Read Online One More Sleepless Night by Lucy King - Free Book Online

he should have paid attention to his gut and checked up on her. Quite apart from it being the gentlemanly thing to do, Nicky was a guest in his home and therefore her welfare was technically his responsibility, however much he might not want it to be.
    Which really left him with only one course of action, he thought, narrowing his eyes and glowering at the blindingly white cortijo he was striding towards. Never mind that it directly contravened his policy of not getting involved. Never mind that it could potentially open up a whole messy can of worms. He had no option but to ask Nicky outright what was going on, and the sooner the better because the doubts and the guilt and the shame were driving him nuts and he didn’t think he could stand any of it much longer.
    Pushing open the back door he strode into the hall and briefly wondered where to start hunting for her. She shouldn’t be too far away. If she wasn’t in the house she’d probably be—
    ‘Rafael?’
    At the sound of her voice he automatically stopped and turned. And went still as all the blood rushed to his feet and his plan to clear his conscience shot clean out of his head.
    Standing in the doorway of the kitchen, Nicky wasn’t too far away at all. On the contrary she was uncomfortably close, and, in a bright red bikini top, a very short turquoise skirt that sat low on her waist and nothing else, her nose a little pink from the sun and her hair still semi-wet from the pool and hanging in thick waves to her shoulders, very very appealing.
    Unable to stop himself, Rafael ran his gaze over her, over the swell of her breasts, pushed up and in by the bikini top, the dip of her waist, the flat abdomen and the flaring of her hips and then down to below the hem of the itsy-bitsy skirt and those long slim legs, which he’d envisaged wrapped around his waist so often in his dreams.
    She looked like some kind of siren and as lust shot through him, so hot and fast it nearly brought him to his knees, he had the feeling that if he wasn’t careful, if he didn’t focus on what was important here, he could well find himself being lured to his doom.
    Which wasn’t nearly as ominous a notion as it ought to have been. In fact as he stood there staring at her, desire pounding through him and his head whirling, doom was looking increasingly tempting, and he had to ball his hands into fists to stop himself lunging for her because he was pretty sure that that kind of behaviour would get his face slapped.
    With superhuman effort Rafael swallowed hard, ruthlessly deleted all images of sultry temptresses and entwined legs from his brain, and pulled himself together because wanting her was not why he’d decided to seek her out. ‘What?’ he muttered.
    ‘I—’ She stopped and looked at him with sudden concern. ‘Are you all right?’
    ‘Absolutely fine,’ he said, frustration with himself making him sound brusquer than he’d have liked. ‘What about you?’
    ‘Me?’ she asked, blinking up at him in surprise. ‘Oh, I couldn’t be better.’
    Rafael frowned. ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Of course,’ she said, and flashed him an overly bright smile. ‘Why on earth wouldn’t I be?’
    He thought he saw her smile falter for a second, but it was back in the blink of an eye and he couldn’t be certain. ‘Did you sleep well?’
    ‘Fabulously.’
    ‘Really?’
    She nodded. ‘Absolutely. It must be all this fresh air and sun.’
    Hmm. He tilted his head and noticed the dark shadows beneath her eyes that belied her words. ‘Right.’
    ‘You sound sceptical.’
    If it hadn’t been for the guilt swilling around inside him, Rafael would have let it go, but if anything the guilt was growing so instead he braced himself and made himself say, ‘I am.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because in the middle of the night I heard a yell.’
    Nicky’s eyebrows shot up and she froze and for a moment there was such utter silence that he could hear the hum of a tractor he knew to be miles away. ‘A