Forbidden to His Touch Page 9

  He shifted his focus to her and frowned. “Fine,” he growled. “But only if you put on your shoes.” He didn’t wait for her before turning on his heel and heading toward the winery, his long strides forcing her to run to catch up.

  Once she did, she grinned up at his dark scowl. She maintained a determinedly cheerful stream of chatter despite his stoic silence as they drew closer to the brow of the hill. “I heard you designed an innovative gravity-flow winery that turned the wine-making community on its ear,” she said.

  “Gravity flow is the best system available.” He shifted restlessly to the left, creating space between them. “Everyone already knew that.”

  “True. But your design is a revolutionary blend of old and new technologies,” she said as she moved close yet again. She squinted at the nearly seamless integration of timber and functionality nestled into the existing notch between slope and pasture, and then returned her focus to his averted profile. “And it’s as visually inconspicuous as it’s been rumored to be. How did you manage it, and still include all the necessary levels?”

  “We just determined where the most cost-effective use of gravity could be used,” he said without turning. “And ensured we had adequate space to handle the critical early stages of wine-making.”

  She nodded and reached for him, stalling his forward movement. “From what Dolores tells me, there was no we involved.” Sophia cocked her head and smiled as she squeezed his hard wrist. “She said you had to hire eight different architects before you finally found one willing to build to the specs you designed.”

  His jaw flexed and he tugged free of her touch. “There weren’t many professionals willing to align their reputations on architectural plans some nobody from the streets dreamed up.”

  Hating that he spoke of himself that way, she wanted to protest that he wasn’t a nobody. He never had been, no matter what had happened to him in the past. Even when she’d first met him, when he’d been wounded, bruised and more skittish than a creature brought in from the wild, she’d sensed the value and worth of the hurting boy within.

  She’d wanted to wrap her arms around him and show him that he deserved a life filled with beauty and joy. No matter what he said, no matter what he did, she knew, down to her soul, that beneath the hardened shell of an impervious, solitary male, Rafael possessed a rare, vulnerable heart. A heart she still wanted to heal. “Tell me about how you solved the problem of grape delivery from different lots,” she said instead.

  “People make more of it than it is,” he grumbled as they stepped into the fermenter room with its complex network of stainless sorting flats, forklifts and cranes. “We just had to use a conveyor belt that could run in two directions.”

  She stifled a smile, not at all surprised by his modesty. “And a turntable that completely eliminated the need for a mezzanine level.”

  He frowned, rejecting her flattery. “I didn’t want to take the entire platform outside just to turn it around.”

  “Nor did you want to take it outside to clean it.”

  He didn’t seem to appreciate her observation and remained silent as he guided her down to the level where the settling tanks were housed.

  “The lab is on this level, too, right?” she asked, craning her neck to see its location midway between the barrel and fermentation rooms.

  “Yes.”

  She resisted his efforts to rush the tour, slowing to admire the three-story circulation spine flanked by several large skylights and catwalk bridges. “It’s much lighter in here than in Papa’s winery.” She turned a slow circle, marveling at the way the interior design connected all the major spaces of the building. “I love how it’s both beautiful and functional. And those buttresses are genius.”

  He offered no response as he steered her down onto the lowest level and its four vaulted rooms. Gravel floors, open to the soil below and flanked by concrete walkways with independent heating and cooling systems, lent an industrial flavor to the cave-like spaces filled with row upon row of wooden casks.

  “Why is this room empty?” she asked at the last cavernous room lit by slanting morning light.

  He turned to face her, blocking the entrance while amber light cast his face in shadow. “This is where we store our orders before shipping. We’re in between shipments right now.”

  She nodded and turned to survey the empty room, glinting with tiny filaments of light and rich with the aroma of oak and wine. “Dolores tells me Papa was very proud of your design. He never stopped talking about it.”

  “Your father loved having the Turino name bandied about in the news,” Rafael said. “As much as he claimed otherwise, I think he enjoyed being famous.”

  “I believe you’re right,” she told him, cocking her head and studying him with a soft smile. “Thank you.”

  He stared at her for a long moment and she felt heat coil deep in her stomach. “I didn’t do it for you,” he finally said, as if he were trying to push her away, trying to ruin the small sliver of peace they’d found.

  “I know. But you made him proud when I couldn’t,” she said. “You gave him moments of happiness and joy, and I’m grateful for that.”

  “Your father deserved to be happy,” he said. “He was a good man.”

  “So are you,” she reminded him, wishing he’d realize that he, too, warranted some happiness in his life.

  “The tour’s over,” he told her, while his mouth settled into its typical grim lines of rebuttal. “And I have work to do.”

  Of course he did. He always preferred solitary work over conversation. So she ignored his blatant dismissal. “How long will it take, do you think, before you consider your debt to Papa cleared? Before you can build a life for yourself instead of for him?”

  He glared at her while she stared at him expectantly.

  “A year? Ten years? The rest of your life? What?” she prodded.

  “None of your business.”

  “None of my business!” she repeated. “How can you say that when I’m supposed to be your partner?”

