Modern Romance Collection July 2024 Books 1-4

CHAPTER FOUR

‘INEEDTO get changed,’ Sunny framed, chin at an angle, eyes veiled.

‘The stewardess will show you to your cabins...’ Raj nodded to the hovering staff and watched Sunny, Maria and Pansy depart at speed. He frowned. He had assumed she would be relieved at Bambina’s appearance but, if anything, the brunette had put her on her guard. Az Istenszerelmere, he thought in the Hungarian that had been his first language.

Sunny was like a string of computer code he couldn’t interpret or guide in the most sensible direction. Weirdly rebellious against the norm that was what he deemed to be the average female response.

Their little group was shown into adjoining cabins. Pansy’s rejoiced in a cot for a princess adorned in stupid drapes that would be dangerous for a toddler and Sunny and the nanny combined in silent agreement to remove the hazards.

‘This is another...world,’ Maria almost squealed in English, dark eyes wide and bright with excitement. ‘And the opportunity of a lifetime. My mama will not believe that I was on board Raj Belanger’s yacht with La Bambina as a guest!’

‘She’s a famous lady?’ Sunny queried tightly.

And it flooded out of Maria. La Bambina was the Italian equivalent of a celebrity aristocrat from the very top drawer of Italian rich and famous people. She was never out of the gossip columns and as famous for her discarded husbands and lovers as her fashion sense. So, obviously, one of Raj’s cohort of mistresses. What else could the woman be? Was she onboard his yacht to show Sunny what she had missed out on achieving? Well, so much for that loser game.

Once Pansy had had her supper, been bathed and tucked into the princess cot, Sunny went to change for dinner. No, she didn’t have some gold cocktail dress tucked into a designer closet. She had an embroidered corset top with beads and long swirly skirt of equally handcrafted and beaded glory. It was very bohemian but she was comfortable in it, even if she did think that the neckline showed a little too much cleavage.

Go, Sunny, she instructed herself as she looked in the mirror, feeling horribly short-changed by nature, which hadn’t endowed her with long legs or small, pert boobs or that slender designer silhouette that all models possessed. She was short and pretty dumpy when it came to designer comparisons. Indeed, just then it seemed a matter of wonder to Sunny that Raj should ever have looked at her with lustful intent.

Raj stalked forward to greet her in the huge salon, which acted as a reception area on the yacht. Sunny felt hugely self-conscious because she hadn’t made use of the beauty salon appointment offered to her to have her hair and her make-up, and whatever else she dreamt of, done, but Maria had snatched up the opportunity. Sunny, however, was au naturel, the way she always was, and she refused to change herself to fit, to seek to embrace some perfected specimen of herself to try and copy the same quality as La Bambina, because that would be a no hopers’ game. She couldn’t do it. She wasn’t classically beautiful or perfectly built in that tall, slender way to show off the latest fashions.

And then, with all that very much in her mind, Raj came to her and said, ‘You look amazing in that outfit.’

Sunny almost laughed because it was so ridiculous a comment in such company. ‘Thanks,’ she said politely.

Raj thought it was an unexpectedly gorgeous dress, but then, it really didn’t matter what she wore when he only wanted her out of it. But there it was and at least the garment showed off her magnificent bosom The display of those peachy opulent slopes of feminine flesh turned him on. He couldn’t help it with her, she was just her, but she dressed as if she were enormous and he had to remember that.

Idly he wondered who was responsible for that. Christabel, who had been built like a toothpick, or other relatives, who might also have enjoyed a different shape? Or the boyfriends, who hadn’t appeared in the investigative report because none had been visible, past or present. Even so, Raj refused to credit that a woman with Sunny’s tiny but highly desirable body shape and gorgeous face had been noticed by only him. Ofcourse, there had been men, but she had been discreet with her private life, he reflected grimly, wondering why that awareness of her past should bother him, because the one thing he had never ever been with women was possessive.

Drinks were served. La Bambina hovered round Raj like a shadow, always within reach, almost slavish in her desire to please. Sunny watched as the brunette ferried drinks to him, ignoring the servers available, instead stationing herself at Raj’s elbow, ever ready, it seemed, to rush and attend to his every request. And if anything, it made Sunny realise how she and Raj would never suit, even in the short term. She wasn’t the type to wait on her man as if he were some god. That was a fact. Why accepting that truth distressed her, she refused to recognise. In Raj’s world, women seemed worryingly lower level, catering to the big guy distinguishable by his wealth and power. But then, that was her making judgements based on slender evidence, she scolded herself.

