Burn for Me: A Rancho Del Cielo Romance

by Dee Tenorio

  “Saying things to make you feel better?” He shook his head, his dark eyes so serious she had trouble swallowing. His hand slid almost reverently up her leg, his fingers hooking the upper edge of her underwear. “I thought the dreams were just because I never got you out of my system.”

  “I never knew I was in your system.”

  One side of his lush mouth curved upward, the grin so sinful and sexy it drew an answering smile from her own. “Oh, you have no idea the things I wanted to do with you back then.” He pulled the panties downward, exposing her hipbone, which he promptly leaned down and nibbled. “What I want to do with you now.”

  “But you never…I…why didn’t you?” Okay, it wasn’t a cogent sentence, but he was slowly pulling her panties down her hips, nipping and licking her abdomen right up to the line of dark curls above her sex. Another moment and the panties were gone, leaving her completely naked beneath him. And he was for all intents and purposes still completely dressed.

  “Should I have told you back then how much I wanted to take off all your clothes and lick every inch of you until you came in my mouth?” He crawled over her again, levering his weight onto his forearms. His gaze searing into hers, he lowered his face until he could kiss her, then leaned into her ear, his voice a harsh whisper. “Or how I would stay up late, jacking off, wondering if my fist was as tight as your pussy?”

  Penelope gasped, the deep breath making her nipples abrade themselves against the lined texture of his undershirt. She shouldn’t have been surprised that he was as earthy in bed as he was out of it. But still, the graphic question had her imagining him grasping himself, stroking the thick shaft she could feel through his clothes against her belly. No, not just stroking. Fisting it.

  “Should I tell you that sometimes, I still do?”

  “Yes.” She turned her face so that she caught his mouth for a kiss. “Tell me everything. Show me.”

  She’d had lovers over the years. Bland excursions she’d gone on, looking for some spark, trying to fulfill a need she could barely describe and had fallen short every time. Here, now, Raul had barely stripped her, not even touched her intimately, and she was already so close to orgasm she quaked.

  “I want to know what you look like when you come, Pen.” He slid onto his side, one hand trailing down her midline before reaching possessively over her mound. “I want to know what you taste like.”

  Strong fingers parted her folds, sliding past her now-throbbing clitoris to stroke along the edge of her entrance. Teasingly dipping just the tiniest bit inside her before pulling out to stroke once more.

  “Why can’t you do both?” she asked in less than a whisper.

  “Oh, I plan to,” he breathed, finally sliding his finger inside her fully, using his palm over her mound to keep her hips still. Lazily, he rubbed inside her, rotating the heel of his hand with enough pressure to make her clamp her legs around him. “I’m just trying to decide which one to do first.”

  She pushed against him, rolling into the caress. “Decide faster.”

  “Mmmm, I don’t think so. Fast is not what we’re doing tonight.”

  The sensual haze lifted enough for her to turn her head and look at him. “What are we doing tonight?”

  He stared at her face for a long moment, slipping a second finger inside her, slowly pistoning them in and out. He pressed on her clit, leaning forward to lick at her lips in time with the motions. The orgasm hit her like a freight train, nearly blacking her vision. She grabbed at his shoulders, her head tossing back into the pillow. She rolled into his body, her leg folding up over his hip, the only thing between them his still-stroking hand.

  His voice tight, he murmured, “We’re going to right some wrongs.”

  Chapter Seven

  Penelope blinked up at Raul, his voice still echoing in her mind. He’d pulled himself up to sit, yanking off his undershirt and throwing it somewhere on the floor. His gaze traced over her, an expression she could only call delight lighting his eyes.

  Her mouth felt unable to do anything but smile. “Was that my five minutes or yours?”

  “Oh, definitely mine. Yours is coming up, though.” He tugged open the slim leather belt he wore, slipped it through the loops with a whisper of sound, and let it drop off the edge of the bed. His muscles flexed beneath his golden brown skin as he moved to the foot of the bed, where her own feet were currently resting.

