Tempting as Sin

by Rosalind James

Surely, there was nothing like being pressed against a man’s hard body, feeling his lips on your neck. His hand moved to her breast, lifted it, his thumb traced her nipple, and the sensation arrowed straight to her core.

  His lips, his tongue, his teeth on her neck, her shoulder. Gentle, then not quite so much. His arms moving her like they were dancing, and his deep voice murmuring in her ear. “Open your eyes, Lily. Look at how amazing you are.”

  He’d turned her so she faced the mirror. Rafe’s body dark as a shadow behind her, his hand showing brown against her breast, her body pale in the candlelight.

  “That’s beautiful,” he said, and there was a catch in his voice. His hand was moving, stroking down her ribs, her belly, taking its time. She felt every inch of his touch, and she watched her body respond, her flesh quiver where he’d been. Saw his hand dive between her legs and settle in to play, and saw her knees tremble.

  “Feels good,” he whispered in her ear. “Makes you want more.”

  “Yes.” It was a gasp.

  “Take down your hair for me,” he said.

  She looked in the mirror, and she did it. His hands on her. Her fingers finding the elastic, pulling it out and dropping it to the floor. Shaking her head so the blonde waves fell around her shoulders. Down her back.

  She’d never felt more like a woman. He was powerful? So was she.

  Her head was spinning. Her heart was pounding. He turned her and, finally, he was kissing her. Long and slow and deep, tongues dancing, tasting. She slid her hands under his T-shirt, then worked it up his body, and he stood back and yanked it off.

  Now, she needed the candlelight to see him. Hard muscle forming glorious dips and bulges. Smooth, dark skin, and hair as black as midnight. Her hands on his chest, and the sharp intake of his breath when she played there, then slid a palm down over his abdomen, all the way to his belt. She looked up at him, toyed with the leather tongue, then slid it slowly through the loops.

  “Want to know what I’m good at?” she asked him.

  He didn’t look like a werewolf. He looked like a man. She put her other palm on the considerable bulge in his jeans, traced a finger slowly down it and drew a nail back up, and heard him groan.

  “Uh…” That was all he managed.

  “I’m going to take that as a ‘yes.’” She pulled back slowly on the leather, and the prong came loose from its hole. Both hands, and the belt was unfastened. A flick of a button, and she was almost there.

  The thunder rolled outside, a long, low grumble, deep as an elephant call, almost below the level discernible by the human ear, but sending a shiver through her all-too-human body all the same. Her finger and thumb on the tab of the zipper, playing again. And then, exactly as slowly as she could, drawing it down.

  He’d made her burn. She wanted to do the same for him. She lowered herself to her knees, took the rest of his clothes along with her, and let him kick them off. Still slowly. And right in front of the mirror. “You like to watch?” she asked him. “Watch this.”

  Wait, Rafe thought. Wait. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. This was…uh…He may have lost his train of thought.

  He’d thought Lily was shy. She wasn’t one bit shy about this. And she’d been right. She was talented. She took her time, and she did it right. When his hands tightened in her hair, she slowed down, and when they relaxed again, she sped up. As soon as he got comfortable, she changed it up. It was frustrating. It was maddening. It was hot as hell. And watching her slim back in the mirror, pale in the candlelight? Seeing his hands twining in her hair, wrapping the length of it around his palms, tipping her head back, moving it exactly the way he wanted? Oh, yeah.

  Oh, yeah. He was trying to hold back, and it wasn’t working.

  “Lily,” he said, and pulled her hair a little harder. “Lily. Stop. I can’t…”

  When she released him, he wanted her mouth back again. “Oh, yes,” she said, sounding so assured. She still had a hand on him, like she didn’t want to let him go, and that hand was keeping up the effort. “You can. Turn sideways, so you can see me. You’re going to watch me take everything.”

  Oh, God. He couldn’t say no. It was supposed to be about pleasing her. The thunder pealed again, closer this time, and he felt it all the way to his bones. He turned sideways, and then he watched. He watched his body stiffen. He watched his face twist. He watched his hands tighten on her. And he watched as he jerked and spasmed and groaned.

  He watched her take it all. He watched her drink him down.

