Page 26 of One More Sleepless Night

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There was someone in the house.

Jolted out of the deep sleep she’d been enjoying, Nicky sat bolt upright in bed and tore off her eye mask, her pulse hammering, her blood roaring in her ears, and every one of her instincts quivering with awareness.

The slam of the front door echoed off the walls and the heavy thud of footsteps pounding up the stairs resounded through the house, shaking the cortijo’s foundations and rattling the windows.

Her ears pricked. Each step seemed to hit the floor in time to her heartbeat, getting closer, louder, faster as they thumped along the corridor, making straight for her room. Her stomach churned and she went dizzy.

It was just like before, she thought, her breath catching. Only this time it was the middle of the day. This time she wasn’t white-knuckled and terrified. This time she wasn’t frantically hunting around for a weapon and trembling with panic. And yes, her heart was pounding, but it wasn’t with fear; it was with something else entirely because those footsteps sounded familiar. Very familiar. And even though they’d been gone a while now they were, apparently, back.

Before she could even begin to try and work out why, her door flung back and there was Rafael, standing in the space where it had once been, looking haggard and drained, but dark and intense and utterly gorgeous nonetheless.

For one agonisingly long moment neither of them spoke. On Nicky’s part, her head had gone so blank that all she could do was stare at him. And as for Rafael, she somehow got the impression that he didn’t trust himself to speak. He looked to be barely clinging onto his control, as if it were taking every ounce of his strength to stay where he was. He looked like a man at the end of his tether. Like a man on the edge, and the rush of heat that swept through her made her entire body shudder and a thousand shivery little thrills scuttle up and down her spine.

Her eyes locked with his, held, and her heart skipped a beat at the fire that blazed in their depths.

‘What are you doing back here?’ she said, her mind spinning because no reason she could think of for his return seemed likely.

‘I couldn’t stay away,’ he said hoarsely, his jaw tight as he stared back at her. ‘I tried. But I couldn’t.’

Nicky swallowed to work some moisture into her desert-dry mouth. ‘Oh,’ she breathed. ‘Why not?’

‘I can’t get you out of my mind,’ he said raggedly. ‘You’re driving me crazy.’

‘What do you want me to do about it?’ she said, her voice sounding oddly husky while her heart pounded so madly she thought it might break free.

And then the taut mask of his expression collapsed and the raw naked desire that was revealed nearly made her swoon. ‘Put me out of my misery.’

The sizzle in the pit of her stomach flared into life and exploded, rushing through her veins like a tidal wave, drowning out all rational thought and dissolving her bones.

Somehow managing to get to her feet, Nicky slowly walked over to him, and smiled as she took his hand and drew him towards her. She took a step back, he took one forwards and like that they tangoed towards the bed she’d just slid out of, their gazes bound by an invisible thread of want, barely touching, yet generating so much electricity that she could feel the air vibrate with it.

The backs of her knees hit the edge of the mattress, but he didn’t stop and as he came up against her and took her in his arms she wound her arms around his neck and lifted her head. He lowered his and their mouths met. Opened. Fused.

She closed her eyes and sank into him and what had started as a slow, seductive meeting of mouths deepened, grew more passionate, more frenzied.

Electrifying desire shot through her and, unable to stop herself, she pressed herself closer and moaned into his mouth. Lost in a whirlpool of sensation, she felt him ease her back and down onto the bed and then clothing disintegrated and his hands were everywhere, sliding over her burning skin and touching and exploring every inch of her, her neck, her breasts, her stomach and then the molten, aching centre of her.

His mouth followed, creating devastation wherever it roamed, and within minutes she was moaning his name, writhing and panting and tilting her hips, her insides winding into an impossibly tight knot.

As wave after wave of sensation cascaded over her, Nicky groaned. Whimpered. Whispered in his ear and raked her nails across his back as she told him what she wanted.

And then he was above her and pushing inside her. Moving slowly at first but soon, with her pleas for more filling the room, driving in and out of her faster and harder, making her whole body tighten and tremble until she couldn’t bear the pleasure any longer and—

Nicky woke with a start, her heart pounding, her breathing ragged, her skin coated in sweat and her insides adrift.

Oh, dear God. What was that?

She whipped her eye mask off, winced at the sudden flood of bright light that hit her eyes and then rapidly blinked. Which might have helped her eyes adjust, but di

d nothing to clear her head of the erotic images swimming around it, nor anything to dispel the tingles of residual pleasure that were rippling through her body and telling her that it could well have been what she thought it was.

Groggily levering herself up, she sat there stunned for a moment or two, then, taking a couple of deep breaths to try and clear her head and calm down, she braced herself and looked down at her T-shirt-and-knicker-clad body. Down to where the skin of her chest was flushed, her nipples were rock hard and her stomach and her legs were still twitching.

Heavens, she thought in astonishment, pressing her palms to her cheeks and feeling them burn even more fiercely at the dawning realisation that there was no longer any doubt that it had been exactly what she thought it was.

Well, well, well…

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