The Thorn in His Side (16 page)

She trembled in anticipation of his touch, and not just his touch—he was wearing only a pair of boxer
shorts that did little to disguise the pulsing imprint of his erection and his size exerted a shocking fascination for her.

He ran a hand down the curve of her thigh and she shivered, her nostrils flaring at the warm musky smell of arousal on his body, the carnal ache low in her pelvis deepening in response.

She touched his chest, placing her palm flat against his warm hard skin, feeling the slickness of the sweat that glossed the entire surface of his body as she spread her fingers wide.

‘I can feel your heart beating.’

His burning eyes trained on her face, Rafael took her hand and, closing his fingers over hers, pressed it back on his body. His hand dragged hers in a downward sweep that followed the thin line of dark body hair that bisected his flat belly and vanished beneath the low-slung waistband of his boxers.

Holding her eyes, he pressed her hand against the bold bulge of his erection before taking her fingers and curling them around the hard column beneath the thin layer of silk.

A whimper of longing was wrenched from Libby’s throat as liquid heat rushed between her thighs.

‘That is what you do to me.’ He released a low hiss and shook his head with regret. ‘No, not yet,
querida.’
He took the hand she had slid beneath the silky barrier and raised it to his lips. ‘I have not yet the control,’ he confessed ruefully.

Libby stared at him, eyes mistily bright, her cheeks scored with feverish colour. She barely registered his comment; control was for her a dim and distant memory. She was looking at his dark face and found herself wanting to say, I love you.

The effort of keeping the words inside drew a moan.

‘Not long,’ he promised, kissing her. Libby hung onto him, feeling herself dragged along on the tide of his white-hot passion.

She opened her mouth to the erotic exploration of his tongue, writhing as she felt his hands on her body. He seemed to know exactly where to touch her to exert the most damage to her nervous system and the most pleasure to her brain.

She heard him say her name, felt his hot breath on her face and her breast, the soft curve of her belly, and she gave herself up to the sheer sensation of it, not even registering until she felt the air on her overheated skin that he had divested her of all her clothing barring her bra and pants. Neither were designed with seduction in mind.

She spared a fleeting wistful thought for the naughty red lace set, an impulse purchase that remained unworn in the back of her wardrobe, but moments later the red lace was forgotten as he knelt above her and slid the already unclipped bra from the proud full curves of her aching breast.

His groan of male appreciation sent a primitive thrill through Libby. Eyes blazing, he reached out to cup one quivering peak and she gasped, her body arching as he followed up the caress with the brush of his tongue across the ruched rosy peak of first one breast and then the next.

Her keening cry was lost in his mouth as Rafael claimed her lips once more, the bruising quality of his kiss pushing her head back into the pillow.

She felt the strength leave her limbs as she felt him slide her pants smoothly down her thighs.

Rafael breathed hard as he stared down at the beautiful woman lying there trembling with need, the blush of desire just below the surface of her creamy skin giving it a translucent glow.

Libby looked back at him with eyes so blue they could strip a man’s soul bare.

‘Madre di Dios!’
he breathed as without a word she parted her thighs in silent invitation.

Shocked by her own boldness, Libby gave a gasp as he slid a long finger along the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. Her eyes squeezed closed as she concentrated on the feather-like touch, every nerve ending stretched as he moved towards her slick heat.

‘Is that for me,
querida?’
he slurred as his touch reached the tight nub hidden by the dusting of red curls at the apex of her spread thighs.

Libby shook her head, beyond speech, incapable of anything but responding to his touch as she heard him rasp erotic sounding words in his native tongue. She did not have to understand what he was saying
to find the sound of his slurred voice unbearably exciting.

The first touch of his bare flesh against her own drew a gasp of shock from Libby, who did not retreat from the searing heat of his body, but pressed herself into it, seeking to deepen the contact, that desire growing into frantic desperation as she felt the pulsing imprint of his erection against her belly.

She arched upwards, her arms wrapping themselves across his sweat-slick muscled back as he settled between her legs.

