A Prize Beyond Jewels (11 page)

‘Forgive you for what, Papa?’ she prompted, fearing his anxiety had something to do with the fate of the three kidnappers.

‘We will talk later,’ he repeated determinedly.

She would have to be satisfied with that answer, for the moment.

Except she wasn’t.

There had been something in her father’s eyes just now, a darkness that spoke of pain, a deep-rooted pain he had never revealed to her before. But not of a physical kind, as he had assured her it wasn’t, but one that bit deep into his heart and mind.

Not that Nina had any more time to think about that right now, when she had the ordeal of the gala exhibition at Archangel, and seeing Rafe again, to get through...

* * *

‘I don’t recall her being quite so beautiful.’

Rafe was only half listening to Michael, far too busy studying Nina as she arrived with her father. He was too busy looking for any signs in her expression that she found this evening as much of a strain as he did to give his brother his full attention.

Her eyes were that clear unshadowed green, her skin glowing with health and vitality, and she smiled brightly as her father introduced her to the two men who had just joined them, all of the guests having been waiting in anticipation for the arrival of the reclusive Dmitri Palitov.

Rather than strained Nina looked sensational. Absolutely, breathtakingly, sensational.

She had left her hair loose again tonight, a moving river of flame as it fell silkily over her shoulders before cascading down the length of her spine to her waist. Her emerald-green eyes dominated the creaminess of her face, and there was a deep rose gloss on those temptingly pouting lips. Her gown was a gold shimmer that clung lovingly to her curves, leaving her arms bare, and finishing several inches above her knees to reveal those long and shapely legs, her four-inch-heeled shoes the same rich gold colour as her gown.

And Rafe hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her since the moment she had appeared in the doorway of the gallery beside her father’s wheelchair, his eyes narrowing now as she laughed huskily at something said to her by one of the two men her father had introduced her to.

‘Rafe, are you listening to me? Rafe!’

‘What is your problem now, Michael?’ He turned on his brother fiercely, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

Michael raised calm dark brows at that show of aggression. ‘I merely remarked on the fact that I don’t remember Nina Palitov being quite so young or so beautiful. A remark which you obviously didn’t hear. Or just didn’t want to comment on,’ he added shrewdly.

Rafe’s scowl deepened. ‘If you recall, I did mention the little fact of her beauty in my telephone call to you after I’d met Nina for the first time, after I had discovered she wasn’t the middle-aged spinster you’d allowed me to expect!’

Michael grimaced. ‘I didn’t “allow” anything. I just wasn’t taking a lot of notice of how the daughter looked when I last met Dmitri Palitov. But I’d have to be dead not to have noticed now.’

Rafe’s eyes narrowed. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

His brother’s gaze was still on the beautiful Nina as she stood beside Dmitri Palitov, so he didn’t see the displeasure on Rafe’s face. ‘We should go over and greet our guest of honour,’ he added distractedly.

Rafe placed a warning hand on his brother’s arm. ‘Keep your restrained but lethal charm to yourself around Nina!’ he warned harshly.

Michael turned back to look at him, narrowed gaze raking slowly over Rafe’s face. ‘What the hell?’ he finally muttered softly. ‘Rafe, please tell me you didn’t— Oh, hell, you did.’ He grimaced as Rafe quirked one dark, pointed brow. ‘I asked you to keep Dmitri Palitov sweet and you slept with his daughter!’

‘Keep your damned voice down.’ Rafe glared at him.

Michael continued to scowl at him. ‘Is Nina Palitov the reason for your distraction yesterday evening? The reason you’ve been walking around growling at everyone at the gallery today? More to the point...’ his brow slowly cleared ‘...is she the reason you’ve suddenly tired of the playboy image and decided it has to go?’ he probed shrewdly.

‘Mind your own damned—’

‘It is my business, Rafe,’ his brother cut in coldly. ‘Anything that affects Archangel is my business. And Gabriel’s too.’

‘This has nothing to do with Archangel.’

‘And what is “this”, precisely?’ Michael bit out softly. ‘What does Nina Palitov mean to you?’

‘None of your damned business.’

