by Abby Green
‘I just...it’s after six. We usually leave before now.’
The we struck him somewhere forcibly. He stood up and saw how Sam’s eyes widened. His body reacted to that look and he cursed her again.
He reacted viscerally. ‘I think this is a mistake.’
She frowned. ‘What’s a mistake?’
‘You...here.’ Dammit, he couldn’t even string a coherent sentence together. The longer she stood there, the more he was imagining her naked, opening up to him, giving him the release he’d only ever found with her. Seeing her here at the factory these past two weeks had been giving him moments of severe déjà vu.
She was still frowning, but had gone still. ‘Me...here... What exactly do you mean, Rafaele?’
Why was it that the way she said his name in that soft, low voice seemed to curl around his senses, making everything even more heightened?
He gritted out, through the waves of need assailing him, ‘I shouldn’t have insisted you work here. It was a bad idea.’
The unmistakable flare of hurt made her eyes glow bright grey for a moment, reminding Rafaele uncomfortably of another day, in another office, four years before.
Stiffly she said, ‘I thought I was doing everything you wanted—we set up the research facility here in one week. I know it still needs more work, but it’s only been two weeks—’
Rafaele slashed a hand, making her stop. ‘It’s not that.’
Sounding wounded, she said, ‘Well, what, then?’
Rafaele wanted to laugh. Could she not see how ravenous he was for her? He felt like a beast, panting for its prey.
He smiled grimly. ‘It’s you. Uniquely. I thought I could do this. But I can’t. I think you should go back to the university...someone else can take over here.’
Sam straightened before him and her eyes flashed—but with anger and something more indefinable this time.
‘You insisted on turning my world upside down, Rafaele, and now, just because you can’t abide the sight of me, you think you can cast me out again? It seems as if you rather overestimated your desire for control, doesn’t it? Well, if you’ve quite decided where it is you want me then don’t worry. I’ll be only too happy to get out of your way.’
* * *
Sam was quivering with impotent rage. She wanted to go over and slap Rafaele. Hard. It could be four years ago all over again. With nothing learned in the meantime. She was standing before Rafaele in his office and he was basically rejecting her. Again.
And, like before, Sam was terrified she’d crumple before him, so she fled for the door. But when she tried to open it with clammy hands it slammed shut again, and she squealed with shock when she felt a solid, hard presence behind her.
She whirled around to find her eye level at Rafaele’s broad chest and looked up. Emotion was high in her throat. Her eyes were burning. ‘Let me out of here, now.’
The hurt that had gripped her like a vice in her belly at hearing him say so starkly that he basically couldn’t stand to see her every day was still like acid.
‘You’ve got it wrong,’ he gritted out, jaw tight, seemingly oblivious to what she’d just said. His hand was snaking around her neck under her hair, making her breath catch. His eyes were like green gems. Glittering.
Sam swallowed the pain, determined he wouldn’t see it, but she was acutely aware of how close he was—almost close enough for his chest to touch her breasts. They tightened, growing heavy, the nipples pebbling into hard points.
‘Got what wrong?’ she spat out.
‘I didn’t overestimate my desire for control... I overestimated my ability to resist you.’
Sam blinked. But now Rafaele’s chest was touching her breasts and she couldn’t think straight. His hand tightened on her neck and his face was coming closer. Her lips tingled in anticipation. All the blood in her body was pooling between her legs, making her hot and ready.
Fighting the intense desire not to question this, Sam put her hands on Rafaele’s chest. ‘Wait...’ she got out painfully. ‘What are you doing?’
Rafaele’s breath feathered over her mouth, making her fingers want to curl into his chest. She couldn’t seem to take her eyes away from his, green boring into grey, making reality melt away.
Sam struggled to make sense of this, when only moments ago she’d believed he wanted her out of his sight because something about her repulsed him. ‘But you don’t...you don’t really want me.’
He asked, almost bitterly, ‘Don’t I?’
