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He kissed her again, then reached up to brush the hair from her forehead, his touch so light and caressing that it sent a thrill coursing through her veins.
Once more he brushed his mouth across hers as if he hated to leave her even for the time it would take him to undress. But he stepped back and the fact that his hands shook as he pulled at his T-shirt endeared him to her all the more.
He stripped the shirt off, the muscles rippling across his chest and shoulders. He tossed it aside and then began undoing the fly of his jeans. She nearly moaned when he pulled both jeans and underwear down in one impatient shove.
The man was sexy. Cut like a flawless gem. Toned. Fit. Lean but not too lean. He had enough bulk that told of his workout regimen.
Her gaze drifted downward to his groin and she sighed her appreciation as his erection jutted upward. Impatient for him to return to her, she shifted and leaned up on her elbows so she could better see him.
But then he was crawling back onto the bed, straddling her body. He put the flat of his palm on her chest and gently pushed her down onto the mattress. Then he carefully slipped the straps of her bra off her shoulders, nudging until the cups released her breasts.
He lifted her just enough that he could fit one hand underneath to unhook her bra and then he pulled it away and tossed it onto the floor.
For a long moment he stared down at her, his gaze drifting up and down her body then focusing on her, their eyes catching and holding.
“I’m burning the image of you into my memory,” he said in a husky voice. “I don’t want to ever forget again. I can’t imagine how I ever did to begin with. What man when presented with such beauty could possibly let such a memory of it escape?”
Her heart went all fluttery again. It was hard to breathe around him. When he wasn’t sending shivers of delight over her flesh with his touch, he sent ripples of pleasure through her heart with his words.
“Kiss me,” she begged softly.
“Just as soon as I’ve taken the last of your pink girly underwear off,” he said with a smile.
His fingers danced down her sides and hooked into the lacy band of her panties and he tugged, moving backward as he pulled them down her legs.
This time he moved up the side of her and curled his arms around her, pulling her against him so her naked flesh met his. It was a shock. A delicious, decadent thrill. His hardness was cupped intimately in the V of her legs and her breasts pressed against the slightly hair-roughened surface of his chest.
As he kissed her, his hand roamed possessively down her back and over the swell of her buttocks and then around to cup her belly before drifting lower into the damp, sensitive flesh between her legs.
She moaned and arched forward as his fingers found her most sensitive points. His erection slid between her slightly parted legs, burning, rigid, branding her flesh.
She wanted him inside her, a part of her, after being so long without him. She stirred restlessly, clinging to him, spreading her legs wider to encourage him to take her.
He smiled against her mouth. “So impatient. I’m not nearly finished yet, little love. I want to make you crazy with pleasure before I make you mine again. So crazy that you’ll scream my name when I slide into your warmth.”
“I want you,” she whispered. “So much, Rafe. I missed you. Missed holding you like this. Missed having you touch me.”
He drew away and regarded her, his expression so serious that it touched something deep inside her. “I think somehow that I’ve missed you, too, Bryony. A part of me has. I don’t think I could be so happy so quickly with you if we hadn’t known each other before, if we hadn’t been … close. Lovers. You feel so perfect next to me. I feel like I’ve opened the door into someone else’s life because this feels nothing like mine and yet I want it so badly I can taste it. I can feel it.”
She reached up and tugged him down into a kiss, so moved by his words that her heart felt near to bursting.
“I don’t want to wait. I need you now, Rafe. Please. Be inside me. Let me feel you.”
He leaned over her body, pressing into her, his heat enveloping her. She savored the sensation of being mushed beneath him, of inhaling his scent so deeply that she could almost taste him.
“Are you sure you’re ready, Bryony?”
Even as he spoke, he slid one finger inside her and rolled his thumb across her clitoris. She closed her eyes and gripped his arms until her fingers felt bloodless.
“Please,” she whispered again.
He positioned himself and pushed the tiniest bit forward until he was barely inside.
“Open your eyes. Look at me, Bryony. Let me see you.”
