When she was sure she couldn’t bear any more pleasure he began to move, slowly at first, and then with increasing speed and resolve until she was wild for him and wild for the ending they both knew could only be a heartbeat away.
‘How am I going to cool you down?’ Ram demanded when hours had passed in a hazy mist of pleasure.
Daylight might have faded, but her appetite for Ram was still intact, Mia discovered. ‘Are you complaining?’ she demanded softly. ‘Am I too much for you, perhaps?’
‘Too much for me?’ Ram grinned. ‘You don’t know me at all.’
Unfortunately, that was true, Mia reflected. They had gone about this back to front, starting with intimate before they even knew what made each other tick—except here in bed, of course.
Ram covered her hand with his when she reached for him. ‘There’s nothing I love more than a strong woman who knows what she wants,’ he said. ‘Especially one that’s badly in need of cooling down.’ And hoisting her over his shoulder, he headed for the bathroom.
‘You wouldn’t,’ she screamed with excitement when he turned the shower on cold.
‘Really?’ he said mildly, and the next thing she knew she was under it, screaming her lungs out as the icy water thundered down.
‘I’ll never forgive you for this.’
‘Until I warm you up again,’ Ram guessed.
He guessed correctly.
‘You are so going to pay,’ Mia exclaimed, dragging Ram beneath the shower with her.
In a heartbeat they were wrestling with Mia’s main aim being to wrap her rapidly cooling body around Ram’s red-hot frame.
‘Make me pay, baby.’
She laughed incredulously. ‘Have you no shame?’
‘None,’ Ram confirmed.
There was only one small fly in this seductive ointment. If life had taught her anything it was that she couldn’t have everything she wanted, and that what seemed to be the most precious to her was always the one thing that got away—
‘Penny for them,’ Ram demanded, catching her close so he could tease her with kisses.
‘I want you again.’ And she wanted to keep those other thoughts away.
‘Oh, you do…’ He pinned her firmly against the wall. ‘Had I better take the edge off?’
‘If you think that’s all you can manage.’
Ram’s eyes burned with the confidence she loved. ‘I’ll just have to do the best I can,’ he said.
‘And that will have to be enough for me, I suppose,’ Mia teased right back.
‘Give me some directions here—is this what you want?’
‘Getting there,’ she conceded, locking her legs around his waist.
But she wanted more than to just take the edge off her physical hunger—she wanted everything Ram had to give and more, Mia realised, wishing she could lose herself in pleasure and forget about the unlikelihood of anything long-term developing between them.
‘Like this?’ Ram murmured.
She sank gratefully into his erotic world. ‘It’s a start,’ she gasped, leaning back in his arms.
‘Perhaps I’ll allow you a little bit more, then,’ he said, sinking fractionally deeper like a miser eking out his treasure.
She angled her body shamelessly. ‘I want more—I want it all.’
‘You’re a very greedy girl,’ Ram said, withdrawing fractionally. ‘What’s your hurry?’ he breathed against her throat. ‘We’ve got all the time in the world.’
Had they?
‘You promised to heat me up,’ she reminded him, suddenly conscious again of the freezing shower.
‘And I never break a promise,’ he agreed.
He entered her slowly, taking his time to appreciate every hot muscle Mia closed so greedily around him. ‘Are you sure this is what you want?’ he teased her as she whimpered.
‘If it isn’t you’re in serious trouble,’ she promised, arcing towards him.
She groaned with pleasure as he took her deep. ‘Like this?’ he suggested.
‘Exactly like that,’ she confirmed, dragging in a gasping breath. ‘Except you’re not allowed to stop.’
‘What, never?’
‘I’ll tell you when.’
He laughed and shook his hair out of his eyes. ‘Message received and understood,’ he assured her, moving just the way she liked. ‘I could probably talk you over the edge.’
‘You probably could—but what fun would that be?’ she demanded, rocking with him. ‘And I don’t want you getting lazy just when I’ve got you trained.’
‘You’ve got me trained?’ But he couldn’t resist and so he thrust her over the edge just for the pleasure of hearing her scream. ‘Now who’s in control?’ he murmured as he soothed her down.
‘You are,’ she whispered. ‘That’s the good thing about training—it massively improves a man’s control.’
‘Not any man,’ he said.
Maybe it was the tone of his voice—or maybe the extremes of cold outside and hot inside—but she snapped alert and stared at him. ‘Only one man can do what you can—at least where I’m concerned.’ And then she laughed to cover for the suddenly serious tone of her voice.
‘What?’ he said.
‘You should have warned me we were going to indulge in extreme sports—I’d have taken out travel insurance.’
‘I’ll take care of you,’ Ram said, realising he meant it. ‘But don’t for one moment think the training is all one-sided, or that it’s almost over.’ He turned the shower to warm and lowered her carefully onto the marble floor.
‘Where are you taking me?’ Mia demanded as he swung her into his arms.
‘Back to bed,’ he said. ‘Unless you can think of a better place?’
For once, it seemed he had hit upon an argument with which even Mia couldn’t disagree. He carried her into the bedroom, grabbing a towel on the way, while Mia kept her legs locked round his waist and her hand
s firmly clamped on his shoulders.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he reassured her as they continued their crazy journey across the floor.
‘You’re right about that,’ she said, tightening her hold on him as he tipped her backwards onto the bed.
‘Now,’ she commanded.
‘Is this any way for a lady to behave?’
‘I’m not a lady, I’m a pirate queen—and they used to keep harems of men for their pleasure.’
‘No harems,’ he warned.
‘Then you have to do the work of twenty men.’
‘So, I’m your sex slave now?’
‘Call it anyway you want—but if you must talk, do it later.’
They both started to laugh as he stared down at her while holding himself on braced arms a teasing inch away.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘What are you waiting for?’
He was just thinking how lovely she was—and how lucky he was.
‘Be gentle with me,’ she teased him, writhing on the bed. ‘I’m so much smaller than you are.’
‘Like I haven’t noticed that.’
‘You wouldn’t?’ she said, when he took her wrists in a loose grip, holding them above her head on the bank of pillows.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t.’ He released her, making her reach for him, and then found himself kissing teardrops from her cheek. When he asked her about them she laughed and said she must be allergic to him, and when he narrowed his eyes she told him to get over it, she had—and so he let it go.
She couldn’t let Ram get to her. He was doing what he did best, while this was so much more for her. She must not fall in love with him. He would know immediately and then he’d pull away. And if he left her life a second time, she couldn’t bear it.
‘I think we should start over—and without the tears this time, Mia.’
She had no argument with that. ‘As many times as you have strength for,’ she agreed.
‘It’s going to be a long night,’ Ram promised.
Chapter Ten
MIA woke to find her body aching pleasantly, and she was all neatly tucked up in bed.