voice dropped to a murmur. ‘I am willing to give you what you want. Are you willing to give me what I want? Because, let us speak frankly, it’s the only thing you’re any good at.’
If his thumb hadn’t found the exact spot on her neck that always sent tingles of need and delight rippling through her, Charley might have reacted to his words a little quicker. As it was, it took a few moments for them to sink in and when they did she wrenched his hand away and pushed at his chest.
‘How dare you reduce me to nothing but a plaything? I’m not a sex toy.’
The ice in his eyes melted into a gleam, as if he’d accepted a challenge. He reclosed the gap between them, trapping her against the table. ‘You never had a problem being my sex toy before.’
Heat streamed through her at the feel of him pressed against her, all the memories she’d spent six hundred and thirty-five days trying to forget pouring into her mind.
She had lusted after him from their first conversation.
He’d been like no one she’d met before. Outrageously handsome, ridiculously wealthy...everything a young woman of twenty could wish for in a man. Prince Charming had come to life and it was her slipper he wanted. Was it any wonder her head had been turned?
And the sex... Never had she imagined such carnal responses existed within her, the same responses that were flashing back to life now, at the time when she needed her head clear to deal with what he was demanding of her.
It had been her own misfortune that she’d mistaken lust for love and married him. What they’d shared should never have been more than a summer fling.
As hard as she’d tried to fit in—and she’d tried so hard—she didn’t belong in his world. She was a badly educated south-east London girl; elocution lessons paid for by her husband had knocked most of her mild cockney accent out of her. She’d come from a broken family where finances were erratic. Raul had grown up with wealth and social standing and had all the arrogance such an upbringing instilled.
They couldn’t have been more wrong for each other if they’d got a computer program to determine their worst matches.
But the computer would have got their desire for each other right.
‘That was when I loved you,’ she said hoarsely. For love had grown from the lust, a greater love than she’d ever imagined could exist. Leaving him had been easy. Staying away had been almost unbearable.
And now that love had twisted into hate. But the desire was still there, however deeply she’d thought she’d buried it. ‘If you ever felt anything for me you wouldn’t ask for such a...a despicable thing from me.’
‘Oh, I still feel a great deal for you.’ He swept his fingers up her neck, pressing even closer.
She smothered the gasp that wanted to break out at the feel of his hardness against her.
Take control, Charley. Don’t show your weakness for him.
‘You can’t force me.’ The words she’d intended to come out forcefully were expelled with a whisper. Every inhalation brought him into her tight lungs, that masculine smell that had become as familiar to her as the scent of her home.
Her body remembered. His scent made it sing with delight.
He laughed softly into her ear and traced his fingers up her side. ‘I don’t need to force you.’
As if proving his point, he cupped her breast over her blouse and ran a thumb over a nipple straining against the suddenly restrictive bra she wore. The heat that had pooled low within her deepened, and she pressed her thighs together in denial.
He could demand all he wanted, but she would never give herself to him willingly, not now he was showing his true colours, the colours her love-blinded eyes had forgiven for far too long.
Mortified at her lack of self-control, she tried to wriggle out from beneath him but he was too strong.
‘See, cariño,’ he said, smothering her hands in his own and resting them on the table by her sides, his grip unyielding. ‘The desire between us is as strong as it ever was, however much you try and deny it. When I ask you to open yourself for me, your head might want to say no but your body will be begging for it.’
That his words were true only served to shame her further, which she knew for certain was his intention. She’d humiliated him by leaving him and this was the price he was forcing her to pay.
The worst of it was, her treacherous body was eager to pay the price.
‘I hate you.’
‘I know.’ He dipped his head and nipped her earlobe. ‘Imagine how incredible it will be, all that hate fuelling all that lust.’
Sensation filled her, every crevice of her coming alive at his touch and the whisper of his breath on her skin.
Two years without this...
Somehow she managed to pull her hands free from his grasp, fully intending to use them as weapons to push him off her. Instead, working of their own accord, they hooked around his neck to pull him in for her hungry lips to connect with his. She had no sane comprehension of what she was doing, instinct taking over to seize what her body so desperately wanted.
In that instant, any sort of rationality dissolved from her mind.
In a mesh of lips and tongues, they came together, devouring each other, her fingers digging into his scalp, one of his hands sweeping up her back and nestling into her hair, clasping her head tightly.
His taste filled her, his warm breath merging with her own sending deeper darts of need into her, every part of her aching for his touch, his kiss, his caress...
The hand not cradling her head so possessively swept up her thigh and under her skirt, his mouth still hot on hers, his tongue swirling in her mouth. His finger found the band of her knickers and slid beneath it to feel the heat and dampness at the heart of her.
When he found her, already swollen and aching for him, she gasped...
And then he pulled away, releasing his hold so quickly her legs would have given way if the table hadn’t been there to support her.
There was the tiniest moment when she caught Raul’s own dazed incomprehension before his composure snapped back into place.
He smoothed his shirt down and nodded at the window. ‘The gardener,’ he said tightly.
A rumbling sound played in the distance and through the glass she caught a glimpse of a figure on a ride-on mower just metres from where they were...
It was enough to bring her to her senses.
What on earth had possessed her?
She tugged her skirt back down before straightening.
A taunting smile now played on his lips. ‘See, cariño? I was right. All that hate fuels lust beautifully.’
She wiped her mouth defiantly, loathing herself for being the one to instigate the kiss as much as she loathed him for the mocking tone of his voice and his unscrupulous mind and the power he held over her.
‘It won’t happen again,’ she promised through ragged breaths.
‘I think you’ve told enough lies this past week, don’t you?’
Raul sat back down and reached for a breadstick, waiting for the thunder beneath his ribcage to abate.
How had things got out of hand so quickly?
He’d been taunting her, teasing her, asserting his control, spelling out to her how much he held the upper hand. He’d enjoyed it but had kept his mind firmly on the seduction in hand.
She’d been the one to kiss him, a fact that, from the look on her face, she regretted hugely.
She’d