A glint lighting his dark golden gaze, Ruy used his hands to roll her over instead. ‘This that two-vote equality thing you mentioned earlier?’ he teased huskily, stretching a hand down to whisk off her panties before reaching for protection.
‘Maybe...’ Arms wrapping round him, Suzy pulled him down to her again, nibbling at his lower lip before passionately kissing him, unable to sate her longing for his mouth on hers again.
Ruy traced a finger over her swollen wet centre and a whimper of sound was torn from her as she lifted up to him by instinct, desperate to ease the drumbeat of need driving her, barely recognising herself when she was lost in that fierce craving. He slid between her trembling thighs and entered her in a powerful surge, and she jerked at the burn of his entrance into her untried body. It hurt and she gritted her teeth, shocked because she hadn’t expected pain. She closed her eyes tight and endured until the burn lessened, faded, turned into something else, a something that soothed and aroused and entrapped her afresh.
A ripple of excitement built in her pelvis and the promise of pleasure was so strong it held her spellbound. He felt extraordinary. Waves of heat and sensation shimmered through her sensitised body, exquisite sensation tugging at her with every thrust of his lean, powerful length. He ground down on her and went deeper and her world just exploded round her in a white-hot electrifying shower of response that lit her up inside and out. She tumbled back against the pillows, shattered by that climax, fascinated by an experience that had been so much more powerful than she had ever dreamt it could be.
Ruy pulled back from her and immediately saw the blood on her thighs and on him and he remembered the way she had hidden her face, the incredible tightness of her, and suddenly he registered that he had been a complete idiot and he was furious. Nobody was less able to cope with the suspicion that he had slept with a virgin than Ruy. Indeed, he had gone through a phase after his nightmare with Liliana of checking beforehand that no woman he slept with was an innocent. As a rule, though, the risk wasn’t great because Ruy rarely took younger women to bed.
‘How old are you?’ he suddenly demanded of Suzy.
Her smooth brow furrowing at the rawness of that enquiry, Suzy sat up. ‘Twenty-one...why?’
Dark golden eyes as hard and unyielding as the stone in his bathroom, Ruy surveyed her grimly and sprang off the bed. ‘You were a virgin. I had no idea and I wouldn’t have touched you had you warned me.’
‘Warned you?’ she repeated in shaken objection to his attitude. ‘Why would I have warned you?’
‘Because I didn’t sign up for this scenario,’ Ruy lanced back chillingly. ‘I don’t sleep with virgins...ever! I don’t want you attaching expectations to what just happened between us because sex means virtually nothing to me. I’m not about to fall madly in love with you and suggest that we have a serious relationship either... I don’t work that way. I’m sorry.’
A shuddering wave of humiliation engulfed Suzy as she stared back at him in shock. Unapologetic eyes challenged hers before he swung away to stride into the bathroom and the door slammed shut.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUZY STAYED STILL for only a few moments and then she leapt off the bed and ran around scooping up her clothes, clambering back into them as fast as she could. At the same time, a phone started buzzing somewhere, a phone she suspected to be in Ruy’s discarded jeans. Ignoring it, she sped downstairs, not even sure where she was going. She felt hurt, humiliated, utterly and cruelly exposed after his cutting words in the aftermath of their intimacy. She had got into bed with the wrong guy, totally the wrong guy.
In the spacious lounge area, she looked around in search of the studio he had mentioned or at least the possibility of another bathroom facility because she knew she had to wash the memory of him off her skin. She peered into an empty kitchen, a cloakroom and then a big airy room with full-height windows that overlooked the dense woods. It contained both an easel, a stack of canvases and a bed. One of the doors off it led into a bathroom and with a sigh of relief she began to undress again.
She had gone to bed with a man she barely knew, and she cursed her impulsive nature for that blunder. She had leapt in where angels feared to tread. All the worst mistakes she had ever made could be laid at the door of that flaw in her character. Well, lesson learned, she told herself urgently, frantically striving to fill the deep well of pain inside her with more positive feelings. Her body ached, reminding her of what she wanted to most forget.
How on earth had she put herself in a position where Ruy Rivera could reject her as if she had chased after him begging for his attention? Was he so arrogant, so vain that he assumed every woman would try to entrap him if she got the chance? What else was she to think after that speech he had made? Plenty more fish in the sea, one of her friends at school used to quip when some boy let her down, but just then Suzy didn’t believe she would ever dare to look at a man again with covetous eyes.
On the floor above, Ruy almost punched the wall of his shower, drawing his clenched fist back with a curse at the last possible moment. What the hell had come over him when he verbally attacked Suzy like that? But he knew, didn’t he? He knew all too well where that attack of paranoia had come from. His brain had succumbed to a flashback of Liliana and the catastrophic trail of events that she had initiated in his life. Cold revulsion and disquiet had drenched Ruy like an acid bath and he had lashed out accordingly at an innocent. He gritted his teeth. Ruy had never liked being in the wrong and even less did he like the prospect of apologising.
A virgin though, he hadn’t been prepared for that possibility at all. Why not though? She was still very young, too young for him, he censured himself. He had given in to lust like a sex-starved teenager with no thought of the consequences. As a result, he had destroyed any trust Suzy might have had in him and any hope of her being willing to do anything for him. He towelled himself off grimly and stooped to snatch up his phone when he heard it buzzing.
Damp and breathless from her haste, Suzy emerged back into the lounge, having decided what she would do next. She would nip back upstairs, collect her stuff and then go home to her father. She would have to walk back by the road, which would take ages, but she didn’t feel as though she had a choice. She reckoned she would sooner walk over hot coals than spend another hour under Ruy Rivera’s roof.
Someone thumped loudly on the front door knocker. Suzy frowned, knowing the housekeeper wasn’t around and that Ruy was probably still in the shower. After a moment of hesitation, she opened the front door and took a dumbfounded step back as Percy confronted her with knotted fists and an enraged red face.
‘You slut!’ he launched at her accusingly. ‘So, the rumours were true!’
‘Leave me alone!’ Suzy exclaimed as he extended his thick arms to grab at her and she snaked backwards into the safety of the house.
As Percy lurched past the door she attempted to slam shut in his face, two things happened. She saw several men racing across the driveway towards them and heard someone coming down the stairs to her rear.