A Touch of Notoriety

chapter NINE



USUALLY BETH HAD a problem knowing what the enigmatic Raphael was thinking or feeling at any given moment, but here and now, seated across a varnished dining table in an innocuous country inn, she had no problem at all reading the desire, battling with conscience, in the tightness of his expression. Right now, at this moment, Raphael wanted her as much as she wanted him, he just wanted her to be very sure as to why it was she was suggesting the two of them spend the night here together.

She breathed in deeply. ‘Would you excuse me for a moment?’ She placed her napkin carefully down on the table top before standing up.

‘Beth?’ Raphael reached out to lightly grasp her hand as she would have walked past him, his gaze searching as he looked up at her.

She gave him a reassuring smile. ‘I’ll only be a couple of minutes.’

‘Oh.’ His brow cleared and he slowly released her hand. ‘I noticed the sign for the ladies’ room out in the hallway as we came in.’

‘So did I.’ She nodded her thanks before walking away.

Except Beth wasn’t going anywhere near the ladies’ room...

* * *

Raphael was more than a little concerned when Beth hadn’t returned within ten minutes of leaving the table; either she had become ill once she reached the privacy of the ladies’ room or she had decided to somehow leave without telling him to go in search of that ‘someone else’ who would agree to spend the night with her. The former he could deal with, if it became necessary, but his discomfort at the thought of it being the latter wasn’t helped in the least by the fact that the older man from earlier kept shooting him raised-eyebrow glances from the bar area—as if he also suspected that Beth might have run out on him!

Just when Raphael had reached the point where his security instincts told him he had to go in search of her, he sensed her presence beside him—and smelt that wonderful fresh feminine smell that was entirely Beth: lemons, flowers, and warm enticing woman! His breath caught in his throat, a quiver running the length of his spine, as she paused to run her fingers lightly over his shoulder and down his arm before moving forward to resume her seat across from him at the table.

‘Sorry about that—it took longer than I thought.’ Her face was slightly flushed, her eyes a bright glittering brown, as she carefully placed a key attached to a numbered wooden square down on the table between them.

Raphael’s gaze was riveted on that key, and its implications. ‘What have you done?’ he breathed softly.

‘Nothing yet,’ she came back pertly. ‘But once we’ve finished our meal I’m hoping that the two of us will go upstairs and finish what we started outside. Unless you would rather forgo the rest of our meal and go upstairs to our bedroom now?’

Raphael’s lids rose as he looked across at her, the slightly uncertain expression in her eyes, and the anxious way in which she chewed on her bottom lip, both a complete contradiction of her breezily confident tone.

‘That is what you were doing just now—arranging a room for the two of us to stay here overnight?’

‘Yes...’ That anxiety had darkened her eyes now. ‘Unless you would really rather not?’

Unless Raphael would rather not...!

He had been displeased at the thought of Beth having become ill from the strain she had been under these past few hours, from seeing that damning gravestone, but even so he was sure that was a problem he could have coped with. But the mere thought of Beth having somehow left here to return to London, in order to go to that ‘someone else she had in mind to make love with her tonight’, had made Raphael feel as angry as it did physically ill. If any man was going to make love to Beth tonight, then it was going to be him!

‘You know, Raphael, it isn’t in the least flattering that you’re taking so long to make up your mind.’ There was a brittle tension beneath her cajoling tone.

Raphael gave a tight smile. ‘I am merely trying to decide whether you would benefit from finishing your meal, or whether it would be better for us to go straight upstairs.’

‘Oh.’

He almost widened his smile at her look of confusion. Almost. He was too tense with need for this woman to find any real humour in this situation. ‘Perhaps you are now having second thoughts?’

Her chin rose. ‘Not in the least,’ she assured him firmly.

He nodded. ‘In that case, I think you might benefit from the extra energy the food will give you.’

Her throat moved convulsively as she swallowed, her cheeks having flushed a deep pink. ‘That sounds...interesting.’

Raphael eyed her ruefully. ‘But not what you were expecting my answer to be?’

Beth had no idea what she had expected Raphael’s reaction to be when she returned to the table and told him she had arranged for the two of them to stay here together tonight. She only knew that she wanted him, wanted those hours of being aware of nothing else, of thinking of nothing else but Raphael, of saying to hell with the rest of the world as they explored and pleasured each other. She wanted that more than she wanted her next breath!

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘Could we go upstairs now? Right now?’ she added urgently, her knuckles showing white as she gripped the edge of the table.

He gave an abrupt nod. ‘If that is what you wish.’

She gave a tremulous smile. ‘A little enthusiasm on your part would be welcome about now!’

Raphael looked at her blankly for several long seconds before he breathed out raggedly, a nerve pulsing in his clenched jaw as he leant forward over the table, his eyes a deep and piercing cerulean blue as he easily held Beth’s gaze captive. ‘Would my telling you that I have remained hard and aching for you since we kissed outside earlier count as “enthusiasm”?’

Her breath hitched in her throat. ‘Oh, yes...’

‘Also that I have been able to think of little else but kissing and suckling your beautiful and responsive breasts since I last touched you there?’

