Breathing heavily, he gazed at her. “Hello,” he whispered.
“Hello,” she panted, blushing.
“I have an idea,” he murmured. “Let’s go see what’s in here.” Holding her with his large hands cupping her backside, he moved away from the wall and walked slowly into the bedchamber.
Her mouth went dry. “Rafael…”
“Yes, darling?” he murmured softly, nuzzling her cheek.
Her heart was pounding furiously. “I don’t—I’m not ready.”
“Hush,” he breathed, rocking her slightly in his arms as though she were a little child who merely needed quieting. “You will be.”
“Rafael.”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “Dani, my angel. My little firebrand with the hair of flame. Don’t be frightened. I’m going to take very, very good care of you. Remember what I gave you the other night?”
“I remember.”
“There’s much more than that in store for you now.”
“There is?” she whispered, her voice going hoarse with longing.
He crossed the room and gained the bed on his knees, where he laid her down under him and began kissing her slowly, deeply.
He lifted her legs and wrapped them securely around his compact hips again. She shuddered at the hard warmth of him between her thighs.
“Don’t you like it?” he whispered against her skin. “The feel of our bodies together. Do you feel how perfectly we fit together, Dani? It isn’t always like this, you know. There are poor matches, and there are good ones.”
“Rafael.” She could barely utter his name, staring up at him in pleading.
Oh, she was failing fast.
He smiled softly. “Dani.” Watching her face intently, he began unbuttoning her black shirt with one hand. “We’re one of the good matches. Can’t you feel it?”
She wondered how many times he had said this to other women. The worst part of it was she wanted to believe that he meant it only for her.
She swallowed hard and strove for a reasonable tone. “Now, Rafael—”
“Dani,” he echoed more hoarsely. He slid her shirt down over her shoulder and began kissing there while his deft fingers unbuttoned it the rest of the way down her chest and belly. “How lovely you are. How innocent. Don’t be afraid.”
“I think you should stop now.”
“Now?” He lowered his head and kissed her throat, moving south in a leisurely fashion. “No, not now, my precious. Now I shall give you pleasure such as you have never known.”
“But I don’t—want—any,” she attempted, shoving at his shoulders.
He merely laughed against her midriff, then nipped her lightly beside her navel.
“You bit me!”
“Did I? Well…” His voice was lazy and slow as syrup. “I could eat you up like a sweet peach, darling. Maybe I will.”
“I really think that’s quite enough—”
“I may never get enough of you, actually.” His warm, wet mouth moved with leisurely slowness over her skin, rounding up over the curve of her breast, then he captured her nipple, kissing, sucking with a depth of soul that robbed her of her wits. “Mmm,” he purred as he suckled her.
She writhed, her heartbeat racing. “Please!”
“Please, what, Dani? What would you like me to do? This, perhaps?” He slid his hand between her thighs, rubbing softly.
“Stop it!” she groaned, squirming frantically as she tried to escape his gentle, fiery touch. “You know that’s not what I meant! Get off of me! Please!”
“Hush,” he whispered, “let me pet you. I only want to make you feel good. Dani, I’m going to make you feel so good.”
“I feel fine. You must stop—”
He reached for the fastenings of her black breeches, gave her a coy little smile, and yanked the knot in the draw-cord free. Suddenly her breeches hung loose about her waist.
“Beautiful,” he whispered, pulling slowly, exposing her skin inch by inch as he slid the breeches down her hips. He lowered his head, nuzzling her chest and throat. “Ah, Dani,” he breathed, “I want you so badly.”
Moving lower, he kissed her quivering belly, then paused. Straddling her thighs, he rose up onto his knees over her and began unbuttoning his shirt down his chest, button by button.
There was a fleeting opportunity to try to escape. As Rafael undid his cuffs, Dani curled upward, starting to flee, then he let his fine white shirt slide slowly off his shoulders. It whispered back off his skin, falling upon the coverlet, and Dani promptly forgot to move, riveted, staring at his naked chest.
He was beautiful. Utterly, extravagantly beautiful.
