Stroking firmly, she felt one of his hands softly grip her hair and she hadn’t even realised she’d brought her mouth closer to the swollen length of him until she felt him against her lips.
The earthy taste of him burst across her tongue, the flavour so deeply male. She opened her lips and took him into her mouth, a heady sense of power filling her when his fingers gripped harder in her hair and a groan tore from his throat.
Loving the silky hard length of him against her tongue, Alexa increased the pressure of her lips until she heard him swear, and then she was being pulled up and stretched out beneath him like a feast.
A thrill raced through her as he parted her thighs and looked down at her. Grabbing a condom from the side table drawer, he rolled it on and then braced himself with his hands either side of her face. Mesmerised, Alexa couldn’t look away from his hungry gaze as he slowly pushed into her.
Something in the way he watched her almost tenderly made her unable to tear her eyes from his. Rafe must have felt the force of the connection too because his lips came down to claim hers once more as his body thrust hard, filling her and driving her to the heights of another pulse-pounding climax before he followed her over the edge on a hoarse cry of completion.
* * *
Waking up from what might actually have been the best sex of his life, Rafe glanced at the woman curled up in his arms, her dark hair spread out on his white sheets like a waterfall of black silk. She was asleep, her head nestled in the curve of his shoulder and her sweet breath warm against his chest.
Waiting for the usual need for space and privacy to overtake him, he was surprised when it didn’t come. Instead he felt replete and relaxed, and more complete than he’d felt in forever.
Complete?
The alien concept entered his head then was gone just as quickly. Sex didn’t make him feel complete. That wasn’t what he was feeling. What he was feeling was... It was... He frowned. It was pure, unadulterated pleasure after a week of being tied up in the tightest sexual knots he’d ever experienced.
No woman had ever made him want so much or had satisfied him so fully.
Had he really thought he’d be able to ignore her, with the level of sexual chemistry they shared? Well, if he had, he couldn’t now. Alexa had been responsive and giving and so sweet that just the memory of her hands and mouth on his body was turning him surprisingly hard again.
His hands stroked down over the silky skin of her arm, his fingers finding and twining with hers. She breathed out a sigh and relaxed more deeply against his side.
He remembered that she’d been up working late last night and was probably exhausted. She worked hard and took her job seriously. Which he supposed she had to. Just as seriously as he took his. When you had the amount of staff he had relying on you to provide their wages it was important to perform well. He supposed they were similar that way. Only he no longer sought the approval of others the way he suspected Alexa did. He’d given up on needing to please a long time ago. She would need to do that too once she became Queen or she’d work herself into the ground. But why was he thinking about Alexa’s future?
Usually he didn’t concern himself with a woman’s life after sex. He’d already moved onto his next task or his next project. It didn’t matter where he was, or who the woman was, Rafe always liked to be on the move, rarely staying still long enough to feel trapped. It came, he knew, from always having to toe the royal line when he was younger. From having a father who’d demanded that he behave a certain way, and then giving him grief if he missed the mark.
But why waste time thinking about things that weren’t important when he had a warm naked woman he knew would be receptive to his advances if he were to wake her with a soft kiss on those delectable lips?
At least he assumed she’d be receptive. Every other woman he’d ever been with would be, but Alexa wasn’t like every other woman. She didn’t play the same games, acting coy to try to attract his attention, or turning girlish when she had it. Alexa was far too straightforward and earnest. But then she had no need to play games with him because they were already married. She already had his ring on her finger and he had hers on his.
He held his hand up to the moonlight that spilled in through the gap in the curtains. The room was too dark for him to see the gold, but he could just make out the dull shape of the band. When she’d first slipped it on his finger the weight had felt foreign and unwanted. Funny how it didn’t feel like that any more.
It felt right and good.
Right and good?
Something stirred behind his breastbone, some unwanted emotion that caused his ribs to tighten around his chest.
As if sensing his unease, Alexa shifted her knee higher across his thigh. A shot of lust raced through him, a primitive hunger that bordered on need.
Not that he did need. Need had a serious edge of permanence about it. Want? Now want was something he understood. It came and went and put a smile on his face, and his body stirred at the way he wanted to wake Alexa now with a line of slow kisses starting at her slender shoulder and encompassing her whole body.
Shifting again, she made a cute little sleep sound that made him lose his train of thought.
He felt her body tense as she awoke and he gently gathered her closer, stroking his hand down the silky skin of her spine.
‘Stay asleep, Princess,’ he murmured, even though sleep was the last thing on his mind. ‘I know you’re tired.’
‘Sleep?’ She raised her head and blinked at him. ‘I...’ She looked flustered, her eyes uncertain in the dim light as she stared at his face, his chest.
Her tongue came out to lick her lips and before he was even aware that he’d made the decision he rolled her onto her back and kissed her.
After a split second of hesitation her arms went around his neck, her body rising to his.
Hunger ripped through him at the soft sound of pleasure she made when he stroked his tongue into her mouth, his body primed to take her immediately.