Confusion filled Sam—and a very treacherous flame of hope. She fought it desperately, fearing exposure. She pushed against him but he was like steel. ‘Let me go, Rafaele. I won’t be your substitute lover just because you’re turned on for five seconds. I don’t like to repeat mistakes.’
Rafaele laughed again and it was unbearably harsh, scraping over Sam’s sensitised skin like sandpaper.
‘Five seconds? Try four years, Sam—four years of an ache that never went away, no matter how much I tried to deny it...no matter how many times I tried to eclipse it...’
His voice had become guttural, thick. Sam couldn’t fully process his words, but somewhere deep inside her they did resonate, and she felt something break apart—some resistance she’d been clinging onto.
‘I want you, Sam, and I know you want me too.’
And then his mouth was on hers and it was desperate, forceful. Like before, but not. Without the intense anger and recrimination behind it. And once again, like a lemming jumping over a cliff to certain death, Sam couldn’t help but respond. And she couldn’t deny the fierce burst of primal pleasure within her, deep inside where she’d locked it away.
But the kiss didn’t stay forceful. Rafaele drew back, breathing harshly, and Sam followed him, too much on fire to be embarrassed by how much she wanted him. He wanted her, and the knowledge sang in her blood. She had nothing to be ashamed of.
Rafaele bent close again, and when he pressed a hot kiss to her neck Sam felt his hand do something behind her. She heard the snick of the lock in the door. It should have made alarm bells ring in her head. It should have reminded her of similar heated moments in the past. But it didn’t. Or she wouldn’t let it. She was weak and she’d ached for this for too long. Long nights when Milo hadn’t wanted to sleep and she’d walked up and down, breasts sore from breastfeeding, but aching, too, for another far more adult touch.
Rafaele straightened and with an enigmatic look took Sam by the hand. For a second she felt absurdly shy and bit her lip. Rafaele stopped and reached out, freeing her lip with his thumb.
He muttered, ‘Dio, I’ve missed that.’ And Sam’s insides combusted.
He drew her over towards the desk and then turned to take Sam’s bag off her shoulder, along with her jacket. They fell to the floor. Sam felt the back of the desk against her buttocks. Her legs were wobbly.
Rafaele cupped her face and jaw with his hands and then his mouth was on hers again, hot and hard, firm but soft. Demanding and getting a response that she had no control over. Her tongue stroked along his. She was desperate to taste every inch of him, revelling in the spiralling heat inside her. She was vaguely aware of her questing hands going to his chest, exulting in the feel of rock-hard muscle, her fingers finding buttons and opening them so that she could reach in and explore, feel that hair-roughened skin.
Rafaele’s hands moved down, coming to her buttocks, kneading them, and then lifting her so that she rested on the desk. He came closer, wedging himself between her legs so that his belt buckle was hard against her belly. Below, the most potent part of his anatomy was also hard, right there between her legs, constrained by their clothes and making her want to strip everything between them away.
One of his hands clasped her head, tilting it so that he had deeper access. His tongue was mimicking another part of his anatomy now, an
d his hips were moving against her, making her squirm and whimper softly as the fever of desire rose within her.
Suddenly Rafaele pulled away and Sam looked up through a heat haze, aware of her heart pounding and her ragged breath. Rafaele’s shirt hung half open.
‘I need to see you,’ he said thickly, and began to undo the buttons on her shirt.
As the backs of his hands brushed against her breasts she shivered minutely at the exquisite sensation, already imagining him touching them with his hands...his mouth and tongue.
Her shirt was drawn off and her bra dispensed with in an economy of movement, and then he just looked at her for a long moment, with an enigmatic expression that made butterflies erupt in Sam’s belly. About to scream with the mounting tension, she felt Rafaele’s hand finally cup her breast and shards of sensation rushed through her body. She tensed and arched her back, subconsciously begging him...and he needed no encouragement.
Cupping the full mound of firm flesh, Rafaele bent his head and surrounded that tight peak in moist heat. The feel of his intense hot sucking made Sam cry out.
