She just hadn’t thought it would go that bad, that soon.
Exhaling dejectedly, she took off her belt purse as she entered the living room...and almost keeled over in shock.
Rafael was sitting in the middle of the floral couch, his jacket discarded, his T-shirt stretched tautly over his massive chest. From the way his muscled arms were spread over the back of the couch, and those long, powerful legs were stretched out on the coffee table, he looked as if he’d been there for hours.
“How...?”
That was all she could say before she slumped against the wall, not knowing how she remained standing.
He answered her aborted question. “I ran. I took shortcuts that ensured I’d arrive long before your taxi.”
“You ran?” she choked. “You’re not even out of breath.”
“I’m in very, very good shape.”
He could say this again. Her gaze slid hungrily over his body before it faltered, stopped then slammed up back to his as she burst out, “How did you enter my apartment?”
“My background in crime is very, very handy.”
So that had been true. He’d once been a gang member...or worse. Which did explain that lethal edge to him. She wondered how deadly he had been. Or still was. She also wondered why she wasn’t in the least afraid of him. His presence here didn’t frighten or even alarm her. It just annoyed her. And if she was totally truthful...thrilled her.
But then he just had to exist to do that. Even now...
Exasperated with herself more than him, she harrumphed. “That’s all you have to say? You used your criminal creds to con your way past the concierge, then to pick my locks?”
He inclined his head in utmost tranquility. “Yes.”
“Well, marathon man, you can run out the same way you ran in. I have nothing more to say to you.”
He spread himself out even more comfortably. “But I have something to say to you. I realized I missed telling you the one relevant thing—why I walked away.”
She teetered away from the wall’s support but found her legs were still rubbery. “You found a woman that appealed to you more.”
“As I said before, no woman has or will ever appeal to me more than you....”
“Oh, please.”
He heaved up from his deceptively relaxed pose and in three endless strides was, like last night, plastering her against the wall. “That’s all I aim to do—all I will do—please you. And pleasure you and cater to your every need.”
“Rafael...”
He clamped his mouth over hers, swallowed her gasp and plunged deep. Delight went off like fireworks through every nerve ending as his hard length impacted her, as his tongue thrust into her recesses, all mental faculties shutting down.
It was he who finally raised his head, cradling hers in the crook of his arm, his eyes endless silvered twilights.
Then he took her hand, lying limply over his chest, and guided it down. Her gaze followed, her whole body lurching as he placed it over the huge hardness tenting his pants.
“You feel this? See it? That was how obviously turned on I was as I took you into the ballroom last night.”
She hadn’t noticed, because she’d been too busy looking for her father. But she did remember how his arousal had remained blatantly apparent through the more relaxed suit pants all the time in his study.
“I didn’t care who saw it. But not even finding myself faced with your father...deflated me. I didn’t want to get introduced to a man I’ll work with in that state—especially when said man happens to be your father. I didn’t know how to handle it so I walked away. It was immature and tactless, but once it was done, I didn’t know how to undo it.” His lips hovered over hers and his breath singed her face. “I waited for you to come to me, so you’d advise me how to fix my faux pas. But you didn’t.”
“So you left with another woman.” She moaned as he bent his knees to thrust against the junction of her thighs.
“I didn’t. When she steered me outside I just kept going until I went back to our place. I thought you’d rejoin me. When you didn’t, I thought you’d gotten angry and left and thought it was just as well. If you’d come back, I would have taken you right there and then. Ever since, I’ve been investigating you.”
She finally ducked out of the prison of his seduction. “I thought my details didn’t matter.”
“They didn’t, until I had to find you. But I learned so much more about you being in your home.”
Embarrassment suddenly struck her at having this immaculate entity in her messy abode. “It’s a rental. But it sure must be a novelty for you, being in a packrat’s place.”
His lips crooked in a smile of such indulgence. “You are a collector, aren’t you? But since this isn’t one of your permanent homes, it means you travel with your mementos.”
“Yeah, I unpack them first thing and have them covering every available surface and hanging on every wall as soon as I get anywhere I intend to stay longer than a month. And tidy is something no one could accuse me of being....”
He covered the distance she’d put between them, pulling her back into his arms. “I love your mess. I’ve had painstaking order my whole life. Anywhere I lived was minimalist. I do everything according to sparse equations. Then I entered your home and it was as if a warm breeze swept over me, dispelling the cold I carry within me. Everything here tells a meticulously detailed story of who you are, who you love, what matters to you. And it’s just exquisite. Like you.”
The barrage of beauty spilling from him had her dissolving in his arms. “God, where did you learn to...talk that way?”
“I never did. It just comes out of me when I’m with you. And I need you to be as spontaneous with me. I can’t bear the walls you’ve erected between us. I need your passion-hued eyes to melt me with your all-out appreciation again.”
“Passion-hued...” she repeated on a sigh.
He was too much. And she wanted him too fiercely.
She sighed again. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
Confusion crept into his eyes. “Do what?”
“Have sex.”
“I assume you have protection this time?”
Rafael disengaged from Eliana with the same caution he would distance himself from a bomb.
Just as guardedly, he said, “I don’t.”
“There’s a pharmacy nearby that delivers
