He silenced me with a kiss, even as he yanked me harder to his body and grabbed my ass cheeks in a punishingly firm grip.
I giggled into his mouth, the playful noise quickly turning into a groan of raw delight as he dragged his palms over my hips, up my ribs to my breasts again. He stroked each nipple, rolled them between thumb and finger, pinched them until I squirmed against him. Only then did he remove a hand from my breast, but before I could protest the loss of his skin on mine, he replaced his fingers with his lips.
Oh boy. Oh fuck. Oh boy.
He drew my nipple deep into his mouth, massaging my other breast as he did so.
I threw back my head, eyes closing, head swimming with exquisite pleasure.
Raph feasted on my flesh, first one breast and then the other, sucking my nipple, nibbling it, laving it with his tongue. With every second that passed, I grew closer to eruption.
When he pulled away from me, releasing my left nipple with a wet pop, I cried out.
Breath ragged, he stared down at me, planting his palms on either side of my head on the glass. “Tell me again,” he ground out. “Before it’s too late, tell me again.”
I knew what he wanted. What he sought. After the madness of our relationship so far, he needed my unequivocal permission.
I gave it to him.
“I want you inside me, Raphael Jones,” I said, holding his gaze. “Now.”
He captured my lips in a searing kiss and dropped his hands to the hemline of my skirt.
If you’re thinking he undressed me with gloriously romantic and dramatic grace, you’re wrong. By this stage, we were both so on fire with lust and desire we damn near tore all our clothes off.
He shoved his hands between the material of my skirt and the curve of my hips and grabbed my ass. I matched his ferocity with my own, tugging on his belt and fly with greedy impatience.
For once, my fingers didn’t betray me. They did what I wanted them to do and did it well. In less than a heartbeat, Raph’s engorged length was jutting from the gaping opening of his jeans, thick and hot and erect.
I wrapped my hand around it and squeezed.
He bucked, driving his hips forward even as he threw back his head and hissed.
I pumped his length, the feel of his arousal in my hand the most powerful, steadying sensation of my life. It was as if the life I’d denied myself since my diagnosis, the refusal to acknowledge there was more to existing than breathing, flowed through me from Raph’s flesh, from his body. I know that makes no sense, but I don’t know how else to explain it. By holding him, holding his pleasure in my hand, I knew life.
And it was addictive.
And fucking potent.
With a moan, I shoved his jeans down over his hips and reached for his balls with my other hand.
He groaned into my mouth and then tore his lips from mine, cupping my right breast in a mauling caress before sucking my nipple into his mouth again.
We burned in that moment for an eternity—me working his erection with my hand, him worshipping my breasts with his mouth. Fire licked through my veins, the heat of pleasure beyond comprehension. I knew I’d reached the point of incineration when the only thing that would satisfy the lust in me was the feel of his erection on my tongue.
I dropped to my knees, mindless of anything else but tasting him. Possessing him.
I took him into my mouth. Oral sex had never been high on my list of favorite sex acts, but goddamn, did Raph’s length filling my mouth flood me with concentrated pleasure and carnal joy. I slid down his erection, taking him as deep in my mouth as I could.
Deeper.
It was his strangled groan that damn near pushed me over the edge. And the way he knotted his hands in my hair and tugged me back to my feet.
“I don’t want to come in your mouth, Maci,” he rasped, cupping my jaw in one palm, his gaze ablaze. “I want my first time with you to be…”
“Romantic?” I laughed out the word on a soft breath.
“Perfect,” he answered, before lowering himself to his knees and smoothing my skirt up my thighs.
Heart racing, I pressed my palms to the window and stared down at him. He roamed his lips over my knees, my inner thighs. He journeyed higher, nipping a path to the very heart of my core.
I hitched in a breath, frozen with agonizing need and anticipation.
He stroked his tongue over the seam of my sex through the cotton of my panties.
Panties that were tugged aside with sure fingers before I could gasp.
He flicked his tongue over the button of sensitive flesh in my folds and I cried out. “Oh God, Raph.”
