The Millionaire's Cinderella

She saw a flash of white teeth. “The temperature just rose a few degrees, among other things.”

Don’t look, Joanna. But she did, and luckily she couldn’t see anything much, not that she didn’t really want to.

Then he reached behind him and snapped on the light. The jets whirred to life, setting a foaming mound of bubbles into action, along with Joanna’s pulse.

She looked away, afraid she might see something she didn’t need to see, namely all of Rio’s body now reclined in one corner of the tub. Every fine detail.

“Are you going to get in, Joanna, or just sit there until you turn into an ice cube?”

She ventured a look in Rio’s direction. His hands were stacked behind his head, his hair wet and much too sexy for words. She chafed her palms down her arms. “It is kind of chilly.” Chills that were a direct result of viewing his bare chest, his sultry smile.

“It’s warm enough in here.” He gave her a lingering assessment. “Nice suit.”

She looked down, then back up again. “It’s all I have.”

“I mean it, Joanna. It looks great on you.”

Searching for a switch of subjects, she asked, “How did the birth go?”

“Without a hitch. In fact she delivered in two hours. A healthy baby girl. A little underweight, but okay.”

“Then you’ve been in the hot tub all this time?”

A deep chuckle rumbled in his chest. “Now if that were true, I’d be shriveled up like a prune. Believe me, I’m not.”

Again she wanted to look below the water’s depths, find a break in the bubbles, find his tattoo and the territory beneath. But she forced her eyes to remain on his face. “How long have you been home?”

He dropped his arms and stroked one hand across his chest. Joanna couldn’t help but imagine her own hand there. “Long enough to take a quick swim then get in here. I stayed at the hospital until she said goodbye to her daughter.”

“Said goodbye?”

“She’s putting the baby up for adoption.”

Joanna’s heart began to ache with that knowledge. Being without Joseph for the past few months had been devastating, and only a temporary situation. She couldn’t begin to imagine how heartbreaking it would be to give up a child permanently. “I’m sure that was a difficult decision,” she said with a sigh.

“Yeah, but for the best. She wants to continue with school. She doesn’t have any money since her parents kicked her out, but she’s got a relative willing to take her in, as long as it’s only her and not a child.”

“I hope they find a nice family for the baby.”

“I hope so, too. It’s tough not being wanted.”

How odd that he would say such a thing since he’d spoken so fondly of his mother. How strange that he sounded so sad. “I wouldn’t know.” At least not from a parental standpoint. On the other hand, she knew quite well how it felt not to be wanted by a husband. “Sounds like you might have had some experience with that.”

His sudden slight shift was the only thing that indicated his discomfort. “Oh, my mother wanted me, all right, until she married my stepfather.”

“You never mentioned him before.”

“I did. The colonel.”

“The man your mother worked for?”

“Yeah. And after they married, they sent me away to boarding school. Expected me to conform, be what they wanted me to be, in his case, white. It wouldn’t do for a decorated military man to have a poor multiracial brat running around, now, would it?”

The venom in his tone caused Joanna to flinch. “But his last name was Madrid.”

“No. It was Burlington. He adopted me, but I used my own father’s name in med school. I had it legally changed back after the colonel’s estate was settled.”

“I’m sorry that you had to live like that.”

“Well, at least I got all this in the deal.” He made a sweeping gesture around the area. “He left all his money to me, his ranch, which I sold the first chance I got. I didn’t want to hang on to those memories.”

Again he had thrown her off balance with his revelations. He was more an enigma now than ever.

The strap on Joanna’s swimsuit slipped off her shoulder. When she started to push it up, he said, “Leave it.”

For some reason she did, even though the falling strap pulled the neckline of the suit lower, exposing the top of her breast.

“Get in, Joanna,” he commanded in a deep, drugging voice. “I won’t bite. Much.” He topped off the request with a wicked grin.

Joanna suspected it would take more energy than she owned to resist his pull. But she didn’t have the desire to fight him any longer, at least at the moment. She could do this, keep her distance, remain focused and maintain a firm grip on reality.

