Chapter 23
A lexandra
I tossed the lace mask and steadied my shaking hand to beckon Raphael. “Don’t make me ask twice.”
He braced himself against the wall, his gaze glued to my breasts in a way that had me sit taller on his bed. Arch my spine to give him a better view. I was in love with how his chest rose and fell on a heavy breath. Enamoured with the instant tent in his shorts.
His focus returned to my eyes. “Fuck it. Let me make ye feel good.”
He released the tight hold he had on himself and crossed the room, kneeling on the mattress to slide an arm around me. His lips took mine, and I melted back onto the sheets with a whimper of need.
At last. I’d wanted this so badly I could cry. His warm fingers on my skin. His lips parting mine so he could taste me. It had been a night of endless drama, and the excitement in leaving had been wrapped up in the man I’d escaped with. I craved Raphael. Needed to feel him all over me.
He needed to touch me, too. I knew from how his hand splayed across my back when our kiss turned hot and heavy. He groaned, and something deep inside me liquefied.
Somehow, we worked together so well. We met and clashed and took in a perfect rhythm that skyrocketed my spiralling need to the point of insanity.
I had to know he wanted me just as much. I reached between us.
Raphael caught my wrist and extended my arm above my head, snatching up the other to do the same so he had both in a light but firm hold against the pillows.
Desperation burned through me. “Don’t say I can’t touch you.”
His focus slid down my exposed skin. “No, princess. This is all about ye. Christ, your body is incredible.”
“Please. At least let me see you. Take off your shirt.”
Surprise registered in his eyes, but he blinked it away. “Keep your hands there and I will.”
I nodded feverishly, and he sat back to strip his t-shirt, dropping it to the floor. Broad shoulders and strong arms filled my vision, while he laid a hungry kiss on my cheek.
“You’re still bleeding, aye?”
My mouth fell open. I was on the last day of my period and had a tampon in. I’d forgotten. He hadn’t. With a groan of embarrassment, I hid my face.
Raphael caught my hands again. “What did I say about keeping these above your head?”
“But I’m…”
“I’ll stay clear of the danger zone.”
My surprised laugh changed into a sound of desire as he caught my lips again, one big palm sliding up my rib cage to touch my breasts. Finally.
He cupped and moulded me, breaking the kiss to move down my body. If I wasn’t imagining things, his hands shook. It only made me burn more for him, my skin electric and my nipples hard. When he encased one in his lips, a burst of relief rocked me. He sucked on me, and I nearly died, my pulse skipping.
“So fucking perfect,” he muttered to my chest.
His hand on my thigh eased toward the hem of the small pair of sleep shorts I’d picked out for the warm evening. My knees fell open to give him access. I didn’t know what it was about this man. How he had a hotwired path to my central nervous system. But it was real and vivid, and each new place his hands or lips touched drove me that much closer to the edge.
Maybe it was the control he kept over himself. Even now, even with my nipple in his mouth and his fingertips moving to my inner thigh, he was holding back.
I wanted him to break. To fall into the mess of need I was in.
He brushed over my clit through my sleep shorts, and I jerked at the deep pulse of pleasure. Raphael released my breast with a wet pop and sat back, a question in his eyes, and a hand at my waistband.
“Don’t you dare stop,” I ordered.
“Yes, ma’am.”
His smirk turned devilish, and he brought his mouth to mine at the same moment his fingers eased into my last remaining item of clothing, right where I needed them to be. He skimmed over the apex of my thighs as if learning my shape, then cupped me between the legs.
I could have cried in relief. I bucked my hips, and he relented to press a delicious circle into my clit. God, yes, this. Raphael repeated the action. He wound me up in tantalising touches, all the while kissing me with the same dedication I’d seen in how he’d guarded me.
His free hand squeezed my hip then skimmed my waist to work my breasts again. All I knew was him. Every place on my body he touched. All the ways in which he gave me this incredible feeling.
Stretched out under him, I caught alight, an orgasm closing in fast, and moved my hips to chase it against his hand. The steadfast man kept the same pace, delivering exactly what I needed far faster than I believed possible.
It hit me like a wrecking ball, slamming into me so hard I nearly blacked out. I couldn’t recall the last time someone else had made me come, but this erased every other memory. Every other touch than his.
I cried out, and Raphael swallowed the sound, an echoing groan faintly piercing my heady state and bringing me back to earth while my body sang with absolute joy.
