Power and Possession(31)
Chapter 10
When they reached the bedroom, Rafe set Nicole on the bed, tossed the bag of condoms beside her, slipped his cell phone from his pocket, punched an icon, and raised his finger to curtail her comment.
A second later, he spoke briskly. “Wait downstairs. I’ll call you.” Dropping his phone on the nightstand and picking up an elastic band, he smiled. “I didn’t want any interruptions. That okay with you?” Pulling his long hair back in a rough queue, he wound the elastic around it with a few deft flicks.
Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Nicole gave him a thumbs-up, then slid Rafe’s shirt over her shoulders and down her arms at the same time he discarded his shorts.
“Be still my beating heart,” she breathed, only half teasing, her gaze on the sizable splendor of his tattooed dick arching upward against his stomach, the pulsing veins outlined in high relief. “That is so fine.”
In the process of kicking his shorts aside, he glanced up, his gaze blazing a scorching trail of approval down her lush nudity. “You have the most perfect tits,” he said with a small smile, grabbing a condom from the bag. “To go with your smoking-hot body. And that.” He indicated her pussy with the foil pack. “Definitely awesome.”
She took a quick breath as his erection surged higher. “Jeez—rein that in or it’s not going to fit,” she whispered, even as her reckless libido was busy ramping up all her erogenous zones into do-me-quick mode.
Intent on rolling the condom over his tattoo, Rafe just shook his head. “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.” The task completed, he looked up and smiled. “Ready?”
His question was way too nonchalant, like he’d done this a thousand times before, like maybe she was a nameless means to an end. And while the rational portion of her brain was telling her not to self-destruct, her quick temper jumped the gun. “What if I said no?”
He went still. “You’re kidding.”
“Well, maybe we could just wait a minute.”
His amber eyes drilled into hers. “Because?”
She ignored the tick suddenly flickering over his high cheekbone. “Why did you say don’t worry and ready like that?”
“Like what?” There was a brittle edge to his voice.
“Like supercasual, like it could be me or anyone, like it didn’t matter where you put your dick. Like maybe I’m the ten thousandth woman you’ve fucked.”
By the time she finished, he was trying to figure out why he was still standing here, why he hadn’t walked out the door. What the fuck was the vast mystery that made him want her enough to keep arguing? “It’s not like that,” he heard himself say—or maybe it was just his dick being practical. “You’ve got it all wrong.”
“It didn’t sound like it to me,” she said with her own kind of edginess. “I’m thinking maybe this is just wham bam and I’m out—”
He had her pinned to the bed in a flash, his biceps bulging as he held his powerful body lightly above hers, his dick nudging her pussy, his hot, glittering gaze signaling he’d hit his limit. “Normally, I’d be happy to argue with you,” he growled. “But right now I’m not interested in conversation, so let me make myself—you and me, this whole bloody mind fuck—crystal clear.”
He took a deep breath because he felt like hitting something and that wouldn’t be real useful right now. “To begin with, I’ve never walked out of my party before. I’ve never brought a woman here before. I’ve never even thought about bringing a woman into… this… bed,” he ground out. “And in case it slipped your goddamn mind, I was willing to risk my fucking life to have sex with you without a condom. How the hell casual does that sound?”
“Sorry,” she said on a suffocated breath, shocked by his startling confession, beyond flattered by his concessions, fully conscious as well of his dick poised to enter her entirely unconflicted, hot, and bothered pussy. “I was completely wrong.”
“Goddamn right you were.” Shutting his eyes, he dragged in a breath through his nose. You know how close you are, right? his libido warned. Get a grip. Then he opened his eyes and softly exhaled. “Look, I’m operating way the hell outside my comfort zone with you. In a good way, so don’t get all tense again. You’re suspicious. I get it. Personally, I’m so far out on a limb I don’t know what the hell I’m doing most of the time.” Then he offered up a tentative smile because the warmth had returned to her eyes. “So how about I try not to piss you off, you maybe could step out of the ring for a little while, and once we deal with the worst of our bat-shit crazy lust, we can think about acting normal again.”