Under the Spaniard's Lock and Key (9 page)

M
AGGIE
put down her coffee cup and stared at Rafael. She waited for the maid who had fetched fresh coffee to leave before she replied to his invitation.

‘You’re suggesting I spend the rest of my holiday here, with you.’

Rafael refilled his own cup. ‘It seems logical.’

His idea of logic and hers were very different. ‘Not logical—mad.’

‘How so?’

She looked at him in astonishment. ‘It’s totally crazy.’

‘That is not an argument and, anyway,’ he said, considering her freshly scrubbed image with a smile, ‘I think you need some crazy in your life.’

She shook her head. ‘Last night was enough crazy to last me a lifetime.’

‘I seriously doubt that.’ He planted his elbows on the table and leaned towards her, a knowing look on his face. ‘You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?’

She responded to the goad with a frown and firm denial that she almost immediately cancelled by saying, ‘I couldn’t?’

‘But you want to.’

‘I have plans.’

Rafael, who knew about her plans, said, ‘Dump your plans.’

She tried to look amused when she asked, ‘Do women always dump their plans for you?’ Because of course she knew they did and she knew why.

Last night had been the most mind-blowing experience of Maggie’s life, and she would cherish it forever. Walking away this morning was hard—in a week’s time just how much harder would it be?

The thought frightened her and made her hesitate.

‘You will not regret it, I promise.’ While she was here with him Angelina was safe.

You’re such a saint.

Rafael ignored the sardonic voice in his head and added, ‘Did I not fulfil my promises last night?’

Maggie closed her eyes, hearing his smoky voice in her head promising her a glimpse of paradise and more. And he had made good on the promises more than once.

‘I’ve got nothing here, no clothes…no…’

He glanced at the watch on his wrist. ‘I am having your luggage brought from the hotel. It should be here shortly.’

Maggie laughed. ‘You were that sure I’d stay?’

‘I was that sure that I want you to stay. I will make this a holiday to remember.’

‘It’s already that.’ It would be strange going back to her normal life after this.

‘So why do you look sad?’ He had never experienced a desire to make a woman smile before, but he did now.

She shook her head. ‘I’m not sad…mad possibly,’ she conceded, ‘but not sad, just…’ She screwed up her nose and gazed around the room. ‘This is not my life.’

‘What is your life?’ Rafael heard himself ask and frowned. This situation had been a lot simpler when he had thought of
her as a problem to be solved. When, he wondered, had she become a person?

A beautiful and desirable person, and her smile made him happy.

The question seemed serious. She stared at him and then to lessen the intensity of the moment she summoned a smile. ‘If you have a spare five minutes I might actually take you up on that invitation. But seriously…’

He cut across her. ‘I was being serious.’

Her eyes fell from his. His intensity was unsettling; actually, he was unsettling.

She gave a strained little laugh. ‘I’m sure you’re not really interested…’

‘I asked, didn’t I?’

‘I work in a city casualty unit. I’m a nurse.’

‘A nurse?’

She tilted her head to one side and studied his face. ‘You sound surprised.’

‘I am,’ he admitted, though now he thought about it he could see her in the role. ‘The last time I was in a casualty department in England my nurse was a rugby player called Tomas. I’m feeling cheated.’

The glow in his eyes made her dizzy and excited.

‘So its not just last night—you spend your time saving lives.’

Maggie gave an embarrassed shrug. ‘It’s not normally so dramatic and there is no danger involved, except of course when a drunk decides to take a swing.’

Rafael tensed. ‘At you?’

Maggie who couldn’t stop staring at the muscles clenching and unclenching beside his mouth, nodded. ‘It has been known,’ she admitted, blinking as he loosed a stream of fluid, angry-sounding Spanish. ‘Don’t worry,’ she added, patting the
clenched hand that lay nearest her and saying cheerily, ‘I can take care of myself and I have very quick reflexes.’

‘What sort of world are we living in when a nurse takes being assaulted for granted?
Madre di Dio,
your family allow this?’ he grated incredulously.

‘It’s not really a question of allowing, is it? I’m over eighteen…I’m over twenty-one, and I’ve never been assaulted. It happens, but not to me.’

