Secrets and Sins:Raphael(28)

He sank his strong teeth into her bottom lip. Tugged. Licked.

To hell with crazy.

Gripping the nape of his neck, she arched toward him, became the  aggressor. She didn't wait for him to dip into her mouth, but followed  him, challenging him to surrender to her this time. Tiny bites stung her  scalp as his fingers tightened in her hair, breathing the flame burning  inside her into a conflagration.

"Please," she whispered, desire roughening her voice to a sandpapered  rasp. She clutched at his shoulders as he abandoned her mouth and slid  down her body, taking his wild, addictive taste with him. But he didn't  pay her plea any attention. Lust hardened his features, tautened the  golden skin across his sharp cheekbones, emphasizing the sensual  fullness of lips still damp from their kiss.

He inched down her body, hooked his fingers in the waistband of her boy  shorts, and, with his hooded gaze pinned to her face, slowly drew the  material down. Air kissed the skin across her hip bones and low on her  abdomen. Her heart thudded a molasses-thick beat, pulsing heavy desire  through her blood, clogging her veins. She couldn't move, could only  breathe passion.

"I've been dreaming about tasting you. Not knowing how you feel against  my tongue has been driving me crazy. My only regret from that night is  not putting my mouth on you." He paused in sliding down her shorts,  cupped her sex over the blue cotton. Oh, God, she silently cried out,  bowing into the caress. Just one touch, and he'd shoved her toward an  orgasm looming just beyond her reach. One. Touch. "So how about it,  princess? Will you come in my mouth? Will you let me find out if reality  lives up to fantasy?"

She blushed. Even with his hand pressed between her thighs. Which didn't  make sense. It wasn't the first time he'd uttered such erotic words to  her. That night, some of the things that had come out of his mouth as  he'd touched her, thrust into her …  She shivered. The raw comments  should've embarrassed her. Instead they were like fuel tossed on the  fire already burning under her skin. He did that to her. This man who  was the opposite of everything she'd been groomed to seek in a partner, a  lover.

And he was the only man who treated her like a woman. Whose sole focus  was pleasuring her. Who allowed her to see how she-quiet, reserved  Greer-affected him.

He empowered her.

"Princess?" He ground the heel of his palm against her clit, dragging a  groan from deep in her throat. "You have to say the words." His voice  lowered, roughened. "I want to hear them."

Yes. God, please.

When he didn't continue what he'd started, she grimaced. Her agreement  reverberated in her head like a bell, but she hadn't spoken the words  aloud. She parted her lips …

Axl Rose suddenly wailed "Welcome to the Jungle" into the heavy quiet.

Raphael stiffened above her as the angry Guns n' Roses anthem pealed from somewhere in the house.

"Fuck." His head dropped forward and another curse rolled from him.  Muscles coiled and relaxed under his skin as he rolled off the bed. He  tunneled his fingers into his hair, sweeping the strands out of his face  as his narrowed gaze zeroed in on her from beside the bed. "That's  Chay. He wouldn't be calling this time of night unless it was  important."                       
       
           



       

She nodded; it was all she could manage. To go from being covered by the  furnace heat of his body to nothing but cool air? She felt … naked. She  still wore her T-shirt, and he hadn't removed her panties, but she still  felt … naked. She drew the sheet up, hiding beneath the cotton barrier.

Raphael cast a look over his shoulder in the direction of the door and the relentless ringing of his phone. But he didn't leave.

"Do you want to know why that story about Gavin agreeing to a period of  abstinence was so hard to swallow?" he growled. Tension vibrated in his  still form, in the fisted fingers at his sides. She couldn't respond,  couldn't force air past her suddenly constricted lungs to say anything.  "Because he had this," he swept a hand through the air, indicating her  body. "He had you. Your passion. Your heat. Your love. Free and clear.  Anytime he chose to lose himself in you, he could. I've been inside you,  Greer. I know how sweet you are. How you can squeeze the breath out of a  man, make him believe he's died, and thank God for it." His harsh  breaths filled the room like a dull roar. "No man willingly walks away  from that. Definitely not by choice."