  For several long moments, he didn’t answer her. Instead, he simply stared at her until she felt her breath grow shallow. Twining her hands together at her waist, she felt her courage start to falter. When it lost its foothold altogether, she dropped her gaze to his chest and wished she hadn’t brought up the subject in the first place. He always made her feel like an interloper, like a child who’d forgotten her manners.

  “Why does it matter so much?” he finally asked in a low, intense voice.

  She lifted her gaze to find him looking at her, and the fierceness with which he asked the question made a small shiver chase down her spine. “Because the way you’re looking at me makes me think I’m the debt you have to pay. And I don’t want to be a debt for you.”

  “You’re not a debt. You’re—” He interrupted himself and then dragged a hand over his mouth. “Look. I made a promise to your father, and I’d go to the grave before I broke it.”

  “Which is my point exactly.” It shouldn’t have surprised her, considering the fact that were it not for Papa, Rafael would most assuredly be dead. Or worse. She still remembered the first time she’d seen him, his bloody feet, matted black hair and bruised, wounded body providing such a stark contrast to Papa’s white sheets. “I’m here because of a promise. Not because you want me here.”

  “I never said—”

  “I know. But I hate how it feels like we’re both my father’s prisoners. It felt like that the first time I left, and it’s certainly not the reason I agreed to return.”

  “Then why did you return?”

  “You mean other than the fact that you were blackmailing me?” She shook her head, gathering her courage, and then finally broached the subject she’d been avoiding for far, far too long. She’d never stopped wondering about the terrors he must have survived before coming to the Turino estate. She’d never stopped wanting to somehow mend the terrible scars of his past, to bring him peace. “I came home because I wanted
closure.” She swallowed, knowing she was bringing things to a head far more quickly than she ought. But she never was one for half measures, and she’d never been known for her overt sense of caution. “I wanted closure with you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes …” She wished he trusted her enough to share his secrets with her, to unburden the weight upon his soul that kept him so grim and alone. “I want to know you, Raf. I want to help you be happy.”

  “No,” he murmured, taking a step away from her and presenting his back. “You don’t.”

  “I do,” she insisted as she circled his averted body to face his taut profile. “I want to know what happened to you, before you came here. I want to know why you feel like you owe your life to Papa, and why nothing you ever do is enough.”

  A muscle flexed in his jaw. “No.”

  She moved closer, ducking until their eyes met once again. “If we’re going to work together, if we’re going to be partners, you have to be open with me. I can’t be partners with a stranger.”

  His black eyes remained fastened on hers, though the pulse in his temple visibly throbbed. “You don’t need to know my past to be my partner. Your father accepted that. You should, too.”

  “Why don’t you want me to know you?”

  He answered her with silence, until she reached for the bare, browned forearm that hung in tense stillness at his side.

  “Raf,” she said softly, “if your past keeps you locked up and unhappy, if it keeps you from communicating properly with me, then this partnership can’t work. I’m not my father. I need to know you. If I don’t, it handicaps you and our ability to work together.”

  The muscles flexed beneath her fingers, but he allowed her touch. “It handicaps you, not me. Not everyone needs to advertise their history to function successfully in the world.”

  “Is that what you call this? Functioning successfully?”

  “Yes.”

  “When’s the last time you were happy, Raf? Truly, blindly, can’t-stop-smiling happy?”

  “I fail to see what that has to do with anything,” he muttered.

  “Of course you do. This partnership, this winery and me, we can’t be your penance. It’s not right.” When he didn’t respond, she waded further into the uncharted waters and murky depths of the man whose history had intrigued her for her entire life. “I can’t be your partner unless you want me to be.”

  “I do,” he growled.

  A quick glance at his grim face told her he lied.

  “A deathbed promise to my father isn’t enough of a reason for us to be partners, Raf. I want more and you deserve more.”

  She could tell from his expression that he didn’t like her knowing anything about his motives. Nor did he like her making assumptions about his character.

  “You deserve happiness, Raf,” she persisted. “Despite everything, you’re a good man. I know it. Dolores knows it. What’s it going to take for you to know it, too?”

  Rafael stopped breathing, his muscles going still as stone beneath her fingers.

  “Bringing me here, sharing your business with me, is not a sentence you need to pay. Not if you don’t want to.”

  “You belong here.” His voice was so low she almost didn’t hear.

  “Not nearly as much as you do.” Her grip upon his warm forearm tightened as she waited for his obsidian eyes to meet hers. “So why don’t you tell me how to make this easier for you? Tell me what I can do to make you happy.”

  “You can’t,” he said. “No one can.” The intensity of his rough words sent a spiral of unease through her belly.

  “Why?” she insisted. “Why won’t you let anyone in?”

  He dragged his arm from her fingers and withdrew two steps. “Because I function better on my own.”

  His rejection stung, but she’d expected it. He always lashed out when she veered too close. “How do you know, when you’ve never tried it any other way?”

  “I told you I have work to do,” he said instead of answering.

  “Then let me help you,” she said, hoping it would stall his retreat. “Let me be the partner I want to be.”

