He pushed her back against the wall. It was lightly textured and the sensation on her back was a new addition to her sensual thrall. But after several movements she shook her head.
“Wait. Stop.”
He did. Instantly. And somewhere in the back of her mind she couldn’t help but admire his restraint.
“This wall is like sandpaper on my back,” she husked, a smile on her lips.
He laughed, but it was a sound tortured by sensation and need. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, you should be. I’m having a terrible time.” She rolled her eyes and then looked around the deck. “Can you sit on that chair? I want to be on top.”
He arched a brow, and something new clicked inside of him.
When was the last time he’d been with a woman who’d known what she wanted? Who’d wanted to be in control, to give pleasure as well as receive?
His hands held her planted on his length as he walked the short distance to the chair and she kissed him, her own need to be as connected as possible innately familiar to him because it was how he felt.
She was slight and fine, but her weight around his waist was determined and she pushed up and down, guiding her body and guiding him, too, taking him where she needed him, her head rolled back as sensual instincts took over.
And there, with the night sky wrapping around them, stars and cloud overhead, the lights of the city as the background to their lustful passion, he watched her climax and finally let himself go, driving himself into her, every single nerve ending of his arousal responding to her spasms and reflexes.
Her breath was a stain in the air. A fast, hoarse sound that became almost like music as it carried to his ears. He held her tight, her beautiful body so perfectly moulded to his, and he listened to her heart, even as it turned away from him. It beat so fast, in time with his, and yet she was holding it all to herself.
She had made that point very clear.
“Are you hungry?” Rafe asked the question with no sign that he’d been as affected by what they’d just shared as she had. He sounded…normal. Ivy blinked, her brain sluggish, her body exhausted.
She shook her head. She wasn’t hungry, she wasn’t thirsty, she was busy just existing. His lovemaking had layered a new level of exhaustion over her body, wrapping her up in foggy tiredness. The strength of emotion she’d experienced had been new and difficult and she hadn’t been prepared for it.
She’d wanted to prove him wrong.
To stand up and stride out of his apartment whenever it suited her. But her arms and legs were heavy. Her body completely numb.
She couldn’t see him, but Ivy knew he was smiling. And she could just imagine it – a know-it-all look of powerful charisma.
“I should get going,” she said, with no intention of doing any such thing.
“Really?” He lay back into the chair, his eyes lodging with hers. “If that’s what you want.”
Her mouth dropped and outrage was quickly usurped by self-doubt. He wanted her to go?
She blinked away, looking up towards the stars as a sickening sense of not being wanted deluged the power and glorious rightness of the moment.
“I’d prefer you to stay,” he murmured, as if simply understanding what she needed, and her gaze slid back to his. “But I’m not a man to beg and I’ve already done a hell of a lot of that with you.”
She shook her head, and stood. Her legs were like dough. She could hardly control them. Shaking, weak, heavy and aching from exertion.
He watched her beautiful, stubborn face, her chin tilted defiantly even as her eyes were so heavy she could hardly keep them open and he made a throaty noise of impatience.
“For God’s sake, Ivy. Just stay the damned night. I’m not asking you to marry me. It’s a bed. A place to sleep.”
Her eyes flexed open to their fullest diameter and he stood, the knot of frustration in his gut thickening. It was as he lifted her and held her against his chest, her body limp and her eyes finally sweeping closed, that he realised he’d never spent this much time with any one woman in his life.
His longest relationship tended to be a couple of nights. Sure, he returned to the same grounds – he had slept with the same women several times, over several years. But they were all brief, singular events.
This was the closest he’d had to an actual relationship, and it was with a woman even less suited to commitment than he was.
That had to be worth a medal – two such determined loners having found one another and realising they were kind of addicted to that need?
Of all the cruel ironies…
He lay her down on the bed, and her breathing was even and soft. He listened for a moment, even the sound of her sleeping a turn on he couldn’t explain, and then he left.
He didn’t trust himself not to touch her, and she needed a rest for now.
He had all night.
And he planned to make the most of it.
*
Ivy was swimming. No. That wasn’t right. She was in the shower?
Wrong again.
She blinked her eyes open, into the darkness of her bedroom.
No, not her bedroom. She was somewhere else. Somewhere different.
Rafe.
Memories of the night were tiny shards of glass drifting back towards her, none of them fitting tightly together, but forming an overall picture that was blinding for its clarity and bright white heat.
More water.
Not water.
She blinked and her eyes came into focus. Rafe was above her, and in his hands, he held a glass of champagne, which he was dipping his finger into and dribbling over her naked chest.
Her smile was slow and languid. Should she object? Because she didn’t.
“Aren’t you that man who drove me out of my mind just now?”
His smile was answering and her heart flipped over. “Not just now. Hours ago,” he corrected, straddling her and bringing the champagne to his mouth. He took a large gulp and then dropped his mouth to hers, pushing the drink into her so that she swallowed it and him.
“Mmm,” she murmured. “Like I’m not already a little bit drunk on sex.”