She drew in her breath at the noble and majestic sight of him, the silky skin of his broad shoulders and powerful arms glistening in the moonlight like warm, sculpted marble. Her gaze traveled in awe over his splendid, sun-kissed chest and exquisitely carved belly.
Mute with awe before him, her heart sank. How on earth was she going to resist? She hadn’t a chance, not a prayer.
She was only human. Besides, she could never escape such massive strength. If he wanted her, he would have her, and that was the end of it.
But Rafael di Fiore would never take a woman against her will. She knew this from the marrow of her bones.
She lifted her gaze slowly, sorrowfully, dazedly, from his flawless, classical torso to his austere, angular face and found him watching her.
They stared at each other.
I can’t ruin your life, she thought. You are too wonderful to throw it all away on me. She felt a spontaneous impulse to tell him how comely he was, how perfect and full of masculine grace, but she bit her tongue. He knew, she thought, growing increasingly lost by the second. Oh, he knew.
Staring down at her, he reached out and took her hands. Lifting them one by one to his lips, he pressed a sweet kiss into each of her palms. Then he laid her hands on his chiseled belly, inviting her without a word to touch him.
With a small, hopeless groan of want, she gave in to the seduction of his stark male beauty, exploring him, marveling at the velvet heat of his skin. She ran her hands slowly up his midriff to his chest, learning him, stroking him. He quivered like a stallion under her hands.
His sculpted chest heaved, lust glittered in his eyes, and his dark gold hair spilled like luxurious sin to his shoulders. He looked wild and elemental and very, very male.
Entranced, she molded her fingers over the muscular curves of his shoulders, then raked her nails slowly down his brawny arms.
He closed his eyes, lowering his head while she went on touching him. The ends of his hair dusted the clean, sweeping architecture of his collarbones. She bent upward and smoothed his long hair behind his shoulders, then became caught up in playing with his hair, running her fingers through it as she lifted her face and kissed the crook of his neck. He tasted faintly salty, smelled of brandy and expensive cologne.
She lingered like that, eyes closed, her hands tangled all in the glorious golden chaos of his hair. She promised herself she would stop in one more second, one more second…
She was not quite able to believe it was happening. Prince Rafael—in her arms, in her bed—her husband, if only for a while. In a haze of sensuality, she brushed her lips over the place on his neck where she could feel his pulse slamming inside his artery.
Eyes closed, he tilted his head back in total surrender, her name on his lips.
With the drums of instinct pounding in her blood, she parted her lips and gave him a kiss on his neck such as he had given her, teething his warm, tender flesh, sucking it hungrily.
“Dani. Ah, God, Dani,” he breathed, “what a fool I’ve been.”
“Why?” she asked, nuzzling his throat, seeking another intriguing place to bite him.
“I thought I knew what pleasure was. But nothing…nothing prepared me for this, for you. You make me feel…everything.”
Moving back a small space, she raised her gaze to his enraptured face and knew she had ne
ver seen anything so powerfully erotic as him in that moment. Despair surged through her, entwined with her desire. She closed her eyes in defeat at the bewildering surge of longing within her, to open herself, body and soul, become one with him, to take him inside herself so she need never be alone again.
Loneliness, wild and dark, rose in her like a crushing ocean wave. It defeated her and she gave in, hating herself, but she needed him too much. Her caress slid down his chest as she lay back again, her body trembling.
Rafael lowered his chin and lifted his gold-tipped lashes heavily, his green-gold eyes smoldering.
“My turn,” he whispered. He caressed her cheek, then his fingertips trailed under her chin, down her throat, and skimmed lightly down her chest. He parted her unbuttoned shirt and gazed down at her breasts. He gently cupped them for a moment, then pressed his thumbs over their crests, pinching ever so lightly, teasing them to turgid arousal until she was gasping.
Then he covered her with his body. Kissing her lips again and again, he eased his warm, bare, velvety flesh down upon her and thrust his tongue hungrily into her mouth.
