of humour there and she realised that he seemed irritated. Disenchantment whispered over her but she didn’t show it—grateful for years of social training, which meant she was able to return his gaze with a cool impartiality. ‘You sound disappointed, Rafe. Do you have a problem with the fact that I was a virgin?’

‘Only the same kind of problem I might have if I took a ride in a car with somebody who hadn’t bothered to tell me they were a learner driver.’

His cutting words shattered the last few traces of bliss and Sophie stared straight ahead at the unfamiliar wall of the moonlit bedroom. ‘Thanks for the comparison,’ she said flatly.

‘Why the hell have you never had sex before?’ he demanded. He shook his head in disbelief. ‘You’re young. You’re beautiful. You were clearly up for it. And this is the twenty-first century.’

Sophie swallowed. Now was the time to come clean. To say what she would need to repeat at least once, because he would think she was making it up.

You might have been living in the twenty-first century, but I certainly wasn’t. Because I was born a royal and betrothed to one of the world’s most eligible men and part of the deal was that I would go to him as a virgin on my wedding night.

And then what?

A nightmare, that was what. Once she’d convinced him she wasn’t a complete fantasist, she would be obliged to dredge up a past she was trying to move on from. She would be forced into a truth she didn’t want to have to face—that she was a princess with an unknown future. And even worse—what if he suddenly became very interested? True, he didn’t seem the type—but you never really knew. Lots of people were turned on by palaces and crowns and a status which couldn’t be bought, or earned. And wouldn’t it only reinforce her plummeting self-esteem if he decided he wanted her for what she was, rather than who she was?

Suddenly she was filled with an overwhelming desire to temper his arrogance. To see if she could unsettle him for a change. ‘Maybe I was just waiting to meet the right man,’ she said innocently, watching as he sat up in bed, quickly covering the lower part of his body with the rumpled bedsheet. But not before she’d noticed that he was aroused again and for some reason that gave her a fleeting feeling of triumph.

‘I think we’d better get one thing clear, Sophie,’ he said as a pulse worked frantically at his temple. ‘The sex we just had was amazing. More than amazing—especially as it was your first time. You don’t have enough experience to know that, but let me assure you it’s true.’ He paused, as if picking his words carefully. ‘But the fact remains that I’m not in the market for any kind of commitment. I meant every word of what I said to you in the pool. This changes nothing.’

She widened her eyes. ‘Oh?’

‘I don’t want you having any unrealistic expectations, that’s all. I’m not the kind of man who is blown away by the fact you were a virgin—I don’t have some primitive, chest-thumping desire to shout it from the rooftops. It doesn’t mean anything to me and neither do you. Sorry to be so blunt, but it saves any kind of misunderstanding. I’m not looking for a partner and even if I was, that partner wouldn’t be you. I told you that I believe in honesty and I’m being honest now. We have very different lives,’ he added, almost gently. ‘You’re a cook on some kind of late-onset gap year and I’m a globetrotting CEO. Think about it.’ He gave a shrugging kind of smile. ‘It could never work.’

Oh, the arrogant, arrogant man! Sophie resisted the urge to pick up the nearest hard object and hurl it at him, before telling herself that behaving rashly wouldn’t improve anything and it would compromise any remaining dignity. But at least his attitude made her decision easier. There would be no confidences shared with this particular Englishman. She wasn’t going to tell him a single thing about herself—why should she, when he obviously couldn’t wait to get away from her?

Some of her inbuilt royal confidence came rushing back as she returned his stare. ‘I think you flatter yourself,’ she said coolly as she got out of bed and picked up the discarded towel which was lying in a heap on the floor. ‘I agree with every word you say. It was nothing but an initiation to sex and a pretty amazing one. So thanks for that—but rest assured that I’m not looking for commitment either. I told you that in the pool. Maybe I should have let on that I was a virgin but I didn’t want to destroy the mood. And since you’re such a busy globetrotting CEO who is flying out of here tomorrow, I’d better let you get some peace so you can sleep. Goodnight, Rafe.’ She flashed him a smile. ‘Sweet dreams.’

And Sophie felt a very different kind of satisfaction as she saw the expression of disbelief on Rafe Carter’s face just before she turned and walked out of his bedroom.