It was an assurance that took some of the tension out of her as they continued to sway together like that. Though it felt strange, very strange, to be held this close by a man she hardly even knew.
She was used to dancing with Piers, but Rafe was so much bigger than Piers—harder than Piers, she added, with a new feeling of breathlessness as her senses registered the tight firmness of the well-structured bone and muscle she was being pressed gently up against
With Piers, who was so much more slender and lithe, she’d used to feel quite equal to him when they had danced like this. But with Rafe she felt small and rather delicate—‘female’ was the surprising word which flashed into her mind. No match at all, in fact, for the latent power he exuded.
And where Piers had always been laughing, chatting, teasing, full of a light-hearted exuberance she’d always found easy to respond to, Rafe was quiet and more controlled about everything he did.
Yet, she realised, though she might have found Piers easier to be around, in a situation like this, where she felt stressed out, vulnerable and tired beyond belief, she would rather have Rafe’s quiet, solid presence than Piers’ noisy exuberance.
‘Rafe,’ she thought contentedly, and didn’t even know she had sighed his name out loud as she relaxed more heavily against him.
But he heard it. His expression was difficult to define, but the way he gently lifted her hands up and placed them round his neck before he gathered her in even closer was a message in itself—if Shaan had been alert enough to pick up on it.
As it was, she simply lifted her face to smile at him—then found herself drowning in a pair of darkened grey eyes which held her utterly transfixed.
It was desire she read there, a desire Rafe was doing absolutely nothing to hide from her. It made her lips part on a soft, breathy gasp as full awareness shivered through her. Then, as if that soft gasp was the answer to some question he’d been asking, Rafe lowered his mouth down onto hers.
She stopped moving, the arrival of that mouth rendering her utterly breathless while she absorbed with a shock how pleasant she found the contact.
But this was Rafe, she told herself hazily.
It made no difference; his lips began to move gently on her own and she found herself instinctively responding.
And in the middle of a dance floor, in the middle of a restaurant packed full of people, something began to slowly erupt inside her.
The eruption of an answering desire.
It went quivering through her like a feathery caress on her most intimate senses. She arched her spine so she instinctively moved closer to its source, her fingers curling into the silk-fine hair at his nape, her heart breaking into a clamouring stammer.
It didn’t last long, barely more than a few seconds, but her breathing was fractured by the time he drew away again, and her eyes were glazed by confusion.
‘Now you look as a woman should look on her wedding night,’ he murmured. And, with that one softly voiced sentence, broke the spell completely.
Was that why he’d done it? Kissed her like that simply to create the right impression for the benefit of his friends?
Relief swept through her—followed so quickly by a disturbing sense of acute disappointment that it actually stunned her for the few moments it took her to pull herself together.
No; she denied it. Don’t be stupid. Rafe doesn’t want you. And you certainly don’t want Rafe! You’re just so tired at the moment you’re capable of mistaking anything right now—even a light kiss aimed exclusively at adding a little authenticity to this relationship!
‘Can we leave now?’ she asked a little desperately.
‘Of course,’ he agreed. ‘I would even go as far as to say it is expected of us that we do leave.’
Because he had achieved what he had set out to achieve, she acknowledged suddenly, feeling so heartsore and weary that the tiredness she had been trying to hold at bay all evening dropped over her like a big black cloud.
CHAPTER SIX
SHAAN had almost totally succumbed to the cloud by the time they got back to the hotel, and Rafe had to prop her up in a corner of the lift and hold her there with his hands while they were transported upwards.
The sound of his softly amused laughter was like the final nail in the coffin of her sense of exhaustion. ‘It isn’t funny,’ she protested, complainingly. ‘You’ve put me through hell today, and I think you did it all quite deliberately.’
‘Maybe,’ he half conceded.
‘I feel like I’ve been awake for ever,’ she sighed.
‘Shaan…’ he said softly. ‘It’s only ten o’clock in the evening.’