Michael gave an impatient sigh. ‘Does Palitov know about the two of you?’

‘There’s nothing to know.’

‘Does he know?’ Michael grated harshly.

Rafe’s jaw clenched. ‘Yes. But it’s already over between the two of us.’

‘Why?’ Michael’s brows rose.

‘Shouldn’t you just be pleased that it is rather than asking why it is?’

‘Not if it’s not what you want, no.’

Rafe’s brow cleared. ‘You know, Michael, you really do live behind a mask as much as I do.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that you hide your emotions behind that mask. Meaning that maybe our little brother getting married has got to you.’

‘As it’s got to you?’

Nina was what had ‘got to’ Rafe. Just Nina. And he still had no idea what he was going to do about it. About her.

‘Do you think he’s just lulling you into a false sense of security by showing up here this evening?’ Michael was staring across at Dmitri Palitov. ‘And that maybe he intends to set some of his bodyguards on you in a dark alley one night?’

‘I don’t know how I’ve survived all these years without a daily dose of your sunny disposition.’ Some of Rafe’s own normal good humour returned. ‘Let’s go and say hello to them—and perhaps later you could let me know if you still think he intends having me discreetly eliminated.’ He didn’t wait to see what else his brother had to say on the subject as he made his way through the crowded gallery to where Nina stood beside Dmitri’s wheelchair as Dmitri now chatted with several business acquaintances.

Nina found it slightly intimidating to have not one, but two, of the formidably handsome D’Angelo brothers bearing down on her. Or, to be strictly accurate, one of them was bearing down on her in that intimidating way; Michael D’Angelo’s attention was obviously more focused on her father.

But the D’Angelo brothers were without doubt the two most arrestingly handsome men here this evening, their perfectly tailored black evenings suits and snowy white shirts emphasising the width of their muscled shoulders and the lean strength of perfectly toned bodies. Rafe’s hair was a silky ebony curtain onto his shoulders, Michael’s hair as dark but styled much shorter, and revealing stark and arresting features dominated by obsidian-black eyes.

And she was deliberately delaying looking at Rafe by keeping her gaze fixed firmly on his austerely handsome older brother.

She knew she had good cause for that delay when she finally turned the coolness of her gaze on Rafe and saw the angry glitter in those predatory gold eyes, and a nerve pulsing in his tensely clenched jaw.

Predatory golden eyes that held Nina’s gaze captive as she distractedly acknowledged Michael D’Angelo’s formally polite greeting before he turned to shake her father’s hand with warmer familiarity. Rafe remained noticeably silent as he continued to look down at her with that piercing coldness.

What on earth was wrong with him? Admittedly the two of them had parted badly yesterday morning in his office, and they hadn’t spoken a single word to each other since, but did Rafe have to make the tension that now existed between the two of them so obvious to other people? To her father? To his brother?

His next actions would seem to confirm that he did.

‘If you will excuse us, gentleman, I just need to steal Nina from you for a few minutes,’ Rafe rasped determinedly, not waiting for either man to respond as he reached out and circled one of Nina’s wrists with steely fingers before he turned and walked in the direction of the gallery doorway.

Nina stumbled along beside him as she found it difficult to keep her balance in her four-inch-heeled shoes.

‘You’re making a scene again, Rafe!’ she hissed as she saw the curious glances being sent their way.

His eyes glittered dangerously as he spared her the briefest of glances. ‘Maybe you would rather I caused even more of a scene by pushing you up against the wall right here and taking you in front of everyone?’

‘Rafe!’ Nina wasn’t sure whether her breathless gasping of his name was in shocked outrage or aching longing for him to do just that.

She had a sinking feeling it was the latter.

CHAPTER NINE

T
HE
NEED
TO
kiss Nina again, to touch her and to make love to her again had been like a burning ache inside Rafe for the past thirty-six hours. He’d been kept in a state of arousal for almost all of that time too, until something had snapped inside him just now, just from looking at the way that clinging, glittering gold gown clung so lovingly to every curve of her delicious body, with her hair tumbling like a living flame over her shoulders and down the length of her spine. As for those lushly pouting lips...