Of course, La Bambina was one of his mistresses. What else could she be?

There were little touches that Sunny was hyper-aware of occurring between the couple. The brunette would brush his shoulder, his elbow, truly any part of him that was decently within reach, nothing jarring or too intimate but still little feminine hints that this guy belonged to her in an intimate way. Raj, however, didn’t touch Bambina once, but then Sunny suspected that he was by nature an undemonstrative male.

They went into dinner in another shockingly opulent saloon and the dishes were out-of-this-world tasty but Sunny was pushed to eat a few mouthfuls, in spite of her healthy appetite. Beside her, Maria was agog, drinking in every aspect of her surroundings, and Raj rose in her estimation by not having barred the nanny, a paid employee, from the meal. Even so, Sunny found that she couldn’t take her attention off Raj, accepting little titbits La Bambina passed him as if they were lovers of long-standing familiarity. And obviously they were...

‘I thought you would enjoy this...’ Raj announced over the coffee when they had all moved into another reception area and he reached for her as though she were his partner, hand on her elbow to bring her up out of her seat and forward, which won her a huge disconcerted glance from La Bambina, which she might have enjoyed in any other mood because the brunette had pretty much ignored both her and the nanny, concentrating her energies and her chatter purely on Raj.

It was a Monet, one of the waterlily series and, of course, as an artist, Sunny had noticed it the moment they had entered, but there it hung on the wall without fanfare or any special staging, giving her merely a hint of what Raj’s riches could acquire.

‘It’s truly amazing,’ she whispered frankly, leaning in nearer than she had ever been able to get to a museum exhibit. ‘Simply being able to be this close to a masterpiece is a huge thrill.’

His black brows lifted in surprise. ‘You don’t show that.’

‘My appreciation is expressed quietly,’ she murmured softly.

‘I have another painting onboard that you would like,’ he began, but La Bambina appeared beside them and started to gush about the Monet, reeling off all the facts that any amateur art enthusiast might have shared, not all accurate either, but Sunny made no comment, smiling politely and curling her nails into her palms until they bit like talons. It was an unfamiliar feeling for her.

She felt sick with jealousy and it horrified her. After all, even Jack, married at twenty-one with a baby proudly on the way, had not inspired her with that sin. That development had not been unexpected. Jack might have loved her but love hadn’t been enough. Jack had decided that he wanted kids, above all, and her impairment had ensured that he went after that goal like a bullet out of a gun. It was a cause of rather bitter amusement that Raj would want a fertile lover about as much as he would want a needy, demanding woman in his bed. Raj had no idea of sharing a future or a life with her, and her feelings of jealousy, inspired by his gorgeous sidekick, Bambina, were foolish, because she very much doubted that he saw the brunette as much more important to him.

Maria was sharing her cabin with Pansy and had been dismayed when Sunny had suggested they swop accommodation, anxiously pointing out that she had been hired to look after Sunny’s niece and needed to do her job. Sunny returned to her cabin alone, changed into a cool cotton slip of a nightdress and donned her robe. Then she paced restlessly, attention falling on the call button she had been urged to use to request service, only she didn’t think using it after midnight would be very considerate of the crew.

She wished she were in her studio, within reach of a way to divert her buzzing energy into something positive. Frowning, she left her cabin without further deliberation. What was the matter with her?

Yes, it had been a jarring experience to finally meet a male, who attracted her and realise that she couldn’t have him. But life was full of jarring, wounding experiences, she reminded herself irritably as she walked up to the upper decks where public spaces abounded. A father who had no interest in her had been the first of hers, a sister who had never accepted her as a sister had been the next, followed by Jack and then, one by one, the deaths of everyone she loved. Pansy, she conceded, was the single most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her, so why was she pining for a male she barely knew?

‘Miss Barker?’ A steward appeared in the doorway of the saloon, startling her. ‘Can I get you anything?’

‘I’d love a cup of tea,’ she said a little chokily. ‘Is it OK to go outside?’

