you?’
‘Nothing,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Nothing.’
‘Is it still Luke?’
‘No. No!’
‘Is it me, then? You’re worried I might hurt you.’
She blinked her surprise at his intuition.
‘Oh, honey, honey,’ he murmured. ‘I would never hurt you. I just want to make you happy, to see you smile and hear you laugh again. I want to give you pleasure. Like this,’ he said as he stroked her legs apart, his fingers knowing exactly where to go and what to do.
She gasped while he groaned. How wet she was. It was going to feel fantastic, being buried to the hilt in that.
Waiting any longer was simply not on. And possibly counter-productive. He would feel safer inside her. Less tense. He might even relax a bit.
As though reading his mind, she shifted her thighs apart and bent her knees, inviting him in, murmuring yes in his ear over and over. His fingers fumbled a fraction as he sought to push his suddenly desperate flesh into hers.
Rafe sighed with relief, then just wallowed in blissful stillness for a few seconds. But any respite was short-lived.
As soon as he began to move, her legs were around him like a vine. Or was it a vice? She was squeezing him with her heels and with her insides, rocking backward and forward.
Rafe felt a wild rush of blood along his veins, swelling him further, compelling him to pump harder as he sought release from his agony.
And he’d thought he’d be more relaxed inside her.
Foolish Rafe!
‘Rafe,’ she cried out, her arms tightening around his neck, her lips breathing hot fire against his throat. ‘Rafe…’
Her first spasm sent him into orbit, to a place he hadn’t known existed. Was it pleasure or pain as his seed was wrenched from his body? Agony or ecstasy as her almost violent contractions kept milking him dry, making him moan as he’d never moaned before.
Rafe didn’t know if he was experiencing happiness, or humiliation. All he knew was that no sooner did he feel himself falling away from that place she’d rocketed him to, than he wanted to be there again.
‘You’re right,’ she murmured, kissing his throat and stroking his back, his shoulders, his chest. ‘You didn’t hurt me.’
His eyes opened to stare down at her.
‘You looked so big,’ she explained breathily. ‘I haven’t been with a man that big before.’
Rafe was startled. He’d always thought of himself as pretty average. What she’d been seeing was mostly her doing. Still, he was secretly flattered.
‘I’d thought you were worried I might hurt you emotionally,’ he said.
‘Oh, no,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘No, that won’t happen. I won’t ever let that happen.’
Now Rafe felt piqued. Which was crazy. She’d spelled out what she wanted when she’d propositioned him and he’d agreed. Sex on tap for a fortnight without any strings and without any follow-up.
He’d thought such a set-up was every man’s fantasy come true. Now, for some reason that he hadn’t anticipated, Rafe wasn’t so sure.
Oh, for pity’s sake, stepped in the voice of cold reason. What’s got into you? This is every man’s fantasy come true. Stop playing the sensitive New Age guy and start being exactly what she thinks you are. Rafe the rake!
The trouble was Rafe wasn’t really a rake. Never had been. Still, it might be fun. He could do every outrageous thing he’d ever wanted to do and get away with it. Make the most wicked suggestions. Play Casanova to the hilt, with a bit of the Marquis de Sade thrown in.
He had to smile at that. Him, into bondage and stuff? Wasn’t his usual cup of tea, but that hammock had possibilities…
‘Why are you smiling like that?’ she asked.
‘Like what?’
‘Like the cat who got the cream.’
‘Perhaps because I just did. You are the best in bed, sweetheart. Simply the best.’
She looked slightly uncomfortable with his compliment, as though she didn’t like her performance being rated. Yet she must know she was good at sex.
She was a complex creature, and a maze of contradictions. Cool and ladylike on the surface whilst all this white-hot heat was simmering away underneath.
Rafe aimed to keep her furnace well stoked for the next fortnight. She wasn’t going to be allowed to retreat into that ridiculous touch-me-not façade, not for a moment. She might think she’d hired him as her private toy boy, but in fact she was the one going to be the toy, to be played in whatever way he fancied.
Rafe might have been shocked by the wickedness of his thoughts under normal circumstances. But these were hardly normal circumstances, and it was what she wanted, after all.
‘Hey, but I’m hungry,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘A little. But I could do with a shower first. We’ve been travelling all day.’
‘Mmm. Me, too. But why have a shower when there’s that lovely big spa? We could pop in together. What say we take that picnic basket with us as well, kill two birds with one stone?’
‘But…’
‘But, nothing, honey. You just do what good old Rafe tells you and you’ll have the time of your life.’
RAFE was right, Isabel thought two days later. She was having the time of her life. He was exactly what she needed just now.
Oversexed, of course. He never left her alone.
But she wasn’t complaining. If she was brutally honest, she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He was wonderfully flirtatious and fun, with just the right amount of bad boy wickedness to his lovemaking which she’d always found exciting.
‘So what do you think?’ she said as she modelled her new red bikini for him.
Rafe was still sitting on the terrace in the morning sunshine, partaking in the slowest, longest breakfast. He was naked to the waist, a pair of colourful board shorts slung low around his hips. He was all male.
His eyes lifted and he stared at her. She hadn’t worn this particular swimming costume for him as yet and it was scandalously brief. All the swimwear she’d bought with Luke’s money was scandalous in some way, selected in a mood of rebellion and defiance.
And with Rafe in mind.
The white one-piece she’d worn yesterday went totally transparent when wet. Swimming had come to a swift end on that occasion, which was perhaps just as well, since her fair skin couldn’t take too much sun. As it was, she was slightly pink. All over.
‘Turn round,’ he ordered.
She did, knowing full well what the sight of her bottom in nothing but a thong would do to him. Still, that was the general idea. She’d been like a cat on a hot tin roof since he’d come up behind her as she’d been setting out breakfast on the terrace an hour ago, and proceeded to have her right then and there, out in the open. No foreplay whatsoever. Just him, whispering hot words in her ear as he lifted the hem of the sarong she was wearing, then commanding her to stand perfectly still whilst he quite selfishly took his pleasure.
She’d nearly spilled the jug of orange juice she’d been holding at the time. She hadn’t come, of course. He’d been much too fast and she’d been much too tense. It had left her terribly turned on, though. She was still