His Suitable Bride(57)

‘You managed all right,’ Cristina was horrified to hear herself tell him, and she immediately papered over the gaffe by adding brightly, ‘I guess that was because you had your girlfriend there.’ The girlfriend he hadn’t slept with! Was that because he’d thought, secretly, that she was sexier than the pneumatic blonde? Hadn’t he just said that in a tight dress she was a temptation ‘no man in his right mind could resist’? Her wayward mind happily travelled down this road for a while and then screeched to an abrupt halt when she considered that perhaps it was a question of respect. Perhaps Rafael wasn’t leaping into bed with her because he was giving the relationship time to grow and develop and, for Rafael, that would be a really big thing.

‘I know you haven’t slept with her, but I guess you’ve just decided to take things slowly?’

Rafael was supremely uninterested in any conversation to do with Cindy. What he really wanted to do was pick up on that stray remark, hurriedly retracted. No. What he really wanted to do was rip off that dress and lose himself in that fabulous hourglass body of hers.

‘How do you know?’ he asked thickly, taking a step towards her while she stumbled back a step, so that for a few seconds they were doing a little dance of advance and retreat.

‘Know what?’ Cristina squeaked. Her body felt suddenly hot and prickly, and she could feel her nipples tightening, her legs going wobbly. It was almost impossible not to relive that scorching passion that could sweep her away into a universe of her own, impossible for her lips not to feel suddenly dry and her lungs suddenly deprived of air.

‘What are you doing?’ Cristina asked, feverishly aware of the way her wayward body was behaving and of the few inches separating them.

Rafael didn’t answer. Instead he drew one lean finger along her collarbone and felt her shudder. ‘What makes you think that I wasn’t one of those guys watching you?’ he murmured, his blue, deep-set eyes gleaming in perfect acknowledgment of her response. She might have put on the dress for Goodman, but right now he was the only man on her mind. He could read it from her huge eyes staring at him with mesmerised fascination, from the dilated pupils, and from the way she was moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue.

Cristina made a strangulated little sound. Having backed up all of five inches, she now found herself pressed against the counter and thereby at his mercy as he placed his big hands squarely on either side of her, blocking all hope of an exit. Not that she actually wanted an exit, a small, wicked voice was whispering in her head. It was horrible and it was humiliating but she was liking this, liking his body so close to hers that she could just reach out and touch him, spread her fingers across his hard, muscled chest.

She closed her eyes and reached up to him, blindly seeking out his mouth while her breasts squashed against his chest. The clingy turquoise dress unzipped at the back. All he had to do was pull it down, all ten inches of it, and her body would be free; she would be able to feel his hand on her bare skin. She would think about the consequences later. Right now every nerve in her body was straining to feel him against her. In her head she had a never-ending train of images that just seemed to go round and round as if on a continual loop. Images of his lips on hers, his dark head at her breasts as he suckled on her nipples, his fingers exploring her body, every yearning, craving inch of it.

She reached behind her with one hand and yanked down the zipper. She was barely conscious of doing it, but it felt good as she wriggled the dress down so that she was now bare from the waist up. No bra. The back was low-cut and, as luck had had it, she didn’t possess the right bra for the style and so had decided to do without one. Thanks to Rafael, she was far less self-conscious of her breasts than she used to be.

Rafael had dreamed of this body, a dark dream which he had done his utmost to shove to the back of his mind and to bury under all the reasons why their relationship had split apart at the seams. But it had been there all along, barely contained in the mental box into which it had been shoved.

This hit him like a sudden blow beneath the belt as his hand came into contact with her flesh. He cupped one of her breasts, rubbed his finger abrasively over the nipple and felt it stiffen under his touch.

Then, like a freight train which you heard approaching in the distance but didn’t actually impact until it had rammed right into you, it struck him that she wasn’t wearing a bra. She had climbed into this dress with Goodman in mind, not him.

In a matter of a few seconds, his mood plummeted into the depths of fury. He couldn’t remember why he had come here in the first place. Yes, he had put Goodman off, but had he really thought that the manoeuvre had been anything but a temporary delay? He wondered whether she had responded to him just because she had been feeling horny. Her date had stood her up and he was there.