Her eyes widened as she thought of the last time—the only time—Raphael had touched her breasts so intimately. That evening in the gym. Two days ago...

‘That I have been longing to touch you again, to stroke between your thighs, to pleasure you, slowly and then harder, until your muscles tighten and ripple in orgasm about the thrust of my fingers?’

Beth’s face was fiery hot as she found herself unable to look away from the fierceness of Raphael’s gaze, so aroused just listening to him describe making love to her she could barely breathe; her nipples felt full and aching, between her thighs moist as her channel became swollen in anticipation of that sweet penetration, that hard little nubbin already an aching throb.

‘And afterwards I want to taste you there,’ Raphael continued softly. ‘Take my time kissing slowly down your body, until I can place my lips and tongue on you—’

‘Perhaps we should go now?’ Beth had heard enough, was already so aroused by the things Raphael was saying to her that she was in danger of reaching that climax just sitting here listening to him describe all the wonderful things he was going to do to her.

‘And then I want to thrust my tongue inside you, again and again, squeezing your breasts and plucking your nipples as I make you come that way the second time—’

‘Raphael...!’ She was so wet and aching now she shifted uncomfortably on the seat as her trousers felt too tight and restrictive.

‘The third time I want to—’

‘The third time?’ She gasped weakly, her eyes wide, her cheeks flushed, and her skin feeling damp, just from listening to the sensuous and mesmerising rumble of Raphael’s voice as it moved over her like a caress.

He nodded. ‘A woman may have as many orgasms as the man is experienced enough to give her.’

‘And you’re very experienced?’

His mouth quirked self-derisively. ‘Oh, yes.’

‘And the man?’ she challenged.

‘Me?’ He shrugged those impossibly broad shoulders. ‘After the first two times—the first will be fast and hard, because I have wanted you for too long for it to be any other way, and the second slow and intense, because I want to explore every single part of your body before I allow myself the pleasure of plunging between your thighs a second time—it will be for you to decide how many more times, and in what ways, you will make me hard and hot for you.’

It was as if Beth had opened a door, pressed a switch somewhere deep inside Raphael, releasing a man who was dark and primal. A man who it seemed had held back in their lovemaking so far—out of a desire not to shock or alarm her?—but was making it clear he no longer intended doing so. His next comment confirmed that was his intention.

‘Think carefully, Beth,’ he warned gruffly. ‘Be absolutely sure, before we go up those stairs together, that you want all that I want, because I doubt, once we are alone and both naked, that I will be able to stop from indulging in every erotic fantasy I have ever had about you. And there have been many,’ he acknowledged wryly.

Beth wasn’t sure that she knew, let alone was familiar with, all of the things promised in the hard sensuality of Raphael’s glittering blue gaze. But she shivered with the anticipation of wanting to know. Oh, yes, here and now, with this man, she wanted that—wanted Raphael!—so very much...

She stroked her tongue across the dryness of her lips, drawing her breath in sharply as Raphael’s eyes took on an almost feral fierceness as his heated gaze followed that sweeping caress. ‘I told you, Raphael, I want you, all of you, in whatever way you want me.’ And if that included lovemaking as she had never imagined it, let alone come close to experiencing, in the one or two forays she had made into the physical side of a relationship during her years at university, then so be it.

‘And I need to know it is not something you will regret in the morning!’ he rasped harshly.

Beth winced. ‘Can’t we let the morning take care of itself?’

A nerve pulsed in his clenched jaw. ‘No.’

She frowned, not sure what Raphael wanted from her—and knowing that most men of her acquaintance would take what she was offering, and to hell with the why she was offering!

But not Raphael...

Was she in love with him? Was that the real reason she wanted to spend her last night as Beth Blake in Raphael’s arms?

She did know that Raphael affected her like no other man she had ever met, that he had done so since the moment she first looked at him, arousing her interest, her own sexual fantasies, at the same time as he annoyed her.

But Raphael was a physically experienced man in his thirties, not a boy as green as Beth was, and whatever he asked of her during the night ahead she knew she would gladly give. She didn’t want to give herself—or Raphael!—the time to work out why that was. ‘Could we not analyse the spontaneity out of this, Raphael?’ she answered him impatiently.

‘I just need you to be very sure—’

‘I’ve said that I am!’ Her eyes flashed darkly in warning.

He studied her intently for several long seconds before nodding abruptly. ‘Very well. I have finished eating, if you have.’ He ignored their half-eaten meals as he picked up the door key and stood up before moving round the table in preparation for pulling back Beth’s chair for her.

Beth’s heart was pounding so loudly in her chest, her hands shaking as she placed them on the table and rose determinedly to her feet, that she was sure Raphael must be able to hear, and see that trembling, as he waited for her to collect her bag. He took a light hold of her arm as he accompanied her out of the restaurant and through the bar area to the staircase leading up to the rooms above, Beth hoping he would attribute those things to arousal rather than the nervousness that now held her in its grip.

