The Thorn in His Side

‘I’ve no idea. I was more worried about what condition you were in.’

A spasm of impatience flickered across his lean face. ‘As you see I am fine—in one piece.’

Libby had seen enough hospital dramas on TV to know that people who looked fine and in one piece had a habit of collapsing without warning from massive internal bleeds. While this was not a soap, she did think his attitude was way too casual.

The question remained—how to inject some caution without sounding alarmist?

‘Where exactly are we?’

Libby’s face fell. It looked as if her caution had been warranted. ‘Do you remember what happened?’ she asked slowly. Oh, God, what if he had amnesia? ‘Do you remember your name?’

‘I am not deaf or, as it happens, stupid.’ The silent addition of unlike you was implicit in the withering look he sent her way.

‘I know my name.’ He tilted his head towards the window, which offered a view of nothing beyond the grassy bank. ‘It is the name of this place I require in order to arrange alternative transport.’ As luck would have it his PA was making the journey in her own car in order to attend the meeting he was en route to, which was going to minimise the delay considerably.

‘Oh!’ Feeling foolish, she lapsed into embarrassed silence as she watched him produce a phone from his pocket.

‘There is no signal.’

At last something she did not have to take responsibility for!

‘What do you want me to do about it?’ She softened the cranky response by adding a pacifying note of cautious concern. ‘You might have concussion.’

She could have mentioned a whole host of other injuries he might have, but, not wanting to spook him, refrained—not that he gave the impression of someone who might take fright at the thought of the odd broken bone or two.

Personally Libby, who had never linked laughing in the face of danger with virility, had never been able to understand why so many women were attracted to the action-man macho type.

A bit too much protesting, Libby?

‘Concussion …?’ He silently conceded the possibility before adding carelessly, ‘It would not be the first time.’

‘That could explain a lot,’ Libby muttered.

On receipt of his narrow-eyed stare, she added with innocent concern, ‘I really think you should try not to move.’

The redhead had an abrasive tongue to go with that truly delicious mouth. The irritation Rafael did not attempt to hide was in part aimed at his own inability to think past the sexual hunger still coursing through his body.

As well as the wisdom of avoiding redheads, experience had taught Rafael that a man survived in life by controlling his appetites, not being controlled by them.

‘As I have said, I do not require medical attention.’

‘It’s your funeral.’ Immediately wishing she could retract the childish retort, she began to ease herself backwards; she was finding the confines of the car were increasingly claustrophobic.

‘I can see you find the thought appealing.’

Libby flushed and protested, ‘Of course not!’ If she didn’t get some air soon she’d be the one needing an ambulance. ‘I’m trying to help.’ Pointless, as he obviously never listened to anyone, she brooded darkly as she continued to edge towards the door.

‘I’d feel a hell of a lot safer if you didn’t.’

‘I’ve said I’m sorry, and I am, but under the circumstances I think—damn!’ Libby slung an exasperated glance at her skirt, which appeared to have caught itself firmly on the gear lever. ‘Stupid thing.’ She was forced to lean in closer to try and free the tightly stretched fabric.

‘Let me—’

His fingers, long, brown and tapering, brushed hers and Libby pulled her hand away as if burnt. She sucked in a deep breath and thought, Massive overreaction, Libby.

She could feel his gaze but did not lift her head as she mumbled, ‘I can manage.’

The frisson had passed but it had left her uncomfortably conscious of her own skin to the point where she could feel the individual hairs on the nape of her neck.

‘We should—’ she gave a heavy sigh of relief when her skirt came free ‘—play it safe.’

Rafael ran a hand across the stubble on his chin. ‘We?’ he echoed, his attention drawn to the exposed nape of her neck. Rafael had never previously considered this part of a woman’s anatomy sexually attractive.

‘Good point,’ she conceded with a cool smile that had earned her the name of ice maiden in her teens. ‘However, you’re the one bleeding.’ And I’m the one who is getting a bad headache, she thought, conscious of the telltale pressure behind her eyes.

