But for now at least that hunger was appeased, her body satiated. For now she felt settled, at ease, and as Raul turned on his side his strong arms came round her, safe and secure. Her body ached in so many places, but it was a wonderful, satisfied ache, one that matched the delight that still made her glow in every nerve, every inch of her skin. What had happened between them this evening had reminded both of them of what they had once shared. Even if this was all that she meant to Raul then surely from now on things had to be better.
At her side Raul stirred and, reaching out a hand, pulled up the duvet and flung it over her, enclosing them both in a soft, warm cave of down, cosy and snug. He was lying behind her now, with the length of his body pressed against hers, legs tangled together.
She cuddled closer, feeling his arms holding her tight. In the warmth and security of his embrace, she felt her eyes grow heavy, droop closed, warm waves of tiredness washing over her. For the first time in five days she felt the tension that had been with her every second slowly ease from her.
She was drifting away, almost going under, when Raul’s mood suddenly changed. He sighed, flung himself on his back, folding one arm behind his head as he stared up at the ceiling.
‘Alannah …’
Whatever else he was about to say was drowned out by the sound of a loud, intrusive rap at the door.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘WHAT?’
Alannah started sharply, turning in the bed towards Raul as he froze, looking down into her upturned face, seeing the way her deep green eyes widened in shock, her face losing colour.
‘Who …?’ Her lips formed the word silently in the same moment that they heard a voice on the other side of the door.
‘Porter, sir. Come to collect your bag.’
‘Infierno!’
Raul’s gaze, still unfocused from the storm of passion that had assailed him, went to where the case he had packed such a short time earlier still stood by the door in the sitting room.
With another muttered curse in his native language he flung back the covers, jacknifed up and out of the bed, snatching up the shirt and trousers he had tossed aside so recently. It was the work of seconds to pull them on. A quick glance back down at her face saw the shock and consternation that was written there as Alannah frantically pulled the covers up high over her exposed breasts.
‘Wait here. I’ll deal with this.’
Raking his hands though his ruffled hair in a hasty attempt to smooth away the evidence of her clutching fingers, he hurried from the room, shutting the door carefully behind him.
It was as he crossed the sitting room that he noticed how Alannah’s shoes had fallen onto the floor in the heat of their passion earlier and now lay tumbled on the carpet. Recalling the look of panic on her face and knowing that she would hate it if anyone realised what had happened, he kicked them out of sight under the settee as he headed for the door.
After handing over the case and a tip, the generosity of which made the man blink in stunned delight, he dismissed the porter thankfully, leaning back against the door and closing his eyes momentarily with a deep sigh. But even as relief at having dealt with one situation relaxed his shoulders for a moment, the thought of another yet to be sorted out had him tensing up again.
What the devil had just happened?
He had vowed never to see Alannah Redfern again; never to let her back into his life. And yet as soon as fate had forced them together he had acted as blindly, as stupidly, as crazily as some horny adolescent at the mercy of his hormones.
He had been off balance, true. This week had left his brain clouded, his emotions raw, but that was no excuse. One kiss, one touch and he had been in the power of his libido and it was as if all the time he had spent maturing, learning control, becoming a man and not a wayward boy, had been stripped away, leaving him a prey to his most basic, most primitive desires in a second.
But then Alannah had always been able to do that to him. From the moment they had first met, less than three years before, he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her. Her body called to his in the way that no other woman had ever done, before or since, and he had never felt so out of control, so much as if his life wasn’t his own. He hadn’t liked it then—and he liked it one hell of a lot less now.
Because nothing was as he had believed it to be.
Last time he had proposed marriage to her. And she had laughed in his face and walked away to be with another man—or so she had claimed. But the woman he had taken to bed just now had been a virgin, as innocent as she had been two years ago.
Which meant that two days ago, when he had believed that she was coming on to him in order to get what she wanted from him, in fact.
In fact, what?
Pushing both hands through his hair again, he turned back into the room, and, seeing the mobile phone still lying on the table where he had slammed it, picked it up and pressed the speed-dial button for Carlos. When the chauffeur answered he spoke quickly to his driver, keeping it as brief as possible. Alannah would be waiting and he was impatient to get back to her.
He didn’t think he had been very long, but by the time he opened the door into the bedroom it was obvious that he had taken too much time. And Alannah’s mood had changed as a result.
She was no longer in the bed where he’d left her. Instead, she was up and had dressed again … at least, as well as she could, with the buttons—as many of them as were left intact—fastened up and her dress pulled together where she could close the gaps that revealed the pale green silk and lace of her bra, the peachy tones of her flesh.
But it was her expression that concerned him most. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, the stiffness of her body, spine straight, head held high, and the frozen, stiff-mouthed, distant-eyed look that told of a very different frame of mind from that of the ardent, sensual woman he had had in his arms no more than a few minutes before.
Silently and savagely cursing the ill-timed appearance of the porter, Raul hid his frustration behind a smile.
‘He’s gone now. You can relax.’
Relaxing looked like the last thing on her mind as she got up from the bed, fingers clutching tightly at the front of her dress, dragging it closed where it gaped worst.
‘If you’d arrange for that car to take me home now,’ she said in a small, stiff, oh-so-typically-English voice, ‘I’d be very much obliged.’
Raul’s breath hissed in through his teeth in a sound of fierce exasperation.
‘And I’d be obliged if you’d stop freezing up and come back here so that I can kiss you again—’
Green eyes clashed with gold, hers so defiant that he felt he could almost see the sparks flashing from them and snapping in the air. Oh, damn that porter to hell! His timing just couldn’t have been worse.
‘I don’t think so—I don’t think that this is a good idea.’
‘You don’t think!’ Raul exploded. ‘You don’t. No, look …’ he amended hastily, seeing the way she stepped back at his outburst, the clouded look that had come into her eyes. ‘Alannah, querida—just stop this nonsense. Just don’t think. It doesn’t help matters.’
‘Help what?’
‘Thinking just gets in the way—what we have doesn’t need thought, or sense, it just needs this …’
He