A Prize Beyond Jewels

And there was no denying that feeling of satisfied heaviness between her thighs, or the fact that she was fully aware of the fact that she now wore no panties beneath her short and clinging gown!

‘You’ll still come to me later?’ Rafe looked down at her searchingly.

She really should say no. Should keep to the decision she had made yesterday morning, not to see or be with Rafe again, and so give him the opportunity to probe and push into the past.

That was what she should do.

Unfortunately, that ache in her body said otherwise. ‘I’ll still come to your apartment later,’ she confirmed huskily.

‘Good.’ He nodded his satisfaction with her reply. ‘I suppose you’re right, and we have to go back to the exhibition now.’ He grimaced.

Nina had to smile at his obvious lack of enthusiasm for the idea. A lack of enthusiasm she echoed.

‘Nina?’ The hand Rafe placed lightly on her arm halted her as they stepped out into the hallway together.

She glanced up at him warily. ‘Yes?’

His hands moved up to cup either side of her face, his gaze holding hers captive as he slowly lowered his head to brush his lips lightly against hers. ‘Thank you,’ he murmured huskily.

Nina’s heart beat a wild tattoo in her chest at the touch of his lips and his close proximity. ‘For what?’ she breathed softly.

‘Just thank you.’ Rafe wasn’t a hundred per cent sure himself what he was thanking Nina for.

Maybe for not slapping him in the face earlier, when he had dragged her out of the gallery like the caveman she had accused him of being yesterday?

Or perhaps because, once they were alone together, she hadn’t even attempted to deny the attraction that still burned so fiercely between the two of them?

Or maybe because of the pleasure her uninhibited response gave him. Rafe was certainly no longer suffering with that same frustrated anger he had been plagued with for the past thirty-six hours.

Or maybe he was thanking her for simply being Nina?

Rafe had the rest of the evening to get through before he could even begin to give that revelation any deeper thought.

* * *

‘Are you sure you’re quite well, Papa?’ Nina prompted concernedly as she saw how pale her father was looking when she rejoined him in the gallery. She hoped that his pallor was due to the effort of socialising, after so many years of avoiding it, rather than her own disappearance with Rafe just a short time ago.

She had done what she could to tidy her appearance once she reached the ladies’ room, but brushing her hair and reapplying lip gloss had done nothing to hide that sultry glow Rafe said she had after lovemaking. A glow that had noticeably darkened her eyes to deep emerald, rendered her cheeks a delicate peach, and left her lips plump and rosy from Rafe’s kisses.

‘I am quite well, maya doch,’ her father assured as he looked up at her searchingly. ‘You and Rafe D’Angelo are...friends again?’

‘I wasn’t aware we were ever anything else.’ Nina avoided meeting her father’s probing gaze as she blushed.

‘I believe we have passed the stage of coyness in regard to your relationship with D’Angelo, Nina,’ he reproved softly.

There was every reason for Nina to blush, when she could so clearly remember the wildness, the heat, of the lovemaking between her and Rafe such a short time ago.

It was as if they had been starved for each other, wild with need.

Rafe compelled to touch her and Nina desperate to feel his touch. She had been completely aware of the heat still throbbing between her bare thighs as she crossed the gallery to rejoin her father.

She glanced across to where Rafe stood in conversation with his brother, just in time to see him put his hand in the pocket of his jacket where he had placed those ripped panties.

As if he sensed her glance Rafe’s gaze rose to meet hers, those predatory golden eyes glittering with memories, chiselled lips slowly curving into a smile that was a promise of yet more pleasure to come when she joined him at his apartment later.

* * *

‘You’re pacing again.’

Rafe shot a malevolent glare across the kitchen to where Michael sat at the breakfast bar enjoying his morning tea and toast as he read the business section in the Sunday newspaper.

And of course Rafe was pacing, damn it, because Nina hadn’t turned up at the apartment last night as she had said she would.

He and Michael had arrived back at a little before midnight the previous evening, Michael needing no persuading in taking himself off to bed—perhaps because he had guessed that Rafe was expecting Nina to join him?

Rafe had waited for Nina to arrive until one o’clock before phoning down to the security desk on the ground floor, to see if he had somehow missed her, only to be told that there had been no visitors for him at all that evening.