He cupped her face as she cupped his, angling her mouth to his, holding her steady as his tongue probed and sought and conquered. When he lowered his hands to her shoulders she caught her breath. It emerged in a moan as he skimmed the silk of her blouse down to her breasts, cupping them, squeezing them, drawing sensation from them.
He groped at the buttons and tugged them open, then slid his hands inside to caress her stomach, her midriff and her breasts again, this time through the thin lace of her bra. They felt swollen, heavy in his hands, her nipples stiff and hot. She moaned again but he devoured the sound with his kiss.
His hands continued to move on her, deftly arousing. Only because she was so attuned to him did she feel the nearly imperceptible trembling in his fingers as he brought them to her back, as he caressed the length of her spine and then flicked open the clasp of her bra. He guided her blouse down her arms until it hung from the waistband of her skirt, then tossed aside her bra and nudged her backward until she bumped against the sofa and sank into its soft leather cushions. Dropping to his knees before her, he trailed kisses across her cheeks, her chin, her throat, her collarbones and down until his mouth closed over one breast.
She sighed as the heat of his mouth permeated her flesh, her soul. She plowed her fingers into his hair and held his head against her, needing his lips on her, his tongue, his love.
Again she was aware of him trembling, this big, strong, no-tears hombre as overcome as she was. At her low whimper of pleasure, he leaned back and gazed up at her, his eyes bright and dark all at once. “Mujer carinosa,” he groaned. “I need you more than you know.”
“I need you, too,” she whispered.
He brought his hands to her knees, journeyed the length of her shins to her insteps and pulled off her shoes. Then he glided his hands up, caressing her skin through her nylons, pushing her skirt out of his way until it bunched at her waist. He bowed and kissed the apex of her thighs through her stockings, his breath hot and damp against her. She felt a matching heat and dampness inside, her body seized by a nearly painful longing.
She did need Rafael—not just because she hadn’t been this way with a man in ages but because of him, because he was brave enough to tremble as he touched her, strong enough to let her see his vulnerability. He was not like anyone she had ever known before. He had grown up with nothing and, like a magician, he had taken that nothing and created from it a magnificent life. Through perseverance, determination, hard work and sheer will he had become the man he was now—not for glory, not for fame, not because he wanted adulation or gratitude, but simply because he’d made the choice to succeed.
And when his success faced its greatest threat, he was brave enough to turn to Sandra, to reach for her and trust her.
As he rose up on his knees she bent down to kiss him. His hands felt broad and hard against her naked back, and she wanted to feel his naked back, too. She slid her hands from his hair to the nape of his neck, dipping under his collar. By the time she’d moved her hands to the front of his shirt he was already there, tearing at the buttons.
He shrugged free of the shirt and Sandra flattened her palms against his chest. It was smooth, hot, tawny. No hair hid his supple physique from her. He was all skin and muscle and sinew, agility and fierce male strength.
She felt his heart pounding against her fingertips, felt the uneven rhythm of his breath as she traced a meandering path down to the edge of his rib cage, to the hollow of his navel, to the ornate buckle of his belt. Again he preceded her, his fingers quick and efficient as he opened his jeans and shoved them off. She risked letting one of her hands drift lower, but before she could reach her goal he was standing, pulling her to her feet and unfastening the button of her skirt.
She let him finished undressing her. Her knees felt weak, her thighs tense as he eased her nylons down her legs and helped her step out of them. Straightening up, he planted his hands on her hips and pulled her snugly to himself. Slowly, like a dance, he rocked her, using his body to arouse hers until she was certain her legs would give way beneath her.
To her surprise, he steered her away from the couch. “It opens,” he explained, dragging the coffee table out of the way, tossing the cushions aside and unfolding the mattress. It was already made up with a sheet.
Sandra suffered a twinge of uncertainty. “You bring lots of women here, don’t you,” she said, unable to keep her disappointment from her voice.
“No,” he said, snagging her wrist with his hand and pulling her into his arms. “I never have brought a woman here before.”
Even though his past was his own business and she had no claim on him, she wanted to believe he hadn’t entertained dozens of women, hundreds of them, on the bed conveniently hidden inside his couch. She wanted to think she was the only one. “Why haven’t you?” she asked.
His gaze leveled on her. “I never have needed a woman the way I need you,” he said.