  So unfair for him to be so beautiful. He made her hungry just watching him breathe. All that bronzed skin, smooth and warm to the touch. His chest had only the lightest sprinkling of hair, thickening into a trail near his navel and disappearing into the waistband of the pants he was now unzipping.

  He’s about to ruin all other men for you, that reasonable voice murmured, which almost made Penelope laugh. He’d ruined all other men for her the first time he’d smiled her way.

  She sat up, languid but determined to take part in this. She hadn’t the first time and she didn’t want this to be at all the same. She wanted to know in her heart that she’d made every choice. That she’d reached out for what she wanted and taken it. Taken him.

  Penelope rose up on her knees in front of him. Raul stopped moving, hands on his zipper, his breathing all but stopped. She put her hand on his chest, felt his heart pounding against her palm. Heat resonated up her arm, racing with tactile pleasure as she ran her fingers over the small, flat nipples and caressed his rippled laterals. She moved his arms out of her way so she could press her lips over his heart, starting a trail of kisses down his midline. The crisp hair tickled her lips, her tongue when she darted it out to taste his skin.

  He swore when the kisses turned into sucking nibbles.

  Penelope dragged her nails lightly over him, taking hold of the sleek black briefs beneath the open waistband of his pants. Not giving herself time to question her boldness, she dipped her hand in and found him, closing her eyes, her belly clenching in want. She gripped him tight and slid her hand slowly down his length.

  Raul sucked in a breath too, hissing it out between his teeth. “I guess you want your five minutes right now.”

  Penelope smiled. Her fingers just met around him, a tantalizing fact that hung in her mind even as she released him to caress lower, where his sac was drawn tight in anticipation. Gently she ran her fingers over the texture of him, watching his jaw work back and forth and his eyes close tight. “Now is good.”

  “Now’s fuckin’ great.”

  Using her free hand, she pushed the slacks and the briefs down, freeing him, giving her the chance to caress the curve of a backside that had been teasing her for twenty years.

  “I think we just hit a snag,” she murmured, looking down at his erection. Heavy, thick and urgent, it was even more breathtaking than she’d expected.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.”

  She laughed, giving his arrogance its just reward by running her nail lightly up the bottom of his shaft. “I meant, I can’t get your pants off this way.”

  “Honey, you could set ’em on fire for all I care.”

  “But—”

  His arms banded around her and they fell together onto the mattress, his mouth already fused to hers, despite her laughter. A few determined kicks and his pants were gone, leaving his long legs bare to slide between hers. Call her simple, but just the feel of the coarse hair on his legs made her tingle, especially when he slid his thigh against her sex again, this time with specific intent.

  Penelope reared back. “It’s supposed to be my five minutes.”

  “I don’t think so. You take a penalty for demanding to get me naked.”

  She licked her lip, trying not to grin when his eyes followed the action and his frown fell into place. “But I wanted to taste you.”

  He wanted her to as well, but he was clearly torn.

  Penelope ran her folded leg up his flank, curving deeper into him, while running her tongue over the inside edge of her lip. “Just one minute?”

  His eyes narrowed and
she felt the heated throb of his erection against her stomach. “I’m not sure I’ll last a minute.”

  “Then you can have that taste of me you were after.”

  He didn’t argue when she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed. Getting him on his back, at her mercy, had a certain satisfaction all its own. Suddenly his big body was her personal playground. Not wanting to waste her minute, she moved between his thighs, running her hands up the powerful muscles there to slide over the deep groove where his belly gave way to the masculine grace of his hips. She leaned down to nip at it, taking in the flavor of his skin, the light musk of his scent. Clean, woodsy, darkly sensual.

  When she reached his penis, though, she wondered if she could do this. She’d never wanted to take a man that way before. Wrapping her hand around the subtly upcurved flesh, she admitted to herself that she wanted this. Wanted to be purely in control of his pleasure…and her own.

  She rubbed her cheek against the deep rose-colored head, pleased that it pulsed against her restraining hold. Keeping him still, she ran her bottom lip over it, building the anticipation just that tiniest bit more.

