Chapter 12
Twelve
Persia
His mouth claims mine with a hunger that steals the breath from my lungs and replaces it with fire.
The sheets beneath my back are cool cotton, a stark contrast to the blazing heat of Rafael's body as he settles between my thighs.
I swallow hard, my body flushed with heat and tingles.
He is still fully clothed while I lie bare beneath him, and the imbalance of power should terrify me.
Instead, it ignites something primal in my core, a need I have never felt before and do not fully understand.
“You are trembling.” His voice is rough against my lips, his dark eyes searching my face for something I cannot name. “Are you afraid? Of me, or what we are about to do?”
“No.” The word comes out steadier than I expect, because it is the truth.
I am not afraid of this man who crashed my wedding and claimed me as his prize.
I am not afraid of the pleasure he has already given me or the pain I know will come when he takes what I offered on a scrap of silk three weeks ago. “I am not afraid of you, Rafael.”
Something shifts in his expression, a crack in the armor he wears like a second skin. His thumb traces the curve of my cheekbone with a tenderness that makes my heart stutter in my chest.
“You should be.” The confession sounds like it costs him something precious. “I am not a good man, little dove. I have done terrible things. I will do terrible things again. And now I am going to take something from you that you can never get back.”
I reach up and frame his face in my hands, forcing him to meet my eyes. “I am giving it to you. There is a difference."
The sound he makes is somewhere between a groan and a prayer, and then his mouth is on mine again and his hands are everywhere, mapping the curves of my body like he is committing every inch to memory.
He strips off his shirt and I finally get to see what I have only felt in the darkness of our shared bed, the hard planes of his chest covered in ink that tells stories I want to spend a lifetime learning.
The viper on his hand has brothers across his torso, serpents and roses and Latin words that curl around his ribs like secrets waiting to be whispered.
I trace the lines with trembling fingers, feeling the raised edges of old scars beneath the artwork, and I understand without being told that this man has survived things that would have destroyed someone weaker.
“You are beautiful,” I breathe, and the surprise that flickers across his face tells me no one has ever said those words to him before.
He captures my wrist and brings my palm to his lips, pressing a kiss to the center that sends electricity sparking through my veins. “Not as beautiful as you.”
His trousers join the pile of discarded clothing on the floor, and then there is nothing between us except anticipation and the thundering of my heart. He is impressive in every way, thick and long and hard with want, and a fresh wave of nervousness washes through me at the sight.
Fire flashes between us. He comes over me and kneels between my spread thighs. He grips his gorgeous cock and works the hard length to the base all the way up to the tip. The heat of his body turns into an all-consuming wave of need.
He lifts my leg with an easy glide of his hand beneath my knee.
“Was tonight the first time a man has touched you?”
His slow, deep voice works through me, relaxing my quivering muscles.
“Yes,” I offer in a whispered sigh.
“I will be the first and also the last. I promise.”
He wraps my legs around his middle and effortlessly lifts me to his lap. I reach for his thick cock. How can I not? It’s big, beautiful, and begging me to touch it. When my fingers wrap around the veined length, a primal rumble of appreciation lets me know he likes my touch as much as I like his.
“Don’t let me enter you, just glide over my cock and let our bodies meet. Let me feel your hot juices cover me.”
Together we move and grind against each other. The swollen head of his cock slips between my folds and I move over the top of him as he instructed. Not entering me, but doing a good job of destroying my control as he nudges against my clit. Waves of electricity wash through me.
Straddling him like this, I cling to him and whimper for more shamelessly.
He traps my mouth in a hard, claiming kiss. He tastes of my juices, wild passion, and wickedness.
Panting and trembling in his arms, I can’t find it in me to mask my true feelings. “I want you, Rafael. I want you to make me shatter and then tell me I’m pretty once you break me fully.”
He moves my hair from my shoulder and kisses the scars I forgot all about. “No one will ever break you. Ever. I will spend the rest of my time on this earth fixing what others tried to destroy.”
I don’t know what to say to that but add more truth to the moment between us.
I still over the top of him and bite down on my lower lip for a second as I try to find the words for what I need to say.
