The Man Behind the Scars(28)

She couldn't seem to get close enough to him. Her clothes felt like  impediments. Her breasts ached until she pressed them into the hard wall  of his chest, and then they ached again, more, but in a way that made  her whole body seem to hum. And melt. And glow.

"More," she demanded, wrenching her mouth from his.

He made a low noise in the back of his throat, some kind of growl, and  then he simply picked her up again, as if she weighed nothing at all. As  if there was nothing more natural in the world. His hands were warm on  her bottom, holding her steady as she wrapped her legs around his waist,  her absurd wedge heels falling from her feet with a dull sort of  clatter against the floor. He is so strong, she thought, with a kind of  sensual shudder as she imagined what he would look like naked, that  powerful body stretched out above her. In her. Claiming her. Changing  her. She couldn't help the small sigh of pleasure, of anticipation, that  escaped her lips.

She was finally close to him. She was finally touching him. He started  to move, carrying her up the formal stair, cursing under his breath when  she leaned into him and started tasting the line of his jaw, then the  sweep of scars across his ruined cheek. She felt him stiffen slightly,  his breath leaving him in a rasp. He stopped moving, and turned his  head, his mouth meeting hers, his kiss something approaching desperate.  She met it. She exulted in it, and after a moment he began to move  again.

It could have been moments or years, suspended in the sheer joy of  touching him like this, but then he was striding into his rooms. The  suite next to hers that she had never so much as glimpsed before now.  Angel had only the vaguest impression of an immense space, heavy antique  furniture and gold tapestries on the walls before he was tumbling her  down in the center of his bed, a commanding affair all its own, and  coming down on top of her.

Finally, Angel thought. Or, she thought when his eyes gleamed, perhaps she'd said it out loud.

He claimed her mouth again with that same devastating mastery, pressing  her into the soft mattress. She welcomed it. He gave no quarter,  shifting so that the hardest part of him was flush against the softest  part of her, making them both inhale too sharply. Heat flared and rolled  through her, making her feel like some kind of firework about to  scatter across a dark sky. Angel felt that same heat at the back of her  eyes, threatening to spill over, and she couldn't seem to worry about  that the way she knew she should. She felt dizzy with the taste of him,  shaky with the driving greed that made her want more, even now. More.  More of his clever hands. More of his delicious weight over her. More of  that impossible mouth against hers.

His hands were like fire, moving over her, making her burn and burn  again. He pulled her top over her head with a quiet intensity that made  her shiver in reaction. He cast it aside, his attention narrowing in on  her breasts, displayed for him in a frothy pink concoction of satin and  lace. His hard face pulled taut with desire, making an answering surge  of heat wash over her. And then he dipped his head and pulled her nipple  into his mouth, through the material of her bra, making her gasp and  jolt against him.                       
       
           



       

She hardly noticed when he peeled the bra from her body too, but then  his hot, wet mouth was on her breasts, teasing her and tormenting her,  making her arch into him and writhe beneath him, making that knot inside  of her grow hotter, tighter, harder. He shifted then, making short work  of his own shirt and kicking off his shoes and trousers. But when Angel  moved to do the same, he stopped her. He rose, gloriously,  mouthwateringly naked, and moved to the edge of the bed.

Distantly, Angel was aware he said something. But she was transfixed,  staring at his beautiful body as if she'd never seen a man before. Why  did she feel as if that were true? He was all hard-packed, rangy muscle,  and she hardly knew where to look. The wide, mesmerizing shoulders, all  sculpted muscle and strength. There were matching scars scraped deep  into his chest, but they only seemed to highlight his solid,  devastatingly masculine physique. His arousal jutted out before him, and  Angel felt that knot inside of her begin to unwind, turning into a  thick, wet need.

She wanted to touch him everywhere. She wanted to learn his taste, his  scent. She wanted him in ways that should have scared her.

