She tried to reason with this new Maria, to tell her that Rafe loved her, wanted to marry her, that they would have years to explore what it meant to be together as man and wife, but the new Maria wouldn’t listen. She wanted everything, and she wanted it now.
For a moment, she could feel Rafe hesitate, but she didn’t mean to let him pull away. With slow deliberation, she dropped her arms from around his waist, reached up and placed one hand on each side of his head. She brought his face toward her and let her tongue invade his mouth.
All hesitation on Rafe’s part stopped right there.
His arms closed around her so tightly, she wondered if her ribs would crack. She loved the idea that he held her so securely because he never wanted to let her leave his embrace, would allow no one to take her from his arms. She wanted to mold her body to his, every curve and angle fitted and matched, until she felt they had become one.
Until she felt she would never be alone again.
When Rafe first held her, first kissed her, she’d thought nothing could equal it. Now she realized that being held and kissed by a man she loved and being held and kissed by a man who loved her weren’t the same thing. Nothing she’d felt before could compare with the feeling of being in the arms of a man who wanted to make her his wife, who wanted to share his life with her, who thought she was the most wonderful woman in the world. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t. It mattered only that he thought she was. That was more than enough to make her feel like the most fortunate woman in the world.
Her mind was nearly overcome with the abrupt change in their relationship, trying to cope with the changes at the same time it was cataloging all the differences.
The physical part of her had no use for thinking. It cared only how close they were, how passionately they kissed, how warm the feelings. It caused an ember of heat to ignite in her belly and begin its slow spread. Her nipples became engorged and sensitive to the pressure of Rafe’s hard chest. Her muscles knotted and spasmed, her nerve endings shot sparks to random parts of her body, her heart beat faster, her breaths became short and uneven. It was the physical part of her that whispered there was more to be experienced, something so powerful and so exquisitely wonderful it couldn’t be described.
Her mind overruled her body, declaring that she had to pull back and give some consideration to what was happening before things went any further.
Rafe relaxed his hold on her, leaned back until he could look into her eyes. “Have I scared or upset you?”
He’d done both but not in a bad way. “No. It’s just that I had no idea you wanted to marry me. I thought I had everything worked out, what I would allow myself to feel when you left, what I would say, what I would do. You just tossed all that out the window, leaving me with no idea what to do or say.”
His gaze narrowed. “Are you saying you don’t want to marry me, or that you’re not sure you want to marry me?”
“I’m not saying either,” she hastened to assure him. “I want to marry you. I have for several weeks, but I’d accepted that it was impossible. I worked hard to keep my feelings under control, to keep my imagination from creating fantasies that could never be, to keep myself from hoping somehow you’d change your mind. Now everything is different. It’s going to take a little while to get used to that.”
He loosened his hold on her, let his arms start to fall away. “I don’t want to pressure you. I’ll—”
She gripped his arms, pulled them back around her. “How do I know this is real if you back away now?”
“I’m not backing away. I’m just offering to give you time to get used to knowing I love you and want to marry you.”
Maria wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to hearing those words. Or that she could ever hear them too often. They had transformed her world, changed her conception of reality. What had moments ago been a predictable future had now become a bewildering spectrum of possibilities she’d never allowed herself to hope for.
“It’s easier to believe you love me when you have your arms around me.” She clasped her hands behind his back and pulled him against her.
“I’m not sure whether I was reluctant to let myself fall in love because I was afraid what happened with Dolores would happen all over again,” Rafe said, “or whether I was just too bitter and angry. Once I realized I’d fallen in love with you, I was afraid you wouldn’t love me in return. I’ve held our business meetings in this room because it gave me a chance to be alone with you, to hold you, to kiss you, to convince myself that you loved me as much as I loved you.”
“Why didn’t you say something? I entered this room every evening trying to quell the hope that you did love me, that the only reason you didn’t tell me was because you found it nearly impossible to discuss your feelings. I left each evening telling myself I was indulging in a foolish infatuation.”
“I’m sorry. I fought it for a long time. Then when I didn’t want to fight it anymore, I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Why wouldn’t I believe you?”
“There were times I was afraid you were only putting up with me until I left.”
Maria didn’t know whether she wanted to kiss him or give him a thump on the head. “Let me tell you something you obviously don’t know about women. When a woman does the things I’ve done, she’s not putting up with you. She’s not going to commit herself until you do, but she’s hoping for a commitment.”
“Dolores didn’t.”
Dolores had let Rafe do everything except make love to her and had still rejected him. That was enough to make a naturally reticent man virtually inarticulate. “Most women wouldn’t do what Dolores did.”
“Intellectually I know that. I’ve just had a hard time accepting it where it counts.”
The man couldn’t even say the words my heart. She had a lot of work to do. She gave him a coquettish smile. “You don’t have to worry about women any longer. Concentrate on me, and you won’t be confused.”
He returned her smile. “Is that an invitation or an order?” She sobered. “I’d never order you to do anything.” His smile grew broader. “It might be easier than you think.” Where had this man been for the last ten years of her life? She brushed his lips with her right index finger, gave him what she hoped was a sassy grin. “I’ll leave things up to you. I’ll issue invitations only if you run out of ideas.” His smile grew broader still. “Is that a challenge?” “No.” She couldn’t stifle a small laugh. How could a man so knowledgable of the world be so inexperienced when it came to women? “It’s an invitation.”
