Forbidden To Her Spanish Boss by Susan Stephens

CHAPTER SIX

THEYDIDN’TKISSright away. Instead, they shared the same breath, the same air, teasing by promising contact, only to pull back. When Raffa finally drove his mouth down on hers, delay and anticipation had built to such a crescendo the outcome was inevitable.

‘What, here?’ Raffa murmured with surprise as Rose drew him with her to the ground.

‘Why not? Or, are you afraid of grass stains?’

He laughed as he joined her, and she sank into an embrace so firm, yet gentle, she had never felt so safe in her life. ‘Don’t stop?’ he confirmed.

There was no stopping, no calming her, either, until she heard a peal of laughter.

‘Relax,’ Raffa soothed. ‘It’s only another couple enjoying the fruits of the night. They don’t care about us.’

‘A fruit of the night?’ Rose repeated with a grin. ‘Is that what I am?’

Cupping her buttocks in one big hand, Raffa nudged the fine mesh of her gown aside. Exposing her breasts, he suckled each nipple in turn. Thrusting her fingers through his hair, she kept him close. ‘Touch me. Touch me here... Show me... Show me what to do.’

‘That would be my pleasure,’ Raffa whispered as he set about undressing her.

‘You really don’t care if we’re discovered?’

‘I really don’t,’ he admitted in the half growl she loved.

Rose was perfect. Everything about tonight had been perfect. Knowing every inch of Rose intimately was inevitable and right. Planting kisses on her neck, he abraded her skin very gently with his stubble. The thong she was wearing was composed of the finest Swiss lace and yielded easily to his strong fingers. She was so aroused the flimsy fabric could barely contain her. Trailing his fingertips over the site of her arousal, while denying Rose any real pressure, made her fierce. ‘Don’t tease me,’ she warned, attempting to guide his hand to where she wanted it.

‘But I enjoy teasing you,’ he admitted as he shook her off to continue his lazy exploration.

Thrusting fiercely against his hand, she clung to him, almost in desperation. A complex mix of strong and vulnerable, Rose was unique in his experience. He enjoyed the contrast, but refused to take advantage of it. ‘Relax,’ he soothed. ‘You don’t have to rush this or do anything. Leave it all to me.’

She obeyed, moaning in pleasure as he gradually increased the movements of his skilled fingers until she had to stifle her cries of completion.

Having made sure she was completely satisfied, and knowing he’d always remember the look on her face as she came, he reached for his phone.

‘What are you doing?’ Rose asked, frowning, still panting with the force of her climax.

‘Telling my people to have the helicopter ready to leave right away.’

‘You’d leave without saying goodnight to the Prince?’ Rose sounded scandalised. ‘I should thank him for a wonderful evening,’ she insisted. ‘I feel bad—’

‘There’s no need to thank him. The Prince is fully occupied with matters of his own. If it helps you to feel better, you can send him a note tomorrow.’

‘I will,’ Rose assured him with feeling.

He helped her straighten her clothes. ‘We’ll pick up your shoes on the way,’ he promised, reminding Rose of the high heels she’d discarded.

‘I still feel bad, leaving like this,’ she admitted with a glance towards the brilliantly lit ballroom.

‘The one thing you don’t feel is bad,’ he said, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders.

‘You could be right,’ Rose conceded with a mischievous nod.

Raffa directed the pilot to the second officer’s seat, and he flew the helicopter from the palace to the Pegasus, while Rose sat in the second row, wondering if it was possible to be any more aware of her body and its needs than she was now. It seemed the more Raffa introduced her to this forbidden pleasure, the more she wanted. She was so greedy for him.

He was tough, rugged and hot-as-hell sexy, and an excellent pilot too. Their landing was barely discernible. One moment they were in the air and the next on the swaying deck of the superyacht. It could have been a metaphor for her life, Rose reflected, now she’d had the chance to quietly and calmly reflect on the events of the night.

‘You can take your headphones off now,’ Raffa prompted as the second officer bid them goodnight and left.

Not wanting the fairy tale to end, Rose gave herself another blissful moment, before reluctantly doing as Raffa said. She knew that the clock had struck midnight and Cinderella’s shoes were now firmly in place. ‘What time would you like to meet up tomorrow?’ she asked, to demonstrate her understanding that they were back on the boat where things would have to change between them.

