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Ice chilled his veins as he acknowledged the full extent of what he was feeling.
‘Rafael?’
He didn’t respond or turn towards her. Instead he watched the screen as Axel Jung threatened to take the lead from the young driver.
‘Rafael, are you okay?’
‘Do me a favour, querida, and stop talking. You’re holding a mirror up to my numerous flaws. There’s only so much I can take before I have to revert to type. And since you don’t want that, I suggest you let me absorb a few of them and concentrate on enjoying this race, sí?’
Far from doing what he expected of her, which was to retreat into sullen silence or—from experience with other women—flounce off in feminine affront, she merely picked up the remote that operated the giant screen in their section and turned it on. Then she picked up the menu, asked him what he wanted for lunch, then ordered it for them, her face set in smooth, neutral lines.
He waited several minutes, despising the emotion that ate away his insides like acid on metal. Guilt. An emotion he didn’t like to acknowledge.
Guilt for upsetting her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
A shapely eyebrow lifted in his direction, then she nodded. ‘It’s okay. I don’t like dredging up my past either. I guess I should learn to respect yours.’
‘But I seem to invite you to dig, which is very unlike me.’ He frowned.
A tiny, perfect smile played around lips he remembered tasting. A craving such as he’d never known punched through him. Right in that moment, all he wanted to do was taste her again. Keep on tasting her until there were no clothes between them. Then he would taste her in the most elemental way possible. Right between her legs.
He would so enjoy watching her come. Again and again. And again.
Normally, he would have been thrilled by the natural path of his thoughts, but Rafael admitted his need held a previously unknown edge to it...an almost desperate craving he’d never experienced before. He wanted Raven. And yet a part of him was terrified by the depth of his need.
Forcing himself not to analyse it too closely, he returned his attention to the track and felt a further spurt of discontentment when he saw Axel Jung had taken the lead.
Lunch was delivered and they ate in truce-like silence.
When Axel Jung took the race by a half second, Rafael tried to force back his black mood. As the CEO of the company organising the event, he had to step up to the podium and say a few words.
‘If your jaw tightens any further, you’ll do yourself an injury,’ Raven murmured next to him.
‘I’m smiling, querida, like the great racer slash CEO that I am,’ he muttered back, turning towards her.
This close, her perfume filled his nostrils and invaded his senses. She gave a laugh and raised a sceptical brow. ‘We both know you want to throw your toys out of the pram because the team you silently support came second. You’re supposed to be unbiased, remember?’
He moved closer to her, felt the brush of her arm against his side and the depth of need intensified. ‘I am unbiased. I just wanted my young driver to win, that’s all,’ he said, unrepentant.
Her teasing laugh and the way she bumped his shoulder in playful admonition unravelled him further. He glanced down into her face and his breath strangled at her breathtaking beauty.
A shout made him turn. Axel had stepped off the podium and was making his way towards them. Or Raven in particular, if the interest in his eyes was anything to go by.
Before conscious thought formed, Rafael moved, deliberately blocking the German from accessing the woman beside him. His woman.
‘Congratulations, Jung. I think the press want their interview now.’ He deftly turned the German towards the waiting paparazzi. As moves went, Rafael thought it was supremely smooth, but Raven’s gasp told him the grace had been lost on her.
‘Did you just do what I think you did?’
‘That depends. Did you want him to come over here and slobber all over you?’
She shuddered. ‘No, but I’m not sure I wanted a blatant territory-marking from you either.’
He wanted to tell her that he wished the whole paddock knew to keep away from her. But he knew it wouldn’t go down well. It would also point out just how much he detested the idea of Raven with any other man. ‘Point taken.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Wow, I’m not sure whether to feel suspicious or special that you’ve conceded a point to me.’
‘You should feel special.’ His gaze trapped and held hers. ‘Very special.’
Raven returned his stare, trying to summon a tiny bit of ire beneath all the high octane, breath-stealing emotions coursing through her. But the excitement licking along her nerve endings put the effort to shame.