  “Damn it, Sophia. I told you our partnership wouldn’t work that way. You’re—” He cut himself off, jerking his head to the side and clamping his mouth shut. As much as he preferred to appear unruffled by the change in their circumstances, promising to bring her back when he so obviously wished otherwise unnerved him.

  “I’m what?” she persisted. A stolen glance at his expression told her he didn’t like being pushed to answer. But when had he ever? His preference, always, was to live, breathe and think alone. There was safety in solitude and space, but she never had been good at giving it to him. “A pesky little child? A girl who never knows when to keep her big mouth shut? A woman who refuses to respect your boundaries?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes?” she asked.

  When he didn’t clarify, she answered for him. “It’s a jumble, isn’t it?” she said with a wry half smile. “There’s so much history between us, so many expectations and misunderstandings, it’s a wonder we can make sense of any of it.”

  He didn’t reply, merely glared at her with that same exasperating mulishness as before.

  “I own half the vineyard now,” she told him. “We share a business and if we’re to remain successful, we can’t be estranged. I need you to help me learn how to do my share. You have to find a way to treat me as the partner I am.”

  “I realize that.”

  “Then stop treating me like a child who needs watching. Stop treating me like the girl I was seven years ago.”

  He frowned and then grumbled something about her being rash and spoiled and impetuous.

  Sophia shook her head and sighed. “Yes, I’m impetuous at times. But I’m not the same Sophia you remember. I’ve grown up. At some point, you’ll have to accept that I’m a woman, capable of contributing something worthwhile to the world and to our shared business.”

  His pupils dilated while his nostrils flared. “I’ve known you’re a woman for ten years, Sophia.”

  Rafael’s confession sent a tight tangle of conflicting emotions spiraling through Sophia’s belly. Desire, frustration, a scared bid for self-preservation and anticipation all warred within her, making her breath catch in her throat. “You don’t act like it.”

  Quick as lightning, he stepped forward to grip her shoulders between his wide, warm hands. “Then how should I act?”

  “I—I don’t know,” she stammered, her heart clubbing hard in her chest. “You certainly shouldn’t be keeping secrets from me or lecturing me when I take off my shoes.”

  His hands moved to the sides of her neck, his strong fingers bracketing her skull and tipping her face toward his. “What, then? Should I be trying to seduce you?” His black eyes were as flinty as stone. “Telling you I want you in my bed?”

  She pushed against his chest, but his hold on her didn’t relent. “N-no. Of course not.”

  He dipped his head and breathed against her lips. “That I want your skin against mine?”

  A stunned inhale claimed whatever reply she might have made.

  “That thoughts of you drag my nights to hell and back?”

  Sophia felt her pulse everywhere: in her hands, her maligned feet, her quivering knees. He lowered his face that last disastrous inch and brushed his mouth over hers. The tip of his tongue traversed the seam of her lips and a current of desire flooded her veins. Her common sense reminded her that she should push him away, that she should reestablish the boundaries of their partnership. But she couldn’t. With his mouth scalding hot against hers, his tongue demanding entry and his hands hauling her up hard against his bowed body, she lost her will to resist.

  She wanted to regain the upper hand, to put him in his place until they’d had a rational, reasonable exchange. Even as she arched against him, looped her hands over his warm neck and met his fiery kiss with the same dizzying passion as before, she wanted to win. His b
ig hands gentled against the base of her spine and then slid up, beneath the loose, fluttering edge of her blouse. She felt the light exploration of his fingers along the small of her back, the faint caress of his calloused fingertips against her bare skin. He trailed soft strokes up her sides, his warm palms flattening against her ribs and the tender transition from underarm to breast. Her stomach tightened and her nipples drew up into hard, aching knots. She wanted him to touch her there.

  She wanted him to lay her down in the musty darkness and finish what they’d started so many years ago.

  Her hands fluttered to the back of his head, to the silky, soft hair that was as dark as ink, and then she leaned forward to press her breasts against his chest, to ease the ache that centered at their distended tips.

  His fingers slid south again, his hands curving over her buttocks as he hauled her flush against the long, hard bulge that strained against his denims.

  She moaned and rocked against him before the sound of approaching workers brought a moment of sanity. She tore her mouth from his while embarrassment and shame made her chest seize. He’d been trying to illustrate his point, to derail her from her bid to know him, and she’d responded with the same mindless abandon of before. Did she possess no control at all? He didn’t even want her! He’d merely learned which arsenal of tools to use on her to get what he wanted.

  Mortified that she’d allowed him to completely silence her with nothing more than a kiss, she shoved at him with both hands. After a moment, he released her and his hands dropped to his sides. She couldn’t bear to look at him, to see the subtle triumph beneath his hooded, watchful gaze.

  “Go home, Princess, before you get hurt,” he said before turning on his heel and striding toward the tribe of workers who were gathering at the entrance to the sorting level.

  She stood in stunned, angry silence, battling the longing and frustration that still pumped hard within her veins. She was a fool. A blind, cocky fool. And knowing how far in over her head she was, she realized she should have never, ever come home. But she couldn’t quit now. She couldn’t admit defeat when she’d barely begun. She wouldn’t give Rafael the satisfaction of putting her in her place without him having budged an inch.