With one smooth thrust he drove deep into her body.

The sound of her shocked cry of pain would he knew stay with him for ever.

For a split second his mind emptied as he rejected the truth, for a moment he embraced the sanity-saving nothingness.

The respite was brief.

Recriminations hovered just on the edge of his consciousness but Rafael pushed them away and let himself enjoy the tight silken body holding him.

There were no words to describe the way it felt to have him inside her, stretching her, filling her.

‘You’re so … oh, God, Rafael … this is so … Rafael …’ She repeated his name over and over, putting all her aching need and wonder into the three syllables.

‘Relax,’ he soothed, moving a little way deeper and feeling her gasp, then sigh. He retreated, felt her fingernails dig into his back, and repeated the process, murmuring encouragement as he felt her begin to move with him.

To know that he was the first one to give her this pleasure gave him a primitive thrill. Determined to make this first time one that she would remember, he reined in his passion, carefully controlling the thrusts of his body.

Libby closed her eyes and hung on, her face pressed into the curve of his neck, feeling the heat inside her build until it filled her, until she was the heat, then just when she thought she couldn’t get any hotter everything exploded.

She heard Rafael’s voice in her ear murmur, ‘Go with it, angel.’

And she did, she went with it all the way, becoming part of the crashing climax that swept like a wave through her body.

Rafael felt her tighten around him, heard the cry of pleasure wrenched from her throat and felt his control
slip. Helpless to hold back any longer, he buried all of himself deep inside her and felt his shattering climax claim him.

R
AFAEL
lay breathing hard, staring at the ceiling. Beside him Libby lay curled up like a kitten, her head on his chest, her thigh thrown across his hip.

‘It did not cross your mind to mention the fact you were a virgin?’

Libby opened one eye, wary but taking some encouragement from his conversational tone.

‘It crossed my mind,’ she admitted.

‘But you decided in your wisdom not to bother.’

Libby grimaced at the sarcasm in his voice and gave a non-committal grunt and trailed her fingers down the cooling skin of his chest.

Rafael caught her hand and tipped her onto her back. ‘You can’t distract me,’ he lied.

His eyes slid down her slim body; the love-making had barely taken the edge off his hunger for her.

This, Libby thought as she peeled away from his warm body, was the hard part, one she had not
really thought about until now.

‘I have to go,’ she said, thinking, Play it cool, Libby. He doesn’t want gushing sentiment, just sex. He got that, though possibly with less finesse than he had anticipated.

Rafael lay there silently as she gathered her clothes
from around the room and, standing with her back to him, began to fasten the bra across her narrow back, fumbling a little before she aligned the clasp.

‘This is not how it should be the first time,’ he said, his eyes on the pert curve of her deliciously rounded bottom.

The undercurrent of dissatisfaction rumbling in his voice made her turn her head.

‘Do you want me to apologise? If so I’m sorry I was so crap in bed.’ She arched a brow. ‘Satisfied?’

‘Do not be so ridiculous!’

Libby flushed and slid her skirt up over her thighs, twisting it around to reach the zip. She knew her childish response had deserved the reprimand.

He watched her struggle for a moment, then with an irritated oath vaulted from the bed and moved across to join her. ‘Let me.’

Libby held herself rigid while he slid the zip up.

‘I do not require an apology,’ he said, not moving away. ‘I require an explanation.’

Libby gave a choked little laugh. He was in for a long wait—with six feet five of magnificent rampant naked male standing next to her she was having a hard time remembering her name!

He, on the other hand, seemed totally at ease with his naked state. ‘You surely did not save yourself this long to have a quick tumble then off home.’ If he had known, if she had warned him … He struggled to manufacture anger and failed.

How could he be angry she had given him the most incredible sex he had ever experienced? And though it shouldn’t have, the knowledge that he was her first had added to and not detracted from his post-coital pleasure.

‘What was it like your first time?’ Libby swallowed and dragged her gaze away from his naked body. Just looking at him sent a rush of hormonal heat through her body; the intensity of her reaction to him was almost scary.