Her eyelids fluttered open and she met his gaze, so dark and sensual.
He slid forward again, just a bit, stroking her insides with fire. He seemed determined to draw out their reunion, to make it last.
She let her hands wander down his sides and she caressed up and down, encouraging him to complete the act.
He leaned down until their noses brushed and then he angled his mouth over hers just as he slid the rest of the way inside her welcoming body.
Tears burned her eyes. The knot in her throat was such that she couldn’t speak. She didn’t have words anyway to describe the sensation of being back with the man she loved after having thought she’d lost him.
He withdrew and thrust again, his mouth never leaving hers. He breathed her. She breathed him. Their tongues tangled, stroked and coaxed.
He let his body descend on her and planted his forearms into the mattress so that she wasn’t completely bearing his weight as his hips rocked against hers.
It was much like the ocean waves, rolling forward then receding. Gentle and yet building in intensity. He was patient, much more patient than he’d ever been.
“Tell me if I hurt you,” he said against her mouth. “Or if I’m too heavy for you.”
In answer she wrapped both arms around him and hugged him tight. She slid one hand down to cup his firm buttocks as he undulated his hips against her.
“Tell me what you need,” he whispered. “Tell me how to please you, Bryony.”
Her hands ran up his back to his shoulders and then one slid to his nape, her fingers thrusting upward into his hair.
“You’re doing just fine,” she said dreamily. “I feel like I’m floating.”
He dropped his head to suck lightly at her neck and then he nibbled to the curve of her shoulder and sucked again, harder this time until she was sure he’d leave a mark.
She hadn’t had such a mark since she was a teenager, but strangely it thrilled her that she would have a reminder of his possession.
He groaned. “I’m sorry, Bryony. I can’t—Damn it.” He issued several more muffled curses that ended in a long moan as he increased his pace.
As soon as the intensity changed, the orgasm that had begun as a lazy, slow build escalated into a sharp coiling burn low in her abdomen. It rose and spread until she gasped at the tension.
She dug her fingers into his back, not knowing how else to handle the mounting pressure. She arched her buttocks off the bed, pushing him deeper inside her. He tensed and shuddered against her, reaching fulfillment while she was still reaching blindly for her own.
He pulled from her body, rolled to the side and slid his hand between her legs, caressing and stroking her taut flesh. He lowered his head to her breast and sucked her nipple into his mouth, laving it with his tongue as he pressed another finger inside.
His thumb rolled over her clitoris, his fingers worked deep and his mouth tugged relentlessly at her breast. Her surroundings blurred and the coiling tension suddenly snapped, unraveling at super speed.
“Rafael!”
Her back came off the mattress and her hand went to his hair, gripping, her fingers curling into his nape as she went rigid underneath him.
Her release was sharp. It was sweet. It was intense. It was one of the most shattering experiences of her life. She was left clinging to him, saying his name over and over incoherently as she came down.
He continued to stroke her, more gently than before, sweetly and comfortingly as she settled beneath him, her body quivering and shaking like she’d experienced a great shock.
Her mind couldn’t quite put it all together yet. All she knew was that it had never been this way between them before. She was … shattered. There was no other way to put it. And completely and utterly vulnerable before him. Bare. Stripped.
He gathered her close, holding her tightly as they both fought for breath. His hands seemed to be everywhere. Caressing. Touching. Soothing. He kissed her hair, her temple, her cheek and even her eyelids.
The one thing that seemed to penetrate the haze that surrounded her was that however undone she was, he’d been equally affected.
She wrapped herself around him as tightly as he was wound around her, snuggled her face into the hollow of his neck and drifted into a fuzzy sleep, so sated that she couldn’t have moved if she wanted to.
Fifteen (#u0ccc63ae-2a28-5e16-ade3-25fbdd8473a6)
Bryony woke to warm kisses along her shoulder and hands possessively stroking her body.
“Mmm,” she murmured as she lazily stretched.
“Oh, good, you’re awake. I’d hate to think I was taking advantage of a sleeping woman.”