‘What?’ Her lashes flickered upwards so she could stare at him in disbelief.
He arched an eyebrow in mockery at her, his eyes still laughing. It surprised her, because she had never seen laughter in his expression before, and it was nice, contagious. She found herself smiling with him, albeit ruefully.
‘People tend to eat late here,’ he explained. ‘They like to make a night of it. But I only agreed to that dinner if we ate early, otherwise you’d only be looking at your second course by now.’
Good grief. She shuddered. ‘Aren’t you tired?’ she asked him then. After all, he had been awake as long as she had.
He didn’t answer for a moment. Then, ‘I’m used to it,’ he answered casually.
Then the lift stopped, and she was having to drag herself upright—with Rafe’s help again, his arm sliding around her waist to offer support during the walk down the corridor to their room.
It was sheer bliss to step inside there and know that this was it. No more diversions. She could crawl into bed and just die.
She didn’t even care that they were going to have to share that bed tonight. The way she was feeling right now, Rafe could even have his evil way with her—so long as he didn’t wake her up while he was doing it.
She felt that done in.
Someone had turned down the bed while they’d been out, and an oyster silk nightdress had been artistically arranged on one side of the bed, a pair of black silk pyjamas on the other.
Stubbornly ignoring the pyjamas, she picked up the nightdress and took it with her to the bathroom. Five minutes later, hair brushed loose, face scrubbed clean of make-up, she crawled into the bed, pulled the sheet over her shoulder and dropped like a stone into a deep, dark pool of warm slumber…
She drifted awake once during the long night. And she awoke frowning, aware of the alien presence of a weight lying across her body. Her eyes fluttered open then just stared, and a tingling sensation shivered through her when she found herself staring directly into another face, lying no more than a foot away from her own.
Rafe.
Rafe, sleeping beside her, his thick lashes lying in two graceful crescents on his prominent cheekbones, mouth relaxed, lips slightly parted, breathing deep and soft and steady.
Sharing a bed with anyone was a new experience for her. Sharing a bed with a man was totally alien and strangely…intriguing—that she could lie here like this reasonably assured of her own safety while he was obviously so unaware.
In the still, quiet darkness she could just make out a naked shoulder and the shadowy outline of dark body hair on his wide chest, the sheet having been pushed down to somewhere between the beginnings of his ribcage and his lean, tight waist.
She could feel his breath on her face, feel the warmth coming from his body and the weight of his arm where it rested in the curving hollow of her hip. She could see through the dimness the rich gold colour of his skin, see the way his body’s natural oils laid a polished sheen over well developed muscles—
No pyjamas, she realised with a sudden widening of her eyes in shocked consternation. He had dared to climb into bed with her wearing nothing!
Or at least nothing on his top half. But—no, she told herself. Surely he wouldn’t be so insensitive as to have left off his pyjama bottoms too?
Well, one thing was for sure—she wasn’t going
to check.
But her eyes drifted lower, to the long, curving shape of him hidden by the covers. And, on a tell-tale moistening of her lips, she found herself wondering what the rest of him was like, her mind conjuring up pictures that had her blushing even if they were only pictures in her own mind.
She had never once caught herself imagining what Piers would look like undressed. For all their sometimes quite passionate interludes, she had never felt this almost uncontrollable urge to touch his naked skin, experience its warmth and its texture, as she was having to struggle against doing now with Rafe.
But then, she added heavily, she had never lain like this with Piers. He had never allowed things between them to get this far before carefully cooling things down, smiling—always smiling, his excuses full of words like ‘love’ and ‘respect’, telling her what they had was ‘too special to rush’.
But now, with hindsight, she had to wonder if it had merely been indifference. If there had been no light of passion to make him want to touch her more intimately.
Or to have her touch him.
A shadow moved over her heart—the dark knowledge of inadequacy that she had a horrible feeling was going to be the real legacy Piers’ rejection had left behind him.
‘Shaan?’