She went rigid, however, when she felt his hand inching down inside her loosened breeches. Reason flung back to her as she realized this was swiftly going too far. She had to save him. She had to stop him. But he was going to be so angry.
She clutched his great shoulders. “Rafael—”
“Kiss me,” he whispered in silken command.
She felt a mysterious, steely hardness pulsing fiercely against her abdomen, and when she realized what it was, she tore her mouth away from his, trapped beneath him.
“Don’t, don’t,” she panted feverishly. “Don’t do this, darling. Don’t. We can’t.”
“We can. We shall,” he breathed, smiling at her in debauchery, his eyes glittering feverishly. As his lips lingered against hers, his hand inside her breeches moved.
She gasped. “No! Please, Rafael—”
“Yes, Dani. God, yes.” He cupped her mound and slowly slipped his finger inside her.
She cried out with a gasp of sweet shock, then somehow she found the strength to fight, bucking off his touch.
“Dani, calm down! I’m not going to hurt you, sweet—”
She ignored him, thrashing as fully in earnest as that night on the King’s Road when he had captured her in the woods. He won as easily now as he had then. His left hand clamped like a manacle around both her wrists, pinning her hands to the bed above her head. Quickly he moved his thigh across her legs, blocking her before she even thought about kicking him in the groin a third time.
“Calm down,” he ordered gently. He was panting slightly. “Dani, angel, I’d never hurt you, don’t you know that? You belong to me now.” He brushed a light kiss over her brow, and she nearly sobbed with wanting for it to be true. “Mine to protect. Mine to take. Was I not gentle?”
“You’re a brute and I want you to let go of me!” she said through gritted teeth just to get rid of him. Fighting tears of furious frustration, she began thrashing uselessly again.
“Dani, stop it,” he said crossly, stilling her struggles. “You know I’ve every right to this.”
“But I don’t—want—this!” she cried.
He laughed softly, nuzzling her cheek. “You promised never to lie, ma chère. Dani, my sweet, it’s our wedding night and this was part of our bargain. An important part, as you well know. Give in to me, darling. Lie back and let me love you,” he breathed.
“Don’t do this to me, Rafael!”
His laugh was low and wicked. “I like when you moan my name like that,” he murmured as he began kissing her ear. “Don’t tease me, Dani. Because I can feel your wetness drenching my hand and I’ve a pretty fair idea of how much you are enjoying yourself.”
She closed her eyes, reeling with his heated kisses. “I hate you.”
He laughed softly, a debauched, seductive sound. “That’s not what you’ll say in the morning. Now, here’s what we’re going to do. First, I’m going to finish undressing you. And then I’m going to make love to you nice and slow, Dani,” he said as he began pulling her shirt off her. “Nice and gentle for my virgin bride. There will only be pain the first time, my love, and after that, I promise you, a world of pleasure awaits.”
“Please, no,” she said in a dwindling whimper.
“Hush,” he whispered. “It’s natural to be nervous your first time because you don’t know what’s going to happen, but you must trust me, darling. I can ease your fear if you’ll just relax—”
“Stop touching me!”
An angry scowl knit his thick, golden eyebrows. “Damn it, you have a duty to Ascencion and to me! Quit playing games.”
“I’m not playing games. I’m not!” she whispered, but he paid no attention, slipping her black breeches down around her hips. She slammed her head back against the pillow in impotent fury.
He began and he was gentle, as promised. She could not stop him—or perhaps the dark, hungry, wanton core of her that needed so badly stopped her from fighting as she should have.
Holding both her wrists fast under his left hand, with his right he slid her breeches farther down her thighs, caressing everywhere he went. His fine, strong hands moved warmly over her sensitized skin, his touch smooth and sure. He leaned down to kiss her mouth, but she had the moral fortitude to at least refuse his kiss, turning her face away, then she uttered a helpless groan of mingled misery and pleasure as his fingers stroked the small, dense tuft of hair concealing her womanhood.
