Silently he began to unbutton her shirt, taking his time as he worked down her body. When he was done, he carefully parted the lapels and pushed back and over her shoulders so that the material fell away and she stood in her jeans and bra.
“Pretty and delicate,” he said as he fingered the lace that cupped the swell of her breast. “A lot like you. It suits you. I like you in pink.”
“You don’t fancy a siren in red or black?” she asked with a grin.
“No. Not at all. I like the softness of pink and how feminine it looks on you. Very girly.”
He lowered his head to kiss the bare expanse of skin that peeked above the cup and then nuzzled lower, pushing down the lace ever so slightly until he was just a breath from her taut nipple.
Then he drew away. “I like girly.”
“You are a tease,” she said in a strained voice.
He reached down to unbutton her pants, loosening them and then pulling them down just enough to bare the swell of her belly.
To her utter shock, he went to his knees and molded her stomach with both hands. He gently caressed the bump and then pressed a kiss to her flesh.
It was an exquisitely tender moment and an image she’d never forget as long as she lived. This proud, arrogant man on his knees in front of her, lavishing attention on their baby—and her.
She gazed down, lovingly running her fingers through his dark hair. He stared up at her and the look in his eyes made her catch her breath.
Then he tugged at her jeans and slowly rolled them over her h*ps and down her legs. When they pooled at her feet, he lifted one leg, his hands sliding up and down in a sensual caress. He tugged the material free and then lifted her other foot to completely remove the jeans.
“Matching lacy pink,” he said just before pressing a kiss to the V of her underwear. “I like it. I like it a lot.”
Her legs trembled and butterflies fluttered through her veins, around her chest and up into her throat.
She wasn’t self-conscious about her pregnant body as many women were. In fact, she liked the newfound lushness of her curves. In a lot of ways she’d never looked better. Her skin glowed with a healthy sheen. Her br**sts had grown larger and she was fascinated by the shape of her expanding abdomen.
She hadn’t really considered being worried over Rafael’s reaction to the changes in her body. If she had, she would have worried in vain because he seemed entranced. Nothing in his actions told her he found her anything but desirable.
“You’re beautiful,” he said in a raw voice, almost as if he’d been privy to her thoughts.
Slowly he rose, sliding his hands up her body as he straightened to stand in front of her. Then he tangled his fingers in her hair and fit his mouth to hers.
She struggled for air but wouldn’t retreat long enough to take a breath. She took every bit as much as he did, demanding more in return.
There was something markedly different between them. Their lovemaking had always been casual. Fun, a little flirty and laid-back. The Rafael who stood before her now was…different. It was in the way he looked at her, so dark and forbidding, as if he were set to devour her. As if he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted another woman.
Fanciful but there was definitely nothing casual about the way he touched and kissed her.
She liked the new Rafael. He was commanding and yet gentle and loving. Reverent.
He cupped one hand around her nape, his fingers pressing possessively on her neck as he pulled her into another bone-melting kiss. Then he nibbled a path down her jaw to her ear and sucked the lobe into his mouth. Each tug sent pulsating waves of desire low into her pelvis. Her muscles clenched and she tensed as a whispery sigh floated from her lips.
His mouth never leaving the sensitive column of her throat, he slipped his arms underneath hers and hoisted her upward so he could lift her onto the bed. He lowered her then hovered over her, his denim-clad knee sliding between her thighs.
He kissed her again, then reached up to brush the hair from her forehead, his touch so light and caressing that it sent a thrill coursing through her veins.
Once more he brushed his mouth across hers as if he hated to leave her even for the time it would take him to undress. But he stepped back and the fact that his hands shook as he pulled at his T-shirt endeared him to her all the more.
He stripped the shirt off, the muscles rippling across his chest and shoulders. He tossed it aside and then began undoing the fly of his jeans. She nearly moaned when he pulled both jeans and underwear down in one impatient shove.
The man was sexy. Cut like a flawless gem. Toned. Fit. Lean but not too lean. He had enough bulk that told of his workout regimen.
