One More Sleepless Night

ELEVEN



Oh, yes, thought Nicky, standing beside the bed, letting her gaze drift over Rafael and wondering where she was going to start. Coming to Madrid had been such a good idea and she was going to have so much fun with him because for this afternoon at least he was all hers, and she felt like a kid in a sweet shop, her fingers itching to delve and her mouth watering with the need to sample the wares.

‘Are you just going to stand there and look?’ said Rafael, and she looked up to see his face was dark and tight. ‘Because I am this close—’ he held up his thumb and forefinger a millimetre apart ‘—to tossing you onto the bed and ravishing you, and, believe me, finesse will not feature heavily.’

And there’d be nothing wrong with that, she thought, her heart jumping as desire shot through her all over again. But now that she’d got her mojo back—and how—she wanted to indulge every newly awakened sense.

So with her breath catching in her throat she put her hands on his stomach and slid them up, lifting his T-shirt as she did so and feeling his muscles twitch beneath her palms. He raised his arms to help her and she stood on tiptoe to pull the T-shirt over his head and up over his arms. She let it drop to the floor and then ran her hands back down his lowering arms and across his shoulders and then down over the broad tanned expanse of his chest.

Unable to resist, she leaned forwards and flicked her tongue over his nipple. Rafael inhaled sharply and she could feel his body tighten. With restraint. With desire.

‘God, I’d forgotten how tantalising undressing a man could be,’ she murmured.

‘Done it often?’

‘Once or twice.’ Although never with someone quite like him. Relieving him of his clothes had to be one of life’s greatest secret pleasures because he was physically quite magnificent.

Swallowing hard, she moved her hands down, undid his belt, the button of his shorts and then slid down the zip, relishing every glorious second.

And to think that that day he’d kissed her by the pool she’d had ample opportunity to admire the body on display. To ogle and want and touch. And she’d ignored it. What a waste.

Well, she wasn’t ignoring it now. And she wasn’t going to waste a second.

She slid her hands beneath the waistband of his boxers and moaned in anticipation as she eased them and his shorts over the thick, hard erection that she could feel beneath. He stepped out of them and she took a step back to simply admire. God, his body was incredible. It was all lean, hard muscle and taut restrained power and she couldn’t wait to have the full force of it unleashed on her.

‘Lie down,’ he said in a voice that wasn’t altogether steady.

Nicky’s heart thumped madly as she did as he said and lay back on the bed, because, oh, there was definitely something to be said for a gorgeous man who knew how and when to use his power and liked to be in control.

And right now, with the way his eyes were burning over her, she was quite willing to submit herself to whatever delicious torment he had planned. There’d be plenty of time for payback later, she decided, and felt a wide wanton smile steal across her face.

‘That smile looks dangerous,’ he said, his eyes blazing down at her.

‘Could be.’

‘Sirens,’ he muttered. ‘I’m doomed.’

‘What?’

‘Sirens.’

‘What about them?’ she said, and stretched in what she hoped was an enticing manner because there was drawing things out and indulging her senses and then there was just plain being sadistic, and the way she was lying spreadeagled on the bed while he still remained upright and beside it definitely fell into the latter category.

‘They had a tendency to lure sailors to their deaths with their song,’ he said.

‘Lucky you’re not a sailor and I can’t sing, then, isn’t it?’

‘You have plenty of other attractions.’

‘So are you just going to stand there and look at them?’ she asked, recalling his earlier words to her and deciding to hurry things up a bit. ‘Or are you planning to do the decent thing and join me, because I am this close—’ she held up her thumb and forefinger a millimetre apart ‘—to pulling you onto this bed and ravishing you.’ She paused and smiled and batted her eyelashes up at him. ‘And, believe me, finesse will not feature heavily.’

That seemed to do the trick. Rafael let out a strangled groan, jerked forwards and, planting his hands either side of her head, came down heavily on top of her. At the sudden urgency of his actions Nicky’s breath shot from her lungs and lust spun through her.