Maybe Orlando was all wrong, she thought desperately. Maybe the king wouldn’t mind this match. Maybe she could give herself to Rafael in jubilant abandon and keep him and there would be no consequences.
Fool.
His touch was light and delicate, full of practiced finesse. She tried to writhe away, but his fingers only pushed deeper with gentle pressure while he whispered, “Hush, baby, hush.”
She groaned angrily as he pleasured her, wild for him yet desperate not to fail him. His caress was slow, slow and rhythmic-deep. Lightning danced along her nerve endings as he drove her inexorably toward the summit. Her heart was pounding.
When she gasped in a shock of pleasure like a pearl diver breaking the surface, he claimed her mouth in a ravishing kiss….
Swept away, Rafe kissed her, his entire body shaking with lust. He moved down to suckle her breasts as he pushed her breeches farther down her legs. She was feverish under his hands as he caressed her everywhere. He had to have her. He couldn’t wait much longer. He had never before experienced such an onslaught of barbaric possessiveness over a woman, such total, urgent, bewildering need.
Touching her as deeply as his fingertip could reach, he wanted to make her come seven thousand times. He wanted to take her, own her, love her until he was empty, and as he held her pinned down, tasting her, he knew with a kind of dread that he could never get enough of her. Knew she could enslave him with his own need for the purifying, gemlike flame of her love.
Then she shuddered under his touch with another infuriated moan of pleasure and tried to bite his tongue in retaliation for making her feel it. He was too quick for her, laughing darkly, but her fight ignited primal fires in his blood.
“What’s this, my dear? You want it rough?” he whispered raggedly. “I can do that for you if it’s what you really want.”
“Let me go! I hate you,” she growled, raking her nails down his back with a commanding touch that spoke anything but hate. His ginger cat had claws.
“I noticed,” he said with a half-smile as he grazed her pebble-hard nub with a feather-light touch of his middle fingertip, back and forth, driving her crazy. “May I kiss you here?”
She groaned, thrashed, her slim hips lifting for his caress even as she refused him.
“You’re right. I should quit wasting time.” He rolled atop her, braced himself on his hands over her, and pressed his pelvis slowly between her thighs. Bliss.
“Feel what you do to me?” he whispere
d, dragging his erection, like a great stone temple pillar, over her mound with a stroking motion of his hips.
She gasped, moaned at the burning contact. “Please.”
In wild possession, he arched over her lithe body, knowing his greater strength would deliver him this victory. Chivalry, honor were forgotten under the violent rule of instinct. Nothing mattered but making her his own in the most physical way possible, again and again and again. “I want you now.” He released her wrists, not caring if she struck him, for no blows could deflect him. He reached down and freed his aching sex, pulsating and huge in his breeches for her. Until he was buried to the hilt inside her tight heat, every moment was an eternity of pain.
“No, no,” she was moaning as he eased between her thighs and cradled her in his arms.
He tried to calm her, stroking her hair. “Breathe, love, my sweet wife. Fighting me will only make it hurt,” he whispered, panting. “I don’t want this to hurt you, my darling. Oh, God, let me in.”
Her fear and desire both at fever pitch, she squeezed her eyes shut tightly, grimacing. “Rafael!”
As he guided himself to her glistening threshold with a hand that shook slightly, it came to him through a thick haze of need that she had started crying.
He stared down at her, his pulse like a field of racehorses.
She had not cried when she had been arrested, held in jail, interrogated, forced to say goodbye to her lifelong friends, nor when the prime minister of the land had yelled at her. She had not even cried at her own wedding, but she was crying now. His fierce little outlaw girl was crying and shuddering under him.
In fear.
He paused for about two seconds, staring down at her in bewilderment, whereupon his wits came out of nowhere, whirling back to him like the Furies. Dear God, he had simply overpowered her and was seconds away from—
Scorching need blazed through him.
No! he roared silently, squeezing his eyes shut in fury at the denial. With a curse on his lips, he pushed off of her and tore himself away from the bed, fighting to get his lust under control. He felt like someone he didn’t know. What had she done to him? Damn her! What was happening to him?
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