The grin that spread across his face said he might be inexperienced, but he wasn’t stupid. His arms closed around her firmly. His kiss was gentle at first, then quickly transformed into a relentless exploration of her mouth. She felt captured and plundered…and hoped he would never stop. She tried to turn the tables on him, but now that she’d granted Rafe the freedom to do what he wanted, he didn’t appear ready to yield the initiative to her.
She decided she didn’t mind, especially when he began to scatter kisses over her cheeks and eyelids, to nibble her ear-lobe. The cumulative effect sent electrical charges arcing throughout her body in great bursts until she felt she would bounce out of her skin. It made no sense that a gentle nip on her ear would cause her legs to feel like they would go out from under her or that a series of kisses along her jaw would make her stomach feel like it had risen into her throat.
Maria had discussed marriage with her mother and both sisters. Her mother was of the generation in which marriages were arranged by the parents and the daughter given to a man she might never have seen before the wedding day. Maria had known there had to be more to a relationship between a man and a woman. She had often wondered what happened between lovers that could cause them to lose sight of all practical considerations, to turn their backs on old loyalties, to destroy the bounds of friendship and family, even to risk death.
Now she knew. She didn’t find it hard to think of running off with
Rafe in the face of parental opposition. Nor would she hesitate to follow him to Texas. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t risk for him. She knew it like she knew being in his arms felt right. It was comfortable. They fit. She belonged here.
Rafe’s kisses on the side of her throat disrupted her thoughts. For a man with little experience, he was quick to figure out how to reduce her to nearly mindless acceptance of anything he did. She couldn’t decide whether her mind or her body was more helpless, but it didn’t matter. Both had willingly yielded to Rafe. It came as a stunning surprise how wonderful it felt to give up all mental and physical control. She’d been responsible for so many people for so long, she’d forgotten what it felt like to have someone assume responsibility for her. It was a very seductive feeling, which drew her even deeper into Rafe’s web of love.
She wanted to be closer to Rafe, to be part of him, to be absorbed by him without being lost in him. Her mind said that didn’t make any sense, but her emotions said that was exactly right, that her mind should take a rest until it was needed again, which wouldn’t be for some time.
Now Rafe was kissing her shoulder. Who would have thought that caress could make her weak in the knees? It could be because it was unconventional. Maybe her shoulders were extra sensitive, or maybe kisses placed there felt especially intimate. What ever the reason, his kiss turned up the temperature of her body’s response. She had a compulsion to touch and be touched.
She splayed her hands across Rafe’s back. The play of muscles under her fingertips caused her belly to tighten in a not-unpleasant way. Pressure from his body heightened the feeling of coming together, of being molded into one. She knew that was physically impossible, but she wasn’t interested in physical reality when her imagination enabled her to accomplish that and more. Despite the mind-sapping drug of Rafe’s kisses, she retained enough presence of mind to know this had to be an emotional journey. Any attempt to bring it down to earth would destroy the magic.
She had never imagined she would fall in love with a man like Rafe, or that a man like Rafe would fall in love with her, but it had happened and she intended to explore every possible aspect of that love. An insidious voice in the back of her head whispered that something this wonderful couldn’t last, that she had to grab everything while she could. She didn’t doubt Rafe’s sincerity, but the niggling fear wouldn’t be banished.
When Rafe undid two buttons on the back of her dress to give him access to more of her shoulder, she didn’t object. Instead, she undid three more to allow him to slip the dress completely off her shoulder. Her reward was a series of kisses that laid a blazing trail from her neck across her shoulder and down her upper arm. She marveled that her dull, ordinary body could be transformed into a symphony of sensations that had the power to suspend thought, to reduce her to a helplessness that she wouldn’t have tolerated in any other circumstance. Now she welcomed it, willingly sinking into its velvety embrace.
She experienced a moment of hesitation when Rafe’s hands moved down her back to cup her bottom and press her against him. The double sensation of his hands on her bottom and the swell of his groin against her inner thigh threatened to sweep her away on a tide of hunger so intense, she couldn’t imagine how it could come from her body. Desire was like a sorceress with the power to make her believe that, at this time, she wanted him above all else. It scared her at the same time it inexorably propelled her forward at a pace that left her breathless.
Rafe tilted her head to give him access to her throat. But it was his hand on her breast rather than his kisses on her throat that took her to the next threshold. Like the rest of her body, her breasts were innocent of a man’s touch. Their transformation from an ordinary part of her body to a source of sexual pleasure was a surprising yet pleasing discovery. Rafe kneaded her breasts until her nipples pushed against the restraints of the tight bodice of her dress. She offered no objection when Rafe slipped her dress over her shoulders.
