Contract Baby

‘I don’t want to get in your way!’ Polly snapped childishly.

Raul released his breath in an audible hiss. ‘You don’t have anything to fear, gatita. I realise that I’ve been...inconsiderate,’ he selected after an uncharacteristic hesitation.

Stiff as a board, Polly strove to work out the intent of that unexpected admission.

‘Naturally I want you to be happy,’ Raul informed her out of the blue.

‘Do you?’

‘Of course. Why so amazed?’ Raul queried. ‘What else would I want?’

‘You want the best for Luis,’ Polly breathed, not quite levelly. ‘I understand that—’

‘Dios...when I thought you’d gone I never even thought to check on our son!’ His slightly dazed tone was that of a male belatedly making that connection and not best pleased by it.

Good heavens, Polly thought in shock over that astonishing admission. Raul had actually thought of her first, put her first? Instantly it was as if a tight little knot of resentment was jerked loose inside her. She no longer felt like an unwanted wife, to be tolerated only because their son needed his mother. And she wondered when Raul’s single-minded focus on Luis had stretched to include her as a person of some import in his own life. But she really didn’t care when that minor miracle had taken place, she was just so very grateful that it had.

‘I wouldn’t bolt again...as you put it,’ she shared awkwardly.

‘I can forgive you for Vermont. That was understandable. The clinic too...you panicked. That’s all in the past now.’

Polly turned over. ‘But coming here was still a big thing for me...’

‘No less a challenge for me, querida.’ Raul reached for her clenched fingers where they lay above the sheet, and calmly tugged her across the divide between them.

Her breath caught in her throat as he eased her into his arms. Gazing up at him, she drank in the hard bones forming that lean, strong face, her stomach fluttering, her heartbeat racing, every fibre of her body pitched in anticipation of his next move.

Raul rubbed a blunt forefinger gently over the ripe fullness of her parted lips and looked down at her. A sigh feathered in her throat, her eyes widening, dark blue pools of unconscious invitation. ‘I...I was just nervous earlier,’ she confided.

‘You have beautiful eyes. That was the first thing I ever noticed about you.’

‘In Vermont?’

‘I saw you long before then.’

Her brow furrowed. ‘But how?’

‘Your photograph, then your initial interview with my lawyer. Trick mirror. I was in the office next door,’ he confided without apology.

‘Devious,’ she said breathlessly, her heart hammering as she stared up into mesmeric golden eyes.

‘Cautious,’ Raul contradicted.

The hard heat of his lean, virile body was seeping into her by pervasive degrees. She was so outrageously conscious of his proximity that she was keeping her lungs going on tiny little pants. ‘Kiss me,’ she muttered, before she could lose her nerve.

‘I’m burning up to possess you,’ Raul breathed thickly. ‘I won’t stop at kissing.’

She trembled and, closing her eyes, reached up to press her lips against his. Teasingly he circled her mouth with his own, refusing to deepen the pressure, and in sudden driving impatience Polly sank her fingers into the depths of his luxuriant black hair to pull him down to her.

Vibrant amusement shimmered in his eyes as he held himself above her. ‘Is that a yes?’

Shaken then by her own boldness, she met the reckless golden glitter of sensual threat in his gaze and started

melting down deep inside, the weighted languor of anticipation sentencing her to stillness. Helplessly she nodded.

With a slashing smile that turned her heart over, Raul lowered his imperious dark head. ‘You have to understand that this is a first for me too,’ he shared silkily. ‘I’ve never had a virgin in my bed. It makes you very special.’

‘I never know whether you’re being ironic or sincere,’ Polly muttered tautly.