sensation in his groin. He was used to dating sophisticated socialites who wouldn’t be seen dead in anything other than designer labels, but there was something wholesome and incredibly sexy about Rachel’s scrubbed face and simple clothes. He wondered if she was aware that the sunlight streaming in through the window made her shirt semi-transparent. He could clearly see the outline of her breasts, and liquid heat surged through his veins.
He took a gulp of the hot coffee and felt it scald the back of his throat. ‘Do you live here alone?’ he asked shortly.
Rachel glanced around the cramped living space, her brows lifting expressively. ‘There’s barely enough room for me, let alone anyone else,’ she murmured.
‘So, no boyfriend sharing your bunk?’
‘No! I told you, I’m training hard in the hope of being picked for the British Equestrian team. I don’t have time for boyfriends.’ Much less the desire for one, she thought, her mouth firming. But that did not mean she was completely oblivious to men, or at least this man. She could not tear her eyes from Diego. He looked faintly incongruous, standing in her tiny caravan in his formal black trousers and beautifully tailored shirt. He reminded her of one of those impossibly gorgeous male models from a glossy magazine—and he should be somewhere exotic like Monte Carlo or Rio, not a field in rural Gloucestershire. But he was here, with her, and he was looking at her in a way that was making her heart race and her face feel hot.
She should have suggested that they drink their coffee outside, she thought frantically. But her garden furniture consisted of two upended feed buckets, and she could not picture suave Diego Ortega sprawling on the grass. The atmosphere inside the caravan suddenly seemed to be charged with electricity and she was agonisingly aware of his hard, lean body standing inches from her. She held her breath when he closed the gap between them, and her eyes darted nervously from his chest up to his face and focused helplessly on his sensual mouth. Her heart seemed to stop beating when he slid his hand beneath her chin and lowered his face so close to hers that she could see the tiny lines that fanned out from the corners of his eyes.
‘What…what do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded, dismayed that her voice sounded so weak and breathless when she wanted to give the impression that she was in complete control of the situation.
‘I think I am going to kiss you,’ Diego drawled, patently amused by the question. ‘In fact, I know it, querida—just as I know that you want me to.’
Rachel’s heart was jerking painfully beneath her ribs. ‘I don’t,’ she said desperately, her cheeks flaming as she recalled how she had silently urged him to kiss her in the stables yesterday.
‘Liar,’ he said with gentle mockery which disguised the tension that gripped him. Her skin was almost translucent, her peaches-and-cream complexion as exquisite as a work of art, and her mouth, pink and moist and slightly parted, was a temptation he could no longer resist. The sexual awareness between them was white-hot—and mutual. Rachel might try to deny it, but her eyes were huge with excitement, the invitation in their depths unmistakable. He hesitated for a second, wanting to savour the anticipation, but as he brushed his lips over hers in that first explorative caress and felt her tentative response, hunger coursed through his veins and with a muffled groan he crushed her mouth beneath his and kissed her with unrestrained passion. It did not cross Rachel’s mind to resist him—and, even if her brain clung to some last vestige of sanity, her body had a will of its own and demanded her complete and utter surrender. Diego’s lips were warm and firm, sliding over hers with such erotic skill that she simply melted against him and opened her mouth, her heart thudding in her chest at the first bold thrust of his tongue.
Nothing in her life had prepared her for the storm of sensations that swept through her. She had never experienced true desire before; not this desperate need for something she did not even understand but which raged inside her as wild and dangerous as a bush fire.
Perhaps her subconscious mind had deliberately subdued her normal sexual urges? she wondered vaguely, finding it hard to think straight when Diego slid his arms around her and drew her against the hard wall of his chest.
But now those urges had been awakened, and she could not control them. The pressure of his mouth on hers was as addictive as a drug, and she wanted more. She placed her hands on his chest and felt the heat of his body through his silk shirt. What would it be like to feel his bare skin pressed against hers?
But, before she could give in to her heated fantasy, Diego suddenly dropped down so that he was sitting on the edge of her makeshift bed and pulled her onto his lap.
‘That’s better, hmm…?’ he murmured against her mouth, before he kissed her again, moving his lips on hers with undisguised passion which sent a shiver of need down her spine. She was trembling, every nerve-ending tingling, and when he brushed his hand lightly over her breast she shivered in anticipation of a more intimate caress.
‘Do you like that, querida?’ His voice was a husky growl, but Rachel was beyond giving an answer, the feelings he was arousing in her were new and wondrous and she was swept away to a place where nothing mattered except that Diego should continue to kiss her and touch her. She heard him mutter something in his own language, and was vaguely aware of his fingers gently stroking her waist before inching up towards her ribs once more. The bright sunlight streaming through the window made her squint, and through her half closed eyes he seemed dark and forbidding—a stranger who had kissed her until she could not think straight.
As he gently increased the pressure of his caresses, Rachel suddenly drew in a sharp breath. Aware that her rapid intake of air had nothing to do with arousal, Diego quickly removed his hands before he gently pushed her shirt over her shoulder, revealing the fragile line of her collarbone—and the mass of purple bruises that contrasted starkly with her pale skin.
‘Your injuries are worse even than I imagined,’ he said harshly, the sound of his voice shattering the last of the sexual haze that had held Rachel a willing prisoner in his arms. The fire in her veins cooled as quickly as if he had thrust her beneath an ice-cold shower, leaving her feeling slightly sick. What had she been thinking, allowing a man she barely knew to kiss her, and touch her…?
Diego was staring at her bony shoulder with a look of undisguised horror, and she felt embarrassed that he was clearly repelled by her body. With a jerky movement that jolted her ribs and caused her to wince in pain, she snatched the edges of her shirt together to hide the offending bruises from his gaze. ‘I’d like you to leave,’ she said tightly. ‘You’ve had your fun.’
‘My fun?’ Diego stiffened, his eyes narrowing on her flushed face.
Rachel was aware that she sounded abrupt to the point of rudeness, but she was dying of mortification as she recalled her wanton response to him. What must he think of her? She had made no attempt to stop him kissing her. The moment he had taken her in his arms, she had melted against him and kissed him back; and her soft moans of pleasure when he had caressed her must have sent out a message that she was his for the taking.
Since she was old enough to understand adult relationships, she had proudly announced that she would never act like her mother, lurching blindly between marriages and affairs with no thought to the consequences. She would never allow any man that kind of power over her, she’d stated confidently. Yet here she was, practically making love with a stranger just because he was the most gorgeous male she’d ever met.
‘I don’t know what you were expecting,’ she snapped, taking her anger with herself out on him, ‘but I am not the kind of woman who jumps into bed with a man five minutes after meeting him.’
‘You could have fooled me,’ Diego drawled, the