Tossing her towel aside, she slipped into the welcoming water across from Rio. Her fair skin was cloaked in a translucent blue because of the tinted light. But Rio was dark and dangerous, the proverbial calm before the storm.

Tipping her head back, Joanna closed her eyes and tried to block out Rio’s image.

A hand caught her wrist, prompting her eyes to snap open and her pulse to quicken. Slowly he pulled her forward then turned her until she came to rest between his thighs, her back to his chest.

“Relax,” he whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Oh, but he could, and quite sufficiently, at least from an emotional perspective. She couldn’t think about that now, or worry about it, because her attention was drawn to something against her lower back. She didn’t have to guess what that something was.

He rested his lips against her bare shoulder then worked his way up her neck. She shuddered at the sensations, trembled when he slipped the other strap down. He streaked his knuckles back and forth over the rise of her breasts. She wanted him to keep going, ached for him to keep going, but he didn’t.

“Take it off,” he murmured. “You’ll feel better.”

Abandoning good sense, Joanna slipped her arms out of the straps and tugged the bodice down, baring her breasts completely to his eyes, his hands. Yet he still didn’t touch her, at least not intimately.

He did wrap his arms around her shoulders, his hands clasped together above her breasts. Joanna marveled at the contrasting colors of their skin—hers almost alabaster white, his the color of warm chocolate. Marveled at her sudden lack of inhibition, her indescribable need for his touch.

Her legs floated upward and so, it seemed, did her whole being. She waited for Rio to remove her suit completely but when he didn’t, she worked it down and away and watched as it twisted into the current.

“Now that’s more like it,” he said. “Don’t you feel a sense of freedom?”

She did, and she also felt light-headed, uncontrolled and needy.

She looked back at him. His golden earring twinkled, his eyes a near match in color. His strong, sharp features delineated by the glow of the light bouncing from the water’s surface mesmerized her, as did his lips outlined by the shadow of evening whiskers playing over his jaw.

He watched her for a long moment, waited for something but she wasn’t sure what. He made no move to touch her intimately yet his eyes never left hers.

Unable to stand the suspense any longer, she palmed his jaw and brought his mouth to hers. He kissed her deeply, deliberately, with a steady glide of his tongue in a slow, seductive foray, back and forth until she lost all sense of time or place or purpose. A slight moan climbed up her throat and she tried to stop its progress. Honestly she did, but she couldn’t. She also couldn’t halt the cravings, the way he held her prisoner with his capable mouth. She felt the glide of his erection against her back as he pulled her closer to him, his hips lifting on the current. It was the most erotic moment she had ever experienced, knowing how close she was to giving him everything, finally acknowledging a sensual facet of herself that she had long ago learned to deny.

Yet when his hand drifted to her breast, Joanna tensed, a knee-jerk reaction she couldn’t control.

He broke the kiss and rubbed his thumb over her lip. “Do you want this, Joanna?”

She tucked her head beneath his chin, turning her face into his neck, away from his questioning gaze. “Yes.”

She sensed he would treat her with consideration and care, with skill. And he did, with a light stroke on one nipple, then the other. She melted against him and closed her eyes, immersed herself in his touch, the ripples of water flowing over her.

The night wrapped around her like a comforting mantle, as comforting as Rio’s embrace, his sleek touch. Something inside Joanna broke away. Her caution, her concerns. All that mattered was him, the feelings he stirred within her, the undeniable passion, the yearning that was so foreign yet so welcome.

As if she’d totally detached herself from the lonely, celibate shell her life had been to this point, she laid her palm on his hand and guided it downward. He paused at her belly immediately below her navel, brushing his knuckles back and forth in a slow, torturous rhythm.

“Tell me what you want, Joanna,” he whispered.

She didn’t want to think, or to consider what was about to happen. She wanted him, only him, and to be the woman that he desired. “Touch me.”

He sifted his fingertips through the tangle of curls between her thighs, then on to her susceptible flesh with a gentle yet unyielding caress. “Like this?”

“Yes.” The word hissed out on the wings of a broken breath.

His murmured sensual words danced around in her head as the bubbles danced over her body. His fingertip made gentle passes over places too long ignored then slipped deep inside her, slowly, deliberately.