His laugh tickled her heart. “I like you drunk on sex. I want to keep you that way.”
And he was inside her again, and she was lost, cresting on a wave, high on an ocean that was somewhere, out there, nowhere she’d been before, no familiar landmarks of her life, just him, her, and this swelling of feeling.
*
She must have slept again, because she woke.
And he was there beside her. Beautiful man-beast, sleeping, peaceful, and still somehow, savage.
She propped up on an elbow.
Her body silently complained. Every single muscle had been pushed into service.
It was breaking every rule she’d made, and she was pretty sure it was the last thing he’d want, but she wriggled across the enormous bed, and pushed his arm aside, so that his body was open to her, and she lay down beside him, her head on his chest, her curves matched to his.
And she slept, with him.
The whole night through.
CHAPTER NINE
IT WAS THE SOUND of the shower that woke her.
She blinked her eyes open, and stretched in the bed, her gaze dropping to the window overlooking the Thames.
And she sighed.
Physically she felt as though she’d both run a marathon and been massaged for days, inside and out. It was blissful awareness. Every muscle twinged, but she was liquid too.
Her eyes dropped to the bedside table and, with a small flicker of curiosity, she reached for her phone.
Nine o’clock!
Ivy hadn’t slept in like that in years. Not since she’d been a teenager and Nanny Anderson had finally retired, leaving Ivy free to raise herself, more or less. She stretched again and flicked through the news app for a moment, a familiar burst of pleasure and pride mixing inside of her when it worked seamlessly, quickly and the articles covered br
oad, well-written content.
But it was only a cursory look.
Because there was a magnetic force at work, and while Rafe was in the bathroom, it was pulling her towards him.
She stepped out of bed, rolling her neck and then padded across the room. She poked her head around the door, the sultry good morning she’d about to issue sticking in her throat.
He was the epitome of brooding masculinity. His back was propped against the wall, his legs spread wide, so that she could fully grasp their trunk-like strength and the impressive sign of virility that had pleasured her all night long. Higher still, his muscular chest, covered in sparse, dark hair, and his face.
Brooding.
Lost.
And not in a good way.
His expression was thunderous.
She opened her mouth; but what could she say?
As if hearing the words stuck inside of her, his eyes lifted to hers and the dark emotions were gone.
“Join me.” A command, still rumbling with something she didn’t quite understand.
She nodded, strolling into the shower and crashing straight into him. Her body was on autopilot— he the fixed destination. His lips found hers and he pushed her back against the wall, under the warm jet of water. It powered over her, hot and relaxing. Her hair plastered down over her face like a pelt and his body on hers was strong, wet and soapy. Her breath rasped as his hands ran over her flesh, and when they reached her breasts, she made a deep noise of pleasure.
“I’m so sensitive from last night,” she whispered thickly.
He ran his mouth over her jaw, seeking her earlobe and pulling it into his mouth. Her knees almost buckled, and then, she let them. She dropped to the floor of the shower, so fast that he was instantly confused, but her eyes lifted to his and her intention seared him.
“Ivy,” he said, not sure why the word came out as a warning.
She dug her fingers into his thighs and pushed him backwards. When he connected with the tiled wall, she took him into her mouth and this time, she didn’t stop.
She felt him throb, and heard his low, guttural moan, and she rolled her tongue over his tip, tasting him, craving the power of making him come, just as he had done to her, again and again and again.
He swore in his own language and his body jerked.
“I …”
“I want to taste you,” she murmured, her fingers clamping around his length as her mouth took him once more.
“Jesus.”
And he surrendered to it, powerless finally to fight the tide of her sensual will-power. All restraint had an end point, and she’d found his.
She held him as he exploded, her fingers twisting around to his buttocks, and keeping him deep in her mouth when he might have pulled out. And then, when his trembling had stilled, and she could just tell he was looking down at her, she stood. Her eyes met his, a smile playing at the corners that he would never, in all his life, forget.
“Good morning,” she murmured, her hands on his hips.
“I’ll say.” He cupped her cheeks, his eyes sinking into hers. “How do you feel?”
“Like a sex-goddess,” she winked.
“That’s just what you look like,” he promised. And out of nowhere, he flicked her nipple, hard enough to make her back bow and press her closer towards him.
“Are my breasts ever going to feel normal again?”
He padded his thumb over her cheek. “That depends,” he said thoughtfully.
“On?”
“On how often you stay over.” His wink was pure flirtation, but the question was one she didn’t want to address. It spoke of a permanence and reliance that were anathema to her.
“Perhaps I’ll have to invest in a pair of nipple clamps for myself,” she murmured.
His laugh was throaty with disbelief. “And use them without me? I don’t think so.”
“Mmm, you’d never know,” she grinned.
He pressed his mouth to hers, lightly, and then lower, to her breasts. “I know everything about these now. In fact, I sort of consider them mine.”
Mine.
The tiny little word was fingernails on a blackboard.
She’d never be anyone’s again.