In answer he rammed open doors leading out onto a deck for her while reciting all the many different teas available onboard. ‘English tea,’ she selected, the slight breeze catching the dampness on her face.

The Belanger I wasn’t sailing anywhere until she and Pansy left for their flight home in the morning. And then it was cruising...where? Well, she had no idea, no idea when they would see Raj again either. Possibly in a month’s time? She would have to steel herself for monthly visits but at least then she wouldn’t be struggling not to think about what he was doing with Bambina in his bedroom as she was thinking tonight. Her face burned, her eyes, however, stung and she dashed angrily at them as her tea arrived on a handsome tray. Honestly, the way she was carrying on and making a meal of her little disappointment was ridiculous. Anyone could be forgiven for thinking that she had fallen in love with the guy at first sight!

Blinking rapidly, she sipped her tea, fighting to calm herself. She wasn’t accustomed to dealing with such a crazy surge of emotions and if Jack hadn’t brought them out of her, what was it that made Raj different? And then what was her worst nightmare at that moment happened. Raj stepped out onto the deck to join her. Raj, more casually clad than had been his wont to date, well-worn jeans hugging his long strong thighs and slim hips, a shirt partially unbuttoned to display a slice of bronzed masculine chest.

‘Raj...’ she mumbled weakly, horrendously unprepared and conscious of her less than pristine appearance because she hadn’t believed anyone else, other than possibly the crew, would be up and about at one in the morning.

He dropped down into an athletic crouch in front of the cushioned seat she was trying to sink into unnoticed, subjecting her to the full onslaught of those intense intelligent dark eyes of his. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing’s wrong!’ she exclaimed, wincing at the defensive squeak of her reaction.

Her face was streaked with tears and he hated the fragile vulnerability he saw etched there in her evasive gaze, hated it as much as he would have hated knowing that he was responsible for her plight. When the steward had mentioned that she was up and seemed troubled, he had leapt straight out of bed. He didn’t know why, didn’t know why it even mattered to him, because she and whatever might be upsetting her were none of his business.

He leant forward and with his thumb rubbed away a tear still wet on her cheekbone. ‘You’ve been crying. I wouldn’t be a good host if I didn’t ask why.’

‘You’re a very good host, Raj. I’m just up here having my own little personal pity party and thank you, but there’s nothing anyone can do to help.’

Raj vaulted upright again and dropped down into the seat beside her. ‘I don’t believe that.’

‘Won’t Bambina be looking for you?’ Sunny asked quietly, trying to make the question sound casual. ‘It’s the middle of the night.’

His level black brows drew together. ‘Why would she be looking for me in the middle of the night?’ He paused and then he just as suddenly barked out a laugh. ‘You can’t have thought... Bambina?’ he gasped. ‘Me with her? Are you joking? She’d be a stage five clinger if I opened my bedroom door!’

The shock of that unchoreographed and utterly unexpected statement of denial sank through Sunny like a shock wave and did nothing immediate to fix her anxious mood. ‘But, I mean, I thought you were...together.’

‘Never,’ Raj declared bluntly. ‘She often acts as my hostess when I’m in Italy. That is why she was on board this evening. I thought you would feel safer.’

‘Safer?’Sunny stressed in bewilderment. ‘Why would I have needed her here to feel safer?’

Now it was Raj’s turn to study her in confusion. ‘Once I’d made my interest clear and you had said no, I believed you would feel nervous of spending the night on my yacht without another woman around.’

‘Like a ch-ch-chaperone?’ Sunny stammered with difficulty while the most colossal giggle built and built inside her tight chest. ‘But Maria is here.’

‘Staff don’t count the same way,’ he pointed out, watching her face grow pink and taut and her lift a hand up to cram it against her soft pink lips.

Sunny went into a choking burst of coughing and turned her head away and down. No, she couldn’t laugh and risk offending him when he had taken every precaution possible to ensure that she felt safe with him. ‘Raj...I feel safe with you even after saying no,’ she framed unevenly. ‘I don’t think you would do anything I didn’t want you to do.’

‘Good to know,’ he murmured drily. ‘But you still haven’t told me why you were crying. I’m probably not the best person around for a therapy session but it seems like I’m the only one available right now.’