With one last glittering stare, he exited the bedroom.

And she expelled the air she'd been holding.

As the indistinct, low rumble of his voice reached her from down the  hall, she rolled onto her side, trying to rein in the need still  throbbing in her body like a drum. And the hurt pulsing in her heart  like an open wound. She closed her eyes.

Saved by the bell.





Chapter Fourteen

Greer stared out the tinted passenger window of Raphael's truck, not  really noticing the businesses and buildings lining Comm Ave. The shops  and apartments congealed into a brown-and-gray blur, just background  noise to the two thoughts dominating her brain.

One: She and Raphael had sex in the backseat of the same truck they rode in.

Two: She and Raphael almost had sex last night.

The first had her studiously avoiding glancing toward the rear of the  car. The second … well, the second had her studiously avoiding glancing in  the mirror. Or at the silent, brooding man behind the steering wheel.

If she had a desk in front of her, she'd bang her head against it.  Repeatedly. God, how could she have been so stupid? So reckless … again?  Because the consequences from the first time hadn't been life-altering  at all.

Great. Now she was getting sarcastic with her own self.

She sighed and shifted her errant attention from the South End landscape  to her lap where she clenched the straps of her purse. The last few  months had taught her a valuable lesson. One bad decision had led to  another and to another like a domino effect. Agreeing to marry a man she  didn't love out of obligation and insecurity had resulted in a broken  engagement. A broken engagement and draining confrontation with her  parents had led to sympathy drinks at a neighborhood dive bar. And the  drinks had led to sex in a car with an almost-stranger. A compelling,  sexy, charismatic stranger who had shown her in exacting detail what the  big deal about sex was, but still …

She slid a side glance at Raphael. A gray slouch hat that only  pretty-boy models and rock stars could get away with drew his hair away  from his face, revealing his striking profile to her-she admitted  it-hungry gaze. Strong facial bone structure, olive skin, and a full,  wide mouth hinted at a Mediterranean heritage. She could easily imagine  Raphael in an ancient coliseum with helmet, sword, breastplate, and shin  guards, meeting and defeating other warriors who dared strut out to  engage him in battle. He was fierce. A survivor. A fighter. A protector.

A rusty, long-forgotten emotion rustled in her chest. It'd been so long  since she'd felt the stirring, it creaked and groaned from disuse. Need.  Not physical need, although it seemed that insistent desire was never  very far when it came to Raphael.

No, this yearning burrowed deeper, yawned wider. It was the need to  love. The need to give her heart freely without fear of rejection.  Without fear of betrayal. Without fear of losing herself.

All her life she'd observed the scarring repercussions of one-sided  love. Her father had rejected not just his wife's devotion but also his  son's and daughter's until, unlike their mother, they'd stop offering  it. The pain of being slapped down and away had come at too high a  price, and at some point she and Ethan had refused to pay the cost any  longer. But for her mother, the constant infidelities, inattention, or  other small cruelties hadn't dimmed her consuming passion. At the  detriment of her own wants, desires, and identity, she'd poured  everything into her husband, leaving nothing for her children or  herself.                       
       
           



       

If passion-if love-did that to a person, Greer wanted nothing of it. The  emotion poets waxed about and singers crooned over imprisoned. It  humiliated. It hurt.

Yet … yet as much as she might want to deny that craving to love, to be so damn vulnerable, existed inside her, she couldn't.

And in that instant, Raphael became that much more dangerous.

Staring into his strength, his forceful personality, his fiery passion,  he quickened that need she'd squelched long ago. Even as her brain  acknowledged that when all this-the threats, stalking-was over, he would  walk away from her.

Or worse.

He would ask her to stay out of responsibility, duty, or pity.