‘Tomorrow?’ Raffa sat back in his seat to shoot her a quizzical look.

‘I thought—’

‘What did you think, Rose?’

Opening the door, he came around to help her disembark. Moving into his arms felt so right. It was moving out of them that felt wrong, but now they were safe on deck, she imagined they’d be heading off to their own accommodation. How their hands touched, brushed, until finally they linked fingers, she had no idea. It didn’t do to examine things too closely sometimes.

‘Do you want to call by your room first?’

‘No need,’ she exclaimed breathlessly.

They almost didn’t make it as far as his suite. The moment they were inside the Pegasus, Raffa swung her around and thrust her back against the wall. Lodging his fists either side of her face, he kept her in place for a kiss as hungry and as fierce as any she could dream of. The pressure of his body against hers was exciting and arousing, and it was only moments before she was moaning again...noisily.

Raffa was laughing when he released her. ‘My security guards will come running.’

‘Good! Kiss me again,’ she demanded, high on Raffa wanting her.

Their kisses grew increasingly heated until she took Raffa by the hand and dragged him through the ship, laughing, excited and breathless. This was what had been missing in her life, this ability to feel without counting the cost of everything. If she could just have this—him—Raffa—for one, single night, she’d take it, no question.

Shouldering open the door to his suite, Raffa swung Rose into his arms and carried her to the bed. The only thing clear in his head was Rose. She was his focus, and he was determined to make every moment special for her—

But she could still surprise him.

‘How d’you do that?’ he asked as she gasped out her pleasure. ‘All I’ve done is lie you down on the bed.’

‘Maybe it’s enough,’ she suggested, laughing. ‘I really don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘Nothing like this has ever happened to me before, so it’s you who must have the knack.’

He drew back. ‘Are you saying I’m your first?’

‘Not technically,’ she admitted, shyly, he thought, for Rose. ‘But in every way that matters—’ she lifted one shoulder and let it fall again ‘—you are my first.’

‘You’d better explain.’ He sounded harsher than he’d intended, but he had no intention of taking Rose if he was her first and there was even the smallest chance that she’d regret it later.

‘All right,’ she conceded, reading his expression with her usual ease. ‘You want the truth? Here it is. You can laugh at me all you like. I’m sure you’re going to think me a real country bumpkin, compared to the women you usually date.’

‘Stop right there,’ he warned. ‘I don’t think that at all.’

She gave him an assessing look, and then explained. ‘Fumbles in the back seat of a car, with someone who knew even less than I did, could never match up to this.’

‘That’s it?’ he pressed, frowning.

‘That’s it,’ she confirmed.

He wanted nothing more than to fold Rose in his arms and kiss her to reassure her, but Rose hadn’t finished with her surprises. Reaching for him, she began to deal with the buttons on his shirt, until she lost patience and they went flying everywhere. Tumbling her back on the bed, he kicked off his shoes, unbuckled his belt and snapped it from the loops. This short break gave Rose the chance to leap into a kneeling position in front of him.

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘This first time is for you.’

‘And the next ten thousand are for you?’ she teased, breathless with laughter and excitement.

‘If you’re lucky,’ he teased her back. ‘But, seriously, Rose,’ he murmured after a long, consuming kiss, ‘no second thoughts?’

‘Are you joking?’ she demanded, looking at him with surprise.

‘I’m being perfectly serious,’ he assured her.

‘Resisting you would take more power than I possess.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ he admitted.

‘Let me repay some of the pleasure you’ve given me,’ she implored.

‘We’ll be here all night.’

‘Isn’t that the purpose of this?’

Rose’s chin was angled as she asked the question, and her eyes were sparkling emerald green. Making her move, she took matters into her own mouth, and he needed every ounce of his self-control to pull back from the intense pleasure that provoked. The answer was to turn her beneath him, before he lost it completely. Removing her dress, he pulled away to admire her naked body, while Rose, indolent and relaxed, rested her arms above her head in an attitude of absolute trust.

‘Not so fast,’ he warned when she wrapped her legs around him. ‘We’ve got all night.’