Sunny snatched in a deep breath. ‘I was thinking about the people in my life who aren’t here any more and feeling sad. Sometimes I do that and have a wallow but it’s no reason for anyone else to worry about me.’

‘But I don’t like you feeling sad,’ Raj told her levelly.

‘I’ll try never to do it around you again,’ she swore on the edge of another inappropriate giggle, all desire to cry fully quenched now.

‘Who do you miss the most?’ he asked quietly.

‘Mum,’ she admitted tightly, her eyes dismaying her with a sudden prickle of more impending moisture, making her blink. ‘She walked back late from a friend’s one evening and got hit by a car. It was so sudden. She was like a bright light in our lives and then she was just...gone. My grandmother was devastated. She didn’t expect her daughter to pass before she did. A lot of people loved her even if my father didn’t.’

Sunny was disconcerted as a pair of hands slid beneath her slumped body and scooped her up and onto Raj’s lap and she turned questioning violet eyes up to Raj.

‘You were crying again and I’m trying to comfort you. Don’t expect me to be good at it. I don’t know how,’ he concluded bluntly.

Her hand came up to cradle one side of his lean, darkly handsome face, small fingers stroking his stubbled jawline in a soothing motion. ‘But you’re trying and that’s what counts.’

‘Does it?’ he breathed unconvinced, instinctively leaning his jaw into her soft palm and rubbing it.

And Sunny didn’t even think about it, she just stretched up and kissed him, not an ardent kiss, merely a soothing brush of lips. Raj, however, had a different intent. The tip of his tongue snaked out to stab her lips apart and gain access and, within seconds, soothing turned into volatile and passionate. A little gasp sounded low in her throat as her head spun with the intoxication of that close contact with him. Her whole body felt as though it were lighting up with euphoria and her heart was hammering so hard, it seemed to be racing through her very veins.

‘Is this a yes or a no?’ Raj rumbled against her, sounding very much like a grizzly bear struggling with speech.

It was a moment of truth, voiced, perhaps unfortunately, when Sunny’s blissed-out gaze was welded to intense dark eyes that glowed bronze, and her hands rose of their own volition to rest on his big shoulders as if to steady herself in an unsafe world. ‘I can’t think when you kiss me,’ she objected.

‘Either you want to have sex with me...or you don’t,’ Raj breathed, clearly out of patience, of which she suspected he had very little.

But something in that blunt, impatient declaration made Sunny smile and laugh, absolute certainty rippling through her in that same moment. Yes, it was a big step to decide to have sex for the very first time, but she also felt that it was past time she stopped walling herself off from ordinary life because Jack had let her down. His life had moved on but hers had in many ways stayed static and that shamed her pride in her own strength of mind. The right guy just hadn’t come along, or possibly she had not been ready to recognise him, but Raj was different, Raj with his banked-down intensity, restless energy and his wonderful way of looking at her as though she were the only woman in the world.

‘Yes,’ she murmured tautly. ‘My answer is yes but, bearing in mind your lifestyle, it can only ever be one night.’

Long fingers tugged up her chin, intense dark eyes assailing hers. ‘Why?’

‘Because that is the only thing that makes sense for us. We’ll get this crazy attraction out of our systems and go back to normal,’ she told him with determination.

‘I’m not sure I work that way.’

‘I think you’ll find out that I was just a crazy notion.’

A reluctant laugh was wrenched from him. ‘But why would you want to think that of yourself?’

‘I could be wrong but I doubt it.’

Speech fled as he crushed her parted lips hungrily beneath his again and pounding excitement infiltrated her as well.

The excitement was new to her, refreshingly, shockingly new, and it seemed to sweep away everything else. She knew that there were other women in the background of his life, but she didn’t think she needed to concern herself with that reality if he and she were to be together only one night and never again. She could make her peace with that decision, accepting that it was an imperfect solution but that it was the best she could come up with that allowed both of them to continue leading their own lives as they wanted.

Raj sprang upright, still holding her in his arms. ‘You’re a continual surprise to me.’

‘You should put me down.’

‘Why? I like carrying you,’ Raj confided, gazing down at her with avid dark eyes as he stalked across the reception area and up steps. ‘Maybe I’m scared you’ll run away.’

‘I’m not an inconsistent woman.’

‘You’ve changed your mind twice today and it could happen again. Of course, you are free to change your mind at any time,’ he assured her with studious gravity.

