His Ultimate Prize(9)

'A two-line frown. I don't know whether to be pleased or disappointed.'

She looked up to find Rafael standing a few feet away, two drinks in his  hand and his walking stick dangling from his arm. He held one out to  her and she accepted and thanked him for the cold lime based cocktail  she'd grown to love since coming to Leon.

'I was thinking about how it would be to return to the X1 circuit.'

'Shouldn't that warrant a three-line frown since I feature in there somewhere?'

'Wow, are you really that self-centred? A psychologist would have a field day with you, you know that?'

With a very confident, very careless shrug, he sank into the seat next  to her. 'They'd have to fight off hordes of adoring fans first. Not to  mention you.'

'Me? Why would I mind?'

'You're very possessive about me. If you had your way, I'd stay right  here, doing your every bidding and following you around like a besotted  puppy.'

Eternally thankful she'd swallowed her first sip, Raven stared  open-mouthed. Several seconds passed before she could close her mouth.  'I'm stunned speechless.'

'Enough for me to sneak a kiss on you?'

Blood rushed to her head and much lower, between her legs, a throbbing  started that should've shamed her. Instead, she exhaled and decided to  give herself a break. A girl could only withstand so many shocks in one  day.

'Earth to Raven. I don't know how to interpret a wish for a kiss when you go into a trance at the thought of one.'

'I...what?'

'I said kiss me.'

'No. I don't think that's a good idea.'

'It's a great idea. Look at me; I can barely walk. You'd be taking  advantage of me.' His smile held a harsh edge that made the Rafael de  Cervantes charm even more lethal.

'Whatever. It's not going to happen. Now, is there anything else I can help you with?'

His sigh was heavy and exaggerated. 'Bianca is almost ready to serve  dinner. I figure we have twenty minutes to burn. Shall we be very  English and talk about the weather before then?'

'The weather is fantastic. Now, let's talk about your return to X1. I don't wish to get personal...'

His low laugh made heat rush into her face.

'What I mean is...you'll have to be careful when it comes to being...um...'

'Just spit it out, Raven.'

'Fine. Sex. You can't have sex.'

He clutched his chest, then tapped carefully on his sculpted muscle.  'Dios, I think my heart just stopped. You can't say things like that.'

'I mean it. The last thing you need to be doing is chasing after paddock  bunnies. You could reverse any progress we've made in the last few  weeks. Your pelvis needs time to heal properly. You do want to get  better, don't you?'

'Yes, but at what cost? My libido could just shrivel away and die,' he  returned without the barest hint of shame while she...she'd grown so hot  she had to take a hasty sip of her drink.

'It won't.' She set her glass down on the table. 'Not unless you put too  much stress on your body by taking on too much. Look, I'm not asking  for much. I'm saying keep your...keep it in your pants for just a little  bit longer, until you're more fully recovered.'

He opened his mouth but she raised her hand before he could speak. 'And  please don't say you need sex to recover. Despite what you want everyone  to think, you're not a sex addict. In fact you were one of the most  disciplined men I knew when it came to dedication to racing. All I'm  saying is apply that same discipline to your...needs, at least for the  time being.'

Sensual masculine lips tilted at the corners. 'I think there was a  compliment in there somewhere. Fine, I'll take your lecture under  advisement.'

'You need to do more than that, Rafael. Your injuries are too serious to take recovery lightly.'

He shoved a hand through his hair. 'Dios, did I call you a buzzkill earlier?'

'I believe you did.'

'Congratulations, you've just been upgraded to manhood-killer. Ah, here  comes Bianca. Let's hope she's got something to revive me after that  complete emasculation.'

'Yeah, my heart bleeds.'

* * *

Rafael tried to follow what the financial newsreader was saying on the large high definition screen on his plane. He failed.

Opposite him, ensconced in the club chair, Raven twirled a pen between  her lips as she read and made notes on a piece of paper. On any other  woman he'd have ridiculed such a blatant sexual ploy. But he knew the  woman opposite him was unaware of what she was doing. And its totally  groin-hardening effect on him.

