‘Maybe I’m not used to sharing a bathroom,’ she muttered ruefully.
‘Then this is where we will start,’ Raul delivered.
Start what, where? Polly wondered in complete confusion.
‘Dios...I can hardly believe I flew back here just to be with you!’
‘Did you? I thought your urgent business took precedence.’
‘Possibly the prospect of getting my bride horizontal on the marital bed had greater appeal.’
‘Oh...’ Polly said after a startled pause. ‘Do you have to be so crude?’
Without the slightest warning, strong hands curved under her arms and a split second later she was airborne. Raul straightened and held her ruthlessly imprisoned in mid-air as she dripped water and bubbles everywhere, her
shaken face aghast. ‘Not so shrewish now, are you?’ he murmured with unconcealed amusement.
‘Please put me back in the water,’ Polly mumbled pleadingly.
Raul gazed into her shrinking blue eyes and slowly lowered her back into the bath with careful hands. ‘You’re such a baby sometimes...I wasn’t going to hurt you!’ he breathed in stark reproach.
Still trembling, Polly hugged the far side of the bath. ‘I don’t know why I’m so nasty with you,’ she lied—because she knew very well. ‘I’m not usually like this with anybody.’
‘You were so sweet in Vermont. I didn’t even know you had a temper, never mind that viper’s tongue,’ Raul admitted wryly. ‘What went wrong?’
You did At that stupid question Polly was tempted to throw something at him. She had fallen hopelessly in love, more deeply in love than she had ever believed possible, and nothing had ever been the same since. He didn’t love her, he didn’t believe in love, and she couldn’t risk letting him find out how she really felt about him. Given an ounce of such ego-boosting encouragement, he would walk all over her and take her for granted the way he had in Vermont.
The female sex had spoilt Raul. For minimum input he had always received maximum benefit—everything on his terms, everything the way he wanted it. And their marriage still felt like a deadweight threatening ball and chain to him. He didn’t have to tell her that. She knew it. She marvelled that he should believe that taking her to bed would miraculously change anything, particularly when he had already spelt out the fact that he didn’t rate sex any higher than an ‘appetite’.
And where did that leave her? The virginal bride with novelty value? A fresh body for his enjoyment?
Raul discarded his jacket on a chair and tossed his tie on top of it. Emerging from her insecure reverie, Polly gaped. Shoes and socks were summarily discarded.
‘What are you doing?’
Raul sent her a gleaming glance of intent. ‘Losing your virginity is not akin to a visit to a sadistic dentist.’
‘What would you know about it?’
A wolfish grin slashed his mobile mouth. ‘I’ll fill you in on my impressions tomorrow morning.’
Off came his shirt, to be carelessly discarded in a heap. Polly’s throat clogged up at sight of that magnificent brown torso and the triangle of all male dark curling hair outlining his powerful pectoral muscles. ‘Is this my anatomy lesson?’ she whispered shakily.
‘You need one?’ As free of inhibition as she was repressed. Raul flicked loose his belt and slid out of his well-cut trousers.
Although Polly wanted to look away, she couldn’t. Her throat thickened, her mouth running dry. Her mesmerised attention locked on to the silky furrow of hair running down over his flat, taut stomach to disappear tantalisingly beneath the band of a pair of black briefs.
‘You’re beginning to embarrass me,’ Raul censured mockingly.
Caught staring, Polly twisted her head away, cheeks flaming. ‘I don’t think anything embarrasses you!’ she condemned unevenly.
‘You really are shy...I thought it was an act in Vermont,’ Raul confessed without warning. ‘You were so open and forthright in every other way—’
‘I don’t put on acts,’ Polly protested feverishly. ‘I can’t help the way I was brought up any more than you can.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Raul breathed with sudden brooding darkness.
Involuntarily she shivered, catching the warning nuances in his accented drawl and spooked by what she could not understand. ‘My father believed girls should be modest and quiet and strait-laced, and my godmother agreed with him—’