She laughed. “Oh, I bet.”
“I have a lot to make up for,” he said.
He slid his mouth down the midline of her chest and then over the swell of one breast.
“You do?”
He traced the puckered crest of her nipple with his tongue and then sucked gently. He let go and looked up to meet her gaze. In the soft glow of her bedside lamp, she could see regret simmering in his eyes.
“Evidently I have no control when it comes to you. I wanted to make it good for you. I wanted it to last. I didn’t take care of you very well. I guess it goes along with my selfish-bastard ways.”
She rolled her eyes and lifted her palm to caress the side of his face. “If I had been any more satisfied I think I would have died. I like that I drove you a little wild.”
He arched one eyebrow. “A little? I’m not sure that accurately describes the mind-numbing experience I had. I don’t ever remember losing it like that with any other woman. Was it like that between us before?”
“No,” she said softly. “Not like that.”
“Better?”
“Definitely better.”
“Ah, good then. I was starting to feel threatened by the self I couldn’t remember.”
She laughed and then so did he. It felt good for once to joke about an event that had altered the courses of both their lives.
“I’m hungry.”
He lowered his mouth to her breast again. “So am I.”
Laughing, she smacked his shoulder. “For food! It’s been … What time is it anyway?”
He shrugged underneath her palm that had stilled on his shoulder. “Sometime in the wee hours of the morning. We slept a long time. You wore me out.”
“Let’s eat in bed and then …”
He arched an eyebrow as he stared lazily back up at her. “Then what?”
She smiled wickedly. “Then I’m going to have dessert.”
“In that case—” he scrambled up, covers flying “—you stay here. I’ll get us something to eat and be back in a minute.”
She pulled the covers to her chin and snuggled into the pillows, smiling as he strode naked out of the bedroom. He didn’t look at all abashed by his nudity. Confidence in a man was so sexy. She sighed and stretched, a dreamy smile spreading across her face.
Fifteen minutes later, Rafael returned with a tray holding two saucers. Piled on each was two grilled-cheese sandwiches. There were two glasses of leftover lemonade from lunch.
She sat up as he placed the tray over her lap and her mouth watered at the smell of the buttery grilled bread and melted cheese.
“Oh, this is perfect.”
“Glad you approve. It was all I could think of that would be done this quickly,” Rafael said as he climbed onto the bed. He sat cross-legged in front of her and reached for one of the sandwiches.
They ate, stealing glances, their gazes meeting and then ducking away. She was mesmerized by this unguarded side of Rafael. If possible she was more in love now—after only a few days—than she’d been before. It seemed like he was freer with her now.
She left half of one of the sandwiches and drank the lemonade down then waited patiently for him to finish his own food.
When he would have gotten up to remove the tray, she leaned forward and wrapped her hands around his wrists, holding him motionless. Then she shoved the tray off the bed. It landed with a clatter, the saucers and glasses rolling this way and that.
She kissed him. Not a sweet, nice-girl kiss. She gave him the naughty version that said I’m about to have my wicked way with you.
“Oh, hell,” he groaned.
“Oh, yes,” she purred just before she gave him a shove.
He fell back, sprawled on the bed, his eyes glowing with fierce excitement as she threw one leg over his knees and straddled him.
She reached down and wrapped her fingers around his straining erection and smiled. “I think it’s time for dessert.”
“Oh, damn …”
She lowered her mouth and ran her tongue around the tip of his penis. His breath hissed out, the sound explosive in the silence. His fingers tangled in her hair and he arched his hips.
“Bryony,” he whispered.
She took him hard, loving and licking every inch of him. She wanted to give him as much pleasure as he’d given her. She wanted to show him her love—her heart.
She settled between his legs, her hair drifting down over his hips. His fingers gentled against her scalp and stroked lovingly as she continued making love to him.
He made low sounds of appreciation and of pleasure and he began thrusting upward, seeking more of her mouth. Finally it seemed to be too much for him to bear.
