The Man Behind the Scars

It could have been moments or years, suspended in the sheer joy of touching him like this, but then he was striding into his rooms. The suite next to hers that she had never so much as glimpsed before now. Angel had only the vaguest impression of an immense space, heavy antique furniture and gold tapestries on the walls before he was tumbling her down in the center of his bed, a commanding affair all its own, and coming down on top of her.

Finally, Angel thought. Or, she thought when his eyes gleamed, perhaps she’d said it out loud.

He claimed her mouth again with that same devastating mastery, pressing her into the soft mattress. She welcomed it. He gave no quarter, shifting so that the hardest part of him was flush against the softest part of her, making them both inhale too sharply. Heat flared and rolled through her, making her feel like some kind of firework about to scatter across a dark sky. Angel felt that same heat at the back of her eyes, threatening to spill over, and she couldn’t seem to worry about that the way she knew she should. She felt dizzy with the taste of him, shaky with the driving greed that made her want more, even now. More. More of his clever hands. More of his delicious weight over her. More of that impossible mouth against hers.

His hands were like fire, moving over her, making her burn and burn again. He pulled her top over her head with a quiet intensity that made her shiver in reaction. He cast it aside, his attention narrowing in on her breasts, displayed for him in a frothy pink concoction of satin and lace. His hard face pulled taut with desire, making an answering surge of heat wash over her. And then he dipped his head and pulled her nipple into his mouth, through the material of her bra, making her gasp and jolt against him.

She hardly noticed when he peeled the bra from her body too, but then his hot, wet mouth was on her breasts, teasing her and tormenting her, making her arch into him and writhe beneath him, making that knot inside of her grow hotter, tighter, harder. He shifted then, making short work of his own shirt and kicking off his shoes and trousers. But when Angel moved to do the same, he stopped her. He rose, gloriously, mouthwateringly naked, and moved to the edge of the bed.

Distantly, Angel was aware he said something. But she was transfixed, staring at his beautiful body as if she’d never seen a man before. Why did she feel as if that were true? He was all hard-packed, rangy muscle, and she hardly knew where to look. The wide, mesmerizing shoulders, all sculpted muscle and strength. There were matching scars scraped deep into his chest, but they only seemed to highlight his solid, devastatingly masculine physique. His arousal jutted out before him, and Angel felt that knot inside of her begin to unwind, turning into a thick, wet need.

She wanted to touch him everywhere. She wanted to learn his taste, his scent. She wanted him in ways that should have scared her.

“Let me,” he said, perhaps not for the first time, and Angel thought her heart might explode in her chest when he knelt down before her and helped her shimmy out of her jeans. He pulled her thong from her hips with the same gentle ruthlessness, and then they were both naked. His dark gaze met hers, and Angel swallowed, suddenly as terrified as she was aroused. As if he could sense it, he slid his palms up the smooth length of her legs, making her breath catch in her throat, making the terror recede and leaving only that delectable, languorous heat in its wake. When he reached her hips his fingers curled around and then tugged her closer to him.

“Rafe,” she began.

But he ignored her. He leaned forward and pressed his mouth to the core of her, licking his way into her molten center.

It was like dying, Angel thought, in the most glorious way possible—and then he shifted position and she stopped thinking altogether.

And Rafe set her on fire. Again and again and again. He used his lips, his tongue and even the faintest hint of his teeth. He used his hard, beautiful hands. And when she was gasping for breath, writhing helplessly before him, her mind completely and utterly empty of everything but this most divine torture, he pulled back.

Her hands were fists in the coverlet. Her legs were wrapped around his shoulders.

“The next time you say my name,” he told her, his voice a dark sorcery that made her nipples draw tight in reaction, pure male satisfaction in every syllable, “I want you to scream it.”

And when he licked into her soft heat again, she burst into a thousand pieces, and obeyed.

When she opened her eyes again, dazed and made new in ways she couldn’t begin to contemplate, he was making his way up the length of her body, kissing a trail of fire from her hip bone to the underside of her breasts.