Nothing had ever felt that good. A fast-delivered orgasm at the hands of a man I trusted more than I trusted myself.
“God,” I whispered. “You’re so good.”
Raphael shivered. If I hadn’t been paying him all the attention, I could’ve missed it. but my words had impact.
He liked the praise.
I might have come, but need still rose in me because he’d been left hanging. I clutched him to me, keeping our kiss going, and loving his fresh burst of energy. He wasn’t done. He might’ve said this was all about me, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t reciprocate.
Pushing up, I tugged him to lie next to me. Then I straddled him. Urgency sparked in Raphael’s eyes, and his hands landed on my hips. I was beginning to get obsessed with how he responded to me. At last, I had his strong body under my hands. I grazed my fingertips over those bulky shoulders, loving the feel of his hard muscles.
“You’re beautiful,” I told him.
Under me, his dick pulsed. His grip on me tightened.
“I’ve never come so hard.” I traced my fingertips down his abs, loving the flat planes of his tensed belly, and even more how his breathing caught and his eyes shuttered closed.
Praise really did work with him.
How had it taken me weeks to notice this?
“I want to return the favour.” I watched him for the expected reaction.
Raphael didn’t disappoint. He masked his obvious need and shook his head once, his desperation so close to the surface but held back by rigid control. “I said this was all about ye, after ye were almost drugged tonight and scared out of your mind. Taking pleasure from ye would be wrong.”
I ran my hands up my body and palmed my breasts, squeezing them. His gaze followed, and desire practically shone from him. Matching urgency built in me.
“You’re trying very hard to be honourable, but that isn’t what I need right now. I need you with me, feeling what I’m feeling. Be a good boy and let me touch you.”
With a rasp of breath, he threw a forearm over his eyes, his hips bucking into me at the same time. “Just kiss me.”
That, I could do.
Leaning in, I brought my mouth to his and claimed his lips, taking the lead on a soft kiss. Raphael let me explore but kept his eyes closed. I could spend days kissing him. Letting the shape of his mouth become the centre of my world. This morning, he’d been clean-shaven, but scruff lined his cheeks now, rough against my skin and delicious.
When I tried to grind on him again, he grabbed my hips to hold me firm. It felt more like the lingering evidence of his restraint.
I didn’t want him to hold back when it came to me. I couldn’t with him. From the start, from our very first dance, he’d turned my head. Weeks of having him guard me had been a slow and gradual turn-on. Everywhere I looked, he filled my vision. I needed him to feel the same.
“I want to make you feel good, too,” I whispered. “Nothing’s wrong with me. You saved me from that.”
He didn’t answer, only giving me an infuriating smirk. “Still needy, princess?”
With a burst of power, he rose and flipped me to my back so I landed with a bounce on the mattress, then he was yanking off my sleep shorts and pushing my thighs apart.
His hot mouth landed between my legs.
I cried out, but there was no pause. No second to wonder over the change. Raphael sucked my still-swollen clit into his mouth and flicked me with his tongue. I keened out and fisted the sheets, lost on the sight of him right there , worshipping me. It should’ve been me tasting him, not the other way around, yet I could barely think around the onslaught of pleasure he generated with steady pressure and generous licks and sucks.
He palmed my waist then eased both hands up to squeeze my breasts. I moaned, rewarded when he squeezed my nipples in time with his sucks. Oh God, he was good.
Good at driving me crazy, good at taking the reins.
Incredible at getting me off.
I shouldn’t have been ready to come again so easily, yet he anticipated me and drove to that cliff before launching me over it. I climaxed a second time then sobbed and clung to his head, dimly aware of his low chuckle and one last lick that had my legs jerking.
We weren’t done. Not by a long chalk. One night with my hot bodyguard, and it was game over, even if tomorrow I would leave.
When the last of my pulses eased up, Raphael crawled up to hug me, burying his face next to mine. Neither of us spoke. Only breathed together as I came down from my delicious high.
I sensed his frustration. Saw it in the tightness of his jaw.
It was clear as day I wasn’t allowed to reciprocate with him.
After long minutes, he reached for my shorts, tugging them back up, then snapped the light off, plunging us into darkness. Raphael kissed me, as if the last thing he wanted to know was the taste of my lips.
Exhaustion and deep satisfaction claimed me. I didn’t want to leave him tomorrow. Only this made sense in my world of chaos. Yet in his arms, I settled then finally slept.