Marriage on the Rebound

No; she denied it. Don’t be stupid. Rafe doesn’t want you. And you certainly don’t want Rafe! You’re just so tired at the moment you’re capable of mistaking anything right now—even a light kiss aimed exclusively at adding a little authenticity to this relationship!

‘Can we leave now?’ she asked a little desperately.

‘Of course,’ he agreed. ‘I would even go as far as to say it is expected of us that we do leave.’

Because he had achieved what he had set out to achieve, she acknowledged suddenly, feeling so heartsore and weary that the tiredness she had been trying to hold at bay all evening dropped over her like a big black cloud.

CHAPTER SIX

SHAAN had almost totally succumbed to the cloud by the time they got back to the hotel, and Rafe had to prop her up in a corner of the lift and hold her there with his hands while they were transported upwards.

The sound of his softly amused laughter was like the final nail in the coffin of her sense of exhaustion. ‘It isn’t funny,’ she protested, complainingly. ‘You’ve put me through hell today, and I think you did it all quite deliberately.’

‘Maybe,’ he half conceded.

‘I feel like I’ve been awake for ever,’ she sighed.

‘Shaan…’ he said softly. ‘It’s only ten o’clock in the evening.’

‘What?’ Her lashes flickered upwards so she could stare at him in disbelief.

He arched an eyebrow in mockery at her, his eyes still laughing. It surprised her, because she had never seen laughter in his expression before, and it was nice, contagious. She found herself smiling with him, albeit ruefully.

‘People tend to eat late here,’ he explained. ‘They like to make a night of it. But I only agreed to that dinner if we ate early, otherwise you’d only be looking at your second course by now.’

Good grief. She shuddered. ‘Aren’t you tired?’ she asked him then. After all, he had been awake as long as she had.

He didn’t answer for a moment. Then, ‘I’m used to it,’ he answered casually.

Then the lift stopped, and she was having to drag herself upright—with Rafe’s help again, his arm sliding around her waist to offer support during the walk down the corridor to their room.

It was sheer bliss to step inside there and know that this was it. No more diversions. She could crawl into bed and just die.

She didn’t even care that they were going to have to share that bed tonight. The way she was feeling right now, Rafe could even have his evil way with her—so long as he didn’t wake her up while he was doing it.

She felt that done in.

Someone had turned down the bed while they’d been out, and an oyster silk nightdress had been artistically arranged on one side of the bed, a pair of black silk pyjamas on the other.

Stubbornly ignoring the pyjamas, she picked up the nightdress and took it with her to the bathroom. Five minutes later, hair brushed loose, face scrubbed clean of make-up, she crawled into the bed, pulled the sheet over her shoulder and dropped like a stone into a deep, dark pool of warm slumber…

She drifted awake once during the long night. And she awoke frowning, aware of the alien presence of a weight lying across her body. Her eyes fluttered open then just stared, and a tingling sensation shivered through her when she found herself staring directly into another face, lying no more than a foot away from her own.

Rafe.

Rafe, sleeping beside her, his thick lashes lying in two graceful crescents on his prominent cheekbones, mouth relaxed, lips slightly parted, breathing deep and soft and steady.

Sharing a bed with anyone was a new experience for her. Sharing a bed with a man was totally alien and strangely…intriguing—that she could lie here like this reasonably assured of her own safety while he was obviously so unaware.

In the still, quiet darkness she could just make out a naked shoulder and the shadowy outline of dark body hair on his wide chest, the sheet having been pushed down to somewhere between the beginnings of his ribcage and his lean, tight waist.

She could feel his breath on her face, feel the warmth coming from his body and the weight of his arm where it rested in the curving hollow of her hip. She could see through the dimness the rich gold colour of his skin, see the way his body’s natural oils laid a polished sheen over well developed muscles—

No pyjamas, she realised with a sudden widening of her eyes in shocked consternation. He had dared to climb into bed with her wearing nothing!

Or at least nothing on his top half. But—no, she told herself. Surely he wouldn’t be so insensitive as to have left off his pyjama bottoms too?

Well, one thing was for sure—she wasn’t going