‘Don’t even think about it,’ he tensely instructed the two Palitov bodyguards on duty just outside the gallery as they stepped forward at first sight of Nina.

‘It’s okay, Andy,’ Nina added ruefully as the larger of the two burly men turned to her enquiringly. ‘Stay with my father. Mr D’Angelo and I are going for a little walk,’ she added lightly as Rafe continued to pull her down the hallway.

Walk, be damned. Rafe needed to taste Nina again, to touch her again so badly, that he opened the first door he came to once they had turned the corner into another hallway, uncaring that it appeared to be some sort of small service cupboard containing brooms and buckets. He pushed her unceremoniously inside before following her in and shutting the door behind them, immediately throwing them into complete darkness.

‘Rafe!’

‘I need to kiss you, Nina!’ he groaned as he lowered his head and fiercely captured her mouth unerringly with his, moaning his satisfaction at the first delicious taste of her.

All of Nina’s annoyance at Rafe’s high-handed behaviour in having dragged her from the gallery—very much in the manner of that Neanderthal she had accused him of being yesterday morning!—evaporated as if it had never been at the first touch of Rafe’s mouth against hers. Her own desire for him was instantaneous, combustible.

Her lips parted beneath his, and she let her clutch bag slide to the floor before moving her arms up and over his shoulders to allow her fingers to become entangled in the darkness of Rafe’s hair. She pressed the length of her body against his and returned the hunger of that kiss, her breasts swelling, nipples pebbling, between her thighs heating, as Rafe’s hands roamed restlessly along the length of her spine before cupping her bottom and pulling her heat in tight against the hardness of his arousal.

He wrenched his mouth from hers, his hand fisting in her hair as he pulled back slightly, arching her neck to allow his lips and tongue to seek out the silky hollows and dips of her throat. ‘Your father isn’t going to be happy about this.’ he acknowledged unconcernedly, his breath hot as his tongue rasped moistly against her skin, tasting her, drinking her in.

Nina gave a soft, breathless laugh. ‘I’m not sure my father has any place here.’

‘Hell, I hope not,’ he muttered distractedly, his body throbbing with heat as he pressed into her more intimately still, moving his hips in a slow arousing rhythm, pressed up between the dampness of her thighs, even as one of his hands slipped beneath the hem of her gown to caress the length of her thigh. ‘I need to feel your heat against my fingers, Nina.’ He groaned as his fingers lingered at the lacy edge of her panties.

‘Rafe!’ Heat suffused the whole of her body in anticipation of her own need for the pleasure promised by those questing fingers.

‘Are you wearing panties beneath this gown?’

‘Yes,’ Nina answered uncertainly.

‘Minuscule ones, I’m guessing?’

‘Very,’ she confirmed dryly.

Rafe breathed deeply. ‘And I just want to rip them off you, stroke and caress you and feel you as you climax! Then I want to lick my fingers and taste—’

‘Rafe, please...’ Nina groaned helplessly, unsure if she was pleading for him to stop or continue as just his words caused a gush of that hot moisture between her thighs.

‘Oh, I want to please you, Nina,’ he assured gruffly. ‘I want that more than I want my next breath.’

Nina wanted it too. It didn’t matter that they were squashed into what had looked like a cleaning storeroom before the door had closed and plunged them both into darkness. Nor was it important that just metres away from this small room there were two hundred people attending the jewellery exhibition, including her own father, all of whom had seen Rafe drag her out of the gallery just minutes ago.

All that mattered at this moment was being with Rafe, making love with Rafe, having Rafe kiss and caress her.

‘Do it, Rafe,’ she encouraged achingly, needily. ‘Just do it!’

The words had barely left her lips when she heard the delicate sound of lace and silk ripping as Rafe caught the side of her panties and pulled, a rustle of movement telling her that he had disposed of the ripped panties.

‘You’re so beautiful here,’ Rafe murmured gruffly as he parted and then stroked the silky bareness of the flesh between her thighs, his face buried against her perfumed throat. ‘So, so beautiful,’ he groaned.