Fingers squeezing my ass cheeks, he licked my clit again.
I slammed my hips forward, an involuntary action brought about by the sheer and absolute pleasure wrought upon my body.
In response, he pressed his mouth to my most intimate flesh and sucked on my clit.
To say my resulting moan was loud and raw was an understatement. I don’t know how long he kept me dangling there, on the cusp of an orgasm unlike any I’d experienced before. Five minutes, five hours, five centuries. Time ceased to exist. Every throbbing pulse that claimed my core, that propelled me closer to the point of eruption, robbed me of my ability to exist in reality. There was only the pleasure of Raph’s tongue on my sex.
I whimpered and begged and clawed at the window, every muscle in my body trembling. I didn’t care why. It didn’t matter. Not when I felt so…so…holy shit, so alive. So worshipped.
So desired.
When I didn’t think I could take any more, when the building pressure at the base of my spine and deep within my center turned to a constricting heat, I raked my nails through his hair and yanked his head away from my sex.
He stared up at me, his lips glistening, concentrated need in his eyes. “You taste like heaven,” he murmured.
I feathered my fingers over his bottom lip. “You make me feel like I’m in heaven.”
It was true. And yet, I needed more.
And it seemed, so did Raph.
With a low growl, he rose to his feet. Sliding his body up mine as he straightened, he grabbed the back of my right thigh and drew my knee up to my chest.
The tip of his erection nudged the lips of my sex. Parted them.
We stared into each other’s eyes, hanging on the moment, the contact. The most personal of invasions.
His jaw muscle bunched. “I’m not wearing a condom.”
I touched his lips, his cheek. “I have an IUD.”
A frown pulled at his eyebrows.
“I’m safe,” I whispered, needing him not only inside me, but aware of my situation. “I won’t get pregnant. I promise.”
“You’re not worried about…”
“I’m clean. And I trust you are too.”
He sucked a deep breath and nodded.
I swallowed. “Then please hurry up. I want you to fuck me so much I think I’ll go mad if you don’t hurry—”
He penetrated me with one single, powerful upward thrust, pulling me down into his stroke at the same time.
I cried out. Loud. He stretched me wide. He was so much bigger than my previous boyfriends, and it had been so long for me.
I clung to him, waves of pleasure and pain rushing over me.
“Oh God, Maci.” He buried his face into the side of my neck even as he withdrew and slammed back into me again. “You are so tight, so perfect, so mine…so mine…”
The words, falling from him in a tumble of panted moans, sent fresh heat and rapture through me. I closed my eyes, undone by his touch, his declaration, undone by him.
It was everything I’d imagined and so much more. So much more.
He moved inside me, in and out, in and out, each thrust deeper, more forceful, more demanding. Each stroke driving me back to that edge, that perilous precipice, that place like the burning edge of a blade, where life and pleasure and reality and fantasy merged and you’ve lost yourself to the sensations consuming
your body and found yourself in the pleasures of them.
That edge of existence.
“Maci…” he panted, his thrusts growing faster, more erratic. “Maci, look at me, please? I want to see your eyes when you…when we…”
I opened my eyes and gazed into his, just as he squeezed my butt and slammed his length deeper inside me.
My orgasm detonated like an eruption of heat and indescribable perfection.
I raked my nails across his back and cried his name. Over and over.
And as my voice began to break, as my cries became ragged breaths, Raph came as well.
I felt him. I felt it. Felt his release pump from him in thick ropes.
Felt him fill me with his pleasure.
And all the while, we gazed at each other. And in his eyes, I saw a future I wanted more than life itself.
An eternity later, we slumped against each other, my cheek against his shoulder, Raph’s holding me to him as he turned us around to press his back against the window. Our shallow pants seemed deafening in the private dining room, a rapid, ragged accompaniment to the room’s soft piano music wafting in the air from hidden speakers. The contrast—calm, soothing music and our post-fucking gasps—tickled my highly quirky sense of humor and, unable to stop myself, I let out a giggling snort.
