A Prize Beyond Jewels

CHAPTER NINE

THE NEED TO kiss Nina again, to touch her and to make love to her again had been like a burning ache inside Rafe for the past thirty-six hours. He’d been kept in a state of arousal for almost all of that time too, until something had snapped inside him just now, just from looking at the way that clinging, glittering gold gown clung so lovingly to every curve of her delicious body, with her hair tumbling like a living flame over her shoulders and down the length of her spine. As for those lushly pouting lips...

‘Don’t even think about it,’ he tensely instructed the two Palitov bodyguards on duty just outside the gallery as they stepped forward at first sight of Nina.

‘It’s okay, Andy,’ Nina added ruefully as the larger of the two burly men turned to her enquiringly. ‘Stay with my father. Mr D’Angelo and I are going for a little walk,’ she added lightly as Rafe continued to pull her down the hallway.

Walk, be damned. Rafe needed to taste Nina again, to touch her again so badly, that he opened the first door he came to once they had turned the corner into another hallway, uncaring that it appeared to be some sort of small service cupboard containing brooms and buckets. He pushed her unceremoniously inside before following her in and shutting the door behind them, immediately throwing them into complete darkness.

‘Rafe!’

‘I need to kiss you, Nina!’ he groaned as he lowered his head and fiercely captured her mouth unerringly with his, moaning his satisfaction at the first delicious taste of her.

All of Nina’s annoyance at Rafe’s high-handed behaviour in having dragged her from the gallery—very much in the manner of that Neanderthal she had accused him of being yesterday morning!—evaporated as if it had never been at the first touch of Rafe’s mouth against hers. Her own desire for him was instantaneous, combustible.

Her lips parted beneath his, and she let her clutch bag slide to the floor before moving her arms up and over his shoulders to allow her fingers to become entangled in the darkness of Rafe’s hair. She pressed the length of her body against his and returned the hunger of that kiss, her breasts swelling, nipples pebbling, between her thighs heating, as Rafe’s hands roamed restlessly along the length of her spine before cupping her bottom and pulling her heat in tight against the hardness of his arousal.

He wrenched his mouth from hers, his hand fisting in her hair as he pulled back slightly, arching her neck to allow his lips and tongue to seek out the silky hollows and dips of her throat. ‘Your father isn’t going to be happy about this.’ he acknowledged unconcernedly, his breath hot as his tongue rasped moistly against her skin, tasting her, drinking her in.

Nina gave a soft, breathless laugh. ‘I’m not sure my father has any place here.’

‘Hell, I hope not,’ he muttered distractedly, his body throbbing with heat as he pressed into her more intimately still, moving his hips in a slow arousing rhythm, pressed up between the dampness of her thighs, even as one of his hands slipped beneath the hem of her gown to caress the length of her thigh. ‘I need to feel your heat against my fingers, Nina.’ He groaned as his fingers lingered at the lacy edge of her panties.

‘Rafe!’ Heat suffused the whole of her body in anticipation of her own need for the pleasure promised by those questing fingers.

‘Are you wearing panties beneath this gown?’

‘Yes,’ Nina answered uncertainly.

‘Minuscule ones, I’m guessing?’

‘Very,’ she confirmed dryly.

Rafe breathed deeply. ‘And I just want to rip them off you, stroke and caress you and feel you as you climax! Then I want to lick my fingers and taste—’

‘Rafe, please...’ Nina groaned helplessly, unsure if she was pleading for him to stop or continue as just his words caused a gush of that hot moisture between her thighs.

‘Oh, I want to please you, Nina,’ he assured gruffly. ‘I want that more than I want my next breath.’

Nina wanted it too. It didn’t matter that they were squashed into what had looked like a cleaning storeroom before the door had closed and plunged them both into darkness. Nor was it important that just metres away from this small room there were two hundred people attending the jewellery exhibition, including her own father, all of whom had seen Rafe drag her out of the gallery just minutes ago.

All that mattered at this moment was being with Rafe, making love with Rafe, having Rafe kiss and caress her.

‘Do it, Rafe,’ she encouraged achingly, needily. ‘Just do it!’