And they weren’t here.
He found a tiny freckle on the underside of her left breast, and he treasured it, stroking lightly with his thumb. It let him know this was real.
She shivered when he cupped her with his hand. Good. Then maybe she didn’t notice him trembling.
He couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed. Her skin was so smooth beneath his fingertips. Softer than petals, milkweed, clouds, dreams. And amid all this dreamy softness, her nipple drew to a tight, tawny knot, just begging for attention.
Who was he to refuse?
He bent his head and drew the peak into his mouth.
“Rafe,” she gasped. “Yes.”
Yes.
She weaved her fingers into his hair, holding him close, and his cock . . . God, his cock was just where it wanted to be, cradled against her cleft. He nudged her thighs farther apart, settling his hips between them. And then he moved against her in a slow rhythm, mimicking the act of lovemaking as he lifted and suckled her breasts.
She was quiet, but not silent. Her soft, sweet moans of pleasure slid down his back like fingernails, drawing his every nerve to awareness.
Soon she began to move with him, riding the hard ridge of his arousal. The layers of linen shift and bedsheets warmed and glided between them, adding to the friction.
And Holy God, it felt good.
So.
Damned.
Good.
Still, those words wouldn’t stop haunting him.
I wanted to escape, too.
He lifted his head. Whatever restraint he’d cultivated over the years—every shred of the discipline that had taken him from hotheaded rebel to champion—he drew on it now.
“I changed my mind,” he said. “I want to know. I need to know. Why are you here with me right now?”
“Because I want you. I want this.” She arched her neck to press a kiss to his cheek, then his lips. And as she did, she shifted beneath him, rubbing against the full length of his cock.
His mind was wiped blank as a slate.
Objections? What objections? Was there some scruple he was supposed to remember? Some issue of duty or loyalty involved? Unless it lay hidden beneath the curve of her breast, he wasn’t likely to remember.
His mind could only hold one thought: Clio wanted him. And what she wanted, she would have. Here. Now. No one else mattered. No one else had ever given a damn about him, anyway.
“Rafe. I’ve wanted this for so long.”
When she whispered his name, something feral took hold of him. Pushing her thighs wider, he lowered his body to hers, needing her soft, abundant heat to cushion his pounding heart. Otherwise, the damned thing just might burst out of his chest.
He pressed his brow to hers. Touched her hair, her lovely cheek.
And then she kissed him with a sweetness that made him want to weep.
One of her legs wrapped around his, smooth and strong. Her fingers laced tight in his hair. She was holding him as though he belonged nowhere else. As though everything in his dark, needing, desperate soul was hers.
And maybe that was the truth.
This was everything he’d dreamed about since the age of fifteen. She was so passionate, so responsive to his touch. And as much as he wanted to get inside her and spend all that long-frustrated lust, he wanted what would come afterward even more.
Closeness. Affection. Perhaps even . . .
Oh, devil take it.
Perhaps even love.
“You understand what this means, for us to lie together.” He worked a hand between them, gathering the gauzy hem of her shift and hiking it upward. “You do know what will happen.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t be frightened. I’ll be careful. I’m going to be so good to you.”
The murmured words sounded trite even to his own ears, but Rafe meant every syllable. Few would suspect a man built like a brute to be capable of gentleness. And in the past, women hadn’t wanted that from him anyway. But he had a great deal of tenderness he’d been saving. Whole years’ worth of it.
Tonight, he was going to lavish it all on her.
“I’m not frightened in the least,” she whispered. “But you must let me go, just for a moment.”
He licked and nibbled his way up her neck, treasuring each inch. “Not a chance.”
Now that he had her in his arms this way, he would never let her go.
“I need to go to my chamber. It will only take a moment. They’re in the top drawer.”
The top drawer.
If this were another woman, he would have thought she was referring to sheaths. Or a sponge. But he had been her first kiss. She was an innocent. He knew she’d been making strides toward independence, but surely Clio wasn’t so modern as that.
“What’s in the top drawer, love? Surely it can wait.” He slid his hand up her leg, and his touch met the silken slope of her inner thigh.
Good God. He was inches from the heart of her. All that sweet, tight heat.
“It can’t,” she gasped. “It’s the papers.”
Chapter Seventeen
The papers,” he echoed.
Clio nodded. She was so breathless with excitement, she could scarcely speak. The wicked magic of his tongue had driven her wild. The hard heat and weight of him atop her, so fiercely comforting. So dangerously safe.
Now his hand was on her thigh, and the pad of his thumb was . . .
Oh, so close.
She wriggled beneath him, craving friction. Pressure. Anything. She would have never expected herself to be such a wanton, but Rafe made her feel so cherished. He’d stripped her of any shame.