Giving up on finding out how the Dow-Jones was doing, he turned off the TV and settled back in his seat.

She raised her head and looked at him with those stunning hazel eyes. 'What?'

'How did you get into physiotherapy?'

She regarded him for several seconds before she depressed the top of her pen. 'The random kindness of strangers.'

He raised an eyebrow.

She shrugged. 'A chance meeting with an ex-PE teacher in my local park when I was seventeen changed my life.'

'Was he hot?'

She rolled her eyes. 'She realised I loved to exercise but I had no  interest in being an athlete. We met and talked a few times. About a  month later she took me to the local sports centre where professional  athletes trained and introduced me to their head coach. By the end of  the day I knew what I wanted to be.'

'And she did this all out of the goodness of her heart?'

'She realised I had...anger issues and worked to give me focus. She didn't have to, so yes, I guess she did.'

He held back the need to enlighten her that nothing in life came free;  that every deed held a steep price. 'What were you angry about?' he  asked instead.

'Life. My lot. What do most teenagers get angry about at that age?'

'I don't know. I was on the brink of realising my dream and getting  ready to step into my very first X1 racing car when I seventeen. I was  pretty happy with life at that age.' Blissfully ignorant of the  consequences fate had in store for him.

'Of course you were. Well, some of us weren't that lucky.'

'Not all luck is good. Some comes from the devil himself, bonita. So, you achieved your light bulb moment, then what?'

Her gaze slid from his. He forced himself to remain quiet.

'Although my teacher helped direct my vision, I couldn't really do  anything about it. Not at seventeen. I spent most of that year counting  the days until my eighteenth birthday.'

'Why?'

He saw her reticence. Wondered why he was probing when he never intended to get as personal himself.

After a minute, she answered. 'Because turning eighteen meant I could  make my own decisions, get myself away from...situations I didn't like.'

Rafael knew she wouldn't elaborate more than that. He respected that but  it didn't stop him from speculating. And the directions his thoughts  led him made his fist tighten on his armchair.

Raven's attitude towards sex and to him in particular had always puzzled  him, not because of the women who had fallen over their feet to get to  him since he'd shot up and grown broader shoulders at sixteen.

No, what had always intrigued him was the naked attraction he saw in her  eyes, coupled with the fortress she put in place to ensure that  attraction never got acted upon.

It didn't take a genius to know something had happened to make her that  way. Her little morsel of information pointed to something in her  childhood. He tensed, suddenly deciding to hell with respecting her  boundaries.

'What happened to you? Were you abused?' he rasped, his fingernails digging into the armrest.

She froze. Darkened eyes shot to his before she glanced out of the  porthole. When she returned her gaze to his, the haunted look had  receded but not altogether disappeared. 'Have you ever heard of the  term-the gift of the gab?'

He nodded.

'Well, my father could make the world's most famous orators look like  amateurs. His silver tongue could charm an atom into splitting, so the  term abuse never could stick, especially if the social worker who dealt  with any allegation happened to be a woman. So technically, no, I wasn't  abused.'

His teeth gritted so hard his jaw ached. Inhaling deeply, he forced himself to relax. 'What the hell did he do to you?'

She blinked, looked around as if realising where they were, or rather  who she was with. Her features closed into neutral and she snapped the  pen back out. Lowering her gaze, she snatched up her papers from her lap  and tapped them into a neat sheaf. 'It doesn't matter. I'm no longer in  that situation.'

Rafael almost laughed. Almost told her being out of the situation didn't  mean she was out of its control. The past had tentacles that stretched  to infinity. He was in the prime place to know.                       
       
           



       

His father...his mother. Not a day went by that the memories didn't burn  behind his retinas-a permanent reminder only death would wipe away.  They plagued him in his wakeful hours and followed him into his  nightmares. He could never get away from what he'd done to them. No  matter how far he went, how much he drank or how many women he let use  his body.

'I've revised the regime.' Raven interrupted his thoughts, her tone  crisp, businesslike. Her lightly glossed lips were set in a firm line  and her whole demeanour shrieked step back in a way that made him want  to reach across and ruffle her.