Blackmail & Secrets: The Sandoval Baby / The Count's Secret Child / Playboy's Surprise Son

Freya swallowed and stayed by the door. ‘They’re night terrors.’

‘A dream?’

‘Not exactly. More severe, I suppose, and harder to comfort because he never actually wakes up.’

‘His eyes were open,’ Rafe said in a low voice. ‘He was looking at me as if.’ He turned back to the window, not finishing the sentence. His throat worked, his pulse beating rapidly, a testament to his anger and fear.

‘It wasn’t you,’ Freya said quickly, perhaps too quickly. She started towards him, stopping halfway across the room, aware that going nearer to Rafe right now might not be the best idea. The safest idea. ‘He doesn’t recognise anyone when he’s like that.’

Rafe did not turn from the window. ‘How long has he been having these terrors?’

‘It’s very common for children his age,’ Freya said, knowing she was hedging. Why did she not want to tell Rafe? She knew the answer already; she didn’t want to hurt him. Stupid, perhaps, and certainly impossible. Life was pain.

Rafe half turned to her again, and even from halfway across the room she saw the black glitter of his eyes. ‘How long?’

‘They’ve certainly been happening more often since Rosalia died,’ she said quietly.

Rafe nodded, accepting. ‘Of course. She was his mother.’ His fingers clenched around his glass. ‘Did she love him? Did she see him, hug him?’

Hug him. The question surprised Freya, and touched her too, for it seemed such a strangely specific and emotional thing for Rafe to be concerned about. Yet she understood the nature of the question, and she knew she had to answer truthfully. ‘She loved him,’ she said quietly, ‘but she didn’t see him that often.’

‘How often?’ Rafe asked in a raw voice, the question a demand.

‘Once every few weeks?’ Freya hazarded a guess. Towards the end it had been even less than that. If she was honest, at least with herself, Max had barely known his mother.

Rafe turned to her, shock and pain etched on his features. His chest rose and fell in a ragged breath, and Freya’s gaze was helplessly drawn to the movement. ‘Then you were his mother,’ he said simply, ‘in all but fact.’

Freya didn’t speak for a moment; she couldn’t. Too many emotions raced through her—hope and need and fear. She was glad Rafe could acknowledge how important she was to Max, and yet she was still dizzily afraid that he would force her to leave, that her closeness to Max would be a threat to his own relationship to his son. And she couldn’t keep need from coiling within her at the sight of Rafe, at the very scent of him—the kind of hungry desire she hadn’t felt in years. Hadn’t let herself feel because she knew where it led. The misery and despair it could cause.

‘Yes,’ she finally said, in no more than a whisper, ‘but it is a rather important fact.’

‘Is it?’ Rafe let out a bark of humourless laughter as he turned back to the window. ‘Sometimes I wonder.’

Freya could not decipher that statement, or what had motivated it, but she heard the bleakness in Rafe’s voice and knew its cause: three years of not knowing about his son, and now being faced with the seemingly insurmountable task of forging that all-important bond.

Impulsively she stepped towards him, going so far as to touch his arm. His skin was warm and the muscles jumped under her fingers. ‘He’ll get to know you,’ she said. ‘He’ll come to love you. It just takes time.’

Rafe turned towards her, and Freya realised she had not taken her hand from his arm. Instead her fingers had stretched out along his skin, as if seeking the heat of him. She was standing so close to him, in nothing but a skimpy tank top and shorts, and her breath suddenly started coming fast—too fast. Desire overwhelmed her senses, her thoughts. She knew she should step away, yet she couldn’t because she didn’t want to. She wanted this, wanted Rafe, and even as the realisation shamed her—she was still weak—she could not keep it from overtaking her, from guiding her actions. Keeping her hand on his arm, sliding her fingers along his skin.

Rafe’s face was still half turned to her, so she could see the strong line of his jaw, the fullness of his lips. And then he turned completely, his eyes glinting blackly in the moonlight, and he stared at her with a hunger that stole the breath from Freya’s lungs. He wanted this, too. He wanted her. She didn’t move.

The moment spun on—silent, taut with tension and yearning—and then with a whispered curse, Rafe closed the space between their bodies and kissed her.

The first feel of his lips against hers set off an explosion through Freya’s body, obliterating the barriers she’d erected around her mind, her heart. She wasn’t prepared for her sudden intense reaction; she had no defence. Her mouth opened under his and her arms came up to grip his shoulders, although whether to push him away or pull him closer she did not know. Perhaps she simply needed to anchor herself.

She felt tension shudder through Rafe, and knew he’d been surprised by her response. He’d expected her to push him away. Of course he had; it was what she should have done. Yet now that he’d kissed her she could not keep herself from wanting this, wanting more, craving closeness, needing the connection. It had been so long. It had been ten years.

His mouth stilled over hers, the taste of him still on her lips, and she knew he was battling with himself.

Knowing he should stop. One of them should step away. And yet even in this moment, as cold rationality seeped through her mind, she could not control the craving, and her hands tightened on his shoulders.