  He rumbled something unintelligible, but she thought he might be swearing in Spanish. She let her tongue slip out over the moistening slit at the head and found out for sure he was swearing in Spanish.

  She tsked at him in reproof.

  “Pen, put it in your mouth or so help me, I’ll throw you down and fuck you blind.”

  She paused, wondering which thing she’d really prefer.

  Groaning again, he started to rise and she dipped her head to take him in, finding it both strange and arousing at once. She sucked, wrapping her tongue around the shaft as best she could. His hand touched the side of her face, beckoning her to take him deeper. She complied, pulling back when he bumped the back of her mouth and groaned.

  “Again,” he growled as she stayed still, watching him watch her.

  She did as he asked, seeing the flush on his cheeks grow deeper, darker. So she increased her pace. She tightened her hand on the base, gripping upward with each surge. His hips moved with her and she started to wonder who was pleasuring whom. Her body was heating, her folds swelling and throbbing with a need that wasn’t being stroked. And she needed stroking. She needed filling. Now.

  “Now,” she repeated, tearing her mouth away.

  “I left the condom in my wallet.”

  That’s what she got for derailing his plan and getting him naked. She spun, looking off the edge of the bed for his slacks. She had to put one hand on the floor to reach the extended leg of the pants, then nearly screeched when she felt a wet, biting kiss on the lowest curve of her upturned bottom. She glanced back over her shoulder to find Raul smiling unrepentantly at her.

  He went back to work and she almost fell off the bed. His hands snaked between her legs, parting and lifting her, and then his tongue delved into her folds and it was all she could do not to scream. His tongue stroked inside her, once, twice, before abandoning her opening to suck on her clit.

  Her fist tightened on the pant leg while she shuddered. Desperate now, she yanked the pants over and scrambled for the lump of a wallet in the back pocket. Luckily it didn’t give her shaking hands much trouble to pull out, and the two condoms in the dollar flap fell into her clutches quickly.

  “I got them,” she breathed, trying hard to hold back the orgasm threatening.

  He pressed his fingers back into her.

  “I don’t want to come this way again,” she finally demanded, not exactly relieved when he slowed his sensual assault.

  “How do you want to come, Penelope?”

  “With you.” Rather than wait for him to torture her into specifics, she looked over her shoulder again and met his burning gaze. “I want you inside me.”

  The pause was infinitesimal. Before she knew it, she’d been hauled back onto the bed, back onto her back, back underneath him. Breathless, she could only stare up at him. He snitched the condom from her hand, tore it open and slid it on with an urgency she felt in her blood. Then he was pushing her knees open and angling the head into her entrance.

  He sank into her, slow, thick and steady. She stretched around him, her breath escaping with a hiss. Finally, oh God, finally, he filled her completely.

  “Ah, Pen, you don’t know how long I’ve wanted this. You.” Seated fully, he ran his fingers over her clitoris reverently, rumbling when her walls clamped down on him in response. His eyes opened, little more than dark slits, filled with passion and command. “I want you to remember this.”

  He withdrew at the same slow speed he’d pressed in, stopping just before he would have slipped out, then pressing back down. “This is our real first time, Penelope.”

  His hips ground into hers, his words and his meaning feeling like a brand on her soul. A deeper brand than any he’d made before. She fought it, pushing back against him, reminding herself that this was just sex, but he leaned forward and took her hands in his, the shift making her feel as if he’d filled her all the way to the throat.

  He ground against her again, making her gasp, a sound he swallowed with a wet, claiming kiss. He moved within her. Faster, harder. All by themselves, her legs wrapped around him, her ankles clamped together at the small of his back. Ruthlessly, he pistoned in and out. She sobbed, the tension growing within her. If she could just have a second to steel herself, just one, she’d be all right. But he was relentless, demanding everything, giving everything, until she shattered around him, crying out, feeling him fall over the edge with her.