‘But it could. Well, I,’ he announced autocratically, ‘would not permit it.’

‘Well, I’m glad I’m not your sister.’

‘So am I, but I have no sister.’

‘Your father and mother?’ she asked, wondering about this man whom she was alone with and realising he had told her nothing about himself. She had slept with a stranger and she had agreed to stay with him.

His shoulders lifted in a shrug. ‘Both dead.’

The pragmatic statement did not invite sympathy but Maggie’s tender heart ached. ‘I can’t imagine what that would be like.’ A shadow crossed her face as she imagined a life that did not contain her family.

‘So you have a family…?’ Having pushed the Angelina question to the back of his mind, he did not enjoy the topic being front and centre where he could not ignore it.

She reached into her bag and pulled a family snapshot she always carried from her wallet. She held out her hand and offered it to him.

Maggie frowned as she watched an expression of astonishment wash over his dark face. He was looking at the snapshot as if it were an alien.

‘Is something wrong? You don’t have to—’ She began to withdraw her hand but he caught her wrist.

‘No, nothing’s wrong,’ he promised, taking the photo, not
because he actually felt any interest but because he knew it would have injured her feelings if he had refused.

Feelings
were entirely new territory for him and he saw no urgent need to explore this development.

‘I’m more used to being offered bills for designer shoes.’

Her brow furrowed in confusion at the comment. ‘Why? Do you have a business interest?’

He regarded her in much the same way she imagined he might had she just announced that she believed in Santa Claus.

‘No, I have girlfriends with expensive tastes who like me to pick up the tab.’ He did not begrudge the expense, he considered himself a generous lover.

The plural was not wasted on Maggie.

Good God, where is your pride, Maggie?

I’m sleeping with a man who, not only does not promise something as basic as exclusivity, he probably doesn’t understand the meaning of the word.

‘If you ever pay for my shoes I will feed them to you.’

He stared. ‘You don’t like shoes?’

‘You may not mind women who sleep with you for your money, but I mind being mistaken for one.’ She pinned him with a wrathful glare and yelled, ‘I’m sleeping with you for the sex! On a temporary basis, obviously.’

‘Obviously, and I promise not to offend you with shoes, though I would like to point out that I like to think it is not just my money they sleep with me for.’

Maggie’s eyes narrowed. She knew they didn’t and she hated them all with a vengeance. ‘You really do love yourself!’

His lashes lifted from his cheek and he levelled a direct look into her eyes. ‘Love is not something I encourage.’

Maggie blinked. The warning was unmistakeable. Then before she could respond to it he began to study the snapshot, saying, ‘Those are your brothers?’ The young men in the
slightly out of focus snapshot were both blond and broad-shouldered and duplicates of their father. All three men towered over their sister, and the woman in the wheelchair.

She nodded, wishing she had remembered sooner that this was not the most flattering photo she had ever appeared in. ‘I still had my braces then.’

‘Which accounts for the lack of a smile? The woman in the wheelchair…your mother?’

‘Yes.’ Maggie did not want to go into details, but added, ‘But she’s not in the wheelchair any more—at least, not all the time.’

‘Your brothers are not much like you.’

Maggie grinned. Talking about her family made this abnormal situation seem less surreal. ‘You mean because they’re six feet four or because they’re blond?’ she suggested, raising a hand to her dark hair and grimacing as she realised it had come free of the ponytail and now hung loose in a tangled skein down her back.

‘Your colouring is very…Mediterranean?’ His glance moved across the glowing contours of her face. Her skin was flawless and had a peachy sheen that was almost opalescent. The idea of carrying her back to bed became more urgent than eating breakfast.

Maggie’s eyes fell evasively, her long lashes brushing the soft curve of her smooth high cheekbones, but not before Rafael had seen the emotion flicker across her face.

‘Actually, I wouldn’t look like Ben and Sam. I’m adopted.’

‘That must have been a shock…discovering you’re adopted.’ Rafael suggested, watching her push the gleaming strands of hair back from her heart-shaped face with both hands, looping it into a heavy bunch before letting it fall down her back.

She shook her head. ‘Not really. I didn’t
discover
—I
always knew I was adopted. Mum and Dad always made me feel special because they picked me.’

