this all-consuming passion he felt for her.
And that was his verdict as the man who was never wrong.
* * *
They stumbled all the way from the mansion’s doors to Rafael’s master suite, snatching at each other with wrenching lips, straining against each other as if they’d merge.
It took a while to get there, as Rafael’s suite spanned the whole fourth level. At least he’d made sure the mansion was empty before he got her here, after everyone who worked there had managed to walk in on them during the past three weeks.
He threw her down on his extra-large king-size bed and she slid over the satin sheets to its middle as he launched himself over her. She bowed up to intensify his impact, loving his weight and ferocity as he bore down on her.
His lips mashed against hers, his tongue plunging inside her while his hips rammed between her splayed thighs through their clothes.
He rose to snatch her top over her head, bunching her skirt to her waist then tearing her panties off her hips. As her legs fell wide apart for him, his hands, big enough to span her waist, raised her against the headboard. Then he buried his face in her confined breasts.
The sight of the dark majesty of his head against her made her keen, pressing his head harder to her aching flesh.
He muttered something deep and driven, the sound spearing her heart as his hands went to her back, releasing breasts now peaked and swollen for his ownership.
Imprisoning her hands above her head in his good one, he drew back to gaze at her. His eyes crackled with lust at how she must look. Like she had that first night, almost naked, the image of pure wanton abandon.
Growling, he let go of her hands to greedily take her breasts in his hands. She arched off the bed in the shock of pleasure, making a fuller offering of her flesh. He kneaded her, pinched her nipples, had her writhing...begging.
He tore his shirt off, exposing the body she’d told him made Greek gods seem like weaklings. Her awed hands shook over his burnished, sculpted perfection. His growls roughened as he rubbed his chest against her breasts until she thrashed.
“Querida...” He bent and opened his mouth fully over her breasts as if he’d devour her. Pleasure jackknifed through her with each hard draw of his lips, each hot swirl of his tongue, until she was shuddering all over, her readiness flowing down her thighs.
She lay powerless under the avalanche of need as his hand glided over her, taking every liberty before settling between her thighs. His strong, sensitive fingers slid to her intimate flesh, now throbbing its demand for his touch. As his lips clamped hers, his fingers opened the lips of her femininity, slid between her folds, soaking in her arousal.
It took only a few strokes of those virtuoso fingers to spill her over the edge. She convulsed with pleasure, screeching it into his mouth.
His stroking fingers completed her pleasure, circling her nub soothingly. Desire seared through her again instead, that emptiness that gnawed her all the time now unbearable.
She drummed her feet against the bed in a fit of frustration. “Just take me.”
He cupped her core, gathered her still trembling body to his, shushing her. And she knew he still wouldn’t take her.
She turned her face into his chest, sobbed. “You once said you didn’t want my heart pounding or me agitated. My heart is hammering, and I’m far beyond agitated...all the time.”
“You’re just aroused.”
She glared up at him. “Gee...I didn’t realize that!”
His face was a mask of savage hunger even as he smiled at her. “I mean you’re too aroused to think straight. Three weeks ago you didn’t want to see me again.”
“Three weeks ago I asked you to take me. Just like I’ve been doing every day ever since.”
“You were trying to get rid of me then.”
“Maybe I just couldn’t wait to have you. Just like I can’t now. Didn’t you think of that?”
“I want us to have this first, querida, the courting, the anticipation, all the routes to pleasure but the ultimate one. When I join our bodies I want you certain that you want me inside you, not just the release I’ll bring you.”
Her fingers twisted in his hair, eyes pleading. “I am certain. I’ve been certain since the moment I saw you.”
“But when you were thinking straight, you knew what was best for you, for us, wanted me to slow down.”
“Not to this extent.”
“You sound as if I’ve been tormenting you for months.”
“It feels like years.”
His smile devoured her brimming with pure male satisfaction. “I love you on fire for me like that.”
She almost blurted out “I love you” but bit it back at the last moment.
She had no illusions about the nature of his involvement, didn’t want her far different and more intense feelings to alarm him or put him off. There was no way a man like him would be hers except transiently. And she felt as if the more time that passed, the shorter the time she’d have him in full intimacy.
And now he was going away. He was traveling with one of his “brothers” to Japan. Even though he promised it would be only for a few days, it felt as if it would curtail her time with him further.
All troubled thoughts came to an end as he spread her thighs wide and slid down her trembling body.
Then he spoke against her molten feminine lips. “Let me ease the burning in your blood, querida.”
He had been doing so in every way but the one she craved.
She tried to close her legs, needing him, not release. “What about the burn in your blood?”
“You can ease that if you wish.”
“Oh, I wish, I so wish.”
It was what ameliorated the gnawing, when he let her worship him. Getting intimate with the daunting beauty and massive proportions of him sent a frisson of danger through her as she wondered if it was possible he’d fit inside her. But she couldn’t wait until he did, yearned for the pain she knew he had to inflict. She wanted it to hurt at first, needed him to brand her with agony as his.
But though the intimacy gave him release, it only drove her madder with hunger, and left him harder and more on edge.
“Then you shall have your wish. Right after I have mine.”
And he took her core in a hot, tongue-thrusting kiss and the world vanished in a whiteout of sensation....
* * *
“Can you please turn the anxious vibes down? They’re drilling holes in the hull.”
Rafael’s