‘I unnerve you,’ Sunny guessed in dismay.

Raj’s sensual lips compressed. ‘There’s just a tiny touch of chaos about you. It’s unnerving but it’s also fascinating...in an odd way.’

They were inside a very large, dimly lit bedroom. The night skies were visible through the glass roof high above. He settled her down with care on the rumpled bed and hit a button to send a cover over the roof above, sealing them into greater darkness and privacy.

‘I should warn you,’ Sunny said, pushing herself up on her elbows, ‘I haven’t done this before. I’m a virgin.’

His black brows pleated in unconcealed surprise.

‘Sorry about that,’ she mumbled in the silence that stretched.

Raj frowned uneasily. ‘You’re as rare as a unicorn and I’m a man who enjoys rarity. But I can’t understand why you would still be that innocent.’

‘I was just never tempted enough to get into it physically with anyone...until you.’

‘But I’m not offering you a relationship.’

‘I’m not looking for one. Oh, is that what’s worrying you? That I might not know what I’m doing? Or that I might attach expectations to you afterwards?’ Sunny smiled with rueful amusement. ‘Trust me. I know what I’m doing and I’m not in a place where I could have a relationship either.’

The tension in his lean strong face evaporated, his misgivings about becoming her first lover quelled.

And Sunny laughed as he came down to her, long fingers tracing her cheekbones, his eyes brilliant with hunger, a predatory smile curving his shapely mouth. He lifted her back into his arms and kissed her senseless. A stirring heat awakened in her pelvis and her nipples prickled and tightened. He leant back to slide her out of her robe and yanked his shirt off over his head with one hand in an easy movement.

Looking at him, she felt her mouth run dry. He was all solid muscle sheathed in sleek olive skin, a muscled six-pack and the fabled vee carving down to his hips coming into view as he stood up to unbutton his jeans. His attraction was visceral in its masculinity. Black hair tousled, he returned to her and pulled her back to him, framing her face with his big hands, ravishing her soft lips with raw passion before laying her back against the pillows.

‘I want to fall on you like a starving wolf,’ he growled, tugging at the nightdress that still shielded her from him and extracting her from it with determination. ‘That’s how ravenous you make me.’

He bent his head over the lush curve of her breasts, hands rising to cup her plump flesh, mouth darting down to tug insistently at the swollen tips. Her fingers came down on his wide shoulders, delved into his thick black hair as she twisted, breathless, at the sweet surge of response arrowing up between her legs. Little sounds escaped her and self-consciousness never came to claim her because she had never wanted anything in that moment as much as she wanted Raj. It was intimate and sensual, two things she had never allowed herself to experience, and what she was feeling now when he touched her was overwhelming.

Slowly he worked his path down over her shapely curves, lingering wherever he wished. He discovered with an appreciative laugh how she reacted when he kissed the pulse in her neck and plucked at the tender skin there with the edge of his teeth. Her hips writhed as he concentrated on the damp pink lips between her thighs. She learned minute by minute to want more, indeed to want more so fiercely that she had to resist the temptation to try and persuade him to go faster.

He traced her with long skilled fingers that made her tremble. He circled her clitoris with the most terrifying restrained delicacy and then lowered his head there to explore her with his mouth and his tongue until she was thrashing and squirming in a feverish delirium of arousal. The slow, agonising build-up to that level of excitement was almost more than she could bear. Her back arched and her lips opened on a gasp as the waves of sensation drove her up to a height and pushed her over it into a shattering climax.

Wrung out in the aftermath, Sunny gazed up at him with a heart that was still pounding and a body that was still singing.

‘And now for the main event,’ Raj teased with a dark edge to his deep voice, rearranging her with sure hands when she was certain that she was so relaxed she would flop if he freed her. Protection, he reminded himself, marvelling that he had almost overlooked that necessity and then recalling that Sunny couldn’t get pregnant and throwing the idea of precautions to the four winds.

‘Just get it over with,’ Sunny whispered ruefully, because she had never ever expected much from her first experience of sex.

‘Wrong mindset.’ Raj slid between her parted thighs and nudged his hard, velvety length against her tender entrance. ‘It will be better than that.

‘You don’t know but you should. We’re dynamite together,’ Raj continued with blazing confidence as he shifted his lean hips and slowly eased into her.