‘You’re tough, I get it, a regular man of steel and I’m impressed, believe me,’ she continued, delivering a smile of brilliant insincerity. ‘But watching someone bleed to death is not my style. Even someone as …’ Libby registered the flash of stunned disbelief in his eyes and brought her tirade to an abrupt halt.

‘Someone as?’

Libby shook her head, then gave a fractured gasp when without warning he reached out and casually took her chin between the long fingers of his right hand.

She was too startled by his action to resist as he tilted her face up to his. He was so close that she could see the gold tips on his sooty lashes and feel his warm breath on her face.

He moved a thumb in a lazy circular motion along the curve of her cheek and Libby’s stomach went into dramatic free fall as every nerve ending in her body began to thrum.

Ignoring the small whisper of sanity in his head, he took her face between his hands and watched the brilliant blue of her sapphire eyes vanish as her pupils dilated rapidly.

He groaned something harsh on his own tongue as his eyes dropped to her lips.

‘You’re in pain!’

‘How right you are.’

Libby struggled to fight her way out of the strange lethargy that crept over her; her limbs felt as though they didn’t belong to her. ‘Let me get help.’ She started to pull away.

‘You have a beautiful mouth.’

Libby stopped pulling as she thought, So do you.

He frowned suddenly. ‘What is your name?’

Libby’s throat was so dry her voice was barely above a whisper, barely audible above the pulsating thud of her heart as it tried to climb its way out of her chest. ‘Libby.’

She’d read somewhere that head injuries could make people act totally out of character—so what’s your excuse, Libby?

‘Libby?’ He rolled the word around his tongue experimentally.

She nodded, hardly recognising her name when he said it, but finally placing his accent as Spanish.

‘Look, this is silly—’

His mouth lowered, close but not quite touching, a whisper above her trembling lips.

What the hell are you doing, Rafael?

Rafael would have responded to the last-minute reassertion of sanity had she not at that exact moment given a choky little gasp and pressed her warm lips up against his.

A split second later with a scared little gasp she pulled back, but the damage was done.

Shame burned her cheeks as she met his eyes. ‘That was so—’

‘Not bad,’ he inserted in a low sexy growl that did further serious damage to her already demolished nervous system. ‘But I think we can do better.’

And he did.

His lips moved with slow sensuous skill across the trembling curve of her mouth; she heard herself whimper as he ran his tongue along the sensitive inner flesh of her lower lip and tugged the flesh gently between his teeth.

Libby, who had not moved a muscle, pulled back with a horrified gasp, breaking the connection before proceeding to fall out of the car in her haste to escape.

CHAPTER THREE

LIBBY stood there, hand pressed to her mouth as the horror of what she had just done hit home with the force of a hurricane.

This was one thing she could not blame on jet lag; she had lost control—sexually, with a stranger, a man whose name she didn’t even know.

Mortified colour ebbed and flowed in her cheek. What had possessed her?

The answer to her question was getting out of what remained of the top-of-the-range sleek powerful car, his body language not suggestive of someone who had just survived a car smash or, for that matter, someone who had just kissed her passionately.

He looked … A soundless sigh escaped through her clenched teeth.

Shameful memories flashed through her mind. For a breathless moment she could actually feel the texture of his lips, the taste of his hot mouth. Libby clenched her teeth, struggling to purge the image of his smouldering sexy eyes. She succeeded in pushing them away, but not before the hot core low in her pelvis had tightened to a hard fist of desire.

Knowing what she was feeling was shallow and only physical did not make the experience easier to cope with.

Her knees were shaking as, breath coming in a series of painful gasps, she watched covetously from under the sweep of her lashes as he stepped out onto the grass and stretched the kinks from his spine. The gorgeously cut suit was special and so was the tall Spaniard, and she wasn’t just making excuses—he really was!

She swallowed. In the cramped confines of the car it had been obvious he was a powerfully built man, but until now she hadn’t realised how dauntingly impressive his physique was.

Several inches over six feet, he had an athlete’s body, greyhound lean and muscular, the width of his shoulders balanced by long legs—very long legs and narrow snaky hips.