  By the time she finished, he was shuddering. She stood up, took him by the hand, led him to the bed and pushed him down onto it, where she climbed into his lap, took his head in her hands, and kissed him exactly the way he’d kissed her. Long, and slow, and deep, her tongue exploring him, and he could feel her reveling in the aftershocks that were still running through his body. When her mouth left his, she kissed her way to his ear and whispered, “We’re even, wolf boy. Wait here.”

  She left the room, came back with the bottle of wine and both glasses, handed his to him, set the bottle on the bedside table, and drank hers down in long, luxurious swallows, as greedy for it, as unexpectedly erotic, as when she’d taken him straight down her throat. He watched her do it, then told her, “We’re taking a shower, and then we’re starting over. This time, I’m in charge. We’ll see who’s even.”

  Standing with her in a clawfoot tub, kissing her again, lifting her against the wall to kiss her better as the water rained down on him, straight over his hair, his back. The look on her face when she begged, “Hold me tighter. Kiss me harder. Do it like that. Rafe.”

  The shock, a visceral, primitive thing, when the light was suddenly gone, then flashing again. Lightning. Lily’s face. Lily turning, shutting off the water, as a crack of thunder made her jump. Lifting her out into pitch darkness and a low, angry rumbling like the very earth was moving, keeping his hand on her as he stepped out himself, took the towel she offered him, reached for her and used it to pat her dry.

  She was doing something. Drawers opening, closing. Another flash, and she grabbed something from a drawer with a “Yes!” Another crack of thunder, and her hand found his arm, his hand, and she said, “Come on.”

  Ten thousand wind-driven drops of water battering a metal roof. The whistles and groans of wind in evergreens. The wind chimes on Lily’s back porch spinning and clanking in full discord, mingling with the hammering rain like a post-modern symphony. The light in the bedroom wild, too, the candle’s flame flickering hard for a long two seconds. Until the curtains billowed like ghosts and the flame sputtered and died.

  Darkness complete. Wind at gale force, out of control. The crack of a tree limb falling, and another flash of lightning. Lily was headed for the bed, and he was going with her, falling onto it with her, shoving her onto her back.

  Flash. His mouth on Lily’s full breast, his hand wrapping around her wrist, pulling her arm over her head. The wind howling at banshee level, and he was moving down her body, navigating by touch, settling in. His hand finding her thigh, shoving it high as his mouth closed over her.

  No patience this time. His fingers inside her, his mouth working her over, taking her the same way she’d taken him, like she was his to enjoy. His to eat. She was shifting under him, calling out, part of the wind and rain.

  Flash. Lily halfway off the bed, her back arched into a bow, her hands on the floor. He stopped, tried to pull her up.

  “No.” It was a wail, and he didn’t know if it was the thunder shaking her, or him. “No. Don’t stop. Oh, God. Don’t stop.”

  She went up the same way the thunder did. A hard jolt, then endless rolling waves that went through her body like the lightning. Like she was electrified.

  “Now,” she said. “Now. Oh, God, Rafe. Now. Please. Fuck me now.”

  He was going to die. But he had to say it. “No…condom.”

  “Bed,” she said. “Packet. I dropped it when we came back.”

  Another flash, and h
e saw it. A blue square against the pale-green comforter. He grabbed it, then grabbed her, but he missed in the dark, and they both tumbled down onto the floor.

  She was on her knees. He could make her body out in the darkness. Barely. Three seconds, and the condom was on.

  He got a hand behind her head, another around her back, and took her down with him.

  Flash. Sliding into Lily, seeing her mouth open, hearing her call out over the rolling thunder. Feeling her around him, so tight he could barely get inside, gripping him hard.

  Flash. Her hands fluttering like birds, making him need to lace his fingers through hers, to drag her hands over her head, to hold her there. Her legs coming up, then up some more, as he plunged into her again and again. Her sobbing breaths, and the heat of her.

  She was saying something, and he needed to listen. He needed to…

  “More,” she said. “Rafe. More. Harder.”

  He swore, let go of her hands, and got his palms on the back of the thighs that were straining. Straining. Needing more. He pushed them higher, felt himself sink deeper, and just about lost it when she said, “Yes. Yes. Please.”

