Chapter 22
Rafe
Igrabbed her dress from the floor, holding the emerald silk in hands that weren't quite steady.
My body throbbed with unsatisfied need, but I ignored it.
Tonight was about showing Cecelia my world, not taking my own pleasure.
Still, as I watched her sprawled on the leather couch, flushed and spent from her orgasms, my resolve wavered.
I'd never wanted anyone the way I wanted her—raw and desperate and dangerously close to obsession.
"Here," I murmured as I held out her dress. "We should get you dressed and head home."
She didn't take it. Instead, her hand shot out and wrapped around my wrist, her grip surprisingly strong for someone who looked so thoroughly debauched.
Her hair was a wild tangle around her face, her lips swollen from my kisses, her naked body bearing the faint red marks of my fingers and mouth.
Something primitive inside me took satisfaction in the visible proof that she'd been mine, even if just for tonight.
"I'm not ready to leave yet," she said, her voice a throaty rasp that sent fresh heat to my already painful erection.
I swallowed hard. "Cecelia—"
"I'm not finished with you." Her eyes, those impossibly green eyes that haunted my dreams, held mine with a challenge I couldn't look away from. "You've shown me your world. Now I want to see you in it."
Blood roared in my ears, drowning out the sounds from beyond the glass where the couple was still lost in each other. "What exactly do you want?" I asked, fighting to keep my voice even, to maintain some semblance of control when everything in me was screaming to take, claim, and possess.
She released my wrist and rose to her knees on the couch, putting us at eye level. This close, I could see the flecks of gold in her irises, could feel the heat radiating from her body.
"I want to see you lose control." Her fingers found the top button of my shirt and slowly worked it free. "You've watched me fall apart three times now. I want to see what you look like when you do the same."
The second button slipped free under her nimble fingers. I could have stopped her. Should have stopped her. This wasn't what tonight was supposed to be about. But with Cecelia, all my careful boundaries were collapsing, all my rules were being rewritten.
"Do you know what you're asking for?" The words scraped the inside of my throat.
Cecelia just smiled and undid a third button, her fingers brushing against the bare skin of my chest. "I think so," she said, leaning forward to press her lips to the newly exposed skin.
"I'm asking to see the real Rafael de Luca.
Not the one who controls everything and everyone.
Not the one who keeps the world at arm's length. "
Her tongue traced a hot path up my sternum to my throat, and something inside me snapped.
I grabbed her wrist and wrenched it behind her back, using it as leverage to pull her flush against me.
Her gasp of surprise vibrated against my lips as I claimed her mouth in a kiss that did not have a single note of gentleness in it.
All the hunger I'd been suppressing, all the need I'd denied burst free as my tongue plunged into the sweet heat of her mouth.
She didn't pull away. Didn't even struggle. Instead, she pressed closer, her free hand tangling in my hair as she returned the kiss with equal ferocity. The taste of her flooded my senses, making me drunk on her in a way that terrified the part of me still capable of rational thought.
"This what you want?" I growled against her lips, yanking her head back to expose the elegant line of her throat. "To see me lose control? To feel what happens when I stop holding back?"
"Yes," she breathed, the word barely audible over the thundering of my heart. "Show me."
I trailed open-mouthed kisses down her neck, feeling her pulse race beneath my lips. Each heartbeat was a drumbeat urging me on, telling me to mark her, to claim her, to make her truly mine in ways that went beyond our paper marriage.
My mouth found the juncture where her neck met her shoulder, and I bit down hard enough to make her cry out.
The sound was pure pleasure, a desperate, needy whimper that broke through the last of my restraint.
I soothed the sting with my tongue before moving lower, dragging my mouth across her collarbone, down to the soft swell of her breast.
"Fuck, you're perfect," I muttered against her skin, releasing her wrist so I could cup both breasts in my hands.
The weight of them, the softness, the way her nipples hardened against my palms—all of it sent fresh waves of desire crashing through me.
"I've thought about these tits since the first time I saw you. "
Her breath caught. "You have?"
I looked up, meeting her gaze. "I've thought about them," I confirmed, my thumbs circling her nipples in teasing strokes.
"About how they'd feel in my hands. In my mouth.
" I leaned down and took one nipple between my teeth, tugging lightly before soothing it with a swirl of my tongue.
"About how my cock would look between them. "
A full-body shudder ran through her at my words. And I sucked her nipple into my mouth, flicking my tongue against the hardened peak as my hand kneaded her other breast. The sounds she made drove me wild.
"What if..." I began, the words emerging rough and uneven as I pulled back to look at her. "What if I said I wanted to fuck your tits?"
