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‘Yes.’ She met his gaze without flinching. ‘But then I stopped you. I can’t have a relationship with someone who doesn’t like me. It doesn’t feel right.’
Remembering the heat of her mouth against his, Rafael was about to assure her that it had felt perfectly right, but thought better of it. ‘I wasn’t offering a relationship.’
‘But you would have made love to me.’
His laugh held no trace of humour. Love? Sooner or later that word had to raise its ugly head and its appearance effectively dampened his libido and cleared the red mist from his brain. ‘It was love that made you strip off my shirt?’
The colour poured into her cheeks. ‘I admit I was—it was—I’d never felt anything like that before.’ She moved away from him, as if she didn’t trust herself to stand close to him and not touch him. ‘But there are lots of reasons why it isn’t a good idea. One of which is, like it or not, that you are responsible for my loan. It wouldn’t be right.’
‘You want me to guarantee your loan before we have sex?’
Well, of course she did. Furious with himself for breaking his rule and complicating the situation, Rafael felt his mouth tighten, but she shook her head.
‘Of course not. I want you to extend my loan, yes, but not because of—of—anything else that happens to be between us. But if anything did happen then it’s inevitable that you’d question my reasons for sleeping with you.’
No, he wouldn’t. He’d sleep with her and forget her. Because that was the way he chose to live his life. He’d long since abandoned self-delusion. ‘I’m not into analysis. When you sleep with me, I can guarantee you that there won’t be post-mortem.’ He ran a hand over his face to clear the water from his vision. ‘Frankly, I don’t care if we don’t talk at all.’
Her lips parted. ‘Oh, well, that’s romantic.’
He leaned forward and planted an arm against the tree, bringing his body close to hers again. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be romantic.’ He lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. ‘Romantic is the lies people tell to soften the fall into bed. And I don’t tell lies. Is that what you’re going to do, Grace? Are you going to tell all the lies that women always tell? Because if you are, then this is the moment that you share with me that you love me. And we both know that you don’t. That’s not what this is about. This is about physical chemistry. The sort you don’t think about.’
Something flickered in her blue eyes. ‘You’re very confusing.’
‘No.’ The irony of her statement brought a smile to his lips. ‘I’m very straightforward. It’s everyone around me who plays the games, Miss Thacker.’
Her chin lifted. ‘I’m not playing games, but I don’t sleep with men I don’t know. And especially not with men who are careless about emotions.’
‘I’m not careless. Not at all.’ He took great care. He played by one set of rules. His own. And he’d made them for a reason. ‘Sex is sex. It doesn’t have to be complicated.’
She stared at him. ‘You’re telling me that you’d make love to me on the forest floor today, and then withdraw my loan tomorrow?’
‘Love?’ Just saying the word brought a bad taste to his mouth. ‘Not love. I didn’t say anything about love.’
Something flickered in her eyes. ‘Emotionless sex, then.’
‘Sex … ‘He stepped closer to her and felt the chemistry spark again like a live thing. ‘It’s an appetite, like hunger or thirst. An urge to be satisfied.’
‘You don’t truly mean that.’ She made a distressed sound and paced back towards the path, rubbing her damp arms with her hands. ‘I’ve been giving you the benefit of the doubt. I told myself that you couldn’t possibly be as cold as everyone said you were. That you’ve had a hard time in your life and that’s bound to make things difficult.’
Rafael ground his teeth with frustration. Why did women always do that?
Why did they always try and dissect every situation down to the bone?
‘If there’s one thing that dampens my libido more than a liar, it’s an amateur psychologist,’ he said, swinging the rucksack onto his back and striding past her onto the path. ‘Sex is sex, minha paixao, it’s just that very few women have the courage to acknowledge that fact. They prefer to dress it up in woolly emotion, bind a man with commitment and then whine when the appetite is satisfied and the whole thing falls apart. Which is why the divorce rate remains high.’
Now who was dissecting things down to the bone? Aggravated with her for driving him on to topics he made a point of avoiding and astonished with himself for not cutting her dead earlier in the conversation, Rafael tightened his mouth and started up the path.
‘Is that what happened to you?’ Her voice came from behind him and he turned, a growl of frustration bursting from his throat.
‘ What did you say?’
She was standing on the rain-soaked path, her blue eyes bright and intent on his, no trace of a smile on her face, and her simple, straightforward scrutiny disturbed him more than he could have imagined possible.
Without understanding why, Rafael strode back to her, the anger mounting inside him, although whether that anger was directed at himself or the girl he couldn’t be sure.
All he knew was that he’d had enough of the conversation. And he’d had enough of Grace Thacker. From now on he was going to block out her curves, her dimples and her sleek, silky blonde hair because some women were just too much effort and she was one of those.
And now she was looking at him in the way women did when they wanted you to open up and spill all sorts of deep, innermost secrets that they could sell to the papers for an indecent amount of money.