  When her legs were over his shoulders, she was wailing. He gasped, “Hurts?”

  She didn’t answer. Flash. Her face upturned, eyes closed, mouth open. His palms on either side of her head. He was driving deep, her voice, the howling wind, the pounding rain filling his ears, the thunder and the pleasure in his chest, his belly. And the absolutely primitive satisfaction of filling Lily to the brim.

  The storm rocked and rolled around them, and he rocked and rolled her right over the edge. He flew her high, and he took her home.

  Electricity spiking through them. Thunder penetrating to their bones. The storm flinging them into the wind, carrying them with it. Past thought. Past words. Past all comprehension. Shaking them, tossing them. Letting them fly.

  The thunder was gentler, the lightning lessening, and Lily was as shaken as if she’d been out there in it. Rafe detoured into the bathroom, and she thought dimly, Condom. Then he came back, lifted her off the floor, groped for the comforter and pulled it back, climbed in with her, and pulled her close. Her back to his front, the way they’d started. Rafe kissing her ear, stroking a hand over her hip, down her thigh. Rafe’s voice, quiet behind her, full of wonder.

  “Wow.”

  She laughed, and knew it wasn’t steady. “Yeah. I’ve never…wow.”

  “I wasn’t sure if I was hurting you.”

  “No. Or maybe. Can sex feel too good?”

  How could you feel somebody’s smile in the dark? “No. And I’m going to put it out there, jealous fella that I am, and say that I’m glad you had a condom, and I’m sorry you did. Also—that I think that was one hell of a condom.”

  She rolled over, reached out and found his shoulder, and followed a path until she had a palm on his cheek. “Do you want me to tell you about it?”

  He sighed, and she felt that, too. “Yeah. Could be I’ll be sorry, but I do.”

  She shoved him gently onto his back, stroked her hand down his chest, and kissed him there. “I haven’t had sex since Antonio. And there was so much hurt there. Not so much physical,” she hurried to add, reading the tension in him. “But sometimes I thought physical was easier. I thought, when it happens again, it’s going to be on my terms. My time. My place. My rules. My condom.” She kissed his chest again, and smiled. “Studded and ribbed, for the lady’s pleasure. I’d heard it felt good. Antonio wouldn’t try it. Never mind why. But I might write a testimonial.”

  “Good, eh,” he said. His hand was smoothing her hair, and under her palm, she could feel his heart beat.

  “So good. Of course, that might have been you. Can I just say…” She sighed and stroked her hands over him, so glad she was allowed to do it. “I think I’m in love with the werewolf.”

  His hand, which had been in her hair, tightened. “I’m not the werewolf.”

  Her heart lurched. “Rafe, I’m sorry. I was joking. Hey.” She rose on an elbow and wished she could see him. “I know you’re not. I know who I had with me tonight, and I know how special he was.”

  He pulled her down with him, rolled her this time, and kissed her. “Remember that, then.”

  How could he make her laugh, make her burn, and touch the most tender piece of her heart, all in the same evening? “I will,” she told him. “I promise.”

  He sat up. She could tell, even though she still couldn’t see him. “We never got our picnic. Hungry?”

  She smiled. “Starved. And I want some more wine.”

  “Well, you worked for it.”

  She kissed what she could reach of him, which was the small of his back, then, ran her fingers down it, and felt him respond like he was wired to her. “Yes, I did,” she told him. “And so did you.”

  When Rafe woke and realized that morning was well and truly here, Lily was still asleep. On her back, her arm flung up beside her head, and her golden hair streaming around her, looking like an illustration for a fairy tale.

  Maybe she was sleepier than usual because, along with the picnic they’d ended up eating in bed by candlelight, they’d finished off the bottle of wine. Or maybe because, when the lights had come back on sometime in the wee hours and he’d got up to turn them off, he’d climbed back into bed again, had given her a cuddle and then a kiss or two, and one thing had led to another. That condom had felt good to her when she was on top of him, too. Her head flung back and her eyes closed, riding him like a Montana cowgirl, to the wild, lonely music of the wind in the pines. A sight and a memory to heat a man’s blood.

