by Amy Andrews
“Yes.”
He couldn’t hear her either but he could sure as hell read lips, her response easy to interpret in the glass.
Raf let loose then, stroking her hard and sure, quick and frantic until Faith was panting and squirming against his hand, rocking her hips, using the strictures of her clothing to increase the friction between his fingers and her flesh.
“Oh God,” she whispered, her hands clenching and unclenching in his hair as her legs started to tremble.
Raf shifted slightly, bringing the fronts of his thighs fully flush with the backs of hers. She sank into him, let him take her weight, his throbbing erection a very grateful beneficiary as he ramped up the pressure on her clit.
Within seconds her hip movements grew erratic, her mouth opening and closing, gasping and panting, her eyes screwing shut. Raf, his gaze glued to her reflection, had never seen anything so magnificent in his life.
She was so close.
He shoved his thumb into her pants as well, squeezing her slick, swollen clit, his other hand treating an engorged nipple to the same treatment.
Suddenly, everything stopped. Her body stiffened. The harsh suck of her breathing cut out, the rough jerk of her hips came to an abrupt halt, the convulsive clamp of her fingers in his hair was suddenly released.
But Raf didn’t stop, his fingers flew, kept going. “Yes,” he muttered into her ear. “Yes.”
A strange kind of keening was wrenched from her throat. Her eyes flew open wide and wondrous. And in that moment of climax she was looking at herself. Looking at him. Looking at his hands all over her. Watching herself get off. Watching him get her off.
They shut again just as abruptly as the orgasm rippled out and consumed her, shuddering and jerking her in his arms as she called out, “Yes,” over and over, filling his head like a benediction.
He stroked her until her movements lessened and her cries settled and she begged him to stop, her arm slipping from around his neck, her face turning into his neck, her soft curls falling across her cheek. He eased his hand out, sliding it onto her hip, his other arm braced across her breasts holding her close, holding her up.
He nuzzled her temple and waited for her to come back to herself.
*
Faith blinked as her surroundings slowly came into focus. His beachy smell laced with something heavier. The firm band of his forearm across her chest. The hardness of his thighs behind hers.
The press of his erection into the seam of her jeans.
Her heart rate had slowed but it beat hard, like it was trying to punch out of her chest. There was still a rasp to her breath.
She slowly turned her head until their gazes met in the glass. Objectively, she looked a wreck. Her curls were a wild tangle across her cheeks and forehead and splayed out over his shoulder, her clothes were parted, pulled down, pushed up, shoved aside, her body pretty much exposed. Faith tried to summon the will to care but frankly, with one of his arms positioned possessively across her breasts and the other in equal possession of her hip she was inclined to believe she’d never looked as good as she did plastered all over Raf.
She felt like she’d been disassembled then put back together again in a completely different way. And there was no going back.
“Hey,” he murmured. “You’re back.”
It seemed liked she’d been away for ever but she knew the reality had been embarrassingly short. “I’m sorry about that. It was a little…quick. It’s…been a while.”
“Don’t apologize. That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”
Faith shifted against him, tried to take some of her own weight now she felt more earthbound but his hand tightened on her hip. “You really shouldn’t move like that,” he muttered, his voice a low, agonized rumble.
The urgent press of his erection suddenly felt like an iron bar branding her butt. “Like this?” She shifted again, deliberately.
He shut his eyes on a groan. “God…like that.”
Faith took advantage of his distraction and turned in his arms. Her legs felt like marshmallow but she managed it, her bare breasts now squashed against the hard wall of his chest, her nipples all tight and tingly.
She raised herself up on her tiptoes, her arms circling his neck, her hands pushing in to his hair. “I think I can help you with that,” she whispered against his mouth then slid her lips onto his.
He groaned, sinking into the kiss, opening his mouth wide and demanding she do the same as he drove her head back with the force of his barely leashed passion. His hands found her ass, dragging her in closer, kneading it hard, building the friction between their bodies until she was, once again, panting hard.
“God,” Faith muttered, pulling away, her head reeling, her system already too weak to take more of his sexual prowess in any kind of an upright position. “Bed,” she said. “Before I fall down.”
Keeping hold of her ass and pulling her in tight, he walked her over in five strides, the backs of her legs hitting the edge of the mattress. He pulled at her clothes. She pulled at his until they were both naked and he was staring at her like she was covered in caramel sauce and chocolate buttons.
She put a hand on his chest and pushed him gently backwards grateful when he went with the flow, landing on his butt on the edge of the bed, his erection bobbing up enticingly from his lap. She slid her palms onto his shoulders and stepped between his legs.
He looked up at her. “What do you want?”
Faith’s heart beat like a gong. What she wanted scared the crap out of her. What she needed was different. “You,” she whispered, snagging her jeans off the bed and digging a trembling hand into the back pocket for the condoms Zel had given her. “In me.” She handed them to him. “Right now.”
He looked at the strip of foil packets in his hand. When he looked back at her a smile played on his mouth. “Three?”
Faith returned the smile. It was impossible not to respond to his playfulness. “If you don’t think you’re up to it…?”
She grabbed for the condoms but he was too quick for her, pulling them out of her reach. “Oh, I think I’ll manage.”
