His eyes smoldered into mine as his fingers clutched my hips. "I am a man, just a man, but a man who has limits to what sort of torture he can stand, and if you wiggle just one more time, I'm going to die and then you'll have to explain to the police why you have a dead Englishman in your room."
I resisted the urge to move again. He really did look like he was at the end of his rope. I decided to leave the subject of who had visited me earlier and tackle something else he'd said. "What exactly did you mean when you asked what I knew about you? Did you mean to imply that I was blackmailing you about something? Do you have some deep, dark secret that you're not telling me?"
He grunted in pain as I leaned forward, the better to see into his shuttered eyes. "Forget I mentioned it. I was simply being overly cautious. It's of no matter."
I touched the frown wrinkling between his brows. "Are you in some sort of trouble?"
He caught my hand and looked at it for a moment before kissing the tips of my fingers, his tongue flicking against my suddenly sensitized skin.
"Joy, I want to make love to you, but I don't think now is the right time. You're obviously distressed about something that happened earlier, and… well, much as I would like to take you up on your offer, I don't think tonight is the best time for either of us. I think it would be better if I left."
I touched my fingers to his lips for a moment, disappointment warring with the knowledge that he was being wise when I was not. "You don't want me?"
He put my hand on his groin. The evidence there was indisputable.
"You do want me?"
"So much that I'm willing to wait until a time when I can show you that with us, lovemaking will be more profound than just sex, yes."
"We'll be profound together?" Gee, I was just brimming with questions.
He twined a strand of my hair around his finger. "Oh, yes, baby. We'll be very profound together."
I nodded and thought about what he said for a moment, then got off his lap. "Are you sure it wasn't you earlier?"
"Quite sure," he said, standing up, grimacing as he adjusted his pants.
I tried to piece the puzzle together—to see how the early Raphael and the present Raphael fit together—but they didn't mesh. I blinked a couple of times in an attempt to clear my mind. "Well, if it wasn't you who came calling, then who was it?"
That, as it turned out, was indeed the question.
Chapter Nine
"So who did go into your room earlier in the evening if it wasn't Raphael?" Roxy asked several hours later as we sat together in the pale sunlight of a late October morning.
"I don't know for sure."
"But you have an idea?"
"Possibly." I wanted to avoid my idea, actually. It was fairly unsavory.
"Well, we'll come back to that in a minute," Roxy said as she waved a roll slathered with butter and jam at me. I damned her metabolism for a moment before turning to my naked toast and fruit. "First I want to hear what happened to you."
I frowned. "What do you mean, what happened to me?"
"You know!" She scooped up another large spoon of preserves and coated her roll with it.
"You'll get diabetes doing that," I predicted sourly, nodding to the roll. She just grinned and licked her fingers. "Assume I don't know what it is you're talking about and fill me in with words of one syllable or less."
"I'm talking about what happened last night after Raphael told you he couldn't peel you off his lap. Did you… you know … or did you talk, or did you get up and cordially wish him a good night and spend the rest of the night touching yourself pretending it was him doing the touching?"
"Roxanne!" I choked, coughing and sputtering on my toast until I had tears in my eyes. I wheezed and snorted as I sipped a little coffee, trying to end the paroxysms.
"I didn't say you got your jollies off, I just asked if you did!"
I hadn't, but the thought had crossed my mind. "No, I did not—not, I might add, that it's any of your business. Nor is it any of your business what I might or might not have done with Raphael. You may rest assured I will tell you anything of importance."
"I can tell you didn't get any last night," she said sanctimoniously, licking the jam from the butter knife. "You're always surly in the morning when you're in a frustrated way."
I gave that statement all the attention it deserved—none.
"So if it wasn't Raphael about to do the blood thing with you earlier in the evening, who are your prime suspects?"
I poured myself another cup of coffee and leaned back in my chair, enjoying the warmth of the sunlight. This late in the morning, we were the only people in the tiny dining room.