a million years have guessed that his assailant would turn out to be a woman probably two-thirds his size. Or that she’d have the long dark wavy hair that was fanning out over his hand and the floor and the big blue-grey eyes that were widening with shock and alarm and horror. And he’d never have imagined that she’d be half naked.
Yet unless the thwack to his head was making him hallucinate, it appeared that, what with the long limbs entangled with his and the feel of her silky hair and soft skin beneath his hands, that was exactly the case.
Cross with himself for even noticing what she looked like and what she was—or wasn’t—wearing when it couldn’t have been less relevant, Rafael scowled, and since that made the pounding in his head worse he let out a rough curse. He felt as if someone were drilling a hole through his skull while repeatedly punching him in the stomach.
He hurt. Everywhere.
As must she, given that he was lying on top of her and probably crushing the life out of her, he thought, hearing her muffled groan.
She released his shoulders, let her knee drop and clapped one hand over her eyes, and he eased his arms away from underneath her, rolled off and lay back flat out on the floor. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply in an effort to stifle the pain and try and make some kind of sense of the last couple of minutes, but it didn’t work because none of this made any sense at all.
‘Oh, my God,’ said his assailant, her voice sounding hoarse with appal and breathlessness, and very English. ‘I’m so so sorry. I had no idea... Are you OK?’
OK? Rafael wasn’t sure he’d ever be OK again. If anything, the pain in his head was getting worse. What on earth had she lamped him with? Surely not just a fist. If that was all it had taken he was in a worse state than he’d imagined.
‘Rafael?’ This time her voice was lower, softer, more concerned. Sexier, he thought, and got a bit sidetracked by the image of the two of them lying not on a cold hard stone floor but a soft warm bed, wearing considerably less clothing, with that voice whispering hot filthy things in his ear.
And then she gave him a decidedly unsexy little slap on the cheek.
Rafael flinched as the erotic vision vanished, and refocused. God, she’d just attacked him and he was fantasising about her? What was his problem?
And what was her problem? Wasn’t practically knocking him out enough? Had she really had to slap him too? What did she have lined up next? A methodical and thorough assault of his entire body?
Vaguely wondering what he’d ever done to womankind to deserve this torment on top of everything else he’d had to endure lately, he gingerly opened his eyes.
And saw stars all over again because she was on her knees, leaning over him, and he was getting an eyeful of creamy cleavage. So close he could make out a spatter of faint freckles on the skin of her upper chest. So close he could smell the delicate floral notes of her scent. So tantalisingly close all he’d have to do was lift his head a handful of centimetres and he’d be able to nuzzle her neck.
At the thought of that, his mouth watered, a wave of heat struck him square in the stomach and for the first time since she’d hit him he forgot about the pain throbbing away in his temple. The image of the two of them in that bed slammed back into his head, more vivid than before now that he had more detail to add, and he blinked at the intensity of it.
‘Thank God,’ she murmured, letting out a shaky breath, which made her chest jiggle and his pulse spike. ‘Are you all right?’
How he managed it he had no idea but Rafael made himself drag his gaze up and look into her eyes. Eyes that were filled with worry, set in a face that was pale and, he thought, letting his gaze roam over it, perhaps a bit thinner than it ought to be.
There was nothing thin about her mouth, however, he decided, staring at it and going momentarily dizzy as a fresh burst of heat shot through him. Her mouth was wide and generous and very very appealing, especially what with the way she’d caught the edge of her lower lip between her teeth and was nibbling at it.
‘Ow,’ he muttered, forcing himself to remember the faint sting of the slap because the alternative was yanking her down and giving in to the temptation to nibble on that lip himself, which was so insanely inappropriate given the circumstances that he wondered if the blow to his head might not have done him a serious injury.
‘I’m sorry—again—but I thought you’d passed out.’
‘I’m fine,’ he said, although actually nothing could be further from the truth, because now he was imagining that mouth moving over his, then pulling away and sliding over his skin, hot and wet and sizzling, and the throbbing in his head was breaking loose and rushing down his body with such speed and force that he had the horrible feeling that when it got to his groin he might do exactly as she’d feared and pass out.
He lifted his hand to his temple and touched it, as much to see if she’d drawn blood as to find out whether deliberately and brutally provoking pain might dampen the maddening heat.
‘Do you think you might be concussed? Should I get help?’
‘No, and no,’ he said irritably because while on the upside she hadn’t on the downside it didn’t.
‘Let me take a look.’
Before he could stop her she’d leaned down and reached across him and was now sifting her fingers through his hair. Her breasts brushed against his chest, then hovered perilously close to his mouth, and the heat churning through him exploded into an electrifying bolt of lust.
God, what the hell was this? he wondered, bewilderment ricocheting around his brain. Since when had he reacted so violently to a woman he’d barely met? And since when had he had to fight so hard to keep a grip on his supposedly rock-solid self-control?
‘Leave it,’ he snapped and wrapped his hand round her wrist to stop her going any further.
To his relief she went still, then frowned and, as he let her go, mercifully straightened and sat back. ‘Well, if you’re sure.’
Rafael hitched in a breath, briefly closed his eyes and ordered himself to get a grip before he embarrassed himself. ‘I’m sure.’
With what felt like superhuman effort he levered himself upright and set about engaging the self-control he’d never had such trouble with before. He drew his feet up to hide the very visible evidence of the effect she’d had on him, rested his elbows on his knees, and began to rub the kinks out of his neck with both hands. He let out a deep sigh. So much for peace, tranquillity and nice quiet solitude.
‘I really am sorry, you know,’ she said, her voice sounding rather small.
‘So you said.’
‘I thought you were a burglar.’
‘If I was, I wouldn’t be a very good one,’ he muttered, remembering the way he’d slammed the front door and thundered up the stairs in his haste to crash out and wipe the last week from his brain. ‘I wasn’t exactly subtle.’
‘Well, no,’ she admitted, ‘but at the time a cool, logical analysis of the situation wasn’t uppermost in my mind. I acted on instinct.’
And how he’d suffered for it. Her instincts were so dangerous they should come