Blindly, while Rafaele’s mouth was on her breast, Sam reached for his belt and undid it, her hands and fingers clumsy. She pulled it free of his trousers and it dropped to the floor, but before she could put her hands to his fly he was standing up again and helping her, pushing his trousers down, leaving him bared to her hungry gaze. Dear Lord. He was as magnificent as she remembered. Thick and long and hard. For her.
Sam felt hot, as if she was on fire. She moved her numb fingers to Rafaele’s shirt buttons, wanting to finish undressing him. Her breath was loud in the quiet of the office. All that mattered to Sam was getting Rafaele bared to her, and when she finally pushed his shirt open and off his shoulders she breathed in deeply, her hands smoothing over hard musculature roughened with dark hair, nipples erect and hard.
Unable to resist the lure, Sam explored with her tongue around those hard pieces of puckered flesh, aware of Rafaele’s hand on her head. He sucked in a breath, making his broad chest swell. He was so sensitive there. Sam moved her mouth up now, stretching her whole body, trailing kisses and tasting with her tongue along his throat, discovering the hard resoluteness of his stubbled jaw grazing her delicate skin.
Her hands on his head drew him down. She was searching for his mouth again, like a blind person looking for water in a desert. Sucking him deep into her own mouth, Sam could feel his erection strain against her, and she dropped one hand to put it around him, feeling him jerk with tension.
‘Sam...’
She almost didn’t recognise his voice. It sounded so tortured. Sam tore her mouth away from his to look up and she was dizzy with need and lust. It was just them and this insane desire. He was so firm in her hand, so strong, and her mouth watered when she remembered how she’d tasted him before, how she’d sucked that head into her mouth, her tongue swirling and exploring around the tip, her hand pumping him the way he’d shown her...
She didn’t even realise her hand was moving rythmically until he tipped up her chin with his fingers and said, ‘I need to be inside you.’
Sam’s sex throbbed. ‘Yes,’ she breathed, lifting her hips to help Rafaele when he went to pull her trousers and panties off. She was vaguely surprised she still had them on, that they hadn’t melted off her before now.
Rafaele took himself in his hand—an unashamed and utterly masculine gesture. Sam was sitting on the desk naked, legs spread like a wanton, but she couldn’t drum up any concern. She wanted him inside her so badly. Rafaele ran his hand down over her quivering body, teasing her until she bit her lip. He pushed her legs apart further and looked at her.
He stroked one hand up her inner thigh and let it rest for a moment at the tantalising juncture before his long fingers explored the wetness at her core—and then in one move he thrust them inside her.
Sam gasped and grabbed onto Rafaele’s shoulders, unable to look away from that glittering, possessive green gaze. His fingers moved in and out, and her body started to clench around them, the anticipation building to fever-pitch.
On some level Sam rejected this. She didn’t want to splinter apart while Rafaele looked on. She took his hand away from her and said roughly, ‘No—not like this. I’ll come when you come.’
Rafaele smiled and it was fierce. The smile of a warrior. He took her mouth in another devastating kiss and her wetness was on the fingers that he wrapped tight around her hips. Rafaele thrust deep inside her in one cataclysmic move and swallowed her scream of pleasure, his hand holding her steady when she went so taut with excitement that she thought she’d splinter apart there and then, despite her brave words.
But slowly, inexorably, expertly, Rafaele drew her back from that brink and then, with slow, measured, devastating thrusts of his body into hers he rewound that tension inside her until it built up higher and higher all over again.
Sam wrapped her legs around Rafaele’s waist, her ankles crossed, her feet digging into his hard backside, urging him on, begging without words for him to go deeper, harder. Pushing her away from him slightly, but supporting her with an arm around her, he thrust harder and deeper.
Sam’s head went back. Her eyes closed. She couldn’t take it—couldn’t articulate what she needed. She needed to come so badly, but Rafaele was relentless. She knew she was only seconds from begging. Overwhelmed, she felt tears prick her eyes—and then Rafaele thrust so deep it felt as if he touched her heart.