“What’s so funny?” Raph’s deep voice rumbled in his chest, vibrating through my body. Melding with the tremors already at home in my limbs.
With another chortle, I raised my head and smiled at him. It occurred to me he was still deeply buried inside my sex. I liked it. I like him being there. A lot. “How absolutely determined I was to keep you out of my life.”
He flashed his dimple at me. “As if that was ever going to happen.”
He smoothed his hands over my back, my hip, my thigh. With gentle ease, he lowered my leg, his spent erection slipping from me, skimming his fingers over my skin as my foot returned to the floor. For a second, a wave of unstable shakes hit me and I held on to him tighter.
Our stares connected again, a question in his. A concern.
I stopped him vocalizing it with a brush of my lips on his. “As if,” I whispered, letting him feel my smile.
We both laughed again, a shared, secretive laugh that quickly became a long, languid, thoroughly passionate kiss.
Damn, I was really into this guy. So freaking much.
“I guess,” he said when the kiss finally came to an end, “I should let our waiter know he can give us the bill now.”
I grinned. “Maybe you should pull up your jeans first?”
He pulled a comically quizzical face. “You think?”
Before I could kiss him again—and really, why wouldn’t I? He was gorgeous and sexy and incredible—the only door leading into our dining room swung open.
“Ill-advised, Mr. Jones.”
Cold distaste flooded through me at the sound of Horn’s flat voice.
Raph tensed, a snarl falling from him as he pulled me closer to his body and glared at his bodyguard. “What the fuck, Horn? How did you find us?”
“I am not going to reveal that, Mr. Jones” The man had the decency to keep his attention on Raph. Or maybe not acknowledging my existence was an attempt at insulting me. If the latter was the case, it didn’t work. I’d decided to ignore his existence the second he’d offered me the many-zeroed encouragement to not have anything to do with Raph. “You are aware what the family expects of you. This…adventure…you have undertaken is unwise. As well as exposing you to personal danger.”
Raph’s arms around me tightened. “My stalker, you mean? I’m beginning to suspect there’s no such threat. It’s just a way to keep tabs on me. I’m not interested in being a part of the family. I’m not interested in anyone from the family, no matter what they want to believe. You can tell their royal pains in my arse that my sister married into the family, not me. I’m not interested or available. I’m done with this. All of it.”
Horn regarded him with expressionless eyes. The bulge under his armpit told me loud and clear he was carrying his gun.
“Did you hear me?” Anger turned Raph’s question to a menacing growl. “Leave us alone.”
Horn slid his stare to me. I sucked in a swift breath. I didn’t want to, but damn, the guy was intimidating. Nothing in my life had prepared me for this kind of confrontation. Nothing. Not even the crazy homeless guy who demanded people show him their teeth whenever they tried to cross the Main Street Bridge back home in Plenty.
“Now,” Raph snarled, drawing me closer still to his chest.
I have to admit, I was completely and utterly undone by his protective rage. And unsettled by how wonderful it felt.
Oh boy, I was not going to fall in love with the guy. I wasn’t.
Horn returned his attention to Raph. His eyes narrowed, his jaw bunched. He adjusted his jacket’s lapel once and, with an almost inaudible grunt, turned and left.
My breath left me in a massive gush. Who knew I’d been holding it all that time? My head swam. Black waves of dizziness filled my vision. I felt my inside shake—really shake.
And then Raph let out his own ragged breath as the tension deserted his body and he laughed, the sound hoarse and wry. “Well, that’s one way to kill the mood, I guess.”
Four Days and Counting. Damn it.
We returned to Mackellar House after dressing. I had a shower and changed my clothes before heading to class. Believe it or not, I hadn’t actually had the chance to shower since the previous morning. Kind of gross, when you think about it. Thank God for Listerine Pocketpaks and panty liners.
Raph walked me to lecture hall one for Environmental Degradation 101. We didn’t get harassed by the media or the paparazzi. I suspect that was in part due to the campus security cars cruising the area and the security guys strutting about. The fact Raph stuck a baseball cap on his head and dark sunglasses on his face also helped. As did my decision to do the same. Borrowing a hat from Heather (a big floppy thing that dangled in my eyes and hid half my face), I did everything I could to disguise my identity.
