response from her?
Perhaps she should have turned the light off and pretended she was asleep, after all!
‘Lionel and I are divorced, Rafe,’ she reminded him.
‘That doesn’t mean you can’t still be in love with him!’
She sighed. ‘You obviously know nothing about me if you believe that. But, then, you never did know anything about me, did you?’
‘I thought I did,’ he muttered.
Her eyes flashed. ‘And you thought wrong, didn’t you?’
Yes, he had been wrong about Cairo eight years ago, Rafe acknowledged grimly. So very wrong.
Then.
And now …
He stood up abruptly. ‘You’re right, Cairo, this was a bad idea. I’ll leave you to get back to your book.’
‘Thank you,’ she snapped.
Rafe paused to look back at her as he stood in the bedroom doorway, his smile self-derisive. ‘I should probably be thanking you for preventing me from making yet another mistake where you’re concerned.’ And yet the ache of his body told him that gratitude was the last thing he really felt….
Cairo’s eyes glittered darkly. ‘I’ll take it as said!’
‘Goodnight, Cairo.’
‘Goodnight, Rafe.’
Rafe gave her one last lingering glance before leaving the bedroom and the villa, stepping outside to take deep breaths of the perfumed night air, his gaze drawn to the swimming pool as the moonlight shimmered invitingly on the water.
He didn’t even hesitate, throwing off his clothes as he reached the lower terrace before diving smoothly into the coolly refreshing water.
She was crying, Cairo realized numbly. Tears that burnt her skin as they tracked down the paleness of her cheeks.
She wiped those tears away impatiently as she got out of bed, too restless to even think about sleep now as she began to pace the confines of her bedroom.
She had to get out of here!
She needed air.
Space in which to breathe.
The villa was in darkness, not a sound to be heard as she trailed through the comfortable sitting-room and out onto the terrace, the silence there broken by a sound she had come to associate with this area of France: hundreds of frogs croaking in the moonlight.
Somehow that familiar sound comforted her, calmed her, a smile curving her lips as she walked down the steps to the lower terrace to where the sound of the frogs became even louder.
Rafe floated in the shallow end of the pool, watching Cairo as she approached. She looked almost ghostly in the moonlight, her feet bare, her cream nightgown transparent against the nakedness of her body, her face a pale oval. The eerie light gave her long hair the appearance of cinnamon touched with silver.
That she was unaware of his presence in the water was in no doubt, a smile curving her lips as she held out her arms and turned her face up to the moonlight, long lashes shadowing her cheeks as she closed her lids.
She was Aphrodite.
Goddess of love.
Rafe’s breath caught in his throat as he looked at her, her breasts full and pert against the sheer material of her nightgown, her waist narrow, hips gently curving, a shadowed triangle visible between her thighs.
His body hardened in response to that beauty, his earlier resolve crumbling into dust as he knew that, despite everything, he still wanted to make love with her.
Cairo raised her lids as she heard another sound besides the croaking of the frogs, turning slowly to the source of that sound, her eyes widening as she watched Rafe stepping slowly up from the pool.
A completely naked Rafe, water dripping down his body, his thrusting arousal obvious as he walked slowly towards her. His gaze held hers as he took her in his arms, his body wet and cold from the water. Then his head lowered and his mouth claimed hers.
They kissed hungrily, deeply, lips and tongues seeking, drinking, devouring, as Cairo’s fingers became entwined in the silky darkness of Rafe’s hair, their legs entwined, bodies pressed closely together.
Cairo groaned as she felt Rafe slip the thin straps of her nightgown down her arms. She felt his cool hand against her heated flesh, her back arching in invitation when, as he had described this afternoon, he cupped one of her breasts to run the soft pad of his thumb caressingly across that sensitized tip, engulfing her in a warmth that reached from her toes to her fingertips.
Rafe kissed her lingeringly on the lips, tasting her, his hand still caressing her as he raised his head to look down at her. Her eyes were half closed, her breathing soft and shallow, a slight flush to the hollows of her cheeks.
His gaze darkened as he lowered it to where his hand cupped and held her, the small, perfect roundness of her bared breasts tipped with nipples of deep coral, full and tight as they pouted towards him in tempting invitation.
Rafe lowered his head to run his tongue moistly around that roused nipple, closing his lips about its coral-pink tip and suckling deeply as he heard her moan. His tongue lapped and rasped over it as his long, slim fingers continued to caress the arousal of that other deep rose tip.
Then Rafe’s hands spanned the slenderness of her waist and he lifted her up into him so that he could feast on those breasts, licking, sucking, feeling the spasms that rocked her body as he gently nibbled her roused flesh before once again suckling her deeply inside the warmth of his mouth.
He moved one of his hands from her waist to slide the silk nightgown up the smoothness of her legs and thighs as he sought and found the centre of her arousal.
She was already moist, her thighs parting as she allowed him to touch her there, to stroke and caress her before his questing hand moved lower and he gently probed that moistness with one finger, and then two, entering her, claiming her as he felt her rush of dampness against the rapidly increasing thrusts.
He gave the hard pebble of her nipple one last lingering kiss before moving lower, kneeling at her feet as his lips and tongue moved over the creamy silk of her waist and stomach, lightly probing her navel before he moved lower still. Cairo’s hips arched in a silent plea as his tongue moved unerringly against the hard nub nestled amongst the silky dampness of her red-golden curls and he felt her response, tasting her, sucking that nub into his mouth until she gasped.
Cairo was lost.
She had been lost from the moment Rafe’s mouth had touched hers and his hands had caressed her, his clever tongue and lips now driving her heatedly, relentlessly, towards a climax that claimed her so quickly, so fiercely, she could only cling mindlessly to his shoulders as the pleasure began deep inside her, her breath now coming in weak, gasping sobs. That pleasure swelled and grew, consuming her, flinging her into a maelstrom of feelings, sensations that seemed never ending as Rafe continued to suckle her and his tongue lapped against her in greedy hunger.
Her
