was, from this angle, a mere hint of fabric circling her hips and then disappearing between the high, proud curves of her bottom. Then he took his time on the way back up, lingering on that tattoo he’d believed he’d never see again, that tattoo that had proved she was who he knew her to be at a glance, that tattoo that marked her his Lily forever.
He touched her there, tracing the winding black lines that curled this way and that, the tendrils reaching down almost to the top of her thong panties at the bottom and then nearly to what would have been her bra line, had she been wearing one, at the top. Then he worked his fingers over the delicate lily blossom some stranger had lovingly drawn into her skin, the arched petals and the sweet bud within, as if he was painting her with his possession.
“Rafael...” Her voice cracked on his name, and he smiled at the raw need in it. “Please.”
“Please, what?” he asked. “I’ve hardly begun. And I think this tattoo is yet another lie you’ve told.”
She shook her head, lifting herself up but still, he noticed, maintaining her position. Staying where he’d put her, and he didn’t know what made him want her more, her obedience or her need. Both.
“A tattoo is the opposite of a lie,” she said, still in that breathy, needy way of hers that was messing with his resolve. “It’s ink on skin and unchangeable.”
“And if you hated it as much as you claimed you did,” he murmured as he leaned in closer, then sank down so he could set his mouth against the center bud of that pretty red blossom, “you would have had it removed by now.”
He heard her shudder out another breath that was edging toward a sob, and he continued to taste that delicate flower while he let his hands wander, smoothing their way over her hips and then testing the sweet curves of her bottom. And only when he could feel her shake did he tease his way into the hidden hollow beneath, where she was molten and hot and more than ready for him.
Rafael knew her body better than his own. He knew her taste, her shape. He knew exactly how to touch her to drive her slowly, slowly insane. And if it killed him too, well—resurrections were going around. He was certain he’d survive, somehow, if only to find her again. He stroked his way into her heat, tracing her folds and the center of her need until she was surging back to meet him.
“Tell me something,” he said darkly, moving as he spoke from the sweet tattoo to the sweep of her spine, relearning that perfect curve, that tempting shape. “How many men did Alison have in those five years?”
He could feel her stiffen at that, but he had two fingers deep inside her, and there was only one truth that had ever mattered between them. It didn’t matter what he said to her, or what lies she told. It didn’t matter how furious she was with him or what she’d done. What he’d done with all those other women, for that matter, or how much he regretted every one of them. He could feel her, molten and sweet, clenching tight around him even so.
This was the only truth. This heat. This need. This was who they were.
“You’re a hypocrite,” she panted out, sounding as desperate as she did furious, and yet her hips moved in wild abandon, meeting every stroke. “You must know that.”
“I have never claimed otherwise,” he said, his voice rough. “Especially not to you. But that doesn’t answer my question, does it?”
“What does it matter?” she demanded, and then she let out a small cry when he changed his angle and drove deeper within her. Harder.
“How many?”
He felt her shudder beneath him, and he stopped pretending he was anything but an animal where this woman was concerned. Or that he’d ever been anything else. Or would ever be anything else. Five years apart, thinking she was dead, hadn’t changed this. Nothing could.
“Tell me,” he gritted out at her.
“None, Rafael,” she cried out as he pressed hard against the center of her hunger with one hand and stroked deep with the other. “There has never been anyone but you.”
And there never will be, he thought, feeling something clawed and fierce inside him, fighting its way out through his rib cage.
“For that,” he said, moving up higher and setting his mouth against her ear, exulting in the way she bucked and writhed beneath him, “you get a reward.”
Then he twisted his hand and hit her in precisely the right spot, and held her as she broke apart.
And he was only getting started.
* * *
Lily hardly registered it when he lifted her, sweeping her out of the dress that was now crumpled on the floor and up into his arms. But she did feel the change in temperature when he strode through the doors of the great room and out into the hall, holding her high against his bare chest.
She should have been cold, she knew, but what she felt instead was something like cherished, in nothing but her thong with her hair trailing over his arm. Safe, a small voice inside her whispered. The way it always had when she was with this man—the very last man who could ever be considered even remotely safe.
But Lily hooked her arms around his neck and didn’t ask herself any questions.
Rafael shouldered his way through another set of doors, and Lily only had a moment to take in a sitting room lit by cheerful little lamps made of colorful glass before he’d walked straight through it and into a majestic bedroom set high above the Grand Canal. She saw the glittering lights of the old buildings outside and the snow that fell all around, and then the world narrowed down to the canopied four-poster bed that dominated the richly patterned room. Paintings framed in gold graced the solemn red walls, there was a dancing fire in the massive fireplace on the far wall, and there was Rafael in the center of everything.
He set her down at the side of the great bed, his expression unreadable. Her hair hung around her in a great mess, and she was naked while he still wore the bottom half of his dark suit. Lily thought that any one of those things should have bothered her, but they didn’t.
She could sense all the things she ought to have felt dancing all around her, just out of sight. As if, were she to turn her head fast enough, she’d see them there, waiting to pounce. But she didn’t turn her head. She couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away from Rafael’s.
“You remember me,” he said then, after what felt like a very long while.
It could have been an accusation—but it wasn’t. He lifted his hand and held it out and she matched it with hers, laying it against his in that small space between them, so they were palm to palm.
“Yes,” she said softly, aware that it sounded like a vow in the quiet of the vast room. “I remember you. I remember this.”
It was easier to remember the wild highs and the dark lows, she knew. All the sex and the lies, the betrayals and the fights. But that hadn’t been the sum total of what had passed between them. The truth was, Lily didn’t like to remember the other part. It still hurt too much.
But that didn’t seem to matter now, in a fairy tale of a bedchamber in this magical city, while the snow kept falling and the fire danced, and he was right there in front of her and far more beautiful than she’d let herself remember.
She’d
