Page 36 of Shock Marriage for the Powerful Spaniard
She should protect herself—should remind herself that, for Rafael, this had been just a physical act. But she was weakly conscious of her thoughts and feelings all over the place, as though she’d been thrown into a tumble dryer and spun at high speed until nothing was quite where it should have been. She wondered whether he was disappointed with her performance and tried hard not to care, instead forcing her way through the drowsy contentment, trying to settle to reach a place where she could, at least, face him with a certain amount of self-control.
She sat up, drawing the duvet right up to her neck. With the bathroom light on behind him, he was a shadowy figure, hovering, and she watched him for a few moments, not quite knowing where they went from here.
‘Are you...finished in there? I thought I might have a shower.’
Rafael slowly towards her and then sat at the side of the bed, depressing it with his weight.
Her hands itched to reach out and touch him, pull him back to her, but her natural caution had kicked in and she looked at him warily, wondering what was going through his head.
‘That was—’ he began, and she interrupted before he could say something that would unintentionally hurt her.
‘I know. Probably not the best for you...’ She laughed nervously and his eyes narrowed.
‘I was going to say...that was incredible.’
Happiness bloomed inside her. ‘I got the impression that you couldn’t wait to hop out of bed.’
‘I wanted to take you again and I knew I couldn’t in case you were...sore. Or just needed some time out. It was safer for me to have a shower and get my act together.’
Sofia smiled shyly and touched his chest with her fingers, lightly circling his flat, brown nipple and enjoying the way his breathing thickened in response.
He caught her hand and then absently stroked her fingers with his thumb, eyes pinned to her face.
‘I could commute,’ he murmured thoughtfully.
‘Meaning?’
His voice was soft. ‘Meaning that I enjoyed that and I’d quite like to carry on enjoying it.’
‘That wasn’t part of the plan.’
‘Plans can change.’
‘You didn’t want complications.’
‘Does it have to be get complicated?’ He tilted his head to one side. ‘We both know what this situation is all about, and there’s a time line, which in all probability will be less than the allotted year. In the meantime...we’re married and all we’re doing is what all married people do.’ He looked at her, gaze serious. ‘We’re enjoying some hot sex before it all starts to unravel. The only difference is that we have the advantage of not being ambushed by disappointment when the inevitable happens.’
Faced with this stark choice, Sofia knew that she either indulged a sexual curiosity she’d never known she possessed, and for the foreseeable future sacrifice her principles about saving herself for the right guy to come along, or she walked away. But when she thought about walking away she was gripped with an emptiness so intense that she wanted to howl.
‘You’re right.’ She decided on the spot and met that serious gaze with equal gravity. ‘We both know the score. What’s to get complicated?’
* * *
Sofia approached the door to the opulent sitting room in her father’s house with her usual trepidation.
Old habits died hard, and even though it had been several weeks since the wedding, and even though she had seen him several times since then, she was still to shed her stiffness when she was around him.
Rafael oiled the wheels by always being present, allowing her to watch and contribute when she wanted to from a safe distance, but this time there was no Rafael.
‘Running late,’ he had phoned to say just as she had been stepping out of the Mercedes that had delivered her to the house. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can, but this meeting has overrun and I can’t walk out. I’m discovering all sorts of mess created by David’s damned stepson. Some through sheer incompetence, but some needs delving into because I’m getting a whiff of things not as they should be. No idea what exactly is being concealed but I intend to find out and take him to the cleaners.’
What could she say? She knew the boundaries to what they had and she wasn’t going to overstep them. They had great sex. They came together in bed and were the perfect fit. It was a situation that wasn’t going anywhere and she knew that. Rafael didn’t have to repeat the mantra about theirs being a marriage of convenience, with a time limit as to its duration. That was a given, and she accepted it because what she got in return was mind-blowing.
How could sex beso good?
And out of bed...
She was learning how to make her way around him, how to manage him. Never had she met someone so dominant, so hard-wired to get his own way. No wonder he hadn’t batted an eyelid when it had been a case of hunting her down in Argentina and checking her out. He adored his godfather and he had brought one hundred percent of his incredible focus to doing what he had been asked to do. That she might have been hurt had not really occurred to him. Collateral damage was just something that happened. He was complex, infuriating, yet wonderfully exhilarating all at the same time, and Sofia knew that she was getting more and more sucked into his powerful aura with each passing day.