The steam rose around her as Rio’s touch swathed her in a heavy fog of desire. The pressure began to mount beneath his insistent strokes. So did the need to resist for fear of completely losing herself. But no matter how hard she tried to fight it, prolong its arrival, the climax came with the force of a tempest, sucking her breath from her lungs, her thoughts from her brain. Her pulse throbbed in her ears, her body trembled. She felt weak, boneless, satisfied.

Rio held her through the aftermath for a time, still toying with the curls with gentle fingers. She wanted to tell him to touch her again, and again. She wanted to take him inside her, all of him, to know what it felt like to be totally consumed by a man who held such sensual power over her.

“Are you okay?” he whispered.

Was she okay? She was more than okay. More than ready to continue. She could only nod, her cheek rubbing against the warm damp skin at his neck.

“Good. Maybe now you’ll sleep.”

With that, he tipped her face up, brushed a kiss over her lips then worked his way from behind her. “Stay as long as you’d like.”

When he left the tub, Joanna could only stare at him, stare at his sculpted buttocks, his damp hair resting on his shoulders, his strong spine glistening with moisture. And when he turned, the evidence that he was still aroused definitely caught her attention before he slipped on his jeans without bothering to dry off.

Joanna felt self-conscious, alone and naked, cold and confused. She crossed one arm over her breasts and searched beneath the water’s surface for her suit. Not finding it, she hoisted herself out of the tub and grabbed for the towel to secure it around her.

“Where are you going?” she asked through chattering teeth as she sat on the bench near the tub, unable to stand any longer.

“To bed.”

“But…I…you…” She sounded like a stammering idiot, a desperate woman.

“I what?”

“I thought maybe we might finish this.”

He slipped his shirt over his head. “Not tonight, Joanna. This was for you.” He knelt and fished her suit from the water, squeezed it out, then tossed it at her. It hit the wooden deck at her feet with a soggy thump.

She snatched up the suit and stood, fighting to control her anger. “Oh, so you were doing me a favor, were you? Poor desperate Joanna Blake who hasn’t been with a man in years.”

He inclined his head. “You haven’t?”

Nothing like giving herself away. “No, I haven’t, and I don’t need your favors.” She shot a pointed look below his belt. “So is this some kind of test of your strength, or do you plan to take care of that yourself?”

He ate up the space between them in two long strides, clasped her hand and pressed her palm against his erection. “I plan for you to take care of this but only when you’re ready.”

He took a step back and Joanna rolled her eyes to the night sky. “We’re back to that again? I did what you wanted. I said your name, several times. What do I have to do next, recite poetry?”

“You have to learn to trust me. You have to believe that I’m worthy enough to make love to you in every way.”

“And I have no say in the matter? We’ll make love when you say the time’s right?”

“We’ll make love when you come to me without my coercion. And not a minute before.”

He clicked off the jets and lights in the tub then turned and sprinted down the steps with Gabby following at his heels. The sound of the back door closing jarred Joanna out of her shock. Suddenly she felt to-the-marrow cold, and alone.

She also felt determined. If Rio Madrid wanted to play games, then bully for him. She didn’t have to play along. If he was waiting for her to come to him, then he definitely had another think coming.

She didn’t need him, and that’s what she kept telling herself all through the night.

Two long, restless nights, Joanna thought as she readied for her next patient the following Monday afternoon. One equally chaotic day. When she turned on the water in the exam room’s stainless sink, a flashback assailed her—blue lights, skilled hands, naked flesh, absolute paradise.

She fumbled with the blood pressure cuff, dropped the chart and knocked her coffee cup over onto the counter. Luckily it flipped sideways into the sink, saving the carpet from a good dousing, saving Joanna from a fit of oaths directed at Rio Madrid.

She definitely had the good doctor to thank for her distraction as well as the heat flowing through her body on a stream of remembrance. She needed to stop thinking about what had happened Saturday night, as well as what hadn’t happened. So far, that’s about all she’d thought of since the moment she’d awakened at dawn, alone.