Faith’s pulse skipped a beat at the very prospect. “How about just…” she held out her hand for them and he surrendered the strip. She tore one off and pressed it into his hand. “This one? For now.”
He smiled, his hands sliding around her naked butt, as he pulled her down onto the bed with him landing in a tangle of limbs and steamy intent.
She didn’t even have time to catch her breath before his mouth was on hers then down her neck, then at her breast and her hands were on his ass and his cock and they were moaning and panting and whispering each other’s names as petting turned to wild purpose and she was urging him over her, grabbing for the foil packet, ripping it open, wrapping her legs around his waist bracing for the moment the thick hard nudge of him entered her body, waiting for that one perfect moment of completion.
And Raf did not disappoint. Faith gasped as he pushed inside her in one easy thrust, her nails digging into his shoulder blades.
“Fuck,” he groaned near her ear, his forehead coming to rest on the mattress. He turned his head, nuzzling her temple. “You feel so damn good.”
“So do you,” she panted, her hands sliding to his ass and holding on tight, savoring the intrusion, wanting to remember this moment forever.
He chuckled all low and sexy in her ear. “Hold on, baby,” he said, rearing over her, planting his forearms either side of her head. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
And it was no idle boast. Raf pulled out and thrust again and again and again, his pace and rhythm relentless, each exact movement eliciting a gasp, innervating the base of her spine with tiny white-hot flares, shooting off to every erogenous zone like blazing arrows.
Everywhere tingled and burned.
But it was the sound of Raf losing control that really tripped her switch. “Jesus,” he grunted, his lips at her temple, his biceps starting to quake, his thrusts
becoming jerky, the cheeks of his ass clamping tight beneath her hands.
“God…Faith,” he groaned, thrusting frantically now, taking her along with him, taking her high, taking her to the top of the Cyclone at Coney Island and then with one more thrust, dropping her down the other side, falling and shattering all at once calling each other’s names amidst the explosion of incandescent light.
Chapter Seven
‡
It was still dark when Faith crept into the apartment at five thirty on the dot. She knew her father would be sound asleep as would Ty and Zel in what was now the spare room but used to be her brother’s room when they were growing up.
Faith’s fingers itched to get to her sketch pad. Of course a sensible woman would have gone to bed to get a few hours shut-eye but Faith was way too hopped up to sleep. It had been a long time since she’d had this kind of creative buzz and she intended to ride it for as long as it lasted.
Which was all of five seconds.
“Ha! Gotcha!”
Faith’s heart almost stopped as Zel’s gleeful whispered exclamation came from behind her. “Crap, Zel!” she hissed, her hand over her heart as she turned. Zel was sitting on the couch with her Kindle. “I almost had a stroke. What the hell are you doing awake?”
Zel grinned at her, unconcerned about any imminent brain infarctions. “Unfamiliar bed,” she said dismissively. She was in her long silky designer sleepwear and bunny slippers.
Faith gave up on the sketch pad and headed in the direction of the kitchen. “You want some coffee?”
“Yes, please,” she said, following Faith.
Zel didn’t say anything while Faith fussed about getting their hot drinks. She didn’t say a word as Faith handed a cup over and sat opposite her at the table. She didn’t say a word until after they’d taken their first sips of the hot liquid.
“Okay, out with it. You and the Aussie do the wild thing?”
Faith tried for a dignified silence. “No comment.”
Zel quirked a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Fine. I’d like my condoms back, thank you.”
Faith looked at her over the rim of her mug. “No comment.”
“Yes!” Zel punched the air. “I knew it! All three?”
Faith figured there was no point in continuing to try and keep this private when she was bursting with the urge to tell Zel everything. It was just like being back at St. J’s, lying awake late at night trading secrets.
She grinned. “All three.”
Zel laughed and Faith joined her. Damn, she felt good. “Cheers to you,” Zel said raising her coffee mug and tapping it gently against Faith’s. “Please tell me it was good. A man who looks like that just has to know his way around a woman’s body, right?”
Faith grinned again. “It was good.” Her mind drifted to the way he’d pushed her hard against the hotel door and kissed her thoroughly good-bye in the buff not even an hour ago. “So good,” she sighed, taking another sip of her coffee.
Leaving hadn’t been easy. Especially when he’d gotten hard from that kiss and had tried his damndest to get her to stay. The man knew how to fight dirty too.
“So are you seeing him again?”
“I’ll be seeing him in a few hours, when the pub opens.”
Faith’s insides danced a wild jig just thinking about seeing him again. Looking at him and knowing what he’d done to her body. What she’d done to his.
“I mean on another date?”
Faith shrugged. “I don’t know. We didn’t really talk about that.” They hadn’t really talked at all. It had been way more hedonistic than that. Touching and stroking, kissing and exploring, dozing off then waking again to a light brush of a hand along a thigh or the warm press of a mouth to the neck.
Waking him in the same way.
“Well I’m thrilled for you,” Zel said. “You deserve this.”
“This?”
She nodded. “It’s your turn, Faith.”
“My turn?” At what? Sex? Happiness? A relationship?