  Breath coming in gasping waves, her body completely spent and still deliciously full of him, she stared up at the ceiling trying to figure out what had just happened. Because something definitely had. Something terrifying.

  She’d gotten what she’d wanted.

  But what the hell was she supposed to do now?

  {{{

  Raul glared at the phone on his desk, willing it to ring.

  As it had for the last three days, it defied him without compunction.

  A guy could easily learn to hate the modern age. In the old days he’d have simply grabbed Penelope and taken her home with him, and that would have been that. Nice. Simple. But no. In today’s era, he’d had to gather his clothes after the most cataclysmic sex of his life and leave her house, exactly as promised. Then he’d had to come on duty for the last three days because he was the captain and he had his duty just like everyone else. One more day on, and then he’d be able to stop waiting for Penelope to snap out of the stunned state she’d been in when he left. So stunned, she’d almost stopped him from kissing her goodbye, pulling back with barely concealed embarrassment. He could go to her office and…and…

  That’s where he always got fuzzy.

  On the one hand, he was so damn sure what he wanted from her—everything. He wanted her to want him. To need him. To demand from him. He wanted to look at her and not see the wariness that had been in her eyes from the time he’d come back home. He wanted her approval. Her pleasure. Her love.

  That was it. He wanted her to love him again. No, love him, not the person she’d put on a pedestal, but the man with flaws and a temper and all kinds of stupid fuckin’ mistakes under his belt.

  On the other hand…what the hell was he supposed to offer in return?

  All he knew was what he wanted. What something primal inside him kept demanding was his by right. He had no idea what Penelope might want. No idea if he could give it to her if she ever asked.

  The pencil in his hand snapped with a crack just as the door to his office opened, revealing another pain in his ass he didn’t want to deal with.

  “Still screwing up next month’s schedule, I see.”

  “Go away, Josh.”

  The bastard walked into the room, closing the door carefully before dropping into the chair across from the desk and putting his feet up on the edge.

  Raul glared at the friend he’d had for so long he’d forgotten why they started hanging out toget
her. Josh looked precise as usual, black hair trimmed neatly, white shirt and dark blue uniform pants pressed into hard regulation creases. His blue eyes were all kinds of amused, as if he waited for something magical to happen, looking for all the world like he expected Raul to spout something out of his ass.

  “What?”

  “I’m just waiting for you to tell me what the hell is wrong with you lately. And don’t even try to tell me it doesn’t have something to do with Penelope Gibson. Just because I’m your friend doesn’t make me stupid.”

  Not that he had any intention of lying, but curiosity made him ask. “What makes you think it’s about Pen?”

  “Well, let’s see. First, she’s ducking Randa and Trisha both—which has them seeing red, so I’d hide under a table around them if I were you. Then, everyone at Shaky Jake’s is talking about how you’ve been at her house more than a few times the last few weeks.”

  “That’s it?”

  “There’s also the small fact that her daughter is telling anyone who’ll listen that you’re her father.”

  Raul’s eyes widened at that. “She’s what?”

  “Practically took out an ad in the paper. And all her little cousins are agreeing with her. Kids told their friends, who told their parents, parents started talking and next thing you know, there’s a bonfire of gossip at Shaky Jake’s over how long you and Penelope have been sneaking around. Word is you’ve been sneaking into town for some wham-bam action since you left.”

  Shit. Shit, fuck, and goddamn. No wonder Penelope hadn’t called. And she probably thought he was an ass for not calling her while the whole town exploded with innuendo. “I’ve got to go talk to her.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Josh interrupted as Raul made to get up out of his chair. “Rand and Trisha are already camped out on her front porch. You go tearing over there without knowing the right thing to say and it’ll just get ugly.”

  Raul sank back into the chair.

  “Figured.”

  “Figured what?” Raul dragged his hand down his face wearily. This was not quite how he’d planned for Chloe’s revelation to go. But he and Penelope had both known from the beginning it could blow up into a giant, embarrassing scene. Damn it, how was Chloe handling it?