  All that may have been why, when he woke to find the sun well up and her still sleeping like an angel, he didn’t even think about getting dressed and going home. It wasn’t any possible choice. Instead, he collected his clothes from the floor, then headed for the kitchen by way of the bathroom.

  When he came back upstairs again, Lily stirred, then sat up with a jolt, the comforter falling to her waist. “What?” She grabbed for a little rose-gold alarm clock, the wind-up kind, said, “Shoot. Shoot,” and jumped out of bed. Naked, which he appreciated.

  When she noticed him, she yelped, then laughed. “I forgot about you. Can you believe that?”

  He smiled and handed her a mug. “Not too flattering. Coffee.”

  “Oh. Thanks.” She tucked her hair behind an ear and said, “I overslept. I never oversleep. I’ve got to be in the store before ten, and it’s eight. Eight.”

  “Reckon I’d better give a hand, then,” he said. “What can I do?”

  She still looked distracted, as if being late—or maybe not being perfect—was unacceptable, and Rafe smiled at her again, got her to smile back this time, and said, “You’ve got a set of hands here. Put me to work. You could also drink your coffee.”

  “Right. Thanks.” She took a sip, then said, “Chuck.”

  “Already sorted,” Rafe said. “Took him outside on his leash, so he didn’t aggravate anything. Vet’s orders. He needs to be quiet for a few days, and then the cone can come off. We somehow never got around to discussing that last night, I realized. I gave him breakfast and checked his incisions, also as ordered. Chuck’s all good. Are you planning on taking him to the shop? He might be better off staying with me instead, at the cabin. That’d be less stimulating, surely.”

  One hell of a conversation to have with a naked woman. Talking about a goofy, overgrown conehead dog and his indelicate incisions, when what you really wanted was to take said naked woman straight back to bed and love her right.

  “Bailey’s coming up at nine to spend the day,” Lily said. “She’s going to do some weeding for me while she’s here, and keep Chuck quiet. I’m alone in the shop on Sunday mornings. And you have your trail ride.”

  “I don’t, though. Too muddy. Changed it for tomorrow, and my body’s glad to hear it. That also might mean that you could come with me, since I hear your seat on a horse is worth watching, and I’m guessing it’s true.”r />
  “I’d love to go riding,” she said, sounding absolutely wistful, “even though I should work on my yard instead. The lawn needs mowing, and so many other things. I’m sure there are tree limbs down, too. I need to get those stacked up for when I can use the chainsaw on them. You don’t want to help with my almost-farm. I’m not going to believe that.”

  “Lily,” he said with a sigh. “Don’t tell me you only love me for my body. I’m trying to keep this on an elevated plane, even though you’re not making it easy. I’m giving you a romance, remember? Romance requires effort. That’s the definition. I’m stuck up here on the mountain, hiding out from my eager public. I can pull weeds. I can stack wood. I can feed chickens and gather eggs. I can mow a lawn, and I can use a chainsaw. It’s my day off. Get dressed, and we’ll get going.”

  She was finally smiling. “Want to learn to milk a goat?”

  “It’s not exactly Sir Galahad,” he said, “but it’ll do.”

  Lily couldn’t figure Rafe out. He really did seem just fine with feeding and watering the chickens, not to mention mucking out the goats’ stall. When she said something, though, he answered, while pitchforking dirty straw into a wheelbarrow, “I’m from an Army family. An Aussie family. My mum keeps chooks—chickens, and she always had a veggie garden, even if it was just a patch of earth. I’m no kind of flash fella.”

  “Except that you are.”

  He looked at her from over his shoulder, and then he tossed another forkful of straw into the wheelbarrow and said, “Think what you like.”

  “Rafe.” After that, though, she couldn’t think of what to say. She’d been right at the beginning, clearly. “I can’t afford to do this,” she finally said. “To…”

  He stood up straight, set the pitchfork against the wall, and grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow. “To fall in love. No worries. I got it. We’re friends. Nearly in-laws. And since I’m a friend who grew up with a gardening mum and chores of his own, I’m going to dump this on the compost pile and then go get some breakfast sorted.”