Page 19 of One More Sleepless Night

With desire thrumming through him Rafael picked savagely at the label of the bottle of water they’d shared over lunch.

Dammit, why didn’t Nicky find him as attractive as he found her? He’d been told he was reasonably good-looking and that his body wasn’t too bad. He had all his hair, which was apparently something of a rarity in men over thirty, and, apart from the edginess he’d been feeling over the last couple of days, he was generally fairly even-tempered.

So what was wrong with her?

He glowered at the label for a second and then ruthlessly cut off that train of thought because it smacked of arrogance and petulance and those were two traits he hoped he didn’t possess.

He didn’t expect every woman to fall at his feet; it was just that quite a few had done in the years since his divorce, so it was frustrating—not to mention hugely unflattering—when he came across one he wanted who didn’t.

With a growl of frustration Rafael abandoned the bottle and lifted his glass to his mouth instead. He let a cube of ice slide between his lips, crunched down on it and winced at the sudden hit of cold.

‘Would you mind doing my back?’

Rafael jerked and choked on a chunk of ice. He coughed. Pounded his chest. Swallowed hard. And then as the implication of her words hit his brain his blood roared in his ears and his heart lurched so violently he nearly passed out.

God, she really was going to kill him. Because if the mere thought of his hands on her sent him into spasms of lust what would happen when he actually touched her for real? Which he was going to have to, of course, because what else could he do?

Slathering her in warm slippery cream might well unravel what was left of his self-control but he could hardly refuse. Not when lunch had been cleared away a while ago and he was doing nothing but trying not to watch her, picking at that damned label, crunching ice and slowly going out of his mind.

Rafael dragged in a deep steadying breath and told himself to calm down. All he had to do was think of Nicky as one of his sisters, whose backs he’d rubbed cream into loads of times in the past, and it would be fine.

‘Not at all,’ he muttered, getting to his feet and pulling his shorts on over his trunks in the hope it might disguise his body’s reaction to her. As the cotton scraped over his sensitive skin he gritted his teeth and determinedly drummed up images of icicles and igloos.

With not a little discomfort he walked over, knelt down beside her and took the bottle from her outstretched hand, and tried not to jump when their fingers brushed.

‘Thanks.’ Nicky beamed up at him, then settled on her front and to his horror reached behind her and unclipped her bikini top.

It was fine, he told himself again, his jaw so tight he thought it might snap. It was just a back. A long smooth one, yes, but just a back. In the same way that that was just a bottom and those were just legs.

Except that they weren’t because none of her was just anything. It was all slim. Toned. Perfect.

He drew in a breath and let it out agonisingly slowly in an effort to brace himself. He could forget trying to consider Nicky a sister because it wasn’t working. And he could forget the icicles and igloos because they weren’t working either. He was now thinking glaciers. Ice hotels. The Arctic.

All of which melted the instant he put his hands on the silky warm skin of her shoulders. At the feel of her beneath his palms as he slid them down her back, his senses shut out everything but her. Th

e soft texture of her skin… The dizzying scent of the lotion as he smoothed it over her. The dazzling sight of all that bare hot flesh… The muffled sounds of her sighs…

He wondered what she’d taste like and his mouth watered with such longing that his knees nearly buckled beneath the onslaught of it all. His head swam and his body burned and he couldn’t help letting out a deep ragged groan.

The sound of it, so rough, so desperate, snapped him out of the sensuous whirl and brought him crashing back to reality. He jerked his hands off her, snapped back and shoved them through his hair, not caring one bit that they were still covered in cream.

God. What was he doing? What was he thinking? Had he truly lost his mind? And could he even begin to hope she hadn’t heard it?

Apparently not because she tensed a little and her breath hitched. ‘Rafael, are you all right?’ she murmured sleepily.

‘Yes,’ he muttered, totally thrown by the dizzying realisation that he’d been so wholly caught up in her. ‘Why?’

‘You sighed. Deeply.’

‘I’m fine.’

She twisted her head round, squinted up at him and frowned. ‘You don’t look fine. You’re glowering.’

‘Just thinking,’ he said, and told himself he really had to get a grip before all the need, confusion, tension and frustration that were swilling around inside him snapped and he did something truly insane like flip her over, get them both naked and then sink himself inside her.

Her eyebrows shot up. ‘Heavens, about what?’

‘Nothing,’ he said sharply and lurched to his feet. ‘You’re done.’

---