All there was right now was scalding heat, flames of need licking up through her body as she clung to Raoul, as she anchored herself to his strength and poured all her years of forbidden longing into returning his kiss. When he lifted his mouth from hers she just stood there, dazed by the power of her feelings for him and by the emotion he aroused in her.
“Come with me, to my room,” he rasped. “I can’t do this in here.”
She nodded, letting him draw her down the hallway and into his room. The bedroom door snicked closed behind them and he led her to his bed.
She tumbled into the sheets, Raoul following close behind. As the weight of his body settled against hers she flexed upward against him, pressing against the hard evidence of his arousal. He groaned against her throat, his unshaven jaw scraping softly against her skin, and she relished every sensation, every touch. It felt as if she’d put her whole life on hold for this very moment and she was going to savor every second of it.
Alexis fought open the buttons on Raoul’s shirt, her fingertips eagerly skimming along the ridged muscles of his abdomen as she worked the garment away from his body and then off entirely. She wanted to touch every inch of him and then to taste every inch in turn. She trailed a gentle line down his neck and then skimmed over the strength of his shoulders before tracing the definition of his chest. Beneath her touch she felt him respond with tiny tremors, especially when she circled his nipples with the pad of her thumb then lifted her head to kiss him there.
He shifted, bearing his weight on one arm as he manacled her wrists with his free hand.
“But I want to touch you,” she protested on a whispered breath.
“Too much,” he said succinctly in reply before restraining her hands above her head.
She knew she could have pulled free at any time but there was something so decadently wonderful about being laid open to him like this. About giving him her trust, total and unquestioning.
He kissed along the line of her jaw, down her neck, making her squirm and arch her back, pushing herself upward, supplicant, toward him. And then, his mouth was at her breasts. Through the fine fabric of her nightgown she felt the warmth of his lips, his breath and then, oh, God, his tongue as he suckled on her.
His whole body shook with restraint as he lingered over each aching tip, sending shock waves of sensation tumbling over her and winding up the tension in her lower belly to near excruciating tautness. He let go of her hands to grab at the hem of her nighty and sweep it off her body, laying her bare to his scrutiny in the moonlit room.
A sense of unreality hit her, as if she was watching a black-and-white movie starring strangers coming together for the very first time. In a sense, that was exactly what was happening. Not for them a normal period of courtship. They’d been acquaintances, at best, when she’d run off overseas. Combatants since her return. For all that Alexis was falling in love with him, she barely knew him—not in all the ways that counted.
One thing she did know, though, was that in his time of need tonight, he’d turned to her rather than away. She would do whatever he wanted, give him whatever he needed of her, and along the way she’d receive a slice of what she had always wanted in return.
She moaned as Raoul continued his sensual onslaught on her body, his fingers and his tongue tracing a magical dance across the skin of her belly, and lower. When his tongue flicked across her center she all but jerked off the bed. It was as if every nerve in her body had congregated on that one point. It took bare seconds before she flew over the precipice and into the rolling swells of a climax so intense, so exquisite, that tears leaked from her eyes and down the sides of her face.
She was still riding the crest when she felt him shove his trousers off and move between her legs. With a guttural cry, he entered her still-spasming body. She felt herself stretch to accommodate his length, felt her inner muscles contract and squeeze against him, welcoming him into her heat, her heart. He thrust against her, deep and strong. She’d barely recovered from her first orgasm when she was in the throes of a second.
Through the rolling, intoxicating fog of pleasure she was aware of his body growing taut, of him surging into her once, twice more until with another cry he spent himself within her. He collapsed onto her, his body racked with paroxysms that mirrored her own. Alexis closed her arms around him, holding him to her, relishing the ragged sound of his breathing, the involuntary shudder of his hips against hers as he rode his climax to completion.
* * *
Raoul could barely breathe, much less think. He rolled off Alexis and sank into the mattress beside her as the perspiration on his body cooled. As the realization of what he’d just done slowly sank in.