and growing fatalism.
‘Simon will be back soon.’ A brief attempt to return to reality but she was standing in the centre of the room looking suddenly unsure, and that brief fragility pierced him like no other reaction could have. Before he knew it he had his arms around her, cradling her against his chest, soothing the black hair away from her face. Silk skin, glorious cheekbones, a determined little chin. And she felt so damn perfect in his arms as she snuggled into him.
‘Take me to bed, Rayne. Make me feel like a woman again.’
‘That would be too easy.’ He kissed her forehead. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, sweetheart.’
‘I’m a big girl, Rayne. Covered for contraception. Unattached and in sound mind. Do I have to beg?’
He looked at her, squeezed her to him. Thought about the near future and how he would never get this chance again because things would never be the same. He would never be the same. Searched her face for any change of mind. No. Bloody hell. She didn’t have to beg.
So he picked her up in his arms, and she lifted her hands to clasp him around his neck, and he kissed her gorgeous mouth and they lost a few more minutes in a hazy dream of connection. Finally he got the words out. ‘So which bedroom is yours?’
She laughed. ‘Up two flights of stairs. Want me to walk?’
‘Much as I have enjoyed watching you walk, I’d prefer to carry you.’
And with impressive ease he did. Maeve rested her head back on that solid shoulder and gazed up at the chiselled features and strong nose. And those sinful lips. OMG, did she know what she was doing? Well, there was no way she wanted this to stop. This chemistry had been building since that first searing glance that had jerked and stunned them both like two people on the same elastic. She tightened her hands around his neck.
He felt so powerful—not pretty and perfect like Sean had been—but she didn’t want to think about Sean. About the pale comparison of a man she’d wasted her heart on when she should have always known Rayne would stand head and shoulders above any other man.
Speaking of shoulders, he used one to push open the door she indicated, knocked it shut with his foot, and strode across the room to the big double bed she thought he would toss her onto, but he smiled, glanced around the room and lowered her gently until her feet were on the floor.
His breathing hadn’t changed and he looked as if he could have done it all again without working a sweat.
Ooh la la. ‘I’m impressed.’
He raised his brows quizzically and freed the French drapes until they floated down to cover the double window in a flounced bat of their lacy eyelids and the room dimmed to a rosy glow from the streetlights outside. Slid his wallet out of his pocket and put it on the windowsill after retrieving a small foil packet.
Then he pulled her towards him and spun her until her spine was against the wall and her breasts were pressed into his hardness. Shook his head and smiled full into her eyes. Felt her knees knock as he said, ‘You are the sexiest woman I have ever seen.’
She thought, And you are the sexiest man, as she lifted her lips to his, and thank goodness he didn’t wait to be asked twice. Like falling into a swirling maelstrom of luscious sensation, Maeve felt reality disappear like a leaf sucked into a drainpipe then she heard him say something. Realised he’d created physical distance between them. Her mind struggled to process sound to speech.
‘Miss Maeve, are you sure you want to proceed?’
It was a jolting and slightly disappointing thing to say in the bubble of sensuality he’d created and she looked up at him. Surprised a look of anguish she hadn’t expected. ‘Are you trying to spoil this for a particular reason?’
A distance she didn’t like flashed in his eyes. ‘Maybe.’
She pulled his head forward with her hands in his hair. ‘Well, don’t!’
Rayne shrugged, smiled that lethal smile of his, and instead he lifted her silk shift over her head in a slow sexy exposure, leaving the covering camisole and the dark shadow of her breasts plainly visible through it.
He trailed the backs of his fingers up the sides of her chest and she shivered, wanted him to rip it off so she could feel his hands on her skin. And he knew it.
This time the backs of his fingers trailed down and caught the hem of the camisole, catching the final layer, leaving her top half naked to the air on her sensitised skin.
She heard him suck in his breath, heard it catch in his throat as he glimpsed her body for the first time—and the tiny peach G-string that was all that was left.
Her turn. He had way too many clothes on and she needed to look and feel his skin with a sudden hunger she had no control over.
She reached up and danced her fingers swiftly down the fastening of his black shirt, as if unbuttoning for the Olympics way ahead of any other competitor, because she’d never felt such urgency to slip her hands inside a man’s shirt. Never wanted to connect as badly as now with the taut skin-covered muscle and bone of a man. The man.
This was Rayne. The Rayne. And he felt as fabulous as she’d known he would and the faster she did this the faster he would kiss her again. Her fingers seemed to glow wherever she touched and she loved the heat between them like a shivering woman loved a fire.
While her fingers were gliding with relish he’d unzipped and was kicking away his trousers. They stood there, glued together, two layers of mist-like fabric between their groins, two flimsy, ineffectual barriers that only inflamed them more, and his mouth recommenced its onslaught and she was lost.
Until he shifted. Moved that wicked mouth and tongue lower, a salutation of her chin, her neck, her collarbone, a slow, languorous, teasing circle around her breast and exquisite tantalising pleasure she’d never imagined engulfed her as he took the rosy peak and flicked it with delicate precision.
She gasped.
His hands encircled her ribs, the strong thumbs pushing her breasts into perky attention for his favours. Peaks of sensitive supplication and he took advantage until she was writhing, aching for him, helpless against the wall at her back, unable to be silent.
She. Could. Not. Get. Enough.
Rayne lifted his head, heard the moan of a woman enthralled, saw the wildness in her eyes, felt his own need soar to meet hers, dropped his hands to the lace around her hips and slid those wicked panties slowly down her legs, savoured the silk of her skin, the tautness of her thighs under his fingers, and then the scrap of material fell in a ridiculously tiny heap at her feet. There was something so incredibly sinful about that fluttering puddle of fabric, and he’d bet he’d think about it later, many times, as he reached for the condom and dropped his own briefs swiftly.
Then his hands slid back to her buttocks. Those round globes of perfection that fitted his hands perfectly. Felt the weight of her, lifted, supported her body in his hands, and the power of that feeling expanded with the strain in his arms and exultantly, slowly, her back slid up the wall and she rose to meet him.
Rayne slowly and relentlessly pinned her with his body and she wrapped her legs around him the way he had known, instinctively, she would, and it felt as incredible as he’d also known it could be, except it was more. So much