He began a gentle, teasing stroking, able to feel the way those swollen folds parted greedily with each measured caress. Nina’s clitoris pulsing, swelling, as he pressed harder, caressed faster, before thrusting one, and then two fingers inside the heat of her, his fingers curling as he found that sensitive spot inside her. His thumb continued that sweet caress as she began to buck into those thrusts. Rafe’s other arm tightened about Nina’s waist as he felt those inner contractions deepen, lengthen, as her legs began to tremble and threatened to buckle beneath her.

‘Yes, Nina,’ Rafe encouraged hoarsely as he felt her climax hit with the force of a tsunami. ‘I want it all, damn it. Give me every last measure of your pleasure,’ he pressured fiercely.

Nina cried out as that pleasure ripped through her body in ever-increasing waves, her nipples hard and aching pebbles, her core tightening, grasping greedily at those thrusting fingers as they filled her time and time again. She felt completely boneless, incapable of standing, by the time the last wave of her climax had rippled through her. She would have collapsed down onto the floor if Rafe hadn’t continued to hold her up with his arm about her waist.

Nina groaned, another wave of pleasure rippling through her as Rafe slowly eased his fingers out from the heat of her.

‘Mmm, delicious,’ he murmured appreciatively seconds later.

‘What?’

‘You taste like honey, Nina.’

‘God...!’ She rested the dampness of her forehead against the shoulder of his jacket, her cheeks burning at the thought of the intimacy of having Rafe licking his fingers, of his tasting her.

‘The name’s Rafe,’ he came back with teasing softness as both his arms moved about her now.

‘Egotist!’ She gave his other shoulder a half-hearted punch. She simply didn’t have the strength left to do any more than that. Her body was one big pleasurable ache. ‘No doubt you’re feeling almighty and powerful now.’

He chuckled huskily. ‘No doubt.’

‘You could try a little harder for modesty, Rafe,’ she admonished ruefully.

‘Not while I’m holding my very satisfied woman in my arms, I couldn’t,’ he drawled lightly.

His satisfied woman?

What did that even mean? Rafe had made it obvious that relationships weren’t for him, that fun was his only aim, and that when the fun was over it was time to say goodbye.

Nina’s life was too complicated to ever be thought of as fun.

She knew she should be feeling indignant at this further display of Rafe’s arrogance, knew that she should pull out of his arms and tell him that this changed nothing between them. That she was determined to keep to her decision not to become any more involved with him. That she would never be any man’s woman.

Except she couldn’t do it. She didn’t have the strength right now to stand up unaided, let alone walk away from Rafe for a second time in as many days.

Later, she told herself. She would make him understand later.

‘Come to my apartment tonight,’ Rafe instructed gruffly—seeming to have picked up on some of her thoughts, at least. ‘This should all be over by eleven o’clock. Spend the night with me, Nina, please,’ he urged.

‘What about Michael?’ she questioned huskily.

‘Michael can get his own woman.’

‘I meant—’

‘I know what you meant, darling Nina,’ Rafe drawled indulgently. ‘And the apartment is big enough that he doesn’t even have to know you’re there.’

Could she do that? Was it possible? Could she take, steal, another night in Rafe’s arms, in his bed?

How could she refuse when he had given her such pleasure just now and taken nothing for himself? Her past experiences might not have been good ones, but she had never been a selfish lover.

‘Because you want to, Nina, not because you feel obligated to give something back to me because of what happened just now.’ This time Rafe seemed to pick up on all of her thoughts.

At the same time as he had managed to strip away all of the arguments Nina had been giving in order to justify to herself going to his apartment later tonight.

She moistened her lips before speaking. ‘I think the more immediate problem is how are we going to walk out of this closet and go back into the gallery, having left together so abruptly a few minutes ago, without everyone knowing exactly what we’ve been doing?’

Rafe gave another chuckle. ‘There’s little chance of that happening. I happen to know exactly what you look like after pleasure, Nina, and believe me the hot, sultry glitter in your eyes, the blush in your cheeks, and those roused and puffy lips are a dead giveaway as to exactly what we’ve been doing.’

