Net of Lies (17 page)

T
he disbelief in his face turned to anger as he looked at her, his eyes thunderous. ‘You’re sending me away just because we kissed?’ His fingers dug into her arms, but she barely noticed the discomfort as she watched his expression with a fatalistic fascination. His fierce emotions emanated from his tall frame, transferring into her blood, energizing her like a battery. Her body heated up in response, and her blood hummed as it coursed through her flesh.

‘I don’t need your apologies for the kiss, Raoul. Just leave me
alone. That’s all I’m asking for,’ she hissed with equal anger, careless of anything but the man holding her. His fingers on her were her only connection to the world, the only compass to guide her in the sea of darkness and confusion that had surrounded her for so long. Aware of the ever-tightening web of attraction weaving around her with each passing second they were together, she knew she needed to break the connection. She tried to shrug him off, only to fail miserably as he held her steady with hardly any effort.

‘I know what you need, Kate.’ His voice was tense and angry, matching the expression of his dark eyes.
He pressed her against the wall of the house, her shoulder blades grinding against the rough wall. Momentarily immobilized, she wanted to struggle free, but found it impossible, because his body stopped her attempts to push him away. Cold wet drops of rain fell on her heated face, soaking her blouse. She didn’t have to look down to know that the fabric clung to her curves like a second skin. She could read it in his eyes as he watched her, his darkened gaze turning hot and heavy as he surveyed her puckered nipples visible through the flimsy barrier.

His eyes returned to her face,
and the stark hunger in his features silenced her more efficiently than any remark would have. She could only stare at him like a hypnotized animal, unable to move as he pressed against her even closer, guiding his knee between her thighs with unmistakable purpose. The fabric of her skirt bunched up, and the sensitive skin of her inner thighs welcomed the slightly abrasive sensation of his roughly clad leg. He bent his head to her, and she closed her eyes as she waited for his touch.

This
is insane,
a voice whispered in her head, urging her to put an immediate stop to the madness. Instead, she waited breathlessly for the first glorious taste of his lips parting hers as they had done countless times in her dreams. Her hands snuck up his shoulders to the nape of his neck, finding the silky strands of his hair and caressing them in the falling rain. She kissed him back with all the pent-up emotions that had burst through all the dams she had created for her own safety.

Their tongues
came together as the familiar rhythm of their lovemaking returned. One impatient sweep of his hand erased their years apart, searching under the fabric of her blouse and closing over her breast. She remembered his touch, as millions of butterflies danced in her stomach in response to his caress. The strong, confident way his fingers burnt into her flesh made the lines of his fingertips readable through her skin. Her body remembered it all, arching toward him involuntarily in mute invitation. She didn’t care that it was cold, rainy, and dark. She welcomed all that—the cover of the night and the abandoned alley was just as appealing as the softest bed and snow-white silk sheets.

The burning desire to feel him again, on her and inside her,
filled her emptiness and took away the dreaded loneliness that had walked beside her ever since the day their ways had parted. Her shaking hands went to his buckle, making quick work of it, then she wrapped her fingers around his hard shaft. He was ready, and her own body clenching in response as she felt him pulsing, heavy and hot, in her palm. His kiss turned brutal, devouring her lips as he moved against her hand, each move harder and more desperate than the previous one. Trapped inside her world of passion and desire, she moaned helplessly. Her hunger to feel him inside her was unbearable.
Touching him like this
isn’t enough,
she thought, her thumb flicking over the tip of his erection with each surge of his body. She barely registered the way his hands dealt with her panties, pushing them aside with one impatient move as he braced himself against the wall behind her and entered her wet, hot core.

She gasped
with the sensation of his hot, heavy hardness inside her that was nearly too much to bear. She lifted one of her legs, taking him in even deeper, each delicious stroke bringing her closer to release. Two years of erotic dreams that had plagued her night after night vanished in an instant. The real thing was incredibly better than anything she could imagine. The intensity of their lovemaking couldn’t last, though. The first spasm of ecstasy quickly shook her rain-soaked body. She felt her muscles clenching around him, and his responding groan told her that he was reaching the pinnacle of pleasure, as well. She felt his mouth against her neck, kissing her as he shuddered, then moaning her name as he spilled his semen inside her.

The
red and gold lights dancing under her eyelids slowly dimmed, paling as her reason returned. And with it, the reality of what had just happened hit her and left her breathless. Suddenly, she could feel the rain on her skin again, cold and intrusive, like a stranger’s fingers invading her privacy. She shivered, slowly pulling away, grateful for the support of the wall behind her. Without it, she might have fallen into a heap of misery, her legs barely able to keep her upright.

She looked around them
, noticing the greyness of the walls, the wobbliness of the street, and the half-crumbled wall at the end of the alley.
Not much of a love nest,
she thought bitterly, embarrassed by her total lack of inhibitions. It didn’t help that he was still holding her, his silence more eloquent than any words. Kate thought he was just as dismayed as she was at having reduced the glory of their lovemaking to a quick coupling against the wall in a dark alley just steps from his car.

She knew that it was inexcusable. Everything she was working
toward had been destroyed by one moment of thoughtless lust that had overpowered her thinking as if she was nothing more than an animal driven by its needs. The rivulets of cold water ran down her skin and plastered her hair against her skull. She could just imagine what she looked like—her makeup smeared and smudgy and her clothes heavy and wrinkled. She was sure she looked just as bad as she felt, every inch of her as ugly on the outside as the inside.

‘Kate?’ he sounded hesitant, and for a second
, she was tempted to just bury her cold face against his neck for a moment longer, if only to escape her misery.

Maybe if
I close my eyes long enough, then he’ll let me be. Maybe he’ll walk away without seeing how miserable I really am right now,
she thought sadly, burning tears in her throat.