‘You know, I’m coming to the conclusion that finesse is vastly overrated,’ he said roughly.

‘You have no idea how glad I am to hear you think so,’ she said softly, loving the feel of his weight on top of her and wrapping a leg around his waist.

And then his mouth was on hers and she couldn’t remember what she’d been glad about because his hands were in her hair, his tongue was in her mouth and both were rendering her to a mindless tangle of electricity, desire and delicious, delicious tension.

She ran her hands over the tight muscles of his shoulders and his back and dug her nails in, which took the kiss to another, more frenzied, more desperate dimension in which clashing teeth, melding moans and writhing limbs dominated.

Her head was so foggy, her brain so utterly destroyed, she was only dimly aware of Rafael pulling one hand from her hair and sliding it down her neck and then over the agonisingly sensitive skin of her upper chest.

But when it came to a rest on her breast all that electricity, desire and tension shot through the roof. Nicky groaned into his mouth and arched her back as his hand cupped her and he rubbed his thumb back and forth over her nipple and a burst of white-hot pleasure exploded deep inside her.

He dragged his mouth away and shifted a little, and she gulped in a shaky breath as it closed over her other nipple.

Biting her lip to stop herself from crying out at the stabs of ecstasy that were jabbing at her, she pressed her fingers into his head and tilted her hips to grind into his erection. She writhed. She whimpered. She simply couldn’t help it.

‘Ready to beg yet?’ he said hoarsely against her breast.

God, probably, she thought dazedly, but in a bit because she wanted more and could take more. ‘Not nearly,’ she said, and then added in the hope it would make him double his already sensational efforts, ‘You’ll have to try far harder than that.’

So he did.

His mouth resumed its devastating assault on her breast and his hand slid lower and lower until it reached the juncture of her thighs and then his fingers were parting her and sliding into her and the feeling was so electrifying she would have jackknifed upright had he not been pressing her down.

He stroked her, relentlessly, expertly and her insides wound so tightly she felt they might snap at any moment. Heat coiled in the pit of her stomach. Tremors began to rack her body and shivers raced through her veins as the excitement swelled and spread into every cell of her body. She was hovering on the brink, a nanosecond away from splintering, clenching around his fingers and hurtling off into oblivion when suddenly he stilled and his head lifted.

Nicky groaned in protest as her orgasm instantly ebbed. ‘Why are you stopping?’ she said, her voice rough and raspy.

His green eyes gleamed down at her. ‘Beg me,’ he muttered.

What? Oh, his timing was good, she thought as a stab of such intense longing shot through her that she nearly did as he asked. Or very very bad, depending on your point of view. She didn’t know which hers was.

‘Sadist,’ she murmured.

‘Beg me,’ he said again.

‘No.’

‘Masochist.’

‘You’ll pay for this,’ she said, reaching down, taking him in her hand and stroking. She felt him tense and shudder so she rubbed her thumb across the tip and gently squeezed.

‘I have a feeling we both will,’ he said raggedly, stopping her hand, then abruptly rolling slightly and twisting away.

Nicky watched as he rummaged around in the drawer of the bedside table and pulled out a condom. He ripped open the packet, slipped it on and then he was back on top of her, his eyes blazing down at her and his erection nudging at her entrance. Hovering. Waiting. Wanting her completely and utterly at his mercy, which she was.

She opened her legs wider. Tilted her hips higher. And then he was driving into her with a rough groan and she thought that she was about to die and go to heaven.

‘Oh...’ she said, letting out a long shuddery breath as she felt him fill her.

‘Incredible,’ he muttered, going utterly still for a second before beginning to move. Deliberately slowly, ruthlessly measuredly and maddeningly in control.

And while there was certainly a time for languid and leisurely, right now she was in the mood for fast and frantic because the friction was becoming unbearable, the tension excruciating, and the pleasure relentless, and it wasn’t enough. The climax that had remained so tantalisingly out of reach when he’d stopped and asked her to beg still hovered at the edges of her consciousness.

