Page 27 of One More Sleepless Night

She flopped back and felt a wide smile spread across her face as she stretched and revelled in the unfamiliar lethargy of her body. Details of what she and Rafael had done in her sleep flitted through her head, in vivid Technicolor and spectacular clarity, and her smile deepened as heat flooded through her all over again.

Oh, thank God. It looked as though her much-missed sex drive was back. And about time too because she’d been beginning to fear it might never happen. Despite her secret efforts to encourage it…

The way her libido had reappeared might have been somewhat startling but that her dream had featured Rafael didn’t surprise her in the slightest. When he’d initially gone she’d pretty much completely cast him from her mind, but at some point over the last fortnight he’d started to invade her thoughts with increasing frequency.

She’d found herself recalling the heavy weight of him lying on top of her flat out on the floor, that first night. Or remembering how well his T-shirt had stretched across the muscles of his back when he’d been lighting the barbecue and preparing the steaks.

In her mind’s eye she’d kept seeing his long brown fingers twirling the stem of his wine glass and the heat in his eyes when he’d watched her eat all those prawns. And she’d kept thinking about all those smouldering sexy smiles he’d given her the next day at lunch and the feel of his hands massaging suntan lotion into her back.

And then, of course, there was that kiss by the pool.

She’d been dwelling on that a lot… The need in his eyes as they’d blazed down into hers. His warmth as it wrapped around her. The hard, lean planes of his body. His large hands holding her, pressing her against all that muscle and strength. That mouth, moving over hers with such skill and determination, and then the hard length of his erection pressing against her. Even the icy aloofness with which he’d dealt with the aftermath of it had been sexy in a perverse kind of way.

Not wanting to jinx things, she’d put the tingles that had run through her whenever she’d thought about him down to too much sun, but there was little point in denying it now.

She wanted him. She wanted him. Right now, at the mere thought of him, her body was weakening and softening. She just had to conjure up one of those devastating smiles and—ah, yes—her pulse was racing and her bones were melting and her temperature was rocketing in a way that had nothing to do with the midday heat.

And if she could feel all this just by thinking about him, imagine what would happen when she and Rafael finally got together…

Nicky shivered. They’d be explosive. Dynamite. Fabulous.

If they got together, she amended, frowning suddenly and feeling the heat and desire ebb a little. Because it was all very well discovering that her libido was back and she wanted him quite desperately, but getting together would be pretty tricky when she was here and he was in Madrid, wouldn’t it?

Not to mention the fact that it was entirely possible he wouldn’t be interested in getting together anyway. Yes, he might have wanted her for that nanosecond he’d kissed her, but the way he’d gone so cool and indifferent minutes afterwards—although spine-tinglingly sexy—was hardly the sign of someone craving more, was it? Nor was the way he’d then vanished.

For a second her stomach plummeted, and then she jackknifed up, pulled her shoulders back and stiffened her spine.

No, she thought, determination swooping down to fill every corner of her body and obliterating the remnants of her orgasm. After everything she’d been through she was damned if she was going to let this opportunity slip by just because of five hundred miles and a trickle of doubt.

She had to at least see if Rafael might be up for turning her dream into a reality because frankly, what with the excellent progress she’d made so far, she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t.

NINE

Where he’d gone wrong last time, thought Rafael, sitting at the desk in his study in his penthouse and twirling a pen between his fingers, was in believing that he could ignore someone whose presence was so tangible even when she physically wasn’t.

That was why he hadn’t been able to get Nicky out of his head the weekend he’d been at the cortijo, he realised now, despite spending such relatively little time in her company. That was why she’d occupied his thoughts while he’d been out there in the fields, why she’d invaded his dreams, and why he’d imagined he could smell her scent even though she’d been nowhere to be seen. It was never easy to ignore a guest, however out of sight, and he’d been nuts to assume that it would be.

Distance was what he’d needed in order to wipe Nicky and the temporary but devastating havoc she’d wreaked on his well-ordered life from his mind. Distance and time. Both of which he’d had plenty of lately.

The two weeks he’d been back in Madrid had been exactly what was required to restore calm to his life, harness his self-control and rebuild the defences she’d so swiftly and comprehensively destroyed. And just what he’d needed to finally relax.

With pretty much the whole of the country shutting down in August and almost every Madrileño beetling off to the coast or the countryside, Rafael had figured the solitude would suit him perfectly, and had stayed put.

He could easily hang out here, he’d told himself. His flat was at the top of one of the most luxurious buildings in Madrid, and had all the trappings one would expect from a penthouse, so it hadn’t exactly been a hardship.

He’d spent hours poring over his beloved first edition of John Gerard’s The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes, and pottering around his extensive and plant-stuffed roof terrace. He’d ploughed up and down the building’s lavish outdoor pool and had frequented the gym. He’d been out a couple of times with the few friends who had stayed in the city, and in between all that he’d started to research his next job.

From Nicky he thankfully hadn’t heard a word. Nor had he heard from any of the other women who’d been so hell-bent on upsetting his existence. Apart from a text from Elisa informing him that she was on the Costa Brava should he feel like joining her—which he didn’t—she too had been mercifully quiet. Even his family appeared to have better things to do than hassle him, and had left him alone.

Which all bode extremely well for the long sabbatical from women he’d decided to take in the wake of everything that had happened recently.

He glowered at his laptop and his mood darkened as he reminded himself exactly how dangerous Nicky, in particular, was. The others might be thorns in his side, but she was the one who turned him into someone he didn’t recognise and didn’t want to be. Someone who’d unravelled so quickly and comprehensively that he hadn’t given even the most fleeting consideration to the values with which he conducted his relationships.

Because not only wasn’t she too well—as his sister had so brutally informed him—but Nicky was also a friend of Gaby’s, and how that fact had managed to elude him at the time he had no idea.

Rafael’s blood chilled as he thought about the far too close a shave he’d had. OK, so at some point during that weekend he’d evidently lost his mind, but how on earth could he have so totally forgotten his vow to not get involved with any friend of his sisters? It truly beggared belief.

Hadn’t he learned the hard way that down that route lay disaster? Hadn’t his brief, disastrous marriage proved it? And hadn’t he sworn that he’d never let it happen again? He’d nearly lost one sister over the whole sorry episode and he had no intention of losing another. Ever.

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