The nervousness was not of Raphael. Never of Raphael. Whatever dark and primal desires she might have released from beneath his usually coolly controlled façade, Beth knew that he would never hurt her. She knew instinctively that Raphael was a man who preferred—who enjoyed—giving pleasure to a woman rather than inflicting pain.

No, it was her own inexperience Beth felt nervous about, and as to whether or not she would be woman enough to sustain and keep the intensity of Raphael’s desire for her burning through the long hours of the night that lay ahead...

* * *

Raphael could feel Beth’s nervousness increasing as they began to ascend the staircase to the floor above, feeling the trembling of her stiffly tense body as his hand remained firmly about her arm, able to hear her shallowly drawn breaths, and see how those huge brown eyes dominated the pale delicacy of her face as she stared straight ahead rather than at him.

She might deny having any doubts about the night ahead, but her behaviour and appearance said otherwise.

Her nervousness continued as they paused in the hallway so that Raphael could unlock the door to their room. ‘I asked the landlord to give us the best room he has.’

Raphael glanced at her. ‘I believe a comfortable bed to be our only requirement...’

‘And an adjoining bathroom,’ she added tensely. ‘Which the landlord assures me this room has.’

‘Good,’ he clipped as he straightened before slowly turning the handle on the door to push it open, standing slightly to one side in the narrow hallway as he waited for Beth to precede him into a small bedroom. There was a low and dark-beamed ceiling overhead, the room like so many other hotel rooms, with its pink and cream chintz curtains and matching bedcover on the four-poster bed, the wallpaper and carpet in the same warm cream, several uninspiring paintings adorning the walls.

‘Would you like to use the bathroom first or shall I?’

Raphael looked across the room at Beth as she stood silhouetted in front of one of the two windows, the darkening night sky behind her making her hair appear more gold shades than ever, her face still ethereally pale, her fingers tortuously twisting the innocent shoulder strap of her bag the only other outward show of her inner nervousness. ‘You may go first,’ he replied smoothly. ‘I have several calls to make before I may call my time my own this evening.’

A frown appeared on her creamy brow. ‘Would one of those phone calls happen to be the one to Cesar?’

He quirked dark brows. ‘And if it is?’

Her breath hitched. ‘Is it a good idea for you to talk to Cesar now, in the knowledge that you intend to seduce his little sister immediately afterwards?’

Raphael’s mouth tightened. ‘I believe you stated earlier that it was your intention to seduce me?’

Yes, she had said that, hadn’t she? Beth acknowledged with an inner wince. And she hadn’t changed her mind about that. It was just that, now she was alone with Raphael in this small bedroom, with that four-poster bed only feet away, he seemed so—so physically immediate, his sheer masculinity seeming to suck all the air out of the room.

‘You’re going to tell Cesar about—about, the success, of our visit to Stopley today?’ She gave a pained frown.

Raphael gave a slight inclination of his head. ‘I have respected your wishes in regard to that so far, but I think it only fair that I now inform Cesar of what we have discovered today, yes.’

She breathed out deeply through her nose. ‘And no doubt he’ll then either turn up in London tomorrow, accompanied by Grace, or maybe just send the private jet over to pick us both up and take us back to Argentina?’

‘No doubt. Is that going to be a problem?’ Raphael looked at her searchingly.

No, it wasn’t a problem; Beth was already resigned to the fact that she now had no choice but to return to Argentina and the Navarro family—it was the reason she had asked Graham Selkirk for a month’s leave this morning, after all. Her visit to Elizabeth Lawrence’s grave earlier had been more of a courtesy, a show of respect for the baby girl who had died so long ago, rather than the proof Beth had said she needed to confirm the Navarros’ claim of her being their long-lost daughter. If Raphael said the grave existed, then Beth had no doubts that it did. Just as she had known the consequences, to her, regarding its existence.

She gave a jerky nod. ‘Okay, you make your calls and I’ll go and use the bathroom first.’ She quickly crossed the room to enter the adjoining room, locking the door securely behind her before leaning weakly back against it, her breathing sounding ragged in the small confines of the black-and-white bathroom.

She had wanted this to happen, asked for it, and now wasn’t the time for her to be having a panic attack, or have second thoughts, because Raphael was about to give her exactly what she had asked him for...

* * *

Raphael continued to stand in the middle of the fussy bedroom as he stared at that closed bathroom door, knowing, despite her determination earlier, that Beth was having second thoughts—maybe even third and fourth ones!—as to the wisdom of her actions.

He had been deliberately graphic when he’d spoken to Beth earlier, when he had described the many ways he wished to make love to her. Not that he hadn’t meant every word he’d said, because he had, but when—if—he ever made love with Beth, then he wanted her to be very sure it was what she wanted too, and not something she would regret in the morning. Something she would surely do if her only reason for spending the night with him was to block out who she must become tomorrow.

The two of them making love together was an irrevocable step, from which there would be no turning back, and Beth might not exactly hate him in the morning, but she would most certainly be embarrassed and self-conscious enough to want to avoid his company in future.

A future that required she become Gabriela Navarro, the daughter of Esther and Carlos Navarro, and sister of Cesar Navarro...