like petals. “Lock up after us.”
He rushed Richard out before he succumbed. They strode to the elevator with him already suffering withdrawal.
“What are you going to do with her?”
At Richard’s quiet question, he exhaled. “None of your business, Cobra. Your role here is done.”
Richard pressed the elevator button. “One piece of advice. A warning, really. This woman will turn you inside out.”
“Don’t you believe she already has?”
“I thought so. But now that I’ve been exposed to her, to this...live thing between you, I know I’ve been optimistic in my evaluation. This?” He made a gesture at all of him. “What you’re feeling now? Is nothing to what you will feel a week from now. In a month’s time, you’ll be totally lost in her.”
He cocked an eyebrow as they entered the elevator. “So you like her now?”
“I don’t like anyone. But her? She’s lethal.”
He frowned. “You still think she’s her father’s accomplice? That her orphanage work has sinister motivations? You think I’d look the other way if I suspected such a thing?”
Richard shook his head. “I actually believe your verdict of her benevolence. And that’s what makes her deadly. She’s for real. You’ll have no defenses against her.”
“Who says I want any?”
Richard fell silent as the elevator crowded with more and more people in this city that didn’t sleep. Once out on the street, and before they went their separate ways, he said, “Are you giving up your revenge?”
His heart fisted. “I will never do that.”
“Then do you have any idea how to have it and have her, too?”
“I’ll figure out a way.”
Richard only gave him a “sure you will” scowl before turning and walking away.
He watched Richard recede, his mind in an uproar.
He would destroy her father. He had to. But if she ever suspected he was the one who had done it, he could lose her. He couldn’t even contemplate that.
This meant that his plan to let Ferreira know it was him who destroyed him was out of the question. He’d have to burn every bit of evidence leading back to him so she’d never know.
The one way this wouldn’t be necessary was if in a month’s time he cooled toward her. He could strike at her father and not fear the fallout to their relationship.
But he didn’t need time to know it would only intensify, this all-consuming passion he felt for her.
And that was his verdict as the man who was never wrong.
* * *
They stumbled all the way from the mansion’s doors to Rafael’s master suite, snatching at each other with wrenching lips, straining against each other as if they’d merge.
It took a while to get there, as Rafael’s suite spanned the whole fourth level. At least he’d made sure the mansion was empty before he got her here, after everyone who worked there had managed to walk in on them during the past three weeks.
He threw her down on his extra-large king-size bed and she slid over the satin sheets to its middle as he launched himself over her. She bowed up to intensify his impact, loving his weight and ferocity as he bore down on her.
His lips mashed against hers, his tongue plunging inside her while his hips rammed between her splayed thighs through their clothes.
He rose to snatch her top over her head, bunching her skirt to her waist then tearing her panties off her hips. As her legs fell wide apart for him, his hands, big enough to span her waist, raised her against the headboard. Then he buried his face in her confined breasts.
The sight of the dark majesty of his head against her made her keen, pressing his head harder to her aching flesh.
He muttered something deep and driven, the sound spearing her heart as his hands went to her back, releasing breasts now peaked and swollen for his ownership.
Imprisoning her hands above her head in his good one, he drew back to gaze at her. His eyes crackled with lust at how she must look. Like she had that first night, almost naked, the image of pure wanton abandon.
Growling, he let go of her hands to greedily take her breasts in his hands. She arched off the bed in the shock of pleasure, making a fuller offering of her flesh. He kneaded her, pinched her nipples, had her writhing...begging.
He tore his shirt off, exposing the body she’d told him made Greek gods seem like weaklings. Her awed hands shook over his burnished, sculpted perfection. His growls roughened as he rubbed his chest against her breasts until she thrashed.
“Querida...” He bent and opened his mouth fully over her breasts as if he’d devour her. Pleasure jackknifed through her with each hard draw of his lips, each hot swirl of his tongue, until she was shuddering all over, her readiness flowing down her thighs.
She lay powerless under the avalanche of need as his hand glided over her, taking every liberty before settling between her thighs. His strong, sensitive fingers slid to her intimate flesh, now throbbing its demand for his touch. As his lips clamped hers, his fingers opened the lips of her femininity, slid between her folds, soaking in her arousal.
It took only a few strokes of those virtuoso fingers to spill her over the edge. She convulsed with pleasure, screeching it into his mouth.
His stroking fingers completed her pleasure, circling her nub soothingly. Desire seared through her again instead, that emptiness that gnawed her all the time now unbearable.
She drummed her feet against the bed in a fit of frustration. “Just take me.”
He cupped her core, gathered her still trembling body to his, shushing her. And she knew he still wouldn’t take her.
She turned her face into his chest, sobbed. “You once said you didn’t want my heart pounding or me agitated. My heart is hammering, and I’m far beyond agitated...all the time.”
“You’re just aroused.”
She glared up at him. “Gee...I didn’t realize that!”
His face was a mask of savage hunger even as he smiled at her. “I mean you’re too aroused to think straight. Three weeks ago you didn’t want to see me again.”
“Three weeks ago I asked you to take me. Just like I’ve been doing every day ever since.”
“You were trying to get rid of me then.”
“Maybe I just couldn’t wait to have you. Just like I can’t now. Didn’t you think of that?”
“I want us to have this first, querida, the courting, the anticipation, all the routes to pleasure but the ultimate one. When I join our bodies I want you certain that you want me inside you, not just the release I’ll bring you.”
Her fingers twisted in his hair, eyes pleading. “I am certain. I’ve been certain since the moment I saw you.”
“But when you were thinking straight, you knew what was best for you, for us, wanted me to slow down.”
“Not to this extent.”
“You sound as if I’ve been tormenting you for months.”
“It feels like years.”
His smile devoured her brimming with pure male satisfaction. “I love you on fire for me like that.”
She almost blurted out “I love you” but bit it back at the last moment.
She had no illusions about the nature of his involvement, didn’t want her