Mills & Boon Stars Collection: Passionate Bargains. Michelle Smart

hair running across his pecs and thickening the lower it ran...

      Forget deep and even breathing. When his fingers hooked the sides of his boxers and tugged them off, pulling them past his strong thighs, all the air in her lungs went into hibernation.

      His silhouette moved back to the bathroom and turned the light off, plunging the bedroom into darkness.

      Too late she remembered her plan to feign sleep.

      The bed dipped, the sheets rustled and a large, warm figure slid in beside her.

      The dryness in her mouth became a memory as moisture filled it...and a lower part of her anatomy.

      Immediately she pressed her thighs together in a futile attempt to counteract the heat filling between them and closed her eyes, anticipating the moment he reached out and pulled her to him.

      Did she have the strength to even pretend lack of interest, when every part of her felt so heightened?

      It felt as if she waited for ever for him to make his move, every passing minute dragging on to the next.

      Nothing.

      He lay on his side facing her, making her scold herself for not having faced the wall rather than the centre of the bed. She might have her eyes shut but she could feel his gaze upon her.

      ‘Well?’ she said, before she could stop her tongue from speaking. ‘Isn’t this the moment when you take your next payment?’

      He shifted closer to her, his face near enough for her to feel the warmth of his minty breath.

      ‘My payment is your body, whenever and wherever I require,’ he said in a tone that washed through her skin like a caress, moving even closer so the tip of his nose pressed against hers.

      Her lips parted in anticipation of his kiss.

      ‘But tonight I will put my payment on hiatus.’ Suddenly he twisted away and turned his back to her. ‘Unless you wish to make a payment to me of your own accord?’ he added, pulling the sheets over his shoulder and edging away from her.

      ‘That will never happen,’ she whispered, goosebumps covering her at the abrupt withdrawal of his warmth.

      ‘Never say never.’ He laughed quietly. ‘If you change your mind...’

      ‘Dream on.’

      ‘Oh, I will.’

      Raul smiled into his pillow and closed his eyes. He could practically smell her frustration.

      When he did make love to her, she would be desperate for his touch. All her defiance would be smothered by desire.

      He let his mind run free, imagining all the ways he would take her and she would take him; imagined her tongue snaking its way down his chest...

      But something else fought for space in his head, the same something that had been jarring in his throat since the journey back home.

      Her words echoed within him, becoming louder the more he tried to push them away.

       ‘Nothing is allowed to be less than perfect—not even your own feelings.’

      Was there some truth in it?

      No. Of course there wasn’t. Charley was trying to needle him.

      A memory flashed in his mind of one time he had allowed his emotions to get the better of him. It had been the night Charley told him she didn’t want his baby.

      His anger had been bubbling at the surface, impossible to hide and, for the first time in his adult life, he’d given into it, lashing out verbally, cruelly. He’d called her a gold-digging bitch and told her to leave, not meaning it and never for a moment imagining she would.

      It hadn’t been one-sided. The recriminations had flown both ways, Charley screaming back at him with furious tears streaming down her face that their marriage had no basis in reality, that he patronised her and treated her like a child, that he should find himself another wife, someone who could breed a dozen children for him, look perfect and run a multinational company and all in her sleep. That he was a cold, arrogant control freak.

      By the time the anger had notched down to a simmer, both of them visibly calmer, her bags were packed.

      ‘This is ridiculous,’ he’d said. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

      ‘You told me to leave,’ she’d replied with a face so stony it was like looking at a statue.

      ‘That was in the heat of the moment and now I’m telling you to stay.’

      ‘But I don’t want to stay.’ She’d looked straight at him with eyes that were a red, raw mess, black streaks of make-up splotched down her cheeks. At that moment she had looked exactly as he’d felt. ‘I can’t live like this any more.’

      And just like that, their marriage was over.

      He almost laughed at the irony. The one time in his adulthood that he’d truly given into his feelings, his wife had walked out on him.

      If that didn’t tell him he was right to keep his emotions controlled and locked away, nothing did.

      * * *

      The grounds of the building Raul had purchased to rehome Poco Rio were filled with overgrown weeds dying in the heat and parched grass. Charley didn’t care; all she saw in her mind’s eye was how glorious it would be when the renovations were complete.

      The architect, a middle-aged man with a shock of white hair called Vittore, had travelled from Barcelona with them. Other than Raul’s introduction, the two men had conversed between themselves during the short helicopter trip and even shorter car journey, discussing other business projects they were working on together. If Vittore was bothered about travelling to Valencia on a Saturday morning there was no sign of it in his relaxed demeanour.

      She itched to get back inside the sprawling one-storey building; she had been dreaming of this moment for two long months. Of course, her dreams hadn’t involved Raul buying the place in his name. In her dreams it had been in her name and, when all the renovations were complete, she’d intended to sign it over to Poco Rio so they never need worry about losing their home again.

      He’d said he might give her the deeds if she proved herself to him. All she could do was try.

      The main thing was that so long as she kept her side of the bargain and stayed with him for four months, Raul would keep his and Poco Rio would have a new home. That much she trusted him on.

      The interior of the pretty red stone building, which was so much nicer than the institutionalised building Poco Rio was currently homed in, was as ramshackle as she remembered, but that was only decoration. The rooms were large and, once new windows had been installed, would be airy.

      ‘I’m going to look around and see what my money has bought,’ Raul said, leaving her with Vittore.

      The moment he was out of sight, Charley sat on the dusty floor, opened her briefcase and pulled out her plans. ‘Please don’t feel I am treading on your toes,’ she said, speaking in hesitant Spanish, ‘but here’s a guide to what the centre needs.’

      Vittore squatted beside her and took the plans. After he’d perused them for a while, he said, ‘Is there a reason the doorways need to be so wide?’

      ‘A lot of the children have wheelchairs,’ she answered carefully, scared of things being lost in translation.

      He nodded thoughtfully, then asked her some more questions.

      They were deep in conversation, Charley pointing out where she thought a wall should be knocked down to make a large soft-play area, when Raul rejoined them.

      Her Spanish died on her lips.

      He regarded her for a moment, his eyes drilling into her with something that looked like cold suspicion, before turning to Vittore. ‘Has Charlotte explained the