Her gaze drifted downward to his groin and she sighed her appreciation as his erection jutted upward. Impatient for him to return to her, she shifted and leaned up on her elbows so she could better see him.
But then he was crawling back onto the bed, straddling her body. He put the flat of his palm on her chest and gently pushed her down onto the mattress. Then he carefully slipped the straps of her bra off her shoulders, nudging until the cups released her breasts.
He lifted her just enough that he could fit one hand underneath to unhook her bra and then he pulled it away and tossed it onto the floor.
For a long moment he stared down at her, his gaze drifting up and down her body then focusing on her, their eyes catching and holding.
“I’m burning the image of you into my memory,” he said in a husky voice. “I don’t want to ever forget again. I can’t imagine how I ever did to begin with. What man when presented with such beauty could possibly let such a memory of it escape?”
Her heart went all fluttery again. It was hard to breathe around him. When he wasn’t sending shivers of delight over her flesh with his touch, he sent ripples of pleasure through her heart with his words.
“Kiss me,” she begged softly.
“Just as soon as I’ve taken the last of your pink girly underwear off,” he said with a smile.
His fingers danced down her sides and hooked into the lacy band of her panties and he tugged, moving backward as he pulled them down her legs.
This time he moved up the side of her and curled his arms around her, pulling her against him so her na**d flesh met his. It was a shock. A delicious, decadent thrill. His hardness was cupped intimately in the V of her legs and her br**sts pressed against the slightly hair-roughened surface of his chest.
As he kissed her, his hand roamed possessively down her back and over the swell of her buttocks and then around to cup her belly before drifting lower into the damp, sensitive flesh between her legs.
She moaned and arched forward as his fingers found her most sensitive points. His erection slid between her slightly parted legs, burning, rigid, branding her flesh.
She wanted him inside her, a part of her, after being so long without him. She stirred restlessly, clinging to him, spreading her legs wider to encourage him to take her.
He smiled against her mouth. “So impatient. I’m not nearly finished yet, little love. I want to make you crazy with pleasure before I make you mine again. So crazy that you’ll scream my name when I slide into your warmth.”
“I want you,” she whispered. “So much, Rafe. I missed you. Missed holding you like this. Missed having you touch me.”
He drew away and regarded her, his expression so serious that it touched something deep inside her. “I think somehow that I’ve missed you, too, Bryony. A part of me has. I don’t think I could be so happy so quickly with you if we hadn’t known each other before, if we hadn’t been…close. Lovers. You feel so perfect next to me. I feel like I’ve opened the door into someone else’s life because this feels nothing like mine and yet I want it so badly I can taste it. I can feel it.”
She reached up and tugged him down into a kiss, so moved by his words that her heart felt near to bursting.
“I don’t want to wait. I need you now, Rafe. Please. Be inside me. Let me feel you.”
He leaned over her body, pressing into her, his heat enveloping her. She savored the sensation of being mushed beneath him, of inhaling his scent so deeply that she could almost taste him.
“Are you sure you’re ready, Bryony?”
Even as he spoke, he slid one finger inside her and rolled his thumb across her clitoris. She closed her eyes and gripped his arms until her fingers felt bloodless.
“Please,” she whispered again.
He positioned himself and pushed the tiniest bit forward until he was barely inside.
“Open your eyes. Look at me, Bryony. Let me see you.”
Her eyelids fluttered open and she met his gaze, so dark and sensual.
He slid forward again, just a bit, stroking her insides with fire. He seemed determined to draw out their reunion, to make it last.
She let her hands wander down his sides and she caressed up and down, encouraging him to complete the act.
He leaned down until their noses brushed and then he angled his mouth over hers just as he slid the rest of the way inside her welcoming body.
Tears burned her eyes. The knot in her throat was such that she couldn’t speak. She didn’t have words anyway to describe the sensation of being back with the man she loved after having thought she’d lost him.
He withdrew and thrust again, his mouth never leaving hers. He breathed her. She breathed him. Their tongues tangled, stroked and coaxed.