As she continued to stare he walked around the car, inspecting the damage that would have made many men weep or at the very least swear, with an inscrutable expression on his lean patrician features. Libby felt her stomach flip.

She had never imagined that the way a man moved, even if it was with the grace and arrogance of a panther, would make her feel breathless.

Her unwilling appreciation gave way to indignation as he began to hit the keys on his phone. He hadn’t even glanced her way!

She was shaking all over and he was acting as though nothing had happened, which on one level was good because the last thing she wanted right now was a postmortem. She wanted to walk away, or possibly run, and forget it ever happened.

On the other level it had happened—he’d kissed her. Admittedly it wasn’t a marriage proposal, but to act as though nothing had happened … well, it was just bad manners.

And she hated bad manners. It wasn’t as if he’d turned her world upside down or anything dramatic and she’d stop shaking some time soon, but a show of penitence or even a thank you would have been something.

‘What is the name of this place …?’ he asked without looking up.

Libby glared with dislike at the top of his dark head. She could play it cool too. ‘So you have a signal now?’

He deigned to notice her. ‘Yes.’ He angled an interrogative brow.

‘Buckford,’ Libby snapped.

‘Buckford …?’ Rafael repeated, wondering as he punched in the name why the name of a village in the middle of nowhere should sound vaguely familiar.

He returned to his text and Libby watched him, her temper rising. Jaw tight, she stomped up the hill.

Within seconds of sending the message Rafael received a text back from Gretchen, who assured him she would be with him in less than ten minutes. Satisfied with the response, he glanced up in time to see the redhead, whose progress up the muddy bank he’d been aware of in the periphery of his vision, bend over to slide one foot and then the other into a pair of heels.

The fresh air had cleared the remnants of haziness from his head and, sanity restored, Rafael was already regretting his impulsive actions. Struggling to control his temper, he recognised that his irritability was in part due to nothing more complicated than sexual frustration.

Regret or not, watching her shapely rear as she climbed the incline sent a stab of lust through his loins.

On the road above Libby stamped her feet, grimacing as her damp, muddy toes squelched inside her lovely new shoes. Anchoring her hair back from her face with one hand, she straightened up.

Even before she turned she knew he was watching her; she could feel his silent stare.

‘What happened, that was unacceptable, even if you have got concussion,’ she informed him icily.

‘I do not have concussion.’ Just an extremely bad headache, but nothing a couple of aspirin would not cure. ‘Though I am confused.’

A small choking sound left Libby’s throat … He’s confused.

‘Are you implying that a man would need to have a head injury before he wants to kiss you?’

Thrown off her stride by the insert, Libby glared wrathfully at him. ‘No, of course not. For your information a lot of men want to kiss me.’

His lips quivered. ‘Of this I am sure.’

‘If you do that again I’ll … I’ll … you’ll be sorry!’ Libby’s hauteur suffered a wobble as she struggled against the impulse to turn and run as he began to stride up the steep incline, his progress a lot more sure-footed than her own had been.

He stepped onto the road and Libby immediately lost what height advantage geography had given her. He towered over her, forcing her to tilt her head to look him in the face. Size might not be everything but at that moment she would not have minded an extra inch or two.

‘You kissed me,’ she charged, addressing her accusation to his chest.

‘Only after you kissed me.’

The provocation brought her indignant gaze zeroing in on his face. Libby thought longingly about wiping that smug smirk off his face. ‘I’d had a shock. I thought you were dead.’ As excuses went it was pathetic, but it was all she had.

‘So that was the kiss of life?’ he said, sounding interested.

Libby, who could not think of a smart comeback and suspected that even if she had he would have come up with an even smarter one, shook her head.

‘I think we should forget it,’ she decided magnanimously.

Libby intended to, though the incident had all the ingredients of a nightmare—the sort where you found yourself in the supermarket in your underwear, and not the good stuff.

‘As you wish, though I’m insulted my kisses are so forgettable. Still, I’m a firm believer in the old adage practice makes perfect.’

Her eyes narrowed. Any more perfect and she’d have passed out. ‘So long as it’s not with me you can practise as much as you like.’

