She raised sceptical brows. ‘Really?’
‘Dammit, Cairo—’
‘Rafe, I have no intention of getting into yet another argument with you,’ she told him wearily. ‘Just accept that I am not going to Cannes with you tonight—’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘One, I don’t want to go. Two, I didn’t bring anything suitable to wear. Three,’ she added simply, ‘I’m still waiting for Jeff to return one of my calls.’
She had made two so far. One at the restaurant when she had reached his answering service, and hadn’t bothered to leave a message as she had quickly rung off to be with Daisy. And another one at the beach when she had returned from her swim and had left a message asking Jeff to call her back as soon as possible to let her know how Margo was.
She had brought her mobile outside with her now in the hopes he would call back soon.
Rafe scowled. ‘One, I don’t give a damn what you want; I’m not going out and leaving you and Daisy here alone this evening. Two, you can go naked for all I care. And three, that’s what mobile phones are for!’ he all but snarled.
‘There’s no need to shout—and I told you not to touch me again, Rafe!’ Cairo’s eyes flashed a warning as she looked down at the fingers that had reached out to curl like steel bands about her arm.
Rafe breathed unevenly as he looked down at her for several long seconds. ‘You would try the patience of a saint, Cairo!’
‘You should be just fine, then, shouldn’t you?’ she baited him. ‘I told you to let go of my arm, Rafe.’ She looked up to meet his gaze unflinchingly.
The very air seemed to have stilled about them, not a sound to be heard except their own breathing as they continued that silent battle of wills, their faces only inches apart as blue eyes held brown.
Cairo felt as if the whole of her insides were melting as Rafe stood far too close to her, those fingers encircling her arm sending waves of awareness to her breasts and thighs.
Only Rafe had ever been able to make her feel like this with just a look. Only Rafe had ever been able to make her want him with just the touch of his hand against her flesh.
A hand he now let drop back to his side even as his gaze continued to hold hers captive. ‘Do you know what I want to do to you right this minute?’ he murmured.
Cairo moistened dry lips, unable to speak or look away from that mesmerizing gaze.
‘If you won’t let me touch you, then let me tell you all the things I’ve been imagining doing with you,’ Rafe said gruffly. ‘Wild, wonderful things—’
‘Rafe—’
‘Erotic beautiful things,’ he continued mercilessly, his eyes gleaming with the desire he no longer held in check. ‘You see that wall behind you …? Yes, that wall,’ he confirmed softly as Cairo gave the low stone wall a quick glance. ‘I want to slip off your jeans and panties before sitting you on top of that wall and kneeling in front of you. I want to slowly unbutton your blouse to bare your breasts to the sun so that I can touch them, kiss them, lick your nipples, suckle them into the heat of my mouth—’
‘Rafe …!’ Cairo’s intended groan of protest instead came out as an aching entreaty for him to continue, her skin becoming sensitized just by his words, by the evocative image he was creating, her nipples hard against the soft material of her blouse, and a moist heat pooling between her thighs.
His eyes were dark. ‘Then I want to kiss my way—slowly—down to your navel.’ His voice was low, hypnotic. ‘Dipping my tongue, tasting you, before I go lower, parting your legs even as I part your glossy curls and find the very centre of you with my lips and tongue. I still remember the taste of you there, Cairo. So sweet and hot …’ He groaned.
‘Rafe, you have to stop this now!’ she choked, all of her feeling on fire now, aching with a need for the things he had described so eloquently.
‘Why do I, Cairo?’ His gaze still held hers. ‘I’m only talking, telling you of the things I would like to do with you.’
Cairo could feel every single one of them! Could feel his hands and lips against her breasts, suckling her nipples, his mouth hot and liquid across the flatness of her stomach as he moved lower, tasting that pool of moisture there, licking her, sucking ever so gently on her arousal and taking her over the edge into wild oblivion. She could feel all of that just as strongly as she felt the sun beating down on them.
Just as she could imagine touching Rafe, her hands gliding lovingly over the broadness of his bare shoulders and torso, her lips following that same path, kissing him, caressing him as she slowly made her way down to the hard thrust of his arousal, lips and tongue tasting him as she took him in her mouth and felt his response to those caresses, hearing his groans of longing, his need for release …
Why had everything gone so wrong between them eight years ago? she wondered achingly. Why, when she had loved him so much, given so much—when they had been able to give each other such physical pleasure—hadn’t she been enough for him?
They were questions Cairo had asked herself many times over the years. The answers were all too obvious.
With the prospect of a month’s filming on the Isle of Man—a beautiful unspoilt island but nevertheless one that offered very little in the way of entertainment for a man as rakish as Rafe Montero—Cairo must have been an easy conquest, a diversion in what might otherwise have been a tedious time for him when he wasn’t actually filming.
Admittedly the relationship had continued for a while longer once they’d all returned to London to complete the filming, Cairo more often than not spending the night in Rafe’s penthouse suite at his hotel with him, the two of them even occasionally going out to dinner with Margo and Jeff.
But somewhere along the way Cairo had missed the signs that Rafe was tired of the relationship. She knew why she had missed them, of course; her own love for Rafe had made her completely blind to anyone and everything else!
She had certainly been blind to the fact that Rafe’s attention had moved on to someone else, that it was now his co-star, Pamela Raines, who interested him, and whom he wanted to share his bed. As it had turned out, Rafe had been so determined the actress would share his bed that he hadn’t even had the time to tell Cairo to vacate it before moving Pamela Raines into it …
Cairo certainly couldn’t allow herself to be seduced into becoming Rafe’s South of France ‘diversion’, too!
What thoughts were going through her head, Rafe wondered as he looked at her searchingly. Whatever they were, they were making her frown.
‘Were you and Bond happy together?’ he suddenly rasped harshly.
Her eyes widened. ‘I don’t think—’
‘It isn’t going to hurt you to tell me that much, surely, Cairo?’ Rafe pressed, knowing the moment of intimacy was over. For now …
She shook her head. ‘Haven’t you been reading the newspapers the last ten months, Rafe?’
He shrugged. ‘In my experience they rarely report the truth.’
She gave a laugh of pure cynicism. ‘That’s been my experience, too!’
‘Well?’
‘I haven’t asked you about any of your relationships the last eight years, so why on earth should I answer any of your questions about my marriage to Lionel?’ she retorted indignantly.
‘Ask away,’ Rafe invited.
‘I—’ Cairo broke off as her mobile began to ring. ‘That could be Jeff,’ she pointed out huskily.
‘Then you had better answer it, hadn’t you?’ he bit out curtly, before turning away