It amazed and shamed her that after ten years of holding herself apart, keeping herself numb and distant and totally under control, this one man, in one moment, had completely conquered her. Overcome her defences. Awoken her emotions. Reminded her of her own weakness.

The moment broke and Rafe’s mouth took sure possession of hers once more. Freya completely lost all power of thought. All power, full-stop. She could do nothing but respond, need, even if it made her weak. Again.

Rafe slid his hands to her shoulders, bracing her, before moving them to the hem of her tank top, and then underneath, sliding along her skin. The intimate contact overwhelmed her utterly. She stumbled back, needing the anchor of his hands, and he moved with her until her backside came into contact with a marble-topped table, the edge cold and hard against her.

In one fluid movement Rafe hoisted her so she sat on top of the table, and out of instinct and pure need she wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him closer so they were—almost—in the most intimate contact possible. There could be no mistaking her intent … or his.

Rafe’s breathing was ragged as he continued to kiss her with a pent-up passion and fury that Freya’s body echoed and gave back to him. His tongue delved into her mouth time and time again and she felt the scrape of stubble on her cheek, the softness of his lips against hers, the glorious hardness of his body against hers, pressing, insistent.

Rafe did not break the kiss as he pulled at the waistband of her shorts, pushing them down, and Freya helped him, knowing this was moving crazily fast and yet powerless to stop it. Not wanting to.

His hand shook as he pulled at the waistband of his own pyjama bottoms, and then kicked them off. And then suddenly, amazingly, he was inside her. Freya gasped at the feeling; her body closed around him, tight and unused to the sensation, the sense of fullness and completion.

He muttered an oath, the words no more than a hiss, as he began to move. Freya moved with him, her face buried in the hot curve of his shoulder, tasting the salt of his skin. Or perhaps it was her own tears, because belatedly, distantly, she realised she was crying.

And then release came for both of them—an intense wave of emotion and pleasure that crashed over them, leaving them shuddering, silent and senseless.

His breathing still ragged, his chest heaving, Rafe remained in the circle of her arms, still inside her, for one precious beat, before he pulled away, yanked up his trousers and left the room.

CHAPTER SIX

RAFE stalked into his room, dazed and shaking. What had just happened?

He took a shuddering breath and raked a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. He knew all too well what had happened. He just couldn’t believe he had done it. It seemed utterly impossible that he had just had sex with Freya Clark, yet he felt satiation stealing through his body even as his mind rebelled, denied. He had known her for less than twenty-four hours. He had had no intention of so much as laying a finger on her. And yet within minutes—seconds—all that had changed.

She had come close to him and he’d breathed in the faint scent of lilac that he knew must be from her soap or shampoo, seen the rise and fall of her chest through her thin tank top as she breathed, and he had felt a sudden, desperate tidal wave of yearning that he hadn’t been able to control.

And when she had responded in kind … her mouth opening under his, accepting, Wanting … that tidal wave had dragged him under completely.

After four long, lonely years—years of living off anger and bitterness rather than desire or love—he’d wanted that immediate connection and satisfaction, had needed it from her, and that deep need had overtaken any reason or self-control he’d had. The thought shamed him.

And now he was left with the aftermath of that rash act. How could they go forward with that between them? How could they concentrate on Max? He would have to tackle it directly, Rafe knew, yet he could not face it now. The realisation shamed him further. He’d shown such appalling weakness. He shuddered, shook off the thought.

He would speak to Freya in the morning. Explain—what? That it shouldn’t have happened? He knew she would agree. Surely she hadn’t expected.

Had she planned it? Rafe stilled, his body tensing with sudden suspicion. Had Freya been trying to seduce him as a way to bind herself closer to Max, keep him from finding another care-giver? The suspicions slid slyly into Rafe’s mind, causing him to freeze as he considered the awful possibility. He thought of how she’d placed her hand on his arm, how she hadn’t moved it. She’d looked up at him, her eyes wide, her mouth parted, waiting, and then her shocking, shameless response.

Had she used him?

God knew he had little reason to trust Freya Clark. He’d felt she was hiding something from the start—sensed that calm composure was covering some purpose or plan—but seduction? Did she really think a single night of rushed pleasure would change his mind? And yet in that moment of shocking intimacy he’d felt closer to Freya Clark than he had to another human being in a long, long time. She could not have expected him to respond that way, to have known how much he longed for it.

And yet it had happened. Freya had approached him, had not turned away from his kiss despite his every expectation that she would. Rafe’s mouth twisted in disgust at both her and himself even as he fought against the urge to condemn her without true proof. He did not want to be unjust, yet he’d faced so much injustice himself.

And even if she had been using him, he could not send her away so suddenly. Max would be devastated. He thought of Max’s blankly terrified face, the endless screams. Max needed Freya—for several more weeks, at least. They were stuck together, at least for a little while, no matter what her intentions had been. He didn’t trust her. And he still had every intention of sending her away as soon as possible.

Freya walked from the living room as if she were made of glass. She felt as if she could shatter at any moment. She walked with her arms wrapped around herself, as if she could keep herself together by sheer physical force.