‘I’ve wanted you for so long, I can’t remember when I didn’t want you.’
‘But...why? Because I was the only paddock bunny who wouldn’t fall into your bed?’
She expected a clever quip about his irresistibility. Instead, his gaze turned serious. ‘Because within that tainted, false existence, you managed to remain pure. Nothing touched you. I craved that purity. I wanted to touch it, to see what it felt like. But you wouldn’t even give me the time of day.’
‘Because you had enough groupies hanging around you. I...I also thought you were with Sasha.’
He groaned. ‘I guess I played the playboy game a little too well.’
‘You mean you weren’t?’
‘I grew jaded a long time ago but some cloaks are more difficult to cast off than others.’
At her half-snort, he laughed. ‘Do you know this is the longest I’ve been in a bedroom with a woman without one of us halfway to an orgasm?’
She knew that he meant the woman, not him. ‘How trying for you.’
He pushed against her once more, his erection a fierce, rigid presence. ‘Sí. It’s very trying. You should do something about it before my poor body gives out.’ He trailed his mouth over hers before planting a row of kisses along her jaw.
‘You really are incorrigible,’ she gasped.
‘Yes, I am,’ he murmured, slowly licking his way down her neck to her pulse. ‘I am incorrigible. And I deserve to be punished. Mercilessly.’ He slid a hand to caress her belly, then lower to boldly cup her. ‘Show me who’s boss, my stern, sensible Raven. Give me the punishment I deserve.’
Her breath snagged in her chest. The same chest where her heart hammered like a piston about to burst its casing.
His fingers pressed harder, rhythmic, unrelenting. This time the explosion of heat stemmed from her very core and radiated throughout her body. Her legs parted wider, inviting him to embed himself even deeper. Her restless fingers traced the line of his jeans and found firm skin. Her fingers slipped an inch beneath and he moaned. The sound vibrated along her nerves as heat oozed between her legs.
Her hips undulated in sync with the movement of his fingers, and in that moment, Raven felt as if she were melting from the inside out. She moaned at the intensity of it.
‘That’s it, precioso, give it up for me,’ he murmured in her ear, then bit on her lobe. Her cry echoed in the room, the sound as alien to her as the feelings coursing through her body. When his hot mouth trailed down her neck, over her shoulder blades, she held her breath, at once dreading and anticipating the sensation of his stubble roughness on her breast.
With a hungry lunge, he sucked one nipple into his mouth and drew hard on it. At the same time, one firm finger pressed on her most sensitive spot.
‘Oh God!’ Pleasure exploded in a fiery sensation that made her hips buck straight off the bed. She felt Rafael move off her and alongside her, but the pressure of his fingers and mouth didn’t abate. Her climax dragged out until she feared she would expire from it. When her tremors subsided, he left her breasts to plant a forceful kiss on her lips. She fought to breathe.
Heavens, he was too much.
She opened her eyes to find his gaze on hers, intense and purposeful. ‘If you’re thinking of concocting a means of escape now you’ve come, know now I have no intention of letting that happen.’
‘Why would I want to escape? Unless I’m mistaken, the best is yet to come. Yes?’
The relieved exhalation made her guess he’d suspected she was feeling overwhelmed. ‘You have no idea. Kiss me.’
Raven’s fingers curled into his nape, glorying in the luxurious heat of his skin as she complied with the heated request.
No, she didn’t want to escape. Touching him felt so good, so incredibly pleasurable, that fleeing was the last thing on her mind. The thought surprised her, almost tripping out of her mouth. She curbed it in time. Rafael’s head was already swollen by the thought that he could turn her on. Admitting how totally enthralled she was by him would make him even more insufferable. Although, the way she was feeling right now, she wouldn’t be surprised if his sharp intellect worked it out before long—
‘You’re thinking again.’
She stared into blue eyes filled with raw hunger and masculine affront. Slowly she let her fingers drift through his hair, experiencing a keen sense of feminine satisfaction when he groaned. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
His lips parted in a feral smile. ‘Don’t challenge a man on the knife-edge of need, sweetheart. You might regret it. If you survive the consequences.’
Without giving her time to answer, he pulled her down on top of him, both hands imprisoning her to his body as he fell back on the bed. Unerringly, his mouth found hers.