‘
Kate?’ he repeated, more urgently, and she looked up into his eyes, past caring what she looked like at this moment. It served him right to see her like that—at the very bottom of her despair. Her need to lash out and hurt him nearly took over.

‘
Are you okay?’ The darkness of his eyes matched the night around them. She had the uneasy feeling that he was trying to make her feel better, and she resented him for it even more.

‘
Of course. Why shouldn’t I be okay?’ She shrugged, trying very hard to seem stronger than she felt. Because if she let go for a millisecond, she would soon be clinging to him and sobbing for him to care for her as much as she did for him. But that was impossible, of course. The damage she’d done by throwing herself at him and practically inviting him to have sex with her was bad enough. She wanted him to step away from her, to put space between their bodies, which had fit so perfectly just a moment before.

‘
We should go back to the hotel,’ she said, proud of the acting skills that seemed to have fooled him, because he stared at her in surprise, and if she weren’t so miserable, she would have burst out laughing at his confusion.

‘
We should talk about what just happened,’ he said, reaching up to cup her face with his hand. But when she saw him raising his palm, she moved her face to the side, avoiding contact with his fingertips.

‘
Don’t, Raoul,’ she said, calm and serene. ‘There is nothing to talk about, really. Consider it just a casualty of a long evening with too much alcohol and too little fun. Nothing more than that.’

‘
Seriously, do you really want me to think that?’ He was openly upset, his dark expression reminding her of his recent fury and what it had led to.

H
urrying to stop the thought before it managed to go anywhere dangerous, she shrugged and straightened her skirt. ‘Yes, I do.’

He still didn’t believe her,
and she knew it. She could read it in his eyes and in the way his lips parted, getting ready to say something comforting and chivalrous. She couldn’t let him do it, knowing that his words would be her undoing, destroying any remaining shreds of dignity she still possessed.

‘
Fine.’ He was visibly torn between his wish to set things right and the compliance with her demand. ‘But I still think we have to talk about it later, once you’re ready to accept the fact that we have made love, Kate, soberly and consciously.’

‘I
’m cold and wet, and I want to go back now, please,’ she said hurriedly, silencing him with her palm. ‘If you insist on vivisecting this now, I swear I will turn around and leave, forget about tomorrow.’

‘Just let me explain
,’ he started, but she turned away, her eyes stubbornly averted from his face.

‘I want to go back, please
,’ she repeated in a wooden voice that carried an air of finality he couldn’t miss. ‘Please, Raoul.’

He was silent for a moment, watching her face with an unreadable expression. A horrible suspicion in her mind
began to form as she waited for him to do anything at all. Was he waiting for her to live up to her threat? What if he called her bluff? Would she really walk off, turning her back on the whole operation? Maybe that was exactly what he considered the best solution, their unexpected sex putting their precarious relationship into an even more difficult position. Maybe he hoped she would disappear, saving him the trouble of distancing himself from her yet once again.

None of
that happened though, because just as she decided to turn around and walk, he sighed and nodded, droplets of water glistening in his hair like diamonds.

‘
Have it your way, then. But don’t think that this will be the last time we talk about it, Kate.’ He started walking to the car, never once turning back to see if she was following him. Which she was, of course. Had to, if she didn’t want to remain stranded in this dark, nameless alley that would forever remain etched in her memory. She followed, watching his broad shoulders curiously hunched as if he was carrying some burden that pressed him down. Her feet slipped twice on the wet, slippery cobblestones and she almost fell, but he didn’t even turn his head, let alone offer her any assistance.

This was the way things would be, she told herself, grateful for the rain mixing with her tears as she stumbled yet again. Probably he was already regretting his moment of weakness, eager to escape her stifling company that turned out to be much more difficult than he could ever anticipate.

She saw him opening the car and took a deep breath, slipping inside the warm, dry interior. It was only once inside that she noticed her teeth chattering uncontrollably as she shivered, soaked to the bone. And Raoul noticed it too, turning the air conditioning to the heat setting, his lips pressed into an angry line.

She was relieved when the car started, her hands folded in her
lap, pressed together in a desperate attempt to appear calm and collected. She could have saved herself the trouble though, because not once in the twenty minutes it took them to arrive at her hotel did he as much as glance in her direction. The evening was over and there was nothing left to say.

Kate swallowed convulsively
, thinking that her Cinderella hour was gone, with nothing but ashes remaining. Looking outside, she saw the rain picking up again, droplets of water turning the city lights to a blurred rainbow of colors, reminding her of her toy kaleidoscope from her childhood. Beautiful yet elusive, it made the world look like something from a fairy tale. She felt tears making their way down her cheeks and bit her lips together to stifle a sob that would embarrass her further.
Just get through tomorrow
, she told herself, praying that he wouldn’t notice her wet face.
After that, it will be all over, and I will be totally free. Free to return to my life without Raoul
…

But surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly after all, this thought didn’t make her feel any better. Sitting next to him, the taste of him still on her lips and
the feel of him still inside her, she felt as if some invisible wall had risen between them, dividing them forever. And instead of relief, she could have wept with misery, because she knew that it couldn’t be over. Not now and not for as long as she lived.

‘May I call
you Rosa, señora?’ Josh asked reverently as he kissed the old woman’s hand with an old-world charm, and his voice grated along Kate’s nerves like a nail dragged across a window pane. She was standing next to him, struggling very hard to appear equally anonymous and distanced from Raoul’s aunt. All the familiarity she already had with the tiny, yet feisty lady was getting in the way of her performance. From the moment they had arrived at Rosa’s villa, Kate had to constantly check herself to prevent a blunder that his trained eye would surely spot immediately, and once inside, she had to fight the urge to keep walking toward the direction of the drawing room.