‘Relax, I only have sex with sane women.’ Not for three months, he realized. This went a long way to explaining his uncharacteristically impulsive behaviour.

He had appetites, sure, but he exerted control and, he liked to think, discrimination. The last thing he wanted was to find himself involved with some needy attention seeking bunny boiler who wanted to understand him.

Luckily there were plenty of women who shared his pragmatic attitude to sex and did not need the façade of a loving relationship to enable them to enjoy sex.

Libby tilted her head back to angle a menacing frown at him. ‘And you’re saying I’m not?’

‘You walked out in front of my car. If that doesn’t qualify as insane I don’t know what does.’

His eyes darkened at the memory of that moment when he had thought he was going to hit her. ‘What did you think you were doing? I can’t decide if you are a lunatic or just suicidal.’

The fact she fully deserved the reprimand and his anger did not make it easier to stand there meekly and take it.

‘I didn’t jump out, well, I did, but only because you were about to run over the dog and, anyway, if you hadn’t been driving like an idiot this wouldn’t have happened.’

He raised an eloquent brow. ‘So this was my fault.’

Libby felt the guilty heat rush to her cheeks. ‘Not totally,’ she admitted reluctantly.

‘And as for a dog …’ he made a show of looking around before lifting his shoulders in an expressive shrug ‘… I see no dog.’

The pink in her cheeks deepened to an angry red. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ she asked in a dangerous tone.

He arched a brow and looked amused. ‘I am simply saying that I saw no dog …’ He turned his head from one side to the other and shrugged. ‘I see no dog.’

‘Just because you don’t see something doesn’t mean it wasn’t there!’ retorted Libby, really angry now. Did he really think the dog was a figment of her imagination?

‘Let’s for argument’s sake say there was a dog—’

Libby gritted her teeth. ‘There was a dog. He’s a golden Lab who answers to the name of Eustace.’

Libby saw no reason to add that he rarely answered to his name. In fact the daft animal was far more likely to run in the opposite direction.

‘So where is this dog now?’

Good question, thought Libby, scanning the lane with a worried frown. ‘God knows,’ she admitted honestly. ‘He’s not very … He was a rescue dog—he’s a little bit … highly strung.’ It sounded better than the truth, which was he was as mad as a box of frogs!

‘If a dog is badly behaved it is the owner’s fault and not the animal’s.’

Libby, her chin angled defiantly, tilted her head back to meet his golden stare. His superior attitude was really setting her teeth on edge.

‘I’m not blaming the dog for anything and I am quite prepared to admit that the accident is my fault,’ she told him haughtily.

He shook his head and flashed a wolfish white grin. ‘Has no one ever told you that you should never admit guilt?’

Libby gave a disdainful sniff and retorted, ‘No, I was taught to tell the truth and take responsibility for my own actions.’

‘Very noble, I’m impressed,’ he said, looking deeply unimpressed. ‘Not everyone realises that all actions have consequences.’

Libby regarded him warily.

‘In the litigious world of today such painful honesty can be an expensive luxury.’

Libby shivered and, hugging herself, rubbed at the goose bumps that had broken out on her arms. Some women, she was sure, would have found the resulting suggestion of something approaching cruelty in his smile attractive; she was glad she was not one of them.

But, God, he knew how to kiss!

‘Is that some sort of threat?’

Before he could reply the sound of an excitedly barking dog bursting through the bushes the other side of the road made them both turn.

‘Is he real enough for you?’ Libby raised a sarcastic brow and threw him a challenging glare of triumph as she dropped gracefully down to dog level.

‘Eustace, good boy!’

The dog continued to bark from an elusive distance.

Rafael watched her efforts to lure him closer with a critical scowl. ‘At heart a dog is still a wolf, a pack animal who needs to know who is in charge.’

Libby cast him a sideways look of dislike as she continued to make encouraging noises. ‘And that I suppose would be you.’ Admittedly if any man had pack alpha written all over him it was this one.

‘My lifestyle is not conducive to owning pets.’ That was the life he had chosen for himself, the life that suited him. No baggage, nobody to feel responsible for.