He was holding it off, holding them both back, and no matter how much she writhed and rubbed against him he didn’t relent. She pulled his head down for a searing kiss and felt sparks shoot through her at the touch of his lips, his tongue, but none of it made the slightest difference. The only thing that all her efforts achieved was her own torment because with each tilt of her hips, with each twist and turn of her body and with each kiss she simply grew more and more frenzied until she was way beyond the point of any kind of control.

‘Oh, God,’ she mumbled, hearing the desperation in her voice and not caring one little bit. ‘Please...’

And then a second later his control seemed to dissolve and a wildness took over his movements and Nicky found she cared even less, because gone was maddeningly slow and ruthlessly measured, and he was now thrusting into her over and over again, going deeper, harder, faster until she didn’t think she could bear it any longer.

The delirium inside her escalated with each thrust, sweeping her up in it, higher and higher until the great ball of pressure inside her erupted and she hurtled over the edge, her body exploding into a thousand tiny fireworks of ecstasy.

She shook, convulsed and trembled in his arms, the tremors shuddering through her nearly breaking her apart and then she felt him bury himself deep inside her one last time, groan and pulsate into her, and unbelievably she came all over again.

For several long, long minutes neither of them moved. Nicky wouldn’t have been able to even if Rafael hadn’t collapsed on top of her because she felt utterly sated and utterly drained. As weak as a kitten, and quite extraordinarily good.

‘Wow,’ she managed once her breathing had eased, her heart rate had slowed and her surroundings had swum back into focus.

‘Quite.’ Even with his mouth muffled by her shoulder, Rafael sounded as stunned as she was.

‘What was that?’

Gently easing out of her, he rolled to one side and propped himself up on an elbow. ‘One harmless little kiss apparently.’

She looked up at him and slowly smiled. ‘Ah, but it didn’t hurt, did it?’

‘The kisses didn’t,’ he said raggedly. ‘However the damage to my back might be irreparable.’

‘Sorry,’ she said, too happy revelling in the aftermath of what had been the most glorious sex of her life to feel in the slightest bit apologetic. ‘Is it that bad?’

‘Not that bad. And I think I can live with it. Especially since you begged so nicely.’

She jerked her gaze to his and arched an eyebrow at the teasing glint in his eyes. ‘I did not beg.’

‘Yes, you did. I remember it clearly.’

‘I pleaded. There’s a difference.’

‘You think?’

His grin was too smug to ignore. ‘I’ll show you.’

‘How?’

Giving him a deliberately smouldering smile, Nicky pushed him onto his back, climbed on top of him and watched with satisfaction as a flicker of wariness leapt in his eyes.

‘You’ll see,’ she said, and began to slide down his body.

* * *

‘You know, you’re absolutely right,’ said Rafael quite a while later when he was able to think again. ‘There is a difference.’

Nicky glanced up and grinned. ‘Told you.’

‘Feeling smug?’

‘A little.’

And actually she had every right to, he thought, because frankly the afternoon had been astounding. When he’d initially pulled her into his arms he’d had the feeling that they’d be good together, but nothing could have prepared him for the explosive way they’d responded to each other. Over and over again she’d come apart in his arms and beneath his mouth, and he’d shattered in and beneath hers more times than he could count. It was truly staggering.

Now it was dusk and she was sitting cross-legged in his bed wearing one of his T-shirts and eating a tortilla he’d whipped up, tousled haired, sleepy-eyed and looking thoroughly ravished, and with any luck the night would be equally astonishing because unbelievably he wanted her again.

As the desire that had never really gone away surged through him for the dozenth time this afternoon Rafael felt himself harden and stabbed his fork into a piece of tortilla.

What was it about Nicky that made him lose such control and forget about everything but her? Where had all those thoughts of revenge come from? And as for wanting to make her beg, what the hell had that been all about?