"Let me," he said, perhaps not for the first time, and Angel thought her  heart might explode in her chest when he knelt down before her and  helped her shimmy out of her jeans. He pulled her thong from her hips  with the same gentle ruthlessness, and then they were both naked. His  dark gaze met hers, and Angel swallowed, suddenly as terrified as she  was aroused. As if he could sense it, he slid his palms up the smooth  length of her legs, making her breath catch in her throat, making the  terror recede and leaving only that delectable, languorous heat in its  wake. When he reached her hips his fingers curled around and then tugged  her closer to him.

"Rafe," she began.

But he ignored her. He leaned forward and pressed his mouth to the core of her, licking his way into her molten center.

It was like dying, Angel thought, in the most glorious way possible-and  then he shifted position and she stopped thinking altogether.

And Rafe set her on fire. Again and again and again. He used his lips,  his tongue and even the faintest hint of his teeth. He used his hard,  beautiful hands. And when she was gasping for breath, writhing  helplessly before him, her mind completely and utterly empty of  everything but this most divine torture, he pulled back.

Her hands were fists in the coverlet. Her legs were wrapped around his shoulders.

"The next time you say my name," he told her, his voice a dark sorcery  that made her nipples draw tight in reaction, pure male satisfaction in  every syllable, "I want you to scream it."

And when he licked into her soft heat again, she burst into a thousand pieces, and obeyed.

When she opened her eyes again, dazed and made new in ways she couldn't  begin to contemplate, he was making his way up the length of her body,  kissing a trail of fire from her hip bone to the underside of her  breasts.

He moved over her, settling himself between her legs, and for a moment  she could only look at him, feeling strangely fragile. Oddly vulnerable.  And she could have sworn he knew it.

And then he moved against her. Teasing her.

The fire blazed anew, as if he hadn't just thrown her over the edge. It  was hotter, wilder. She gasped as the inferno rolled through her,  shocking her, her hands moving to grip his strong shoulders, her hips  once again rising to meet him, as if her body was already entirely his.  As he knew her own flesh better than she did, and could make her do his  bidding that easily.

He moved again, a delicious, tempting slide of flesh against flesh, and  she arched against him, all helpless fire and need, and she understood  that, in fact, he could. He did.

Rafe met her gaze, his own hot and dark and some kind of wild silver, and then, impossibly, he smiled.

Angel felt her heart break.

And then he twisted his hips and drove deep inside of her.

He set a demanding rhythm, but Angel met it, her body moving like silk  against his, as if she'd been designed for precisely this. For this  slide of skin, this unbearably shattering possession.

He slid his arms around her, pulling her even closer as his hips moved  faster and faster, making that wildfire burn white-hot-and then Angel  was falling apart again, falling into pieces, and this time he came with  her.

* * *

They made love so many times that night and over the next few days that  Angel lost track of time. Of the world. Of anything that wasn't Rafe or  his mouthwateringly beautiful body, that she only wanted more the more  she had him. Of the magical things he could do, again and again. It was  as if they couldn't seem to quench the hunger, the need, no matter how  many times they tried.

It was like being lost in a kind of fog, except Angel didn't care if she  ever came out of it. He looked at her as if she was a wonder, as if she  was perfect. He touched her as if he wanted nothing but to worship her.  He was addictive, and he was her husband, and an odd feeling started to  grow in her as each day passed and they explored each other more and  more. It was buoyant, and ever-expanding. It seemed to resonate in his  hard face when she looked at him, when she kissed him, making even that  grim mouth seem softer, somehow. As if he felt it too.                       
       
           



       

She had the strangest suspicion it was hope.

Almost two weeks passed before she bothered to check her email again, to  see how the world had got on without her. The answer was: perfectly  well. She lay across her bed with her laptop and found herself having to  struggle to come up with her usual flippant tone in the emails she  exchanged with Allegra. As if all those tough outer layers she'd thought  were a part of her had been scraped away now. Here. As if being with  Rafe like this, as if theirs was the real marriage she hadn't known  she'd wanted until it was too late, was making her … raw. She didn't know  where to put that.