Did they? Rose wondered. This week on Raffa’s yacht would soon be over, then they’d sail back to Spain, where the realities of life were waiting. But it was hard to argue when Raffa was moving steadily down her body, dropping kisses along the way.

Slipping a pillow beneath her buttocks, he raised her even higher. Resting her legs on the wide spread of his shoulders, he dipped his head. Every inch of her ached with desire. ‘Surely, it’s your turn soon?’

‘Your pleasure comes first for me.’

‘But you’re equally important,’ she insisted fiercely, before he found a most effective way of silencing her.

‘Use me,’ Raffa encouraged.

‘Like this?’ She shivered with extremes of sensation as she tried touching him to the most sensitive part of her body.

‘That’s not so hard, is it?’ Raffa murmured, smiling down.

‘It’s extremely hard,’ she approved, taking him a little way inside her.

‘Like this,’ he husked against her mouth.

The initial ecstasy of Raffa sinking deeper gave way to frustration when he pulled back. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Protecting us both,’ he explained as he quickly sheathed himself.

He was so gentle and patient, which was good, as he was big and she was small. It didn’t seem possible for such a mountain of a man to be so tender, but when he finally sank inside her to the hilt and rotated his hips, she was drawn into a deliciously unavoidable vortex of pleasure.

Much later they threw themselves down on the bed. As they turned to face each other in silence, it was as if they’d both accepted that something more than sex had just occurred.

But the sex had been truly astonishing, Rose silently conceded as she rolled closer to Raffa simply for the pleasure of having him wrap her in his arms. She dozed off for a while, but woke with a start.

‘You okay?’ Raffa murmured. Drawing her closer, he brushed Rose’s tangled hair away from her face.

‘I’m fine,’ she whispered back, snuggling into his muscular chest as scenes from the past flashed behind her eyes. The thrill the Kelly family experienced whenever her father came up with another of his crazy schemes. But as sure as night followed day, crashing disappointment always followed. The tin on the mantelpiece, where Rose’s mother kept her scant savings, would be emptied, and there’d be a call from the pub to say someone was bringing her father home. Was all closeness fated to end that way? Was this bliss she was sharing with Raffa an illusion? Could she trust it? Could she trust anything? What about Raffa? Was all the publicity about the perfect family he’d been a part of before his parents died all a sham too?

And was Rose being selfish, only thinking of herself right now?

‘If you’re okay, why are you so tense?’ he asked, pulling his head back to stare into her eyes.

‘Tell me about your parents,’ she said.

There was a long pause, and then Raffa began to speak. ‘I drove them to the airfield that day. I even helped them with their luggage. I stood and watched as their plane took off. It was our private jet, so there was nothing to stop me going on board to speak to the pilot.’

‘Why would you have done that?’

‘I don’t know—I just...’ Raffa shook his head, at a loss for words. ‘If I had visited the cockpit, I would have smelled the drink on the pilot and realised something was badly wrong. I could have stopped that flight.’ He grew more heated. ‘I should have stopped it—told them to get off—’

‘But you had no reason to go on board in the first place,’ Rose pointed out gently. ‘How many of us live with guilt, and what good does it ever do? I could have stepped between my father and mother when they were arguing—snatched the bottle from him, searched out the rest of his seemingly endless supply of booze. He even hid the bottles in the rubbish bin outside, and that was one of the more obvious places. I could have made more effort to find help for both of them, but instead I did as my mother asked, and stayed quiet. I was much more obedient in those days. Only when it was far too late did I learn to speak up.’

‘You were young, at school, and then laying the foundations of your career,’ Raffa reminded her. ‘A career your mother surely wanted you to have.’

‘She did,’ Rose confirmed. ‘But, d’you see what I’m getting at? We can both blame ourselves endlessly, but what good does it do? We’ve learned from our mistakes, and now it’s time to move on.’

‘Says you,’ he teased as he drew her back into his arms.

