astride her, clad only in boxers—the erotic image, she knew, would be permanently etched in her brain—he began to undress her.
Every brush of his fingers on her hot skin sent shimmies of tingling sensation along her sensitised nerve endings.
As he peeled her bra from her shoulders a deep gasp was wrenched from deep in the vault of Rafael’s chest. His golden skin glistened with the need that drove him as he stripped off her pants, sliding them with tantalising slowness over her smooth thighs.
Suddenly overwhelmed by self-consciousness she gasped, ‘This isn’t me!’ And tried to cover herself.
Rafael caught her hands and pinned them above her head, holding them lightly there with his hand.
‘Look at me.’
Maggie reluctantly turned her head. Without a shred of self-consciousness he divested himself of the boxers she had imagined concealed nothing; it turned out they did. She swallowed and felt her cheeks burn as guiltily she wrenched her eyes higher.
‘This is me, and you are allowed to look, and want and touch. There is no shame, just sex. This is natural and good.’ He had a very poor opinion of the person who had made her feel differently. ‘This is you…and I will look. I will look because you are—’ he swallowed as his glance dropped ‘—Dios mio, your are perfect…so unbelievably perfect.’
He cupped one pink-tipped breast in his hand, drawing the straining point between his fingers, rubbing the sensitised flesh before he lowered his head and applied his tongue to the engorged nub.
Maggie writhed under his touch, her fingers sinking deep into his hair. Her hips lifted as he ran his tongue down the soft curve of her belly, then lower.
As he parted the delicate folds, stroking her, Maggie squeezed her eyes tight closed and cried his name over and over until she could bear no more.
‘This is…please…’
Satisfied that he had brought her to the brink and barely able to control his own driving hunger, Rafael settled between her parted thighs.
His hot, hungry eyes broke through the last shreds of Maggie’s shredded control. Face flushed, dark velvet eyes glazed with passion, she spread her thighs wider and, reaching for him, whispered, ‘Please, I need you inside…’
And then amazingly he was and she had not come close to imagining how impossibly marvellous, how incredible it could feel to have him throbbing hard and hot, filling her.
He registered her incredible tightness and her cry as he entered her and it took a few seconds for his brain to link the two and produce the explanation.
Her body tightened around him and Rafael could no longer resist the temptation to sink deeper into her silky smoothness.
Maggie’s legs wrapped around his hips. It was incredible. She kissed his chest and hung on as each thrust of his body sent her deeper into a blissful delirium.
Above her his face was a rigid mask as he struggled to control himself to give her a taste of the pleasure she had never experienced.
When it hit her, the first wave of orgasm shocked a fractured cry from Maggie. Her head went back and she clung to him as another and another hit her, then exploded into a deep pulse of pleasure that went all the way to her toes. As the wave receded she felt Rafael stiffen above her and shiver as the heat of his release filled her.
Holding her head against his chest, Rafael stroked her dark hair. Their bodies slowly cooled. Maggie lay listening to the beat of his heart slow before she lifted her head and smiled at him.
Rafael did not smile back. He didn’t say a word. He just lifted her up and, draping a throw around them both, carried her from the room and through the silent maze of hallways into a room that was dominated by a large four-poster bed.
He didn’t take her to the bed. Instead he walked into the adjoining bathroom, a massive room of startling decadence with a vast sunken marble bath, armchairs and a carved fireplace with candles set in the grate and along the mantle.
With her in his arms he walked straight into the walk-in shower and switched on the water. As she watched the spray run over his dark face, making his skin glisten, he set Maggie on her feet.
Then still without a word he took the citrus-scented gel from an applicator and began to lather her skin. Gently but thoroughly he washed her, moving his hand in firm circular motions until she tingled everywhere.
Maggie didn’t break the silence she just stood passively, her throat constricted by a myriad conflicting emotions she didn’t want to analyse. The warm water was soothing, easing the aches and bruises on her body.
There was nothing remotely sexual about his ministrations, even though she could hardly not notice the fact that he was aroused.
It was all a little surreal. She felt as though she were watching the scene from outside her body, and strangely the experience was on one level even more intimate than what had preceded it.
Finally he switched off the water. He carefully wrung the excess moisture from her hair and swathed her in a towel, using another to dry her from head to toe before picking her up once more and striding back into the bedroom. The fire in this room was lit. Flames crackled as he pulled back the covers on the bed and laid her naked body on the crisp sheets.
She watched as Rafael used the damp towel to cursorily blot the moisture on his own body before climbing in beside her.
He pulled her to him, fitting her curves into his angles before tilting her face up to his.
Finally he broke his silence.
‘Now, querida, we will do this thing the way it should be done.’
‘I thought it was fine the first time,’ she admitted, feeling so relaxed that she was boneless, though sexual awareness remained like a prickle under her skin.
He kissed the pulse spot at the base of her slender neck and the prickle became an itch.
‘You are not a woman who should settle for “fine” and I am not a man who delivers it.’
He delivered this not as an arrogant boast but more in the form of a simple statement of fact, and Maggie accepted it as such. When it came to matters carnal she was quite prepared to accept that Rafael was the expert.
‘But?’
He touched a finger to her lips. ‘And afterwards we will discuss how it is that you were a virgin.’ His eyes darkened; the discovery was one that would stay with him for ever. ‘I could have hurt you and that would have…’
The expression of self-loathing on his face as he broke off and swallowed hard drew a cry of protest from Maggie. ‘You didn’t—you were perfect.’
His mouth curved into a complacent smile. ‘Yes, you mentioned that. Don’t blush—a man likes to be appreciated.’ The smile faded from his face. ‘Now let me show you how much I appreciate you.’
Maggie’s eyes darkened. ‘Please,’ she whispered.
Much later as he lay still sheathed in the heat between
