She'd cautioned him against sex only a handful of days ago, and yet here she was, unable to think beyond the raging need to strip every piece of clothing from his body.
Guilt ate away inside her.
'I can hear you thinking again. And I don't feel warm and fuzzy about the direction of your thoughts.' He started to unbutton his shirt.
She tried and failed not to let her eyes linger over his muscular chest and down over his washboard stomach, following the faint line of hair that disappeared beneath his jeans.
'Is this where we hold hands and pray about whether we should have sex or not?'
He was back. The irreverent, sexy, endlessly charismatic man who had women the world over falling at his feet.
Or was he?
A careful look into his eyes showed not the gleam of irreverence but a quietly speculative look beneath his words. 'Are you afraid you'll hate sex with me? Or afraid you'll love it so much you'll beg to become a groupie?'
She shook her head. 'As much as I want it to be easy, I've never taken a decision lightly. And I don't think you should either. It's not just me I'm thinking about here, Rafael. What if all this turns around on you? What if we do this and you get even more damaged?'
'Then I'll learn to live with it. Come here,' he said, holding out his hand. Although his mouth was smiling, his eyes held a very firm command.
She had to dig her toes in to stay put. 'You'll live with it because you think you deserve all the bad things that happen to you?'
His smile slowly eroded until only a trace remained. 'Raven, it's time to stop being my therapist and just be my lover.'
'Rafael...'
'Come. Here.'
He held still, hands outstretched. Almost against her will, she found herself moving forward. He waited until she was within touching distance. Then he lunged for her, sliding his fingers between hers to entrap her.
With his other hand he pulled her close, his fingers spreading over her bottom. Moving forward, he backed her against the wall, enclosing her thighs between his. 'I've got you now. No escape. Now, are you going to undress or do you need help?'
She gnawed on her lower lip, rioting emotions tearing her apart. 'I was so sure I wanted this, Rafael, but I'll never forgive myself if I make things worse for you-'
He growled, 'Damn it, just get naked, will you?'
When she remained still, he took the task into his own hands. For a man who hadn't slept with a woman for almost a year, he didn't seem to lack the skill needed to undress her.
She was down to her bra and knickers within seconds. One deft flick of his fingers disposed of her bra. Slowly he took one step back, then another.
'Dios, I knew you would be worth it,' he rasped, his fiercely intent gaze making her skin heat up and pucker in all the right places. Grabbing her by the waist, he reversed their positions and walked her back towards the bed. At the back of her mind she knew she needed to tell him about her lack of experience. But words were in short supply when confronted with the perfection that was Rafael's muscled torso.
With one firm push, she lay sprawled on the bed. He placed one knee on the bed, pushed forward, then winced as he positioned himself over her.
Her concerned gasp drowned beneath his kiss. The kiss that rocked her to her very soul. His tongue pushed inside, warm, insistent and pulse-melting as he showed her the extent of his mastery. Unable to bear the torrent of sensation, she jerked, her hands flailing as she tried to find purchase. He moved over her, pinned her more firmly to the bed with his hips flush against her. When he winced again, she wrenched her mouth from his.
'Before you say it, I'm fine. Dampen the mood with another virtuous monologue and I will spank you. Hard.'
She flushed deep and fierce, but it didn't keep her silent. 'I can't...I can't stop caring about your well-being just because it's inconvenient for you. Just tell me if you're okay.'
'I'm okay. But if I had to, I'd cut off my arm just to be inside you, to feel you close around me like you'd never let me go.'
'Bloody hell, do you practice those lines or do they really just fall off your lips?'
'If I plan to relaunch myself as a multimillion euro best-selling writer, bonita, then a way with words is a must.' He sobered. 'But that doesn't mean I don't mean them. I mean every single word I say to you.'
Her heart stuttered, then thundered wildly. 'Rafael...' Her eyes drifted shut.
'I'm lethal. I know.' He settled himself more firmly until she felt his rigid size against the fabric of her knickers. He rocked forward and the relentless pressure on her clitoris made a few dozen stars explode behind her closed eyelids.
'You're beyond lethal,' she breathed shakily. 'You're everything I should be running away from.'
His mouth drifted down her cheek to her jaw and back again. He pressed another kiss to the corner of her mouth, then she felt him move away. 'Hey, open your eyes.'
Reluctantly, she obeyed, already missing his mouth on her.
His gaze was solemn. 'Don't run, Raven. I'm broken and cannot chase after you. Not just yet.'
Her breath caught. 'Would you really? Chase after me?'
'Most definitely. Because I get extremely grumpy when I'm cheated out of an orgasm.'
The slap she aimed at his arm was half-hearted because his mouth was descending to wreak havoc on hers once more. When he finally allowed her to breathe, she was mindless with pleasure.
'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-