The emotion Rose stirred inside him was almost too extreme. Feelings, memories, everything he’d brooded on for years, threatened to escape the carefully built dam. What had really changed was that he suddenly wanted to confront the past head-on, rather than banishing it to some forgotten part of his mind. Rose had done that. Her determination to love and protect those she cared for touched him. He was the instigator, the protector, the hero, and occasionally the villain, the man who had never needed support from anyone, but, in the high-octane setting of a professional polo ranch, someone with heart, as well as an organised mind, was ideal. Rose was that person. He was right to have appointed her Head Groom. Fearless when it came to brushing convention aside, Rose had passion and fire that matched his.

It was only a matter of time before that passion distracted them both once again, and what started out as gentle, soothing caresses turned fiercely demanding. Lavishing attention on her breasts, he teased her nipples into even tighter buds, while Rose writhed against him, seeking the release they both craved. Taking hold of his hand, she brought it down, her intention clear. Rose knew what she wanted, and how to get it too. At his first touch, she claimed her explosive release, and very soon wanted more. ‘I’ll be quiet this time,’ she promised with a teasing grin, forcing him to remember his comment about the security guards.

‘Make all the noise you want.’ Sex was an exercise at which he excelled, but with Rose it was so much more. He’d never laughed so much, nor found a woman so appealing. They ended up on the floor laughing, and the next minute things turned wild and raw. Every rule went out of the window. Between them, they had rewritten the rules. All he cared about was Rose’s pleasure—and all she cared about was his.

It was only later when they were quiet again, he noticed that she was studying him intently. ‘Is something wrong, Rose?’

How to tell this man what she was thinking? Rose stared silently into eyes that weren’t bloodshot with booze, or narrowed in anger...into a face that was strong, but not cruel.

‘Nothing’s wrong,’ she lied with a gentle smile. Raffa had helped her to understand that sex could be deeply meaningful, as well as fun. To think those fumbles in the back seat of a car had left her with the impression that sex was a waste of time, and why bother? She knew why now. Raffa had shown her what sex could really be like, and how close it could bring two people.

But for how long nagged at the back of her mind.

Pulling his head back, he stared her directly in the eyes. ‘Unhappy thoughts? Hey, come on, or I’ll worry about you.’

‘Worry? After that?’ She laughed to reassure him, but was she as strong as he thought her? Her father’s situation was getting worse, and for all he’d done wrong in the past she would never desert him. If she confessed that, Raffa was bound to question Rose’s long-term commitment to his team.

‘If you need to talk,’ he pressed.

‘Here? Now?’ she teased in an attempt to distract him.

‘At any time,’ Raffa said, emphatically. ‘I’m not so busy that you’ll have to come to bed to talk to me.’

‘If that’s what it takes,’ she murmured, resting her cheek against his warm, hard chest.

‘I love that you stop at nothing,’ Raffa admitted on a smile. ‘But if there’s something you want to say, I’m listening.’

Like Rose’s fear that her father’s condition might worsen suddenly? Loyalty to her family prevented her from saying more. ‘Nope. I think you’ve covered it.’

‘I’d rather cover you,’ Raffa growled as he tumbled Rose on to her back.

Resting on her elbow, Rose watched Raffa sleep. She marvelled at how close they’d become. That was a precious memory to keep safe when their very different worlds split them apart.

A ping on her phone distracted her. Reality had come calling in the form of a text from her brother Declan.

Reading it, she frowned.

Go home now, Rose. You’re needed in Ireland.

Rose typed furiously.

Where r u, Dec?

Rome. But Dad needs help right now—before I can get there.

Everything inside Rose tensed. Whatever had happened must be bad.

What’s happened?

It’s serious, Rose. Only you can drop everything and go right away.

Whether she agreed with that last statement or not, there was no point wishing things were different. She had to leave now. A few more exchanges with her brother proved even more alarming. It turned out that their father was currently cooling his heels in a police cell after rampaging out of control.

Pressing her lips together until they hurt stopped the tears. Everything she had to lose was right here in this room. Tonight was nothing more than stolen time, an indulgence she couldn’t afford. Rose’s father couldn’t look after himself, and both she and Raffa could. That didn’t mean that the affection, the laughter, the trust and the care they’d shared meant nothing. She’d never forget it.

Never.

But there was no time for tears—no time for anything but booking a ticket to Ireland.

Don’t worry, Dec. I’m on my way.