‘But your brothers, they are…?’

‘Big surprises, with an emphasis on the big,’ she added with an affectionate grin. She felt some of the tension slip from her shoulders as a mental picture of her younger siblings formed in her head. ‘Mum and Dad thought they couldn’t have children so they were pretty shocked when Ben came along and then, a year later, Sam.’

‘So your real mother?’ he probed, wary of pushing too hard.

Her smile vanished. ‘Let’s talk about something else,’ she suggested.

Rafael gave a casual shrug and didn’t push.

‘I really envy you being bilingual…Spanish is such a marvellous language and you have an incredible home. I have never met anyone who lived in a castle before.’ She stopped, drew breath, and prayed for the floor to open and swallow her.

She had just taken inane babble to an entirely new level. On the plus side, at least she had run out of breath before she asked him about his heating bills!

No, actually there was no plus side.

‘We don’t have to talk at all.’

The invitation in his smoky, sinfully sexy voice would have been obvious no matter what language he chose to use. Maggie’s breath snagged in her throat. Her eyes fused with his and Maggie’s insides melted.

She reached for the coffee pot and refilled her cup. ‘This is great coffee,’ she enthused.

‘Or we could…?’ Rafael conceded drily.

Maggie, who couldn’t stop staring at his long tapering fingers—she had never looked at a man’s hands and thought about them on her skin, but now she had she couldn’t stop—blurted with incurable honesty, ‘I feel very out of my depth.’
She levelled her candid gaze at his face and wondered how she had ever been mad enough to think a one-night stand with him was a good idea.

‘Once you learn to tread water, depth is not a problem.’

‘I can’t swim.’

‘But you are a very fast learner.’

She blushed and looked at him through her lashes. ‘You’re a passable teacher, but you’re also the sort of man I’d normally cross the road to avoid. You’re not my type at all. It’s crazy, but from the moment I saw you I…’

‘You what?’

Maggie shivered. He had a voice that was the auditory equivalent of having your skin stroked against the deep pile of rich velvet.

‘The moment I saw you I wondered…I wondered what sort of kisser you were.’ And you had to tell him that why, exactly?

Rafael didn’t move, didn’t blink, but she heard the breath leave his lungs in one audible hiss.

She carried on looking at him.

It was said and there was no way she could unsay it. Near-death experiences did not make you braver, they clearly made you more stupid!

‘God, pretend I didn’t say that. I’m embarrassing myself…’ she admitted, not looking at him. ‘I’m embarrassing you.’

‘I am not easy to embarrass.’

Her eyes lifted. ‘I know,’ she conceded unable to take her eyes off his dark face. ‘Not that I’m suggesting that’s a bad thing. It wasn’t a criticism,’ she added hastily, thinking not many people looking at his face would find much to criticise.

Her embarrassed little laugh transmuted into a sharp intake of breath as he left the table and came round to join her.

Holding her eyes, he took her hand and drew her up to him. Placing a hand behind her head, he tilted her face up to him.

‘I too wondered when I saw you how you would taste. I wanted to find out right there in the street.’ And what man would not? How could any man with red blood in his veins resist the combination of warm sexuality, wide-eyed innocence and a body made for pleasure? ‘What would you have done if I had?’

‘Screamed, called for help…?’ she suggested, struggling to inject amusement into her voice and failing totally—her breath was coming in short choppy spurts that made it difficult to breath and impossible to raise her voice above a whisper.

‘And now?’ he asked, running his thumb across the cushiony pink surface of her lips.

She closed her eyes because looking at the flame burning deep in his—a trick of the light, probably—made her dizzy, and said, ‘Are you going to kiss me or torture me?’ She held her arms wide in a come and get me gesture and, eyes still tight shut, tilted her head back in invitation.

‘When you put it like that I see it would be an act of charity to put you out of your misery.’ The fever in his blood as he looked down at her made him shake—literally shake with need.

She tensed in anticipation of the plundering pressure of his lips; the light touch on the corner of her mouth took her by surprise.

Maggie’s eyes flickered open. They were still open, welded to the silver gleam in his, as he increased the pressure slightly as his tongue followed the curve of her mouth, leaving a damp trail.