Eyes flying open, tendons going taut all over her body, Sam came in a dizzying, blinding crescendo of pleasure so intense she couldn’t breathe. She gasped and felt Rafaele thrust deep again, sending her spiralling into an even higher dimension of pleasure. His body jerked between her legs and she felt her endless pulsating orgasm milking him of his essence, which was a warm flood inside her.
In the aftermath of that shattering crescendo Sam barely knew which way was up. Her legs were still locked around his slim hips. Rafaele’s head was buried in her neck and she had the strongest urge to reach out and touch his hair, but when she lifted a hand it was trembling too much.
His chest was heaving and damp against hers. Her breasts were tender. Rafaele was still hard inside her, his strength ebbing slowly. And then suddenly he reared back, eyes wild, making Sam wince as he broke the connection between their bodies.
‘Protection. We didn’t use protection.’
Sam looked at him and went icy, before reason and sanity broke through. Relief was tinged with something bittersweet. ‘No,’ she breathed, ‘It’s okay, I’m...safe.’
She bit her lip, suddenly acutely aware of how she was balancing precariously on the desk with Rafaele’s eyes on her. She felt raw, as if a layer of skin had been stripped off her body. She clenched her hands.
‘Are you sure?’ he demanded.
Sam forced herself to look at Rafaele. Her mouth twisted. ‘Yes. I’m sure. My period just finished.’
He sighed deeply. ‘Okay.’
Sam couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. ‘You believe me, then?’
He paused in reaching down to grab some clothes and looked at her. ‘I believe you. I don’t think you’d want to repeat history any more than I would.’
The words shouldn’t have hurt her. Much as his earlier words shouldn’t have hurt her. But they did. Sam didn’t want to question why.
Grimacing slightly when her muscles protested, she stood shakily from the desk and took her shirt and bra from Rafaele’s outstretched hand.
She couldn’t look at him. Face burning, she turned away to put on her clothes and castigated herself. She was repeating history right here, right now. Making love with him in his office exactly like she used to. She could remember what it had been like to go back onto the factory floor, feeling exhilarated and shamed all at once, as if a brand on her forehead marked her as some sort of fallen woman.
The boss’s concubine.
She pulled on her pants and trousers with clumsy fingers, aware of Rafaele just feet away, dressing himself, sheathing that amazing body again.
When she was dressed he said coolly from behind her, ‘Shall we go?’
Sam steeled herself and turned around to see Rafaele looking hardly rumpled, his hair only slightly messy. She knew she must look as if she’d just been pulled through a hedge backwards. The tang of sex was in the air and it should have sickened her, but it didn’t. It made her crave more.
‘Yes,’ she said quickly, before he could see how vulnerable she felt.
* * *
Rafaele burned with recrimination as he negotiated his car out of the factory in the dark with Sam beside him, tight-lipped. His recrimination was not for what had happened; he’d do that again right now if he could. His recrimination was for the way it had happened. He’d behaved like a teenage boy, drooling over his first lay with finesse the last thing on his mind.
When she’d asked him just now if he believed her, his reaction had been knee-jerk and not fair. He was already repeating history with bells on, and he knew he wouldn’t have the strength to resist her even if he wanted to.
It had been a miracle that he’d had the control to make sure Sam had come first—but then he recalled how ready to explode she’d been when he’d just touched her with his fingers. Just like that he was rewarded with a fresh, raging erection and had to shift to cover it in the gloom of the interior of the car.
He’d taken Sam on his desk. He’d only ever let one other woman get to him at work—the same woman. Until he’d met Sam his life had been strictly compartmentalised into work and pleasure. That pleasure had been fleeting and completely within his control. As soon as he’d laid eyes on her, though, the lines had blurred into one.
He could still remember the cold, clammy panic that last weekend four years ago at finding himself waking in his own bed with Sam wrapped around him like a vine. Far from precipitating repugnance, he’d felt curiously at peace. Until he’d realised the significance of that and that peace had been shattered. He’d postponed an important meeting that weekend to spend it with Sam. He’d even turned off his phone. Had not checked e-mails. He’d gone incommunicado. For the first time. For a woman.