As always when thoughts of Piers tormented her mind, Rafe’s voice, deep and husky, broke through the heavy clouds, catching her exposed, vulnerable, as she lifted tear-washed eyes up to his face to find him awake and studying her sombrely.
‘Forget him,’ he said gruffly. ‘He isn’t worth the heartache.’
‘He didn’t want me,’ she whispered bleakly, laying bare for this man of all men what should be her darkest, deepest secret.
His sigh was heavy, his smoky-grey eyes darkening with shadows of his own. Then that arm moved, tightening across her waist and drawing her closer to that warm, hard body she had been wanting so badly to get closer to. His mouth found hers, moulding it, gently searching, and she didn’t pull away, didn’t stiffen in rejection, didn’t do anything but let herself sink into the comfort he seemed to be offering her.
It went on and on, like a warm blending in the darkness, where pleasure overlaid sadness and instinctively she was drawn even closer towards it. Her hand reached up, touching the warm, tight flesh of his upper arm, then his shoulder, fingers sliding in a slow, tentative exploration which stopped when they reached the cording in his neck, where they curled and clung at the same time as a shaky little sigh broke from her and her lips parted.
Rafe lifted his head—only enough so he could look deeply into her dark, vulnerable eyes. ‘I want you, Shaan,’ he murmured. ‘I want you so badly, I’m prepared to take anything you want to give me.’ He moved, gently turning her onto her back so he was half leaning over her. Her hand was still curled around his nape; his reached up to cup her cheek. ‘And in return I can promise to wipe Piers right out of your mind,’ he vowed. ‘The point is, do you want me to?’
Did she? Shaan gazed into those eyes that had gone almost as dark as her own, and was overwhelmed by a desire to simply dive right into them. He was telling the truth when he said he wanted her; she could feel it in the unsteady throb of his heart against her breast, see it burning in the darkness of those eyes and the way his fingers were trembling slightly where they rested against her cheek.
Rafe wanted her, and her own senses responded by turning to warm, sensual liquid that began to pump desire through her body, an answering desire she was just too vulnerable to resist.
‘Yes,’ she heard herself say in a soft, breathy murmur. She wanted to feel that mouth warm on her own again, feel that same rush of pleasure, lose herself in it. Lose herself in him. ‘Yes, I want you to…’
He didn’t pause, didn’t give her time to have second thoughts about that decision. His mouth closed on hers again, and she did not try to fight him. Instead she let her palms slide over tight, corded muscles, felt the spread of a warm pleasure unfold inside her, and on a soft sigh offered herself in full surrender.
Rafe desired her. And for her there was no stronger aphrodisiac than to know she was desirable to someone.
Though not just anyone; she made that fine but important distinction for the sake of her own self-respect.
This was Rafe. The man she was married to. The only man she should give herself to.
Oh, God, make this good for me, she prayed silently as Rafe received all the right messages and deepened the kiss to a sense-searing passion. Make it good for him.
His hand slid down over the taut wall of her stomach, along her silk-covered thigh, until he found the hem of her nightdress. With an economy of effort, he stripped the whole thing from her body. And for one more brief moment, as she lay there naked and exposed to the burning lash of his gaze, she was given the chance to change her mind about this.
Then his hand was caressing her, his head lowering to pull one pulsing nipple into his mouth, and the moment was lost in the turmoil that took place inside her.
He explored her as no man had ever explored her, with mouth and tongue and knowing fingers, feeding the steadily growing ache inside her until it was impossible to lie still without…something—she didn’t know what—and a soft whimper of distress broke in her throat, her hands reaching out in search of that elusive something.
Rafe put himself there, his strong arms closing around her as he claimed her mouth with a hunger that took her breath away.
‘Rate,’ she whispered in near desperation at the speed with which she was being carried along with him.