Raj gazed down at her with immense satisfaction because he already felt as though he had waited for her...for ever. She lifted his day, she brightened his often gloomy horizon, and of course she was saying all that stuff about one night only but he didn’t believe a word of it. She played safe, she always played safe. He had recognised that in her at their very first meeting. Sunny kept herself safe from change by living in her little cocoon of rural anonymity and he threatened all that with his alternative outlook.

Sunny shimmied her hips a little in invitation as she felt him invade her all too eager body. A quiver travelled up her spine before dispelling into other more sensitive places, anticipation rising in a swooshing tide of hunger. He lifted her legs and spread her wider, seated himself deeper and pushed and there was a brief, bearable sting of pain that made her brow furrow as she waited for worse to come, but it didn’t come. That was that, that little pang of discomfort, and all her worst expectations had failed to pan out.

Raj emitted a stifled groan. ‘You’re so tight...and you feel so good.’

Relieved of her concern, Sunny shifted up into the glorious heat and weight of him, finally surrendering to the experience, and all resistance fled as he sank harder and faster into the liquid heat of her. Excitement curled at the heart of her, sensation spreading out in a slow, breathtaking ripple that engulfed her body and her senses. He was stretching her, holding her and all those feelings seemed to coalesce in a starburst of intense emotion and feeling that stoked the heat at her core. As he took her with increasingly relentless strokes, all thought ceased and she became a creature of reaction instead. And her response climbed and climbed to magnificent heights before he pushed her over the peak a second time and the drowning sweet pleasure took over again.

‘We’re amazing together,’ Raj husked, rolling over and still retaining a grip on her to tug her into a cooler stretch of the bed.

Sunny stilled for a brief moment but she had heard how it went on a one-night stand and from what she had understood a woman should not hang around afterwards. She pulled away. ‘I’ll get going now,’ she said flatly.

‘I want you to stay,’ Raj decreed.

‘But there’s a sort of etiquette to these occasions...I understand,’ she told him anxiously. ‘Staying on isn’t the thing.’

Raj shifted across the bed and closed both arms round her. ‘I don’t want you to leave.’

Sunny was surprised and Raj was even more surprised when those words escaped him, he who always slept alone, who hated women who tried to linger. But somehow Sunny put him in pursuit mode and that was an entirely new experience for him. Was she being elusive as part of a deliberate act? As that cynical suspicion filtered in, he flipped over to lean over her and met wide, troubled eyes, empty of any calculation other than the fastest route to the exit.

‘Raj...I—’

‘Stay,’he told her with emphasis.

Sunny froze, only losing her tension when he reached for her again. ‘I’m not used to this,’ she admitted awkwardly.

Raj loosened his hold on her. ‘Relax with me,’ he suggested.

‘I can’t... I’m not used to sharing this kind of intimacy,’ she muttered unhappily. ‘What if Pansy needs me during the night?’

Raj reached for the phone and spoke into it. ‘There. You can be reached now.’

‘You mean...you actually told people that I’m here with you?’ Sunny gasped in horror. ‘Where’s your discretion?’

‘You killed it. Go to sleep,’ he urged.

And somehow, she did, yielding to the exhaustion of travel and unexpected events and more emotions than she knew how to handle. She drifted off, only to waken at some timeless stage of the night with Raj asking her if it was all right.

‘What’s all right?’

‘Sex without protection,’ he framed in an urgent undertone. ‘I’m tested every month and I haven’t been with anyone since we met. You said you can’t get pregnant, so...? I’ve never had unprotected sex.’

‘Go ahead,’ she whispered, shimmying her hips back to his and his arousal with sensual pleasure.

And he did and it was slow and astonishingly exciting as his hands glided over her with wondrous expertise, tantalising and arousing until her head was falling back and she was in a paradise of intense sensation and then he was there exactly where she needed him to be. Hard and urgent and demanding and by the time he finished she was drifting off to sleep again, utterly ignoring his suggestion that she join him in the shower. A step too far, she was tempted to tell him, but she felt way too lazy and still too inhibited to subject herself to that test. Tomorrow was a new day, a moving-on day, she reminded herself doggedly, wondering why Raj wasn’t acting as standoffish in the aftermath as she had na?vely expected.