The need to possess her, to make her succumb, had been all-consuming, and, for someone who’d always been so focused and in control when it came to sex, the realisation that all it took was a gorgeous woman, weeks of frustration and scorching chemistry to derail him so spectacularly like that was kind of harrowing.

‘And tired,’ said Nicky, yanking Rafael out of his thoughts in time for him to see her smothering a yawn and stretching languidly. ‘You’ve worn me out. It’s a good thing I stocked up on rest at the cortijo.’

And that was another thing, he thought as the comment she’d made earlier about not being well flashed into his head and a wave of guilt washed over him. Forget the mental gymnastics he was going through. What about the extremely physical ones he’d spent the afternoon subjecting her to?

He swore softly beneath his breath. Nicky had been ill and never mind that everything they’d done had been entirely mutual, he should have taken more care. Better still, he should have held his ground and resisted her in the first place, but there was little use in beating himself up about that again.

‘Rafael?’ she asked, the tinge of concern in her voice making him feel even worse. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Are you?’

She blinked and shot him a dazzling smile that slowly flipped his stomach. ‘Of course I am. I feel fabulous. Why do you ask?’

‘You said you hadn’t been very well.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘True, but I also said I’d recovered. As I think we’ve just admirably demonstrated.’ She frowned. ‘I hope you don’t think you hurt me or anything.’

Rafael stiffened with resolve because he’d let too much slide and he wasn’t about to let this go. ‘If you’ve been ill, can you blame me?’

There was a pause, then she set her fork down and looked at him, pinning him to the mattress with those stormy grey-blue eyes of hers. ‘OK,’ she said, linking her fingers in her lap and leaning forwards earnestly. ‘Here’s the thing. Yes, I haven’t been particularly well, but neither have I been exactly ill.’

As his once sharp but now apparently addled brain tried to work out what she meant and failed, Rafael frowned. He’d had a first class education initially at public school in England, then at Cambridge and finally at Harvard, and he’d always assumed he was pretty much bilingual, but perhaps he’d been deluding himself all these years. Perhaps somewhere along the way he’d missed the lesson on nuance, because right now he couldn’t work out what she was saying. ‘I’m afraid you’ve lost me.’

‘I nearly lost myself.’

‘How?’ he asked, now even more perplexed.

‘Burnout.’

‘Burnout?’

‘That’s right. Gaby diagnosed it a few weeks ago and I think she was right.’

The image of the Nicky he’d first met flashed though Rafael’s head. She’d been pale and gaunt. Exhausted and troubled. Tense, prickly and on edge. And enveloped by that disturbing air of desolate defeat.

All classic signs of burnout, he realised, and all of which he’d seen before. Hell, he’d even got work because of it but it had never occurred to him that that was what Nicky had been suffering from. But then he’d been so caught up in wanting her and wondering why she didn’t want him that little else had occurred to him.

‘What caused it?’ he said, and forced himself to focus on her instead of barrelling off down the road of self-recrimination yet again.

She tilted her head and regarded him for a moment, as if internally debating whether or not to tell him. Then she straightened as if bracing herself, and for some reason his chest tightened. ‘Remember how I told you I was a photojournalist?’

He nodded and took a deep breath to ease the pressure. ‘I looked you up on the Internet. Your work is incredible.’ Although actually incredible didn’t begin to describe it. The pictures she took were powerful, provocative, beautiful and thought-provoking. He’d read that she’d won awards and as he’d scrolled through the gallery on her website he’d been able to see why.

She beamed. ‘Thank you.’ Then she sobered. ‘Well, anyway, a year or so ago I was on assignment in the Middle East, covering a demonstration about rights for women. It was all going fine. Very peaceful and I got some excellent shots. But then some men turned up—family members of a few of the women, I found out later—and took exception. Especially to me and my camera.’

He thought he heard her voice shake a little and the pressure in his chest returned. ‘What happened then?’

Nicky sighed. ‘To be honest I don’t remember all that much about it. One minute I was taking pictures, the next I was surrounded and being jostled and pushed to the ground. But I guess eventually my instinct for survival kicked in because somehow I managed to escape and make my way back to my hotel.’

