* *
Rafael came to with a gasp.
As his senses flickered back, he realized he’d lost consciousness...for the first time in his life. The discharge of fright and craving had been that brutal. It hadn’t been a sudden blackout, but a descent into a realm where he’d merged with Eliana on every fundamental level there was.
He lifted his weight from her cushioning softness on shaking arms. She came to only when he moved, her core involuntarily clutching the hardness that hadn’t subsided a bit, dragging a groan of pleasure from his depths.
Her eyes fluttered open and he saw how red and puffy they were, and the memory of her ordeal twisted his gut.
But when her lips spread into such a smile, as if she’d discovered an exclusive secret, her eyes growing heavy with such fulfillment, it made him feel like thumping his chest.
The next second, the bite of shame at the ferocity with which he’d initiated her doused his self-satisfaction.
She whimpered as he began to pull out. “Stay inside me.”
He stilled. “You must be sore.”
“Oh, I am...magnificently so.” Her silky legs caressed his sides, her heels digging into his buttocks, driving him back inside her. “If I knew just how incredible it would be to be ravished by you, I would have found a way to make you do it to me before. As it was, it took a near-fatal accident to break your resolve.” Her eyes darkened before she made an effort to brighten them. “Being an overachiever in everything, you went and knocked me out with too much pleasure.”
Heart quivering with the enormity of everything that had happened in the past several hours, he said, “You knocked me out, too, and I don’t even have your excuse of being a novice.”
Her eyes widened. “I did?”
“Indeed. I blinked out for the very first time in my life. I never have, even when I got punched square in the face. Richard used to say I have something in my head that doesn’t cut out. It took you to KO me.”
Her look of delight and smugness was worthy of a hundred portraits. It had a chuckle bursting on his lips as his heart expanded with gratitude. That she existed, was whole, and was his—in every way now.
Debilitated with relief, he rolled onto his back, taking her with him, staying inside her as she’d demanded. She enveloped him in intimacy, her hair gleaming waves of silk strewn over his chest.
He traced the exquisite profile pressed over his heart, the velvet limbs entangled with his. Dismay surged again at her bruises, at how much worse it could have been.
He exhaled the excess fright, the mounting guilt. “And to think I once asked if you were a virgin so I’d adjust my approach. Then I realize you are one and I still take your virginity with all the finesse of a plundering marauder.”
She raised his head, eyes urgent. “I needed you, too. I couldn’t bear any more gentleness. I needed you to take me with all your strength, to give me the full ferocity of your life and mine, no holds barred. The pain only made the pleasure almost too much to bear. I think I did die for a while with it.”
His arms convulsed around her. “You will always live with it. Live and thrive and be your vivacious, bursting-with-life delight of a self, do you understand?”
She nodded, eyes growing dreamy. “And I want to live every possible second with you inside me.”
“The hard part for me would be not being inside you.” He thrust deeper inside her hot tightness.
Throwing her head back with a cry, her eyes filled again.
As he cursed himself and tried to withdraw from her depths, she tightened her inner grip on him, her heat and tightness becoming unbearable.
“I need you again, Rafael.”
“It would hurt more, with you already so sore.”
“I want it to hurt.”
Holding her now-feverish eyes, he read her need. He’d always do whatever it took to fulfill each and every one.
Sweeping her to her back, he spread her beneath him and lay down on top of her. She needed more proof that she’d survived, and only something as intense as pain-mixed pleasure could make her feel truly alive now.
She writhed beneath him, her desire flowing, arousal blazing in her eyes. She needed him to ride her and dominate her and wring her of every spark of sensation. Make her live to the fullest.
As he started moving inside her again, trying to work up the heart to give her the ferocity she needed, knowing it would hurt her, the belated realization dawned on him.
He’d taken her without protection. He was doing so again.
But there was no thought of consequences. In fact, he welcomed them. He wanted—needed—her pregnant with his child.
This woman he loved with everything in him. This woman he’d die for; he’d no longer wanted to live when he’d thought he’d lost her. He wanted her bound to him by every shackle.
He already had those of desire and ecstasy. But now he had to make sure he had the most binding ones of all. Love. And a child.
That would be how he’d brand her as his forever, in every way, so when he finally struck her father down, and if she ever found out, he wouldn’t lose her.
* * *
Ellie spread her legs wider for Rafael, her nails sinking into his back and buttocks, urging him on. It hurt having him inside her, but she felt she’d implode if he withdrew. She needed his flesh filling her this way, to hold her together.
Her whole being was still in shock. Revolting at the horrors she’d witnessed, petrified at the brush with death.
When he hadn’t answered her, she’d lost her mind. The need for any part of him had been what had driven her. She would have walked here just to be where his feel and scent were.
Then he was here and enveloping her in his passion and protection and the world righted itself. It was frightening how dependent she was on him, but it was also exhilarating. To know that he existed, the only one to make her truly alive.
Now anything she’d thought she’d known about intimacy had been decimated. From the moment he’d invaded her, joined their bodies, taken her to the very limits of her mortality. It had been beyond description, transfiguring. She was now a totally different person. A woman. His woman. At last.
Aware of what pleasure was now—profound, pervasive, overpowering pleasure, she was maddened for more. For the proof of his life and hers. The pain only intensified their union, confirmed his absolute domination and her utter surrender.
Rafael now loomed above her, the struggle to control his power blazing on his face. He withdrew, then in one burning plunge pierced her to her recesses.
The shock to her system was total.
Paralyzed with too much sensation, she stared up at him. This sublime suffering was more intense than
