At the laughter in her question, a dozen thoughts rushed through his mind; foremost was how badly he wanted her. It would be so simple to lift her onto the table and drive himself home between her parted thighs…
Without volition, he reached up to trail his knuckles along the delicate curve of Raven’s jaw. Instantly he heard her breath catch, saw her lips part in surprise at the heated tension that suddenly sizzled between them.
Riveted, Raven stared back at him. Kell’s unexpected caress had made her stomach muscles contract, made her nipples stiffen. The feel of his hard, powerful body pressing against her own aroused a yearning ache between her thighs…
He bent closer, his eyes dark as polished onyx, his lips hovering above hers. She trembled at the warm breath dazing her senses, fearing how she would respond if Kell decided to kiss her, wondering if she could possibly deny him.
But she wasn’t required to make a decision, for suddenly he gritted his teeth and stepped back, putting a safe distance between them, his features totally shuttered.
“Go. Now,” Kell demanded. “Get out before I think of something even more cruel to do to you.”
Raven wisely decided to take his advice. Shakily she picked up her dice and fled the room.
Emma was in the entry hall, apparently waiting to say farewell. Raven exerted herself to respond calmly as she accepted her cloak from the doorman.
She had turned to go when she felt Kell’s presence. When she glanced back, she saw he had moved to stand beside Emma, one hand resting lightly on the blond-haired woman’s shoulder.
Raven felt her stomach twist with a different kind of awareness; that intimate gesture was one of a man toward his lover.
She drew a painful breath. It stung to think that the beautiful hostess was the one claiming Kell’s attentions at night while she lay alone in her bed.
Pasting a frigid smile on her mouth, though, she made a dignified exit, her head held high.
She stirred restlessly in the twilight between waking and sleeping, seeking release from the growing wildness inside her. Her pirate’s worshiping mouth was on her naked breast, roughly tender, his lips suckling her taut, straining nipple. She quivered with her quickened breathing as his rasping tongue laved in a fiery circling.
Below she felt the brush of his fingers stroking possessively against her moist cleft, rimming the slick, honeyed entrance to her body. She arched, wanting him, aching for him.
In response, his caressing lips left off tormenting her bare breasts and moved lower, his open mouth seeking her sex, his breath hot on her exposed, sensitive flesh. She released a choked moan of pleasure as he probed the swollen, aching folds with his tongue.
When she began to writhe, he pressed his face harder between her legs, both hands gripping the curves of her buttocks to hold her to him while his tongue licked and stabbed her with fire, making her burn with desire.
Her body clenched unbearably, her fingers clutching in his hair.
Yet he refused to satisfy her. Pressing one last tantalizing kiss to the core of her, he rose above her. His face was shadowed, but she could feel his intensity, his burning sensuality as he stroked the velvet hardness of his arousal against her.
Then he lowered himself upon her, the sleek heavy weight of his body pressing her shivering thighs wide.
“You are my passion and my pain,” he whispered, his voice rough.
The restlessness inside her stirred harder, hotter.
When his rigid flesh sank into her, she gasped and held him closer, drawing him even more deeply, sheathing him tightly. And when he began to move, she wound her legs around him and lifted herself to match his fierce thrusting.
It was a short, almost violent mating, her soft whimpers turning to cries as her senses erupted in climax. She shuddered as the spasms convulsed through her.
Yet when the throbbing of her body finally ebbed, when the heated pulses faded away, she still felt unsated.
Raven stirred to wakefulness, feeling the sharp lash of disappointment. She had let her mind slip into her dream world of illusion where she usually found fulfillment, but this time the usual pleasure had been missing. Even now the hungry yearning was still there, clamoring inside her. The wildness still pulled at her, along with a strange emptiness…
Rolling over, Rav
en drew the sheet to her naked breasts. What had gone wrong? Her fantasy lover had never before failed her like this.
She had created him to fulfill her ideals. He was all she could ask for in a lover-tender, commanding, passionate, sharp-witted. A nameless, faceless soul mate who stirred her blood and calmed her restless spirit. He rarely spoke except to challenge her, seeing her as his equal, not a conquest to be dominated or subjugated.
With him she found the tenderness she craved, the love she dared not seek from any real man. Her pirate was her protection from heartache. She could surrender to him without fear of losing herself.
But he had never seemed so insubstantial as now.