He let his body descend on her and planted his forearms into the mattress so that she wasn’t completely bearing his weight as his h*ps rocked against hers.
It was much like the ocean waves, rolling forward then receding. Gentle and yet building in intensity. He was patient, much more patient than he’d ever been.
“Tell me if I hurt you,” he said against her mouth. “Or if I’m too heavy for you.”
In answer she wrapped both arms around him and hugged him tight. She slid one hand down to cup his firm buttocks as he undulated his h*ps against her.
“Tell me what you need,” he whispered. “Tell me how to please you, Bryony.”
Her hands ran up his back to his shoulders and then one slid to his nape, her fingers thrusting upward into his hair.
“You’re doing just fine,” she said dreamily. “I feel like I’m floating.”
He dropped his head to suck lightly at her neck and then he nibbled to the curve of her shoulder and sucked again, harder this time until she was sure he’d leave a mark.
She hadn’t had such a mark since she was a teenager, but strangely it thrilled her that she would have a reminder of his possession.
He groaned. “I’m sorry, Bryony. I can’t— Damn it.” He issued several more muffled curses that ended in a long moan as he increased his pace.
As soon as the intensity changed, the orgasm that had begun as a lazy, slow build escalated into a sharp coiling burn low in her abdomen. It rose and spread until she gasped at the tension.
She dug her fingers into his back, not knowing how else to handle the mounting pressure. She arched her buttocks off the bed, pushing him deeper inside her. He tensed and shuddered against her, reaching fulfillment while she was still reaching blindly for her own.
He pulled from her body, rolled to the side and slid his hand between her legs, caressing and stroking her taut flesh. He lowered his head to her breast and sucked her nipple into his mouth, laving it with his tongue as he pressed another finger inside.
His thumb rolled over her clitoris, his fingers worked deep and his mouth tugged relentlessly at her breast. Her surroundings blurred and the coiling tension suddenly snapped, unraveling at super speed.
“Rafael!”
Her back came off the mattress and her hand went to his hair, gripping, her fingers curling into his nape as she went rigid underneath him.
Her release was sharp. It was sweet. It was intense. It was one of the most shattering experiences of her life. She was left clinging to him, saying his name over and over incoherently as she came down.
He continued to stroke her, more gently than before, sweetly and comfortingly as she settled beneath him, her body quivering and shaking like she’d experienced a great shock.
Her mind couldn’t quite put it all together yet. All she knew was that it had never been this way between them before. She was…shattered. There was no other way to put it. And completely and utterly vulnerable before him. Bare. Stripped.
He gathered her close, holding her tightly as they both fought for breath. His hands seemed to be everywhere. Caressing. Touching. Soothing. He kissed her hair, her temple, her cheek and even her eyelids.
The one thing that seemed to penetrate the haze that surrounded her was that however undone she was, he’d been equally affected.
She wrapped herself around him as tightly as he was wound around her, snuggled her face into the hollow of his neck and drifted into a fuzzy sleep, so sated that she couldn’t have moved if she wanted to.
Fifteen
Bryony woke to warm kisses along her shoulder and hands possessively stroking her body.
“Mmm,” she murmured as she lazily stretched.
“Oh, good, you’re awake. I’d hate to think I was taking advantage of a sleeping woman.”
She laughed. “Oh, I bet.”
“I have a lot to make up for,” he said.
He slid his mouth down the midline of her chest and then over the swell of one breast.
“You do?”
He traced the puckered crest of her nipple with his tongue and then sucked gently. He let go and looked up to meet her gaze. In the soft glow of her bedside lamp, she could see regret simmering in his eyes.
“Evidently I have no control when it comes to you. I wanted to make it good for you. I wanted it to last. I didn’t take care of you very well. I guess it goes along with my selfish-bastard ways.”
She rolled her eyes and lifted her palm to caress the side of his face. “If I had been any more satisfied I think I would have died. I like that I drove you a little wild.”