I wrap my arms around his neck and lean back to look him in the eye.
I never did like having something to say without seeing the other person’s eyes.
This probably isn’t the best time, but when is it? “About the scars,” I start.
The creases at the edges of his eyes soften. “You can tell me when you’re ready. Right now let me love you.”
I run my fingers through his hair and tilt my head sideways when he comes in and places a line of kisses along the column of my neck.
He lays me back and stands over me, gripping my hips.
Wordlessly, we lock gazes as I guide his cock to my entrance. My folds spread around his engorged head and ever so slowly I take him an inch at a time inside my virgin channel.
Panting and trembling in his arms, I can’t find it in me to take him the rest of the way inside me. “Rafael.” My mouth hinges open on a heavy groan. “It hurts.”
I tremble with the need to have him.
“It will hurt,” he says, reading my expression with the ease of a man who has been studying me for weeks. "You know the first time always does, little dove. But I will make it good for you, Persia. I swear on everything I am, I will make it good.”
He settles between my thighs and I feel the blunt head of him pressing against my entrance, hot and insistent. His eyes lock with mine as he begins to push forward, inch by devastating inch, and the stretch is unlike anything I have ever experienced.
“Let me help you.”
I swallow hard, my body flushed with heat and tingles. He holds me to him, steadying my trembling body.
It burns. It aches. It feels like being split in two by something too big to possibly fit inside me.
My channel stretches. I inhale sharply. And then he hits a barrier and pauses, his jaw clenched with the effort of holding himself back.
“Breathe, little dove. Just breathe.” He spreads kisses over my cheeks, forehead and then softly to my lips.
I did not realize I had stopped. I force air into my lungs, force my muscles to relax, and when he pushes through in one swift thrust, the sharp sting of pain makes me cry out against his shoulder.
I wrap my body around his and love the weight of him pressing me down. For the first time in my life I feel grounded.
With his eyes locked on mine, Rafael pulls out and sinks every inch in with one controlled thrust. My channel grips him and the bloom of fire deep in my core forces the air from my lungs.
The pain fades, replaced by a fullness that borders on overwhelming need to feel him move inside me.
He is everywhere, inside me and around me and consuming every sense I possess.
I can smell the cedar and smoke of his skin, taste the salt of sweat on my lips where I kissed his shoulder, feel the thundering of his heart against my chest where our bodies press together.
“Move.” The word comes out as a whisper plea. “Please, Rafael. Move.”
He obeys with a gentleness that breaks something inside me.
Long, slow strokes that let my body adjust to the invasion, that transform pain into pleasure with patient, devastating precision.
His thumb finds my clit and begins to circle in time with his thrusts, building the tension that has been coiling in my belly since he first touched me in his office.
“That’s it.” His voice is strained, rough with the effort of holding back. “Take what you need, little dove. Use me.”
I wrap my legs around his waist and pull him deeper, chasing the sensation that is building like a storm inside me. The angle changes and suddenly he is hitting a spot that makes stars explode behind my eyes, pleasure so intense it borders on pain.
“Rafael.” His name is a prayer on my lips. “I am going to—I cannot—”
"Let go." He drives into me harder, faster, his control finally snapping. “Come for me, Persia. Let me feel you fall apart around me.”
I whimper as he withdraws, grips my hips, and pounds into me so hard my insides feel like they are on fire. Delicious sweet torture. We move harder and faster until I can feel my orgasm building to the strength of a nuclear bomb fueled by untamed passion.
The orgasm crashes over me like a tidal wave, drowning me in sensation so intense that I forget how to breathe. I shatter beneath him, around him, my inner walls clenching so tight that he groans and follows me over the edge with a final, desperate thrust.
I feel him pulse inside me, hot and thick, filling me with his release as he buries his face in my neck and breathes my name like it is the only word he knows.
“Mine.”
His.
Am I his?
Am I not? He owns me. But what exactly does that mean?
“Am I?”
“Mine and only mine. No other man will ever touch or possess your beauty, Persia. No one but me.”
His words drip with finality, and I can’t find it in me to fight them.