The Ring The Spaniard Gave Her - Lynne Graham Page 0,25

from her as she lifted up to him by instinct, desperate to ease the drumbeat of need driving her, barely recognising herself when she was lost in that fierce craving. He slid between her trembling thighs and entered her in a powerful surge, and she jerked at the burn of his entrance into her untried body. It hurt and she gritted her teeth, shocked because she hadn’t expected pain. She closed her eyes tight and endured until the burn lessened, faded, turned into something else, a something that soothed and aroused and entrapped her afresh.

A ripple of excitement built in her pelvis and the promise of pleasure was so strong it held her spellbound. He felt extraordinary. Waves of heat and sensation shimmered through her sensitised body, exquisite sensation tugging at her with every thrust of his lean, powerful length. He ground down on her and went deeper and her world just exploded round her in a white-hot electrifying shower of response that lit her up inside and out. She tumbled back against the pillows, shattered by that climax, fascinated by an experience that had been so much more powerful than she had ever dreamt it could be.

Ruy pulled back from her and immediately saw the blood on her thighs and on him and he remembered the way she had hidden her face, the incredible tightness of her, and suddenly he registered that he had been a complete idiot and he was furious. Nobody was less able to cope with the suspicion that he had slept with a virgin than Ruy. Indeed, he had gone through a phase after his nightmare with Liliana of checking beforehand that no woman he slept with was an innocent. As a rule, though, the risk wasn’t great because Ruy rarely took younger women to bed.

‘How old are you?’ he suddenly demanded of Suzy.

Her smooth brow furrowing at the rawness of that enquiry, Suzy sat up. ‘Twenty-one...why?’

Dark golden eyes as hard and unyielding as the stone in his bathroom, Ruy surveyed her grimly and sprang off the bed. ‘You were a virgin. I had no idea and I wouldn’t have touched you had you warned me.’

‘Warned you?’ she repeated in shaken objection to his attitude. ‘Why would I have warned you?’

‘Because I didn’t sign up for this scenario,’ Ruy lanced back chillingly. ‘I don’t sleep with virgins...ever! I don’t want you attaching expectations to what just happened between us because sex means virtually nothing to me. I’m not about to fall madly in love with you and suggest that we have a serious relationship either... I don’t work that way. I’m sorry.’

A shuddering wave of humiliation engulfed Suzy as she stared back at him in shock. Unapologetic eyes challenged hers before he swung away to stride into the bathroom and the door slammed shut.

CHAPTER FIVE

SUZY STAYED STILL for only a few moments and then she leapt off the bed and ran around scooping up her clothes, clambering back into them as fast as she could. At the same time, a phone started buzzing somewhere, a phone she suspected to be in Ruy’s discarded jeans. Ignoring it, she sped downstairs, not even sure where she was going. She felt hurt, humiliated, utterly and cruelly exposed after his cutting words in the aftermath of their intimacy. She had got into bed with the wrong guy, totally the wrong guy.

In the spacious lounge area, she looked around in search of the studio he had mentioned or at least the possibility of another bathroom facility because she knew she had to wash the memory of him off her skin. She peered into an empty kitchen, a cloakroom and then a big airy room with full-height windows that overlooked the dense woods. It contained both an easel, a stack of canvases and a bed. One of the doors off it led into a bathroom and with a sigh of relief she began to undress again.

She had gone to bed with a man she barely knew, and she cursed her impulsive nature for that blunder. She had leapt in where angels feared to tread. All the worst mistakes she had ever made could be laid at the door of that flaw in her character. Well, lesson learned, she told herself urgently, frantically striving to fill the deep well of pain inside her with more positive feelings. Her body ached, reminding her of what she wanted to most forget.

How on earth had she put herself in a position where Ruy Rivera could