He had given responsibility a go and he had failed; the guilt of failing the person he had tried to protect had stayed with him through the years.

He had failed the only person he had ever loved.

It didn’t matter to Rafael that most people would have considered it the mother’s job to keep the son safe and not vice versa. His mother had been one of life’s fragile souls worn down by rejection and hungry for the approval of whatever man was in her life, eager to gain their approval even when pleasing them meant dumping her inconvenient child with whoever would take him.

She had always come back for him eaten up with guilt, calling him the only man in her life, and for a while things were good, but there was always another man. And then finally she had not come back and Rafael had gone in search of her, arriving too late.

She had died alone in a remote village that did not even have clean water, let alone a doctor, and Rafael had not been able to afford a headstone.

He had been fifteen at the time and it had taken him two years to return with a headstone. The village now had clean running water and last year he had laid the foundation stone of a clinic.

‘But that doesn’t stop you being an expert,’ Libby drawled. ‘Why aren’t I surprised? For your information Eustace was badly abused. He needs TLC, not bullying and he—’ Just warming to her theme, Libby suddenly stopped as the tension he was vibrating reached her. She tilted her head back to look at his face.

‘Are you all right?’

She was confused as much by her reaction to the shocking desolation she had glimpsed in his heavy-lidded eyes as by the cause of it, and her questioning gaze went to a possible source: his head wound.

‘Your head?’ Not that physical pain would explain the awful anguish she had glimpsed in his eyes.

Rafael looked into her wide eyes, blue as a summer sky and warm with concern, and fought the illogical impulse to lash out, punish her for seeing more than she was meant to.

‘My head is fine,’ he said, taking a step forward while mentally taking several backwards, pushing away the dark memories and focusing instead on the pleasant present and the more than pleasant tantalising glimpse of cleavage revealed as he stared down the neck of her loose necked sweater.

‘So you understand about animals.’

Catching the direction of his bold stare, Libby felt her breasts tingle. And for a moment there she had been in danger of imagining he had some depth! She gave a disgusted snort and swung away. The fact her body continued to react without her consent increased her self-disgust.

‘Let’s put it this way—I find them infinitely preferable to men,’ she gritted, feeling impelled to add, ‘Some men.’ She pretended not to hear his husky laugh. ‘So if you don’t mind.’ She turned back to him and mimed a zipping motion across her lips.

After a startled moment Rafael grinned and inclined his dark head. ‘Be my guest.’

Libby, aware of her silent critic, continued her attempt to coax Eustace to her until her patience snapped. She rose to her feet, muttering under her breath as she dragged a swathe of hair back from her face before directing a frustrated glare his way.

‘Fine, if you’re so clever …?’ she snapped, irrationally hoping he was equally unsuccessful.

Of course he wasn’t.

He stepped forward, said a couple of authoritative-sounding words in his own language, and the dog—suddenly he could speak Spanish—trotted forward meekly looking sheepish.

Libby gritted her teeth and thought, Traitor, as after another word the dog sat down at his feet, wagging his tail while he gazed adoringly up at the man who condescended to pat his head and murmur a word of praise before bending to gather the lead from the ground.

Libby’s chest swelled with indignation, making her even more uncomfortably conscious of the fabric chafing against her nipples. It was a conspiracy, she brooded darkly, first betrayed by her own body and now the dog.

Libby took the lead silently proffered her and viewed him through narrowed eyes. ‘If I took you home my family would probably want to adopt you.’ She drew the dog towards her, patting his head.

‘Would that not make me your brother?’ he taunted.

‘I already have a brother, and I’m sure you have your own family.’ And maybe a wife?

The possibility filled her with horror. Had she kissed not just a stranger, but a married stranger? Checking out his left hand, she was relieved to see no wedding band.

Rafael shook his head. ‘No, my mother died some years ago. There is no one else of note.’

‘That is so sad!’ Libby exclaimed.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘SAD?’ Rafael raised a brow and watched the glow of sympathy fade from her blue eyes as he added cynically, ‘From what I see of families I am not envious. Down,’ he added in a stern aside as the dog, whimpering, rubbed against his leg.