She couldn’t take it—couldn’t articulate what she needed. She needed to come so badly, but Rafaele was relentless. She knew she was only seconds from begging. Overwhelmed, she felt tears prick her eyes—and then Rafaele thrust so deep it felt as if he touched her heart.
Eyes flying open, tendons going taut all over her body, Sam came in a dizzying, blinding crescendo of pleasure so intense she couldn’t breathe. She gasped and felt Rafaele thrust deep again, sending her spiralling into an even higher dimension of pleasure. His body jerked between her legs and she felt her endless pulsating orgasm milking him of his essence, which was a warm flood inside her.
In the aftermath of that shattering crescendo Sam barely knew which way was up. Her legs were still locked around his slim hips. Rafaele’s head was buried in her neck and she had the strongest urge to reach out and touch his hair, but when she lifted a hand it was trembling too much.
His chest was heaving and damp against hers. Her breasts were tender. Rafaele was still hard inside her, his strength ebbing slowly. And then suddenly he reared back, eyes wild, making Sam wince as he broke the connection between their bodies.
‘Protection. We didn’t use protection.’
Sam looked at him and went icy, before reason and sanity broke through. Relief was tinged with something bittersweet. ‘No,’ she breathed, ‘It’s okay, I’m...safe.’
She bit her lip, suddenly acutely aware of how she was balancing precariously on the desk with Rafaele’s eyes on her. She felt raw, as if a layer of skin had been stripped off her body. She clenched her hands.
‘Are you sure?’ he demanded.
Sam forced herself to look at Rafaele. Her mouth twisted. ‘Yes. I’m sure. My period just finished.’
He sighed deeply. ‘Okay.’
Sam couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. ‘You believe me, then?’
He paused in reaching down to grab some clothes and looked at her. ‘I believe you. I don’t think you’d want to repeat history any more than I would.’
The words shouldn’t have hurt her. Much as his earlier words shouldn’t have hurt her. But they did. Sam didn’t want to question why.
Grimacing slightly when her muscles protested, she stood shakily from the desk and took her shirt and bra from Rafaele’s outstretched hand.
She couldn’t look at him. Face burning, she turned away to put on her clothes and castigated herself. She was repeating history right here, right now. Making love with him in his office exactly like she used to. She could remember what it had been like to go back onto the factory floor, feeling exhilarated and shamed all at once, as if a brand on her forehead marked her as some sort of fallen woman. The boss’s concubine.
She pulled on her pants and trousers with clumsy fingers, aware of Rafaele just feet away, dressing himself, sheathing that amazing body again.
When she was dressed he said coolly from behind her, ‘Shall we go?’
Sam steeled herself and turned around to see Rafaele looking hardly rumpled, his hair only slightly messy. She knew she must look as if she’d just been pulled through a hedge backwards. The tang of sex was in the air and it should have sickened her, but it didn’t. It made her crave more.
‘Yes,’ she said quickly, before he could see how vulnerable she felt.
* * *
Rafaele burned with recrimination as he negotiated his car out of the factory in the dark with Sam beside him, tight-lipped. His recrimination was not for what had happened; he’d do that again right now if he could. His recrimination was for the way it had happened. He’d behaved like a teenage boy, drooling over his first lay with finesse the last thing on his mind.
When she’d asked him just now if he believed her, his reaction had been knee-jerk and not fair. He was already repeating history with bells on, and he knew he wouldn’t have the strength to resist her even if he wanted to.
It had been a miracle that he’d had the control to make sure Sam had come first—but then he recalled how ready to explode she’d been when he’d just touched her with his fingers. Just like that he was rewarded with a fresh, raging erection and had to shift to cover it in the gloom of the interior of the car.
He’d taken Sam on his desk. He’d only ever let one other woman get to him at work—the same woman. Until he’d met Sam his life had been strictly compartmentalised into work and pleasure. That pleasure had been fleeting and completely within his control. As soon as he’d laid eyes on her, though, the lines had blurred into one.
He could still remember the cold, clammy panic that last weekend four years ago at finding himself waking in his own bed with Sam wrapped around him like a vine. Far from precipitating repugnance, he’d felt curiously at peace. Until he’d realised the significance of that and that peace had been shattered. He’d postponed an important meeting that weekend to spend it with Sam. He’d even turned off his phone. Had not checked e-mails. He’d gone incommunicado. For the first time. For a woman.
It had been that which had made something go cold in his chest. Realising how far off his own strict path he’d gone.
Even now he was aware of that, but also aware of Sam’s slim supple thighs in her black trousers next to him. Albeit slanted away, as if she was avoiding coming any closer than she had to in the small, intimate space.
Dio. If she was his he’d make her wear skirts and dresses all the time, so that all he’d have to do would be to slide his hand— If she was his. Rafaele let the car swerve momentarily and very uncharacteristically as that thought slid home with all the devastation of a stealth bomb.
He could feel Sam’s quick glance of concern and imagine her frowning.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered, and regained control of himself. He could see from the corner of his eye that Sam had crossed her arms over her breasts. She was so tense he fancied she might crack in two if he touched her.
Her silence was getting to him, making his nerves wind tight inside him. He wanted to provoke her—get her to acknowledge what had just happened. What it possibly meant to her. Was the same round of unwelcome memories dominating her head?
Injecting his voice with an insouciance he didn’t feel, Rafaele asked, ‘Don’t tell me you’re already regretting what happened, cara.’
She snapped at him, ‘Is it that obvious?’
Rafaele’s mouth tightened in rejection of that, despite his recent thoughts. ‘It was inevitable and you know it. It’s been building between us from the moment we saw each other again.’
He glanced at Sam and their eyes met. A jolt of electricity shot straight to Rafaele’s groin.
She hissed at him, ‘It was not inevitable. It was a momentary piece of very bad judgment. You were obviously feeling frustrated—maybe it’s because you’ve been forced to move to the suburbs so you can’t entertain your mistress.’
Rage was building inside Rafaele and he responded with a snarl, ‘I don’t have a mistress at the moment.’
Sam sniffed. ‘Maybe not, but I’m sure there’s been a number in the last four years.’