Joanna supposed she should be thankful Rio hadn’t changed his mind and come to her. But she wasn’t. As unwise as it seemed, she would have welcomed him into her bed, into her body without a second thought, but probably not without regret.

Yes, she should be very thankful he’d stayed away, avoided her yesterday as well. Instead, she was frustrated and needy and still wanted him as much as she had two nights before. As much as she had that first night when he’d kissed her.

“Knock, knock,” Allison Cartwright called from the open door. “Do you have a few minutes?”

Joanna pulled a few paper towels from the metal dispenser and wiped the water from her hands, wishing she could as easily wipe Rio from her mind. “Come on in. My next patient’s not due in for another ten minutes or so. What’s up?”

Allison strode into the exam room, her auburn hair swinging back and forth where it fell over her shoulders. After dropping her small frame into the nearby chair, she let out a strained breath and stretched out her long legs. “My feet are starting to swell and my hips are expanding to dangerous proportions. I have to pee every fifteen minutes because I think junior here is sitting on my bladder. But that’s okay because in about six weeks, he’ll be here and I’ll forgive him everything.”

Joanna grinned. “Are you still convinced it’s a boy?”

Allison gave her round belly a pat. “You betcha. He’s so active that I can’t help but believe he’s training for soccer.”

“You could always find out during an ultrasound.”

“Nope. I want to be surprised.”

“By the way, have you seen Dr. Madrid lately?”

“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Dr. Madrid.”

Joanna tried not to push the internal panic button yet she couldn’t help but worry that maybe people already knew about her recent living arrangements. Ludicrous. Allison had no way of knowing since she worked across town for a prominent law firm. Unless Rio had told her. Surely not. “What about Dr. Madrid?”

“I’ve come to the decision that I’m going to use the center, as long as you’ll attend my birth. I’m just not sure how I’m going to tell him. He’s been so good to me, and he’s such a great doctor, but I really don’t want to have my baby in the hospital.”

Joanna crossed the room and leaned back against the exam table, facing Allison. “Are you absolutely sure? You’ve told me that you were considering an epidural, and you know we don’t provide that here.”

“I’m sure. And I’m no longer worried about the pain aspect because I know you’ll be with me through the whole thing. To be honest, there are other reasons why I don’t want to have this baby at Memorial.”

Joanna frowned. “You’re not obligated to tell me, but does this have something to do with the baby’s father?”

Allison’s gaze faltered. “You could say that, but I’d rather not say anything more.”

“I understand.” Obviously the father worked at the hospital. Joanna briefly wondered if maybe he was married. Such a shame if that were true, but she had a hard time believing Allison would fall into that trap. However, Joanna knew all too well how persuasive men could be, as well as deceptive. “Would you like me to tell Dr. Madrid about your decision?”

Allison frowned. “In all fairness, I need to tell him myself, but if you could just sort of pave the way so he won’t be quite as shocked.”

“No problem,” she said, although she didn’t exactly relish the idea. “I’ll mention it to him tonight.”

“Tonight?”

Oh, heavens, how was she going to get out of this one? “Uh, well, yes. If I see him tonight. For some reason. That’s possible, if there’s some reason for seeing him.” Wow, Joanna. That sounded really coherent.

Allison sent her a knowing smile. “I think the midwife doth protest too much.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Is he as good as he looks?”

Right on cue, heat rushed from Joanna’s neck to her scalp. “I wouldn’t know.” Not that she didn’t want to know. Actually she did know on a limited basis.

“Are you sure?”

She was sure about one thing—she needed to end this conversation now. After a quick glance at the clock, Joanna said, “Oh, look. It’s time for my next patient.”

Allison rose from the chair with a grace Joanna had always longed for and started toward the door. “Okay, Nurse Blake, I’m not going to bug you since we’re all entitled to our little secrets.” She circled her slender fingers around the doorknob and turned to Joanna with a wily grin. “But as soon as you find out how good the doctor really is, be sure to let me in on it.”

With that she breezed out the door, and Joanna resisted the urge to throw water on her face to cool the sudden heat.

