‘You’d run away if you knew the things I want to do to you,’ Ruy growled against the slender column of her white throat, his mouth nipping along the tender slope of her neck, making her squirm and gasp while he delicately stroked and traced the damp triangle of cloth stretched between her thighs.
Her heart was racing at an insane level. It was a crazy challenge simply to catch her breath. Sheer physical excitement had gripped her in an unbreakable hold. He peeled her out of her last garment. The burn at her core was relentless, tiny ripples of tension already ringing her pelvis and building in demand. He spread her trembling legs, lowered his head and used his tongue on her tender flesh while he eased a finger into her. Irresistible sensation engulfed Suzy in a heady wave and a rosy flush warmed her entire skin surface as she rocked her slender hips. Erotic bliss, a whole world of sensual extremes, captured her and wrung powerful responses from her sensitised body. Flung up to an ecstatic height that made her cry out, she felt fireworks flare through her entire being and light her up until she fell back against the pillows to marvel at the tiny convulsions of pure pleasure still currenting through her.
Her shimmering green eyes locked to him. She lifted a feathery copper brow. ‘You’re allowed to shock and awe me in bed,’ she conceded with deadly seriousness and no small amount of complacency.
After a disconcerted pause, Ruy flung himself back on the bed and laughed with raw appreciation. No other woman had ever given him such a sense of freedom. He reared back up again to crush her parted lips under his and let his tongue delve deep, that carnal kiss reawakening the sensual hum deep inside her. ‘Dios... I’m burning up for you,’ he told her hoarsely.
He reached for protection, carefully rearranged her supple body and plunged into her hard and fast. Her back arched, her hips rose, a formless sound of need quivering from her lips. His fierce rhythm sent compelling surges of delight through her and the excitement climbed, little paroxysms of convulsive sensual heat tying her into a tight knot of anticipation until the pleasure rose to an uncontrollable height, loosened the knot of need and blew her away again.
‘See...no freak out,’ Ruy breathed huskily in the aftermath, gazing down with smouldering dark golden eyes at her hectically flushed face.
‘The earth definitely moved,’ Suzy told him with dancing eyes of admiration as she smoothed a possessive hand down over his heaving ribcage. ‘Do you think you can keep that standard up for a whole week?’
‘A week...why only a week?’ An immediate frown tensed Ruy’s lean dark features.
‘Because I’m only here for a week,’ Suzy reminded him cheerfully.
Ruy unclenched his taut jawline and thought about it. A week was a very long time for him with a woman. In fact, he had never spent that much time or that many nights with one particular woman. The sex was spectacular but that could possibly be a mere side effect of his artistic obsession with her. By the time he completed his sketches and started to paint her, he would probably be far too preoccupied by his art to care too much about her departure.
Ruy closed an arm round her. ‘I intend to make the most of this week.’
And so did Suzy, lying there dreamily compliant in her sensual daze. She would make the most of Ruy and her trip to Spain and then return to her normal life. A life in which she would make changes, she planned reflectively with a little leap of anticipation that for once had nothing to do with Ruy. If her father no longer needed her to work at the pub, she would be free to decide her own future and there were a dizzying number of options available. Although perhaps there weren’t quite so many options open to someone like her without higher-level education, she acknowledged ruefully. Perhaps the first move she would have to make would be signing up to study towards better qualifications.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Ruy pressed, sensing her abstraction and irritated by it.
‘Going home,’ she told him truthfully.
His brilliant dark eyes glittered like polished jet. At that moment he didn’t want her thinking about anything but him, and the very strangeness of that thought disconcerted him.
It was because that desire of hers to return home put pressure on him to complete the painting, he reasoned uneasily. And possibly just a little because he wanted her full attention to be on him—and that was normal, wasn’t it? Particularly for a guy who had never had to fight for a woman’s attention before...
OK, Ruy thought with sudden ferocity, challenge accepted.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘DON’T MOVE YOUR HAND,’ Ruy instructed. ‘And, no, don’t twist your face up like that. You’re a creature of perpetual motion, querida. You must learn how to sit still.’
‘Were you like this as a kid?’ Suzy queried impatiently. ‘Did you make your friends sit like statues while you drew them?’
‘My friends didn’t know about my artistic propensities.’
Suzy studied him intently, taking in the gleaming black hair, the proud high cheekbones, the dark deep-set eyes that flashed gold in sunlight or emotion. He was gorgeous, particularly when dressed down to paint in worn jeans and a tee that showcased every inch of his lean, beautifully muscular body. The sensuality of that thought brought colour to her cheeks but six days of pretty much constant intimacy with Ruy had wrecked her ability to step back and maintain her cool. Now she looked at him and her own body clenched and throbbed in reaction even though she ached from their mutual enthusiasm.
‘And why was that?’
‘My father punished me for drawing or for showing any interest in art.’
‘But why?’ she exclaimed in disbelief.
‘My father’s younger brother, Lorenzo, was an artist. He was also defiantly gay. My father was a bigot and he cut his brother out of his life, but he grew up associating any kind of artistic leanings in a man with homosexuality. My desire to draw horrified him and he tried to beat it out of me.’
‘That’s appalling!’ Suzy gasped in shock at his calm manner of talking about such inhumane treatment.
‘I learned to hide my interest at an early age,’ Ruy admitted, his sensual mouth quirking. ‘But, perhaps, Armando was rather unlucky with his sons. Rodrigo, after all, has a similar creative streak. He’s become a successful art dealer and is the owner of a fashionable art gallery in Seville. This palacio is, after all, the home of one of the most valuable private art collections in Spain, consisting of paintings assembled over many hundreds of years by my ancestors. Art and collecting is in our blood.’
Her smooth brow furrowed. ‘Your father sounds like a monster. Is that why you keep your artistic side a big secret?’
Ruy’s strong jawline clenched. ‘It was the start of it, certainly. I wasn’t strong enough to fight my father off and stop those punishments of his until I was a teenager and by then a lot of damage had been done and the secrecy had become a habit.’