Her pupils dilated, nearly swallowing the green of her irises. She licked her lips, a gesture so unconsciously erotic I nearly groaned. "Then I'd ask you what you were waiting for."
Fuck. This woman would be the death of me.
I stood, making quick work of my remaining shirt buttons before shrugging it off.
Cecelia's eyes devoured me, her gaze hungry as it traveled across my chest, lingering on the tattoo that spilled over my shoulder and down my arm.
When her fingers reached out to trace the fallen angel inked into my bicep, I nearly lost it.
"Lie back," I commanded, unbuckling my belt with hands that were far less steady than I'd like. "All the way."
She complied immediately, settling back against the arm of the couch, her head cushioned on the soft leather.
I kicked off my shoes and pushed my pants and boxers down in one motion, finally freeing my cock.
It jutted out, hard and aching, the head already glistening with pre-cum.
Cecelia's eyes widened, her tongue darting out to wet her lower lip in a gesture that nearly made me come on the spot.
Moving carefully, I positioned myself above her, straddling her ribs with my knees on either side of her torso.
Like this, my cock lay heavy between her breasts and the contrast of my olive skin against her paler complexion made me throb with need.
I gathered her breasts in my hands and pushed them together to create a channel for my cock.
"Fuck," I groaned as I slid between her breasts. "So good."
Cecelia watched with rapt fascination as the head of my cock emerged from between her breasts, then disappeared again. The sight was obscene and beautiful all at once—my cock sliding between those perfect tits, her eyes wide and dark with desire, and those perfect lips parted in wonder.
"Look at you," I said, voice dropping to a rough growl as I established a rhythm. "You like this, don't you? Like watching me lose control for you."
She nodded as her hands came up to cover mine, adding pressure to the soft flesh of her breasts. "Yes," she admitted, and the vulnerability in that single word nearly stopped my heart. "I like knowing I can make you feel this way."
I wouldn't last. Not with the heat of her skin against mine, not with the visual of my cock disappearing between her breasts, not with the knowledge that she was letting me use her body for my pleasure without asking for anything in return.
It was too much. She was too much.
"Spit," I ordered, and when she looked confused, I clarified, "On my cock. The next time it comes up."
Understanding dawned in her eyes, and the next time the head of my cock emerged from between her breasts, she leaned forward slightly and let a string of saliva fall from her mouth onto the sensitive tip.
The added lubrication, combined with the erotic sight of her mouth so close to my cock, sent electricity down my spine.
"Fuck, yes," I hissed, increasing my pace. "Just like that. So fucking perfect."
My rhythm grew erratic as the pressure built at the base of my spine, as heat coiled tighter and tighter in my groin. I was close, so fucking close, and some dim part of my brain recognized that I should pull away, should finish somewhere else, but I couldn't bring myself to stop.
"I'm going to come," I warned, voice strangled. "All over these perfect tits."
Cecelia's eyes locked with mine. "Do it," she said, and that simple permission was all it took.
My release hit me like a freight train, pleasure exploding behind my lids as I emptied myself onto her chest and neck.
Wave after wave crashed through me, leaving me shaking and gasping her name like a prayer.
For a moment, my vision actually whited out as the intensity of my orgasm stole my sight and left me reeling.
When I came back to myself, Cecelia was watching me with a small, satisfied smile, as if she'd just discovered some great secret. I looked down at the mess I'd made of her and felt a strange mixture of pride and tenderness.
Without speaking, I reached for her underwear in my discarded pants and used it to gently clean her off.
My hands trembled slightly as I wiped away the evidence of my pleasure from her soft skin.
This part felt almost more intimate than the act itself—this careful tending to her afterward, this unspoken acknowledgment of what we'd shared.
"I think," I said, voice still not quite steady, "it's time to go home."
She caught my hand as I finished cleaning her and pressed it flat against her chest where I could feel the strong, steady beat of her heart. "That was incredible," she said softly. "You're incredible."
Something shifted between us in that moment, something fundamental and irreversible. This wasn't just physical anymore, wasn't just a marriage of convenience or an arrangement of mutual benefit. This was something else entirely, something that scared the hell out of me even as I craved more of it.
I leaned down and pressed my lips to hers in a gentle kiss that bore none of the earlier savagery. "Let's go home," I repeated against her mouth. "Our home."
The word felt different now. Home. Not just my penthouse where she happened to stay, but our space, our sanctuary.
As I helped her dress and put myself back together, I knew with absolute certainty that nothing would ever be the same.
Whatever boundaries I'd tried to maintain, whatever distance I'd insisted on keeping, it was all gone now, swept away by the tidal wave of what had happened between us.
And for the first time in my life, I didn't mind losing control.