He looked startled by the question and then frowned. ‘I hardly remember,’ he said vaguely, his eyes on the lacy bra as he handed her the jacket from the floor.

‘You have a delicious body.’

‘Thank you, so do you.’ Staring at a point over his shoulder, she missed the twitch of his lips. ‘I should have told you,’ she admitted. ‘I didn’t because I thought you might have a rule … like the no-romance-in-the-office rule, a no-virgin-on-my-watch …?’

‘I like to cover all eventualities but I didn’t see this one coming,’ he admitted.

Libby went over to the mirror on the wall, relieved to see him pull a pair of jeans from a shelf in the wardrobe that ran along one wall of the room.

She smoothed her hair with little effect. ‘I’ve never done this before because I’ve always thought I couldn’t do sex without … really caring for someone.’

‘But with me you can.’

‘It was incredible,’ she admitted. ‘And I don’t even like you.’

In the act of zipping up his jeans, Rafael paused.

She was aware of his scrutiny and an anxious expression slid across her face. ‘I’ve not offended you, have I? I sometimes say things without thinking, especially when I’m tired …’ She covered her mouth to hide the wide yawn she could not stop.

As he looked over at her Rafael felt his anger drain away, tipping in a direction dangerously close to
tenderness; this woman was the best cure for an inflated ego he had ever come across.

‘Not at all. I have no problem being treated like a sex object, outside office hours.’ He pulled a white tee shirt over his head and reached for his car keys off the dresser.

‘You’re taking me home?’

‘That was the deal. Libby …?’

She tilted her head and found him watching her with an expression she found difficult to interpret. ‘Would you care to do this again?’

If her earlier remarks had bruised his ego her fervent,
‘Yes, please,’
more than compensated.

The first night set the pattern for the nights to come.

At the end of each day Libby would wait by the car, they would drive to his apartment and start to tear off each other’s clothes before falling into bed. It was all very intense. She wondered if this was because they were trying to cram an entire night’s love-making into a short space of time.

A situation with which Rafael was openly frustrated. She had thought he might tire of the arrangement and, knowing his reputation, lose interest, but if anything his appetite was more rampant than it had been.

Libby had not lost interest either. A week after their first time she had been so consumed by her hunger for him that she hadn’t been able to wait for him to undress.

She had been frantic to touch and feel him. They had not even kissed when she had pushed him down onto the bed and, kneeling beside him, tugged down the zip of his trousers.

Freeing his engorged erection and seeing how aroused
he was had only increased her levels of excitement. To hear him groan and respond to her touch had driven her delirious with hot desire.

She had not resisted the temptation to taste him, run her tongue along the throbbing length of him the way he had taught her, before taking him into her mouth. When he had finally pulled her away and, sliding her skirt up to her waist, slid into her, Libby had come so fast and hard that she had sobbed.

Afterwards she had not been able to believe she had acted that way. For the rest of the week when they had passed in the corridor she hadn’t been able to look at him without imagining he was thinking of the same thing she was.

Libby hadn’t lost interest; Libby was hooked; Libby was in love. The realisation had made her more inhibited. She was desperately afraid that in the grip of passion she would blurt out her feelings, which would effectively bring this idyll to an end.

Rafael had given lovers gifts before, but he always designated the task to others. This time he ventured forth into the jeweller’s himself—he would know what he wanted when he saw it.

He did. He had rejected a number of items before the diamond and sapphire earrings were placed before him.

He knew immediately that they would suit Libby.

He carried them around for the entire day, anticipating her pleasure when she received them. This fantasy lasted right up to the moment that she opened them, then sat staring down at the open box with a stricken expression on her white face.

‘What’s wrong? Don’t you like them?’ Not gutted,
he told himself, just disappointed she did not appreciate the value of the gift. No woman would sneer at a gift that came with the price tag these had.

‘They’re beautiful, but I can’t accept them.’ She closed the lid and pushed them back towards him.