body.
And still she wanted more, ached for more, wanted to know that pleasure again as much as she needed Rafe buried deep inside her, groaning her disappointment as he stood up and she felt him moving away from her.
He couldn’t leave her now!
She reached out and touched him, watching Rafe’s eyes close as her fingers curled around him. He was steel encased in velvet and she ran her fingers down the long length of him, her other hand cupping and holding him as she caressed rhythmically, hearing Rafe’s groan as her lips trailed moistly across his chest on a downward path to the centre of his arousal.
Rafe’s knees almost buckled as Cairo knelt before him and he felt her lips close about him before she oh-so-slowly drew him deep into the heated moisture of her mouth, his hands tightly gripping her shoulders before he held her away from him as he felt himself losing control.
‘Not yet, Cairo,’ he murmured throatily even as he lifted her up and away from him.
Not because he didn’t like her mouth on him, or that velvety caressing tongue lapping and tasting the hard length of him. Truth be told, he liked it too much, was in danger of just letting go and spilling himself like some inexperienced boy. And he hadn’t drunk his fill of Cairo yet. Hadn’t touched her, kissed her, caressed her nearly enough to assuage eight years of hungry need.
She stood perfectly still as he lowered the nightgown completely to let it fall down about her feet, her breasts small and firm as he lowered his head and kissed each of them slowly in turn before holding her away from him to feast his eyes on her nakedness. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever known. So tiny and yet so totally, femininely perfect, her skin soft and silky, and the colour of magnolia, with those rosy tipped breasts so pert and thrusting it made him feel hungry for her just looking at them.
Rafe swung her up into his arms and sat down on the lounger, her legs straddling him, the warmth between her thighs reaching out to tempt him as his hard arousal moved restlessly against that heat.
‘Take me into you, Cairo …’ Rafe groaned. ‘Deep, deep inside you!’
‘Soon,’ Cairo promised as she rubbed herself against him, wetting him, giving herself pleasure, as well as him, as her own arousal mated with his, her aching nipples a caress against the soft hair on Rafe’s chest as she raced towards another climax.
Rafe’s hand moved between them and she cried out as he found her hardened nub, thumb caressing even as his fingers slid smoothly inside her, those thrusts becoming harder, faster, Cairo almost sobbing as her climax peaked again and again.
‘Now, Rafe,’ she moaned. ‘I want you inside me now!’ she begged as she raised herself slightly to curl her hand about him and rub the tip of his hard shaft against her wetness, hearing Rafe’s groans as she teased them both until they could wait no longer. She opened herself to him and took him inside her slowly, her gaze holding his as he entered her inch by pleasurable inch.
Rafe felt as if he were almost going insane as Cairo slowly wrapped herself about his engorged arousal. He felt the quivers of her recent pleasure, longed to thrust deep inside her, hard and fast, needing to assuage his own burning need for release, but at the same time wanting this moment to last for ever.
He groaned again, his eyes closing, as Cairo slowly began to ride him, her knees placed on the lounger beside him to give her purchase as she raised almost to his tip before plunging down again. Again. And again. Riding him steadily faster. Harder. Her hips thrusting, drowning him in sensation, until he felt the first surge of his own release, his hands moving instinctively to her hips as he began to pump deep inside her, grasping her, holding her as he thrust into her in ever-increasing wildness, falling weakly backwards as she continued to milk every last drop from his body.
The fog of desire faded as the cool night air stroked the aroused heat of Cairo’s body, and she groaned low in her throat as she realized exactly what she and Rafe had just done.
This wasn’t real, she recognized achingly as she stared down at him in the moonlight. This madness with Rafe, the two of them being intimate like this, it wasn’t real. It never had been.
Not eight years ago.
And not now, either.
‘Cairo …?’ Rafe questioned huskily as he obviously felt her withdrawal.
This wasn’t real, she told herself again as she began to tremble in reaction.
She shook her head. ‘We can’t ever do this again, Rafe.’ Her voice broke emotionally.
‘Why the hell not?’ he rasped his disappointment.
‘I— We just can’t!’ Cairo cried, not even knowing how she was going to escape from this with dignity.
Minutes ago, she had been in ecstasy, totally lost to reason, but now she could see this for exactly what it was. A purely physical attraction—at least, on Rafe’s part. Cairo was very much afraid that for her—as it had been eight years ago—it was something totally different.
She stared at Rafe, at his dark beauty, her eyes widening with horror as she realized that, despite everything, she was still in love with him.
Had she ever really stopped loving him?
No, she hadn’t, Cairo acknowledged heavily. Rafe had been her first love and he was also her last love. But he hadn’t been able to love her in return when they were together before, and it wasn’t love he felt for her now, either. She had made a lot of mistakes in her life, but she wasn’t about to make the biggest one of them all by deceiving herself into believing it could ever be otherwise!
She moved up and away from him to turn and pick up her discarded nightgown. ‘I think it’s time I went back inside. Alone,’ she added abruptly so that Rafe should be left in no doubt about her intentions.
‘Cairo?’ Rafe stood up to reach out and grasp her arm, turning her to face him as he looked down at her searchingly.
What the hell had just happened?
Minutes ago, he knew Cairo had been as wild for their lovemaking as he had, and now she was just going to walk away? He gave a puzzled shake of his head. ‘What’s going on, Cairo? Why are you so hot, so wild, one minute and then back to being the ice-maiden the next? Was I just a quick lay? Is that it?’
She gave a pained frown. ‘It wasn’t like that—’
‘It sure as hell seems like it to me!’ he grated.
She shrugged. ‘I—I was curious, that’s all.’
‘You were curious?’ he repeated in a dangerous tone.
She nodded. ‘To see if that physical attraction really was still there.’
Rafe’s eyes narrowed ominously. ‘And?’
‘Obviously it still is,’ she acknowledged dryly. ‘But that doesn’t mean we have to do anything more about it.’
His mouth twisted derisively. ‘Your curiosity has been satisfied. Is that it?’
‘I— It was a mistake. A mistake that’s better not repeated, don’t you think?’ Her face was
