His Suitable Bride: Rafael's Suitable Bride / The Spaniard's Marriage Bargain / Cordero's Forced Bride. Kate Walker
that wasn’t there? What would be the point?
Never in her wildest imagination had she ever thought that he might really find her sexy, but it seemed that he did—and the realisation was as powerful as a drug, firing her blood, making her giddy with excitement.
Her hands were trembling as she inserted the key into her door and let them both in to her apartment.
This time she didn’t, as she might normally have, turn to him with a polite, friendly smile, thank him for the lovely meal and wait for him to leave as she stood sentinel by her front door. This time, she just half turned and asked him whether he might care for a cup of coffee.
She shrugged off her coat, hung it over the banister and without giving him time to frame an answer headed up the narrow stairs, her heart beating so loudly that she swore that, had there been complete silence, she would have heard it over the patter of the rain outside.
As it was, she could hear him following up the stairs, and when he was standing framed in the doorway of the small kitchen she was already fetching two mugs down from the cupboard.
He had disposed of his trench coat and of the beige cashmere jumper and had rolled the sleeves of his shirt to the elbows.
‘I know.’ She thought her voice sounded jumpy and she cleared her throat. ‘It’s really warm in the flat. I can’t bear to be cold inside, so the heating’s always turned up.’ She gave a nervous little giggle. ‘I can’t imagine what I’m doing for the global warming situation. You know, you see these adverts on telly: carbon footprints … should wash clothes at thirty degrees instead of forty …’ She was talking too much. She blushed and stared down in a fixated fashion at the coffee which she was now spooning into the mugs.
In the silence, her eyes skittered across to him. He hadn’t moved from his position by the door, although he was now leaning against the door frame and smiling at her.
‘Would you believe me if I told you that I’d never met anyone like you before?’ he asked lazily.
‘Would you say that that’s a compliment?’
‘Isn’t it always a compliment to be told that you’re unique?’ he said, and for a few seconds Cristina thought that he hadn’t exactly answered her question, at least not in a very satisfactory way. But her thoughts scattered at his expressive, glinting smile. It transfixed her and brought all coherent thought skidding to an abrupt stop.
Rafael walked towards her and rescued the kettle from her shaking hands, then he poured boiling water into the mugs.
‘There you go again,’ he murmured softly. ‘Acting like a cat on a hot tin roof. Are you nervous because I flirted with you over dinner?’
Cristina, lost in the depths of those fabulous blue eyes, shook her head dumbly. It was impossible to think straight when she was looking at him, when he was looking at her, like that. It was as if time had stood still, and in that moment everything seemed heightened: every sense, every noise, the faintest flutter of her heart.
Her hand reached up and she soundlessly stroked the side of his face, tracing the harsh, beautiful contour of his cheekbone. And then, standing on tiptoe, her eyes closing as she neared him, she softly covered his mouth with hers.
CHAPTER FIVE
RAFAEL didn’t know whether it was the hesitancy of the gesture or the implication behind it, but the result was explosive. One minute he was coolly playing with the notion that this woman, unexpectedly, might very well be the one who made sense when it came to settling down … and the next minute his body was reacting to a simple touch as if she were the first woman to have laid hands on him.
He didn’t stop to question his reaction.
Coffee was forgotten as he returned that tentative kiss with one of his own. He curled his fingers into her hair, tilting her head back so that he could plunder her sweet, eager mouth with his tongue, until her body curved against his. He could almost feel her heartbeat, and when eventually they surfaced for oxygen he held her back, breathing thickly,
‘Are you sure you want this?’ he questioned unevenly. Never before had he asked a woman whether she wanted to sleep with him. In that game called love—or rather, as far as he was concerned, lust—the rules were perfectly understood. It had always been a ritual, a courtship routine, the only difference being that the routine had never led to permanence.
How ironic that he should now give this woman the chance to back out when she was the chosen one.
He would also not be making the inevitable speech about not getting involved, about enjoyment without strings. He was filled with a strange sense of liberation. Also, the realisation that his mother had been right, that he had reached an age to settle down—and he counted himself fortunate that he was mature enough to view the situation in a cool-headed manner, to work out the most appropriate partner, thereby eliminating the possibility of failure. It was comforting to know that he could rationalise a relationship in the same way that he could rationalise a spreadsheet.
He wished that he had had that knowledge at his disposal all those years ago when he had leapt into marriage because of that non-existent, illusory and ludicrously overrated misconception called love. He wished that someone had told him then what he knew now, which was that there was no such thing as love. There was common sense, and that, above all else, was the lubrication that kept the wheels of a relationship turning.
Cristina looked at him with absolute conviction and nodded. She couldn’t help but be impressed by the fact that he hadn’t just taken what had been on offer, but had given her the opportunity to change her mind had she so wanted. How many men would have done that?
She half closed her eyes and this time, when his mouth touched hers, it was with devastating tenderness. She wrapped her arms around his neck and moaned very softly as he trailed kisses over her fluttering eyelids and damp cheeks before recapturing her mouth.
‘I think we should continue this in the bedroom, don’t you?’ he asked softly and Cristina sighed in wordless agreement.
Once there, she stared at him in open fascination as he began removing his clothes, and when he looked at her with wry amusement she blushed, but didn’t look away, and nor did he seem in the slightest bit bothered by her absorption.
Only when he was down to his boxer shorts did her nerves begin to kick in and she was overcome with sudden, horrendous shyness.
‘Don’t worry,’ Rafael murmured, oddly touched by the nervous, wary expression on her face. He walked slowly towards her, not wanting to frighten her. He was massively and unashamedly turned on, could feel his erection pushing up against the boxers, but he was going to take his time.
‘I’m not worried.’ Cristina chewed her lip, dragging her eyes away from that bulge, which was both a heady turn-on and a source of fear. ‘Okay, I am. Just a bit. I’m not … I don’t know …’
‘I’ll take care of you,’ Rafael said gently.
Cristina nodded gratefully, and continued staring at him, at his powerful, masculine beauty—the broad, brown shoulders, the narrow, tapering waist, the latent strength in his body that was visible every time he moved. There was something so graceful about him even though he was so impressively built. He was so much more experienced than she was, had had so many lovers. That was a little scary, as was the knowledge that all those lovers would have been as physically perfect as he himself was.
Cristina determined to put that out of her mind and focus instead on the extraordinary and exhilarating fact that he found her attractive.
‘I’ve never actually undressed in front of a man before,’ she confessed.
‘And it turns me on to think that I’m the first,’ Rafael told her truthfully. He would have liked to place her hand firmly on his erection, have her feel him, but he knew that he would have to wait for that, and he was happy to do that. He began undressing her and, as eventually skin touched skin, he was aware