Love? Not with Raf. Raf wasn’t looking for love. “I thought I was just using him for sex?”
“Yes,” Zel agreed hurriedly. “It’s your turn for sex. Good sex.”
“Stupendous sex,” Faith corrected, the rim of her mug hiding her smile.
Zel’s brows lifted. “Stupendous, huh?”
Faith shrugged nonchalantly. “Maybe,” she said mysteriously, her heart light and giddy that this was actually happening to her. That a sexy man had just blown her mind four times in about as many hours. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” she said, putting her mug down on the table and standing, “I’m going to try and get a couple of hours sleep.”
Not that she’d sleep with her brain this overloaded with sex and lust and a hundred tiny memories. She just wanted some time to savor her night all to herself before the activities of the day took over. And she really wanted to sketch more than his hands this time.
“Thank you,” Faith said, leaning forward and kissing Zel on the cheek, “to you and Ty for covering for me.”
“It was our pleasure,” Zel smiled.
Faith smiled. No. The pleasure had been all hers.
*
Faith had been watching the clock for what felt like hours when Raf finally stepped through the front door at eleven. She was at the end of the bar closest the door talking with her father and a couple of his buddies. Their gazes met and she was right back beside him in bed, gasping as he sucked on one of her nipples and his hand headed south.
Everything lurched inside her.
“Here he is,” her father announced, dragging Raf’s gaze away. Pop held out his hand across the bar and Raf walked forward at the invitation. “You’re late,” Pop said as they shook.
“Yes, sorry, I…” His aquamarine gaze slid back to hers, blazing against her skin. “Overslept.”
Pop, oblivious to the undercurrent, snorted. “Who can sleep in Manhattan?”
The three guys at the bar all nodded their heads in absolute agreement. Raf chuckled and Faith was once again privy to a glimpse of the smooth scar tissue under his chin.
A sudden sense of embarrassment washed through her. She’d spent hours in his company last night and hadn’t even asked him about it.
Pop introduced Raf to the guys who were all regulars. “JP was just telling me about your lager,” one of them said. “Sounds like I’m going to have to try one.”
“Sounds like we’re all going to have to,” said another.
“Excellent choice,” Raf said with a grin. “I’ll just get out of my coat and join you.”
Faith was tempted to stand and watch Raf peel away the layers and ogle whatever kind of perfection he had going on under there this morning but it would be embarrassing if she suddenly started drooling.
“I’ll get them,” she said, quickly gathering the empties, conscious of Raf’s eyes on her as she walked down to the row of taps in the middle of the bar. With her ass on fire she knew exactly where they were focused.
Faith glanced up as the door at the end of the bar opened to Raf. He was wearing jeans that were dark blue and detailed with brown stitching and a navy button up shirt that he’d let hang out. She braced herself as he strode towards her with absolute intent.
“Just half a pint for me,” he said, loud enough to be heard at the other end of the bar as he put himself between her and the others, blocking them from her view, sliding his hand onto her ass.
“I want to fuck you real bad right now,” he murmured so no one heard.
Faith’s hand faltered at the tap as something carnal squirmed deep inside her. Lordy.
He took her hand as she put the third full glass of amber liquid down on the bar and he slid it to the thick swelling behind his fly. “That’s what you do to me, Faith Sullivan.”
She shut her eyes, her hand automatically squeezing, mapping all his delicious contours. His low groan stroked everywhere and she glanced up at him to find him looking down at her with heat and need, his eye
color suddenly two shades deeper.
There was a burst of raucous laughter down the other end of the bar and Faith snatched her hand away. “Take those over,” she said, forcing herself to sound brisk and businesslike instead of husky and horny. She reached for a half pint glass. “I’ll bring yours in a second.”
He grinned. “Spoil sport.”
Faith’s hand shook a little as she shoved the glass under the tap and swung the handle to pour the beer. Out of the turbulence of white foam, cold amber liquid rose in the glass and she wished her body could cool down as quickly.
*
Half an hour later, Raf was standing behind the bar talking over one of his beers to a couple about their trip to Australia last summer when Faith disappeared into the kitchen area. He checked to see JP was still chatting to his mates, excused himself and followed hot on her trail.
He barely noticed the mouth-watering aromas of hearty stew as he made his way between stainless steel benches. His eyes were on the bounce of her curly hair and the swing of her delectable hips as she disappeared into a room.
In a few long strides he reached the room and stepped inside. It looked like some kind of an office with a desk and a computer. Faith was reaching across the desk, foraging for something amongst a pile of papers, her butt delightfully rounded.
He kicked the door shut and she turned abruptly, her eyes widening as she took him in. And it wasn’t from fear.
“Raf…” There was a warning in her tone as her gaze flicked to the door behind him. “Someone might come in.”
He didn’t give a rat’s ass and he didn’t give her a chance to say another word, closing the gap between them in less than two strides, sliding his hands on her hips, backing her right up against the desk then swooping down to claim her mouth.
Her whimper met his groan as they melted into each other, the kiss full-on from the first touch of their lips, heat and want and need urging him closer. Her arms snaked around his neck and he kissed her harder, deeper, wetter. She felt so damn good. She tasted even better.