The soft fabric of her chemise separated her from his touch, but it was no bar to the myriad of sensations that bombarded her when he covered both her breasts with his hands. For a moment it seemed as if all her sensory receptors were located under his palms. When his lips moved from her throat to suckle one nipple through the fabric of her chemise, she was certain of it. She moaned softly, arched her back, and leaned forward against him. Her hands moved from her sides to his shoulders and then to his head, pressing him against her. Every part of her being was so focused on what Rafe was doing to her breasts, she didn’t realize he had undone the rest of her buttons until her dress fell to the floor around her feet.
His hands moved down her sides, across her back, over her buttocks, and down her thighs to the backs of her legs. Slowly he turned her whole body into an erogenous zone that needed no more than the brush of his fingertips to set off a storm of sensations.
When he pulled back and stood, she felt bereft, abandoned. Without a word, he led her through the door from the office to his bedroom. Coming to a stop before the bed he’d occupied since he arrived, he asked the question with his eyes rather than words.
She responded by stepping out of her shoes.
Rafe countered by untying her chemise and letting it pool around her feet. For a moment he stood looking at her, no words spoken, his gaze wandering over every part of her body. Just as she was becoming uncomfortable with his scrutiny, fearful he had found something to dislike, he released a long sigh. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”
How could he think she was beautiful compared to Dolores? Even her mother had bemoaned the fact that Maria was cast into a shadow by her older sister. “You will never marry until your sister is married,” her mother used to say. “No man will know you’re in the room as long as Dolores is there.” Faced with the irrefutable corroboration of her mirror, Maria had long ago accepted her lack of beauty—and her role in life as secondary in importance to her sister. Now Rafe was asking her to believe the impossible—that in his eyes she was beautiful, maybe even as beautiful as Dolores.
Rafe was in love with her, not Dolores. Just as she thought Rafe was more handsome than Broc, he believed she was more beautiful than Dolores. It was love that made the difference. This was one time when reality didn’t matter. When Rafe looked at her the way he was looking at her now, she felt beautiful.
His eyes, wide and luminous, didn’t waver. He stood, arms at his sides, unmoving. He appeared to be holding his breath, locked in a moment of immobility. The silence was so deep that she could hear the sound of her own breath, hear the sound of her heart beating against her ribs.
Rafe was the first to move. Reaching out with his hand, he drew her to him, wrapped her in his embrace. The feel of the rough cotton of his shirt, his belt buckle digging into her abdomen, made her acutely aware she was naked while he was still fully clothed. She reached between them to unbutton his shirt. Nerves, or excitement, caused her fingers to fumble.
“Let me do it.”
Maria had seen the naked torsos of many men as they labored in the hot California sun, but none came close to matching Rafe’s body. His skin was smooth with a slight olive cast to it. His arms, shoulders, and chest were developed in a way that implied being a cowhand was strenuous work. Maria couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to touch him. She didn’t know why she was surprised that his skin was soft and warm, incredibly wonderful to touch, to caress. He stood still while she ran her hands over him from collarbone to waistline.
“Let me take off my boots.”
After removing his boots and socks, he stood to remove his pants…and underwear. When he stood, she was made acutely aware that his body was as stimulated as her own.
Rafe reached for her hand with his right hand. With his left under her chin, he lifted her head until she gazed into his eyes. “If anything makes you uncomfortable, just tell me and we’ll stop.”
She wanted to say something, but the words wouldn’t come out because she wasn’t certain what they should be. She didn’t
pull away when he led her to the bed. When he tugged back the covers, she allowed him to lift her onto the bed. Almost immediately the bed sagged under his weight as he joined her.
Chapter Twenty-four
Are you nervous?” Rafe asked.
Nervous didn’t begin to cover what she was feeling. Nervous. Dazed. Excited. Scared. Curious. Eager. Hesitant. She didn’t know what to say, but she knew she had to follow her heart. “No,” she said.
“If anything bothers you, let me know.”
“I will.”
His touch was gentle as with his rough fingertips he brushed her arm from shoulder to wrist. He cupped her cheek with his hand, moved his thumb over her lips, before leaning forward to place a kiss on her forehead, then on her mouth. A moment later he lay back, gazing at her. “I could lie here for hours just looking at you.”
She loved looking at him, being with him, but she knew it would be impossible just to lie next to him. She let her hand roam over his chest, along his arms, over his shoulders, and back down to his chest, where a small nest of black hair covered his breastbone. Yielding to an irresistible impulse, she rubbed his nipples gently with her fingertips. His body quivered.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
He smiled. “No. I just didn’t realize I was so sensitive there.”
She didn’t know where the urge to pinch his nipples came from.
“Ouch.”
She giggled. She didn’t understand how it was possible to be so aroused she could barely take a deep breath and still be able to giggle.
“What made you do that?” he demanded.
“I don’t know.”
He reached out, took one of her nipples between his fingers.
“Don’t you dare.”
“I want to try something more interesting.”
He moved down until he could take her nipple in his mouth. Once more chills lanced through every part of her body, from her scalp to her toes. When he took the tip between his teeth and gently nipped at it, the chills turned to arrows of desire so powerful, her body went rigid, her muscles tight with a delicious ache. The feel of his hardened sex lying heavily against her thigh only served to heighten the sense of urgency building inside her. She wanted him, more of him, all of him.
Someone Like You (Night Riders) Page 26