Rafael felt his jaw clench. Why on earth had she put herself in such danger? Surely no photograph was worth risking one’s life for?

‘Of course I’d had training in how to deal with things like that,’ she continued, ‘but it was the first time it had happened to me and, in all the panic, I kind of forgot everything I’d been taught.’

‘Were you badly hurt?’

‘Depends what you mean by badly. I only had a couple of broken ribs so I guess I got off pretty lightly really. My camera, however, suffered infinitely more. It was smashed to bits. Luckily, though, I’d managed to take out the memory card before they got hold of it.’

‘It must have been terrifying.’

Nicky shrugged. ‘It’s not an experience I’m particularly keen to repeat, I admit. And I’m not a huge fan of crowds.’

‘I’m not surprised. So is that what your nightmares are about?’

This time she didn’t bother pretending she didn’t know what he was talking about. ‘Pretty much.’ She added, ‘Sometimes the details vary but only slightly. Lately though they’ve been getting fuzzier and I have them far less often than I used to so that’s good. Anyway it all happened ages ago, and I’m fine about it. Really.’

Hmm. Was she? ‘So where does the burnout come in?’

Nicky blinked and gave him a rueful smile. ‘Oh, well, I was so determined to prove that what had happened hadn’t affected me that I went a bit overboard on the work front.’

‘Overboard?’

‘Put it this way. I didn’t so much get back on the horse as saddle it up and take it round the Grand National a couple of times. I started working every waking hour I had and barely stopped for breath.’

Rafael frowned. ‘Was that sustainable?’

‘No. I was hurtling from time zone to time zone so much that I had no idea whether it was morning or night. It played havoc on my sleep and eventually I just wore out. Even taking my camera out of its case ended up becoming a major task and that scared me witless because if I can’t take photos I don’t know what else there is.’ She ran a hand through her hair. ‘I think I just kind of gave up. It was so tiring treading water, I simply stopped. And once I’d done that then I really began to sink.’

‘That doesn’t sound good,’ he muttered, knowing it was an understatement but too mystified by all the stuff beginning to churn around inside him to respond with anything more sensible.

‘No, well, it wasn’t,’ she said dryly, ‘but it’s why I ended up at your house. It’s why when we met I was in a bit of a state. And it’s why when you kissed me I couldn’t respond, even though I desperately wanted to. When I told you that my lack of response to you wasn’t you but me, I meant it. Along with everything else I’d lost all interest in sex. It was like I was dead inside.’

‘But not any more.’

She grinned. ‘Not any more. And I’ve been taking pictures again. Of your vineyard. Do you mind?’

Did he mind? God, it was the least he could offer after all she’d been through. After all he’d put her through, and not just this afternoon. ‘Of course not.’

Her smile deepened and his stomach twisted. ‘Great. Well, anyway, it turns out your sister is quite the psychiatrist because she was the one who decided a rest and a time-out to regroup was the answer and she was right. That cortijo of yours was exactly what I needed.’

No, what Nicky needed was looking after, Rafael decided darkly, because God, he’d thought he’d had a tough time of it lately, but, compared with what she’d been through, a merger, a handful of demanding relatives and a persistent ex were nothing. And she might act as if she was over what had happened but was she? Really?

‘So what plans do you have next?’ he asked, ignoring the little voice inside his head demanding to know where he thought he was going with this, because she might not really be over it and she might need looking after but he definitely wasn’t the sort of person who should be getting involved.

She lifted her eyebrows. ‘You mean beyond some more of that lovely restorative sex?’

‘Beyond that.’

She blinked and shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m not very good at living beyond the present.’

‘Well, I’m at a loose end... You’re at a loose end... What would you say to tying our loose ends together for a while?’

She grinned. ‘I’d say does that line really work?’

Rafael frowned because oddly enough it hadn’t been a line. ‘I have no idea. You tell me.’