‘Yes,’ he breathed, as if in answer to some question she wasn’t aware of asking. ‘I know, Shaan. I know…’
No, you don’t, she thought hazily as his mouth came back to ravish hers and his caresses grew bolder, more sure in their understanding of what could send her wild with uncontrollable pleasure. Then, with a low, deep groan of helpless frustration, she moved restlessly beneath him.
He shifted his weight, coming to hover above her, the muscles in his arms braced either side of her as at last he lowered himself between her thighs. And she was sliding her hands up the wall of his chest—feeling the pound of his heart as it thundered against his ribs, the heat of his skin, the tremor of need held under rigid control—and she exalted in the whole of it.
This was for her. He was experiencing all of this because of her!
But she had a moment’s fear when she felt the physical evidence of his desire for the first time. And, though his entry was gentle, she clutched at his shoulders, fingernails digging into firm muscle, tense, breathless, her body quivering in anxious anticipation of that telling final thrust.
It halted him. He withdrew a little. ‘Shaan?’
No! She shook her head, her eyes pinched tightly shut in denial.
‘Shaan!’
The voice of command. She responded to it, lifting dark lashes to find his expression so achingly sombre that she let out a wretched little whimper of despair.
He knew the truth. He saw the truth. He now knew that Piers hadn’t even wanted her enough to take this from her.
She saw his kiss-softened mouth pull down slightly at one corner in a wry little gesture that brought a wash of tears to her eyes. ‘Please, Rafe,’ she whispered, too terrified that he was going to withdraw altogether to care that she was begging.
If anything, his eyes went blacker, a flash of terrible sadness crossing them, and, wretchedly, she knew that sadness was for her.
‘You fool,’ he muttered. ‘You beautiful fool.’
Then he bent down to kiss her once, very gently. And, with a firming of his features, pushed deeper again, taking what she was offering him in a single, smooth thrust that broke more than the seal of her virginity. It broke for ever her belief that you had to love someone to feel as wonderful as this.
The short, sharp shock of pain was nothing. The blinding shaft of sensual pleasure which followed it was everything. He filled her, and she gloried in the sensation, her thighs widening, drawing him dee
per, legs wrapping round his taut, thrusting frame. And her arms brought him even closer, close enough for her mouth to fix itself onto his.
And, in that hot, tight, all-encompassing joining of body and mouths and minds, she willed the wild rhythm to take them over. The pounding beat of his heart and the gasping rasp of his breath against the bruising crush of her mouth were all-necessary, so necessary to the very substance that was driving her—a need to be wanted like this. A need to know she had the power to drive a man out of his mind like this.
Rafe drove harder, and on a bursting leap of triumphant exultation she felt herself catch hold of the supreme goal. It sang through her blood like the skittering crackle of electric lightning, then burst into a fire-flood of unrestrained rapture.
And, on a sudden blinding, bright flash of insight, she knew that Piers’ rejection had been his own misfortune, not hers!
She had survived it. She was whole. She was a warm and sensual, desirable woman.
Rafe followed her, the tight, pulsing muscles dancing wildly inside her driving him to a deep, hot, throbbing release that convulsed his body and locked the air in his throat as they fused together on that wild, wild leap into ecstasy. It kept them like that throughout the whole dizzy, spiralling downward journey back to sanity. where they lay in a tangle of hot, sweat-slicked, muscle-wasted limbs, his body heavy on her, hers turned to a warm, somnolent liquid as their hearts thundered and their heaving lungs struggled to recover.
Then the silence came, and with it reality.
Rafe eased himself from her. Shaan kept her eyes closed, aware of the tears hovering behind her eyelids, aware that she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She knew that although he might have started it it was she who had damned well finished it, driving him on with excuses that seemed utterly inadequate now the need for them was no longer there.
Suddenly she began to shiver, feeling ice cold as reaction set in. Rafe reached out to tug the tangle of sheet from beneath her and covered them with it. But even as she huddled greedily into it he was pulling her to him, his hand firm as he stayed her struggles, flipped her over, curved her into the possessive hook-of his body and held her there while she shook like a terrified animal.
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