‘Oh, very attractive,’ she muttered. ‘You make me sound like a wild woman.’

‘No, just my woman.’ His arms tightened about her. ‘And I like you wild. I like it a lot.’

Nina liked the way Rafe made her feel wild too. A lot. Too much so to have the strength to deny herself just one more night in his arms.

‘Even so, I think you should return to the gallery on your own now, and then I’ll come back in a few minutes, when I’ve had a chance to tidy my appearance.’

‘That’s not going to change the fact that I will be aware for the rest of the evening that your ripped panties are sitting in my jacket pocket.’

Her cheeks felt warm at the knowledge that she was now completely naked beneath her gown, a gown that moved silkily, sensuously against the heat of her skin, and that it would also ensure she was aware of that fact for the rest of the evening.

‘Okay, I’ll come to your apartment later— Damn, I forgot! I have to go home with my father first,’ she realised with a wince. ‘We started a conversation on the way over here which we have to finish tonight,’ she explained ruefully.

‘Anything serious?’ Rafe murmured softly, not completely happy with Nina’s answer, but willing to settle for what he could get for the moment. He had seduced her once, he would do it again, and again, if necessary.

‘I’m not sure,’ Nina acknowledged slowly.

He frowned. ‘Does it have anything to do with your staying with me on Thursday night? Because if it does maybe I should—’

‘No,’ she assured him firmly. ‘This is just something my father needs to discuss with me. But hopefully it won’t take too long,’ she assured lightly, ‘and I can be with you before midnight.’

Rafe nuzzled his lips against the warmth of her throat. ‘I’ll see what I can do about persuading Michael into going straight to bed when we get home. Maybe remind him of his jet lag along with his advancing years.’

‘He’s only a year older than you are!’

‘Only in calendar months. Still he wasn’t particularly happy with me before I dragged you off into my cave,’ Rafe mused ruefully.

‘Why?’ Nina prompted slowly.

‘Because I told him about us.’ He shrugged. ‘Because he has the idea that your father might arrange to have me disposed of in a dark alley one night.’

Nina moved back slightly in his arms. ‘My father isn’t some sort of gangster, Rafe.’

He chuckled as his arms tightened about her. ‘I never said he was.’

‘But you and Michael think of him as being one?’

‘Hey.’ Rafe sobered as he heard the strain in Nina’s voice. ‘It was just Michael’s idea of a joke, Nina.’

‘If you thought that about him, I’m surprised either of you wanted to risk sullying the name of Archangel by displaying my father’s jewellery collection,’ she came back sharply. ‘After all, he might have stolen some, if not all, of it.’

‘Nina, don’t—’ He broke off as she pulled completely out of his arms. ‘Nina?’

‘We should get back.’

‘Not like this,’ Rafe groaned in protest at the distance he could feel yawning between them again, Nina refusing to allow him to take her back into his arms. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you just now, Nina. My remark really was meant as a joke. Obviously it was in poor taste,’ he added regretfully.

Unfortunately, Nina’s suspicions in regard to her father’s accident nineteen years ago prevented her from seeing anything in the least humorous in Rafe and Michael’s comments about her father.

‘I really have to go, Rafe.’ She opened the door before bending down to pick up her clutch bag from where she had allowed it to fall to the floor earlier, only to straighten and find herself prevented from leaving because Rafe had moved to stand in the doorway in front of her.

Allowing her to see now that the darkness of his hair was slightly tousled from where her fingers had been enmeshed in it just minutes ago, but otherwise Rafe looked as handsome and impeccable in his appearance as he had before their little sojourn to the supply cupboard.

Whereas Nina was pretty sure her own appearance was one of total dishevelment, and that she definitely looked like a woman who had just been made love to fully and well.

And there was no denying that feeling of satisfied heaviness between her thighs, or the fact that she was fully aware of the fact that she now wore no panties beneath her short and clinging gown!

‘You’ll still come to me later?’ Rafe looked down at her searchingly.

She really should say no. Should keep to the decision she had made yesterday morning, not to see or be with Rafe again, and so give him the opportunity to probe and push into the past.