I live here.’
‘Alone?’ The possibility seemed extraordinary to Lara. It was a massive place for one person...had he got the marital home after the divorce? Assuming there had been a divorce—really she knew nothing about him. She exhaled a measured sigh, starting slightly when he placed a hand between her shoulder blades. The touch of his fingers on her bare skin made her gasp.
‘This way.’
Quivering inside with anticipation that she struggled to hide beneath an air of cheerful insouciance, she let him guide her up a small flight of shallow stone steps, as though she were in the habit of doing this sort of thing every day of the week.
He leaned across her to put a key in the lock of the heavy metal-banded door that was dark with age. Given the traditional, almost historical, external appearance of the building, the inside caused her to gasp in surprise.
Internally it had been opened up—presumably walls had been knocked down to create this one massive ground-floor space, bisected by a staircase that seemed to float in mid-air. The end wall had been taken out and was now glass; several sections of internal wall were exposed stone while others were pale limewashed.
The furniture was eclectic. Big, comfortable-looking sofas, a long, highly polished antique trestle table, and one entire wall lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
They had entered the kitchen area, which boasted every modern appliance set in pale ash units with polished stone work surfaces.
‘This is not what I expected.’ But then, nothing about their encounter had been.
Raoul gave the space a dismissive glance. He felt no emotional connection to it; he’d simply given the architect free rein. The place said nothing about him or his taste in books, except that he liked big spaces. It wasn’t the soundest of financial investments he’d ever made—he’d bought it for its location and size, only to discover it was falling down.
‘The place was riddled with wet rot, dry rot, deathwatch beetle, I could go on... A lesson in the danger of buying without a structural survey. Once the building was made safe I had to decide whether to reinstate the original period features or not.’ His shoulders lifted.
‘And you chose not.’
He nodded.
‘It’s spectacular.’ She clamped her lips together to prevent a gushing response.
He took a step closer and the room got smaller, her heartbeat got faster, and there seemed a strong possibility her shaking knees were going to fold.
‘I always talk a lot when I’m nervous.’ Should she tell him before...?
Oh, yeah, because that worked so well last time.
‘You’re nervous?’
‘Well, this might surprise you,’ she said, forcing a laugh, ‘but this isn’t something I do every day.’
His dark brows lifted. ‘No, it doesn’t surprise me. Why should it?’
‘It’s just—’
‘You don’t have to explain.’
She felt hot as embarrassed colour flew to her cheeks. ‘No...no, of course not.’ The man doesn’t want your life history, Lara, he wants sex.
He watched the blush and recognised the vulnerability it exposed. His jaw clenched. He didn’t want vulnerable, he wanted hot, mind-numbing sex with a beautiful, bold, confident woman who could fearlessly face down a gang of thugs.
Where had she gone?
He heaved a resigned sigh and swallowed his growing frustration. The hot-cold thing was killing him and the prospect of a night of cold showers did not appeal, but in such a matter acceptance was the only recourse.
‘Would you like a coffee...?’
Lara swallowed but didn’t dodge his stare. There was probably something playful she should say but the emotions in her throat made even the basic truth hard to utter.
‘We both know I don’t want a coffee.’
‘I thought I did. What do you want?’ He lifted a strand of her shining hair with one finger and let it fall. ‘Is that real?’
‘Everything about me is real.’ Good line, Lara. Means nothing, but good line! ‘And I want you.’
She didn’t attempt to escape his gleaming stare. She quivered as he cupped her face with one hand, her eyelashes lowered and falling in a dark filigree against her cheek. They lifted a moment later when his free hand curved possessively around her bottom.
A soft moan left her parted lips as with barely leashed violence he pulled her in hard against him.
‘That is real,’ he ground out, his breath warm on her face as he caught the soft flesh of her lower lip between his teeth. ‘What you do to me is real. Everything about you,’ he slurred, bending his head to move his lips over the pulse spot at the base of her throat, ‘is real.’
When was the last time that he had experienced anything close to the primitive need to possess that was pounding through him at that moment? It was madness!
But madness had never felt so sweet and as the passion between them escalated definitions became irrelevant.
The kiss seemed to go on for ever. Lara gave herself up to it and the dormant passion deep inside her that he had awoken. Her head was spinning and instinctively she wound her slim arms tight around his neck, and met the repeated probing thrust of his tongue with an eagerness that masked her inexperience.
She gave a little gasp of shock as his hand moved up to cover one breast, his thumb brushing the swollen peak through the red silky fabric, causing the gasp to slide seamlessly into a low guttural moan of pleasure.
He lifted his head to look into her passion-glazed eyes, then he moved his hips against her. He watched her eyes darken in instant response, then slid his hand up and down the long smooth lines of her thigh. He heard her breath quicken before, with a muffled cry, she jumped into him, wrapping her long legs around his waist.
Raoul caught her, and brushed the hair from her face to expose one side of her neck before spreading his hands supportively under her bottom and kissing the smooth swanlike curve he had revealed. He began to carry her towards the staircase.
‘I never knew that anything could feel this good, this right.’
She didn’t know that she had voiced her thoughts out loud until his fingers slid around her jaw, forcing her face up to him.
‘Don’t stop!’
The fierce intentness of his dark stare did not soften as he gave a short, hard laugh. It was all he could do not to back her against the wall and take her there and then, but this was too good to hurry, much too good. ‘I have no intention of stopping, cara,’ he admitted thickly.
The need to define or analyse what was happening had passed. She tasted sweet as again he drove his tongue with sensual precision between her plump, parted lips.
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