Water. Soothing warm water, bubbles twirling over her body, gentle fingers dancing over tender flesh…

Joanna slapped her palms to her cheeks as if she could jar the memories from her mind.

Darn Rio Madrid. When she did see him again, she would make it a point to mention Allison Cartwright. And she’d make it quite clear that the game was up, she didn’t want to play, so he’d best keep his distance.

Now if she only remembered to keep hers.

Six

After two lengthy deliveries, Rio arrived home early Friday morning slightly before dawn. He built a fire in the den, stripped off his shirt and collapsed onto the sofa with Gabby.

Since Joanna had moved in with him two weeks ago, he’d barely seen her due to their conflicting schedules, at least not as much as he’d wanted. They had shared dinner a few nights, and he did have to admit that he’d greatly enjoyed the meals she’d prepared, their casual conversations, and definitely the way she always made him smile with some amusing story about her son. He appreciated the fact that she really listened to him when he’d had a particularly tough day, appreciated their shared concern for their patients. Yet he’d sensed the discomfort those times when—unable to resist—he’d done nothing more than reach out and touch her face or her hand.

She should consider herself lucky, Rio decided. He’d wanted to touch her elsewhere, kiss her everywhere. He’d fought to keep his hands to himself, battled to keep from coming up behind her while she’d stood at the stove cooking, wanting badly to turn up the heat by slipping his hand inside the baggy sweatpants she tended to wear after business hours, to make her react the way she had in the hot tub. But he’d decided to stick to his guns and wait for her to make the next move, even if it was killing him to do so.

Thoughts of making love to her—really making love to her—made him brick hard, made him want to groan with frustration. He lowered his fly an inch to provide some relief, but it didn’t help all that much. Only one thing would alleviate the problem, and she was upstairs, fast asleep.

After yanking the band from his hair, Rio tipped his head back against the leather sofa and propped his feet on the coffee table. With Gabby curled up next to him, he flipped on the TV with the remote and settled for some infomercial hawking a miracle cleaner. Normally he would try to find something more entertaining, or at least something that might put him to sleep, at least for an hour or so before he had to return to the hospital to make his morning rounds.

Right now his thoughts centered on Joanna, on the fact that she was upstairs in bed, alone, and he was on the couch, hurting like hell from wanting her. From wanting to touch her again, only this time with his mouth as well as his hands. From needing to be inside her with an urgency as unfamiliar as having a woman living with him. A woman he wanted way too much.

But he’d been dead serious when he’d told her that he wasn’t going to make love to her until she came to him. It needed to be a conscious decision, not duress, that brought her to his bed. She had to make up her mind that she was willing to enter into a relationship that might never be more than two people enjoying intimacy.

He wished he could offer her more, but he wasn’t sure he could. An integral part of him feared the loss of freedom since he’d given up so many liberties in his life-time. But more important, he wasn’t certain he was cut out for marriage or fatherhood; his own example had been anything but satisfactory.

At times he had considered settling into that role, yet he’d never found a woman who’d encouraged the kind of feelings that led to a serious commitment.

Except for the woman upstairs. Maybe that’s why having Joanna Blake in his life was beginning to scare the hell out of him. And as bad as he hated to admit it, his burgeoning feelings for her did alarm him on a very distinct level. He’d mistakenly thought he could handle it. Handle having her here yet not having her completely. He didn’t like his weakness, nor did he want to act on his desire unless he knew for certain she was willing to accept the terms. But he wasn’t sure how long he could remain strong in her presence—emotionally and physically.

Gabby whined, cocked her head to one side and stared at the doorway from the entry. Rio looked over his shoulder to see Joanna’s form cast in a mix of gold and silver light coming from the TV and the fire. She trudged into the room wearing a thigh-length flannel nightshirt and a pair of baggy socks, her hair a tangle of curls. She was a mess, and Rio couldn’t remember ever wanting someone as much as he wanted her at that moment.

His body had begun to calm a few moments before only to be brought back to life by her sudden appearance. If he were any kind of gentleman, he’d grab a throw pillow and shove it on his lap to hide his current predicament. But from the looks of Joanna’s sleepy expression, he doubted she’d notice.