He dropped a hand to her feminine core, his finger pressing against the cluster of nerves that were already stretched so thin, so taut. The nerves that had been tingling all night. He kept her pinned against the wall with his body as his hand moved her to new heights of awareness, pushing her harder, faster, making her head spin and her eyes water until finally, she came crashing back down to earth, her body weak and her brain fried.
“God, you’re good at that,” she muttered.
His smile showed he knew exactly what he did to her. “Hungry?”
She nodded. “I have never been so hungry in my life.”
“Sex’ll do that for you.”
She nodded, but it hadn’t been that way for Ivy before.
Then again, she’d already decided her former sex life didn’t bear examining, and comparisons were certainly unreasonable.
“Take your time,” he murmured. “I’ll get breakfast ordered.”
“You’re ordering in?” She asked in disbelief. “Don’t do that. I’ll cook something.”
He grinned. “Sure. I’ve got olive oil and apples.”
“Bread? Eggs? Bacon?”
“No. No. And no.”
She looked aghast and he grinned.
“What can I say? Domesticity isn’t my strong suit.”
“Mmm,” she nodded thoughtfully, a mock sombre expression on her face. “Just as well you have other ways to prove your worth.”
“Oh, really, Miss Hennesy?”
She grinned, her nod just a small movement of her head. “Fine. You order and I’ll be out soon.”
He disappeared, and she leaned against the wall, a smile locked to her lips, her head tilted as she re-lived each delicious moment of the night before. Maybe actually staying at his apartment did have some advantages. It wasn’t as though that made them a couple. It just made sex more accessible.
Then again, she stifled a yawn with the back of her hand, she wouldn’t be able to function at work if they kept this up.
And they couldn’t.
How long would this go on for?
It was the sharp edge to the blade. The pointy end of the conundrum.
She didn’t want to go through another ‘break up’. Ivy wasn’t sure her heart would cope. So what if Rafe decided, one day, that he didn’t want her in this way? This kind of sex and passion faded, didn’t it? So? Would she keep letting her own addiction to him grow even as there was a risk his would wane? Would she turn up to his apartment one day only to have him prepare her for ‘the talk’? Worse, might he just simply disappear one day, back to his home in Spain with the vines and the sea, leaving her bereft all over again? Experience had taught her she wasn’t good at reading the signs. So how would she know?
She made a sound of disbelief.
She wanted, so badly, not to over-think it. To be more like Lisette and just go with the flow, enjoying the relationship, not worrying about the inevitable end.
But the scars were too deep. Steve had wielded his scalpel with great impact. Not only their break up, but the complete dissolution of the life she’d known. So much of who she was revolved around who she’d been with him. The weekend trips to the markets in Barnes. The runs around the river. The dim sum feasts at Wagamamas, and the way they’d read the Guardian, pulling it apart section by section then swapping pages like a well-oiled machine.
Her throat was hoarse now with unshed tears and she blinked them away angrily.
Steve hadn’t just ruined life as she’d known it, he’d taken away hope.
Trust.
Belief, both in herself and others.
She flicked the water off and stepped out, reaching for a towel and wrapping it around her body. As it grazed her nipples fresh desire pooled in her gut.
She tied the tow
el beneath her arms and then walked out into the lounge, in search of Rafe. He was out on the balcony. Another pang of awareness trickled through her as she remembered the way they’d spent the night, her back against the wall and then her body wrapped around his.
He heard her approach and turned, his eyes linking with hers and doing strange knotty flip flops to her stomach.
“I feel like you’ve flicked a switch and done something to my body,” she said frankly as she moved to face him.
“Yeah?”
“I can’t move without being aware of a need I didn’t even know existed.”
He arched a brow. “How is it possible that your ex was such an asshole?”
She frowned. “He wasn’t … that bad,” she said.
“He was obviously selfish as hell in bed.”
She suppressed a smile, deliberately not responding with any number of the unkind comments she could have made about Steve. A defensiveness towards the man she’d spent a huge amount of her life loving kept her quiet.
“And clearly he didn’t appreciate you,” Rafe pointed out.
“Clearly.” She murmured. “But how many women could say the same about you?”
Rafe’s frown was a deep line. “I’ve never encouraged a woman to believe herself in love with me.”
Ivy rolled her eyes. “You’re saying you’ve never had a relationship?”
“I have many relationships. Relationships with my parents. My friends. Women. But not lingering romantic relationships.”
Curious at his attitude, she asked, “Why not?”
He answered as though it should have been obvious. “I’ve never wanted more from a woman than I could get in a night or two.”
Ivy sat down, perplexed. “So you just sleep with someone and forget all about them?”
“No. I don’t forget about them. But it’s casual. Easy. No big deal.”
She frowned, so he leaned forward and explained. “The woman I’m with want what I want. A casual fling.”
“Like this,” Ivy said with a slow nod.
“Not exactly.” His eyes were watchful. “Did he cheat on you?”
The change of topic caught her off guard. She answered after a beat. “No.”
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