To be honest, it was fun. Like I was suddenly Angelina Jolie.
When we arrived at my afternoon class, Raph tipped my chin up with a soft tap of his finger, flashed his dimple at me and kissed my lips. “Thanks for lunch, American girl.”
My heart leapt away from me. I gave one of those entirely embarrassing giggles you hear vacuous bimbos give and ducked my head. I know it’s stupid to get all shy and coy after what we’d done—hello? Hot, wild monkey sex in a restaurant where anyone could walk in. Shy and coy should be a thing of the past, right?—but I did. Because even here, in the hallway outside a lecture room with fellow students jostling past us, all I could think about was how incredible our lunch had been. Not just the sex—incredible doesn’t even come close to that—but the whole thing. All I could think about was how much I liked this guy, this guarded, sometimes unpredictable Australian guy who made me laugh and feel special.
He smiled at me again, kissed me one more time and then left for his own class.
Oh boy, I could fall in love with him so goddamn easy.
I think I spent the entire lecture gazing out the window like a doofus, drawing flowers and love hearts and stars and koalas on horses in my notebook. At some point, I think I even let out a sigh or two.
Raph met me at the door when class finished and, disguises firmly in place, we spent the thirty minutes before our next lectures relaxing on a grassy knoll in the sun, my head in his lap, his fingers dancing tiny patterns over my shoulders as we talked about anything and everything.
No one bothered us.
It was glorious.
Afternoon lectures passed way too slowly. Mine went longer than Raph’s and it was Heather who met me outside Mackellar House four hours later, a delightfully curious smirk on her face.
“So?” She wriggled on her feet, barring my entry into the house with her body. “Details?”
I pulled a smug face. “A good girl doesn�
��t kiss and tell.”
“Oh!” she burst out. “I knew it. I knew it.”
“Knew what?” Raph appeared in the door behind her, his smile relaxed.
Heather threw him a wicked smirk. “How big your—”
Laughing, I shoved her aside. “Ego is,” I finished, grinning at her. “And I said, what ego?”
“You don’t remember my ego? Man, I need to try harder.” He snaked a strong arm around my waist and yanked me to his body with such force, Heather’s floppy hat tumbled from my head. “Think I better take you up to my room right now to show you my ego.”
And with that, he dragged me, laughing, away from an equally amused Heather.
To his room.
Where he did, indeed, show me his ego. Four times, in fact.
Somewhere around nine p.m. we realized food was important and decided to order takeout. I told Raph I was going for another shower and would happily eat whatever he ordered.
I was only in the communal bathroom for five minutes, however, when Raph strode in, towel over his shoulder, naked from the waist up.
He looked at me just as I was about to walk into the shower bay I’d deposited my own towel and clothes in, kicked the door shut behind him, leaned his back against it and beckoned me over with a slow jerk of his head.
We continued our tradition of making out in public bathrooms there and then. This time, however, we weren’t interrupted by anyone. Not even by a single knock on the door.
I finally returned to my room and my own bed a little past four-thirty in the morning. I figured Raph needed to have some time to himself and I was feeling the shakes starting in my hand. Too much sex, perhaps?
Was that even possible?
I’d just lowered my head to my pillow when a soft knock came at the door. Followed by a low, deep voice saying, “Get your arse back in my bed now, woman.”
I did. Hey, who was I to argue?
We made love again and then curled up in each other’s arms, naked, our hearts beating together, our legs entwined, discovering everything about each other in our murmured words and shared laughter.
The one thing I didn’t tell him, however, was that I was leaving Sydney at the end of the week. I wanted to. I really did. I wanted to tell him so we could make plans to keep in touch while I was there. I wanted to tell him so we could decide who was going to travel to where on weekends. I wanted to tell him it was all going to be okay, that long-distance relationships were completely doable.
Unconditional: A Coming of Age Romance Novel (Always) Page 18