His words were so blunt she had to believe him. With a sigh, she let him draw her down to the mattress. He sprawled out beside her, propping himself up on one arm so he could look at her as he touched her. He swept his hand the length of her body, pausing at her breasts, her belly, the swell of her hip and then venturing forward between her legs. She sighed again as he found her, as he stroked and glided and entered her with his fingers. She arched to him, understanding the depth of his need, sharing it physically as well as emotionally. She needed him. She had never needed a man the way she needed him.
She reached down and ran her hand the length of him. He gasped at her touch, moved with her, pressed against her. With another gasp, he eased her hand away and reached over the side of the mattress, to where he’d discarded his jeans. When he rolled back he held a contraceptive sheath. She wanted to thank him for protecting her, for remembering, but she thought better of it. Proud hombres didn’t like to be thanked for their sensitivity.
He rose onto her, his knees nestling between hers, his belly taut and hard against hers, his hard male flesh seeking. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his shoulders as he thrust deep, fusing his body to hers.
“Dulce,” he murmured, then brushed his lips over hers. “Muy dulce…”
Sweet, so sweet, she thought as he moved inside her, as he withdrew and thrust again, and again, his body stroking and gliding as his hand had, igniting fires deep within her, sparks and flares of rapturous heat. Each surge increased the tension, the intensity. Each plunge brought her closer to him, made her more nearly a part of him, able to share more than pain and sorrow. Able to share the sweetness.
She looked up into his face, his dazzling dark eyes, his enigmatic smile. She moved her hands down the slope of his back, his skin slick with perspiration, his muscles flexing and stretching. When she reached the taut curve of his bottom he groaned and lost his tempo for a moment, distracted by her caress. Then he began again, forging deeper, faster, urging her to keep up with him.
She held him tighter. He kissed her brow, her temple, the underside of her jaw, and she clung to his shoulders, hanging on as the heat built inside her. He shifted to nip her earlobe, and she glimpsed a mark on the skin of his upper arm, a blue-black circle fringed in flame-like points just above the hard curve of his biceps.
A bruise, she told herself, but she knew it was the sun, the tattoo, the brand of Rafael’s brutal past.
She closed her eyes but saw it, a sun blazing in her heart. Its fire swept over her, burning away everything but the passion of Rafael’s lovemaking. A faint cry escaped her as ecstasy pulsed through her. Above her Rafael groaned, his body wrenching in release.
Minutes seemed to pass before he breathed again. His body unwinding, he sank onto her and pressed a weary kiss to her lips.
She closed her arms around him protectively. It didn’t matter that she’d seen his tattoo, the proof of his lies and his sins. It didn’t matter that he was a gang member, the brother of a convict, a hermano.
She and Rafael needed each other tonight. More th
an needed. What they’d shared was love, and the rest—who Rafael was, who Sandra was, what he might have done in the past, what she might have to write about him in the future—was irrelevant.
All that mattered was love.
Chapter Eleven
*
HER SKIN WAS LIKE VELVET.
He had expected her to be strong, to have legs that could take a man, lips that could cling. He had expected her to be passionate. As he’d told her, she wasn’t a bleached-out gringa. She was a real woman. In spite of her fancy schooling and her northern upbringing, she was a mujer.
What he hadn’t expected was that her love would be more addictive than any drug, that having her once would only make him want her again.
Who the hell was she, anyway? At best, someone who could never understand where he was coming from or what his life was all about. At worst, his enemy. A reporter who could expose him, destroy him. Yet in the end, she was a woman who had realized what he needed tonight, who had generously, unthinkingly given herself to him.
He kissed her once more, then rolled onto his side next to her. He couldn’t stop touching her, tracing paths across her back, under her arm, down to her narrow waist and up the rise of her hip. Softer than velvet…her skin felt like rose petals, cool and fragrant, intoxicating.
She stroked him, too. Her slender hands moved over his chest, around his shoulders, along his arms. She grazed his tattoo with her fingertips and sent him a questioning look. “It’s an Aztec sun,” she murmured.
“Yes.”
“What does it mean?”
He hated lying to her, but the truth was too ugly. Perhaps, being a reporter with canny instincts, she already knew about the gang, about Ricardo, about Rafael’s ill-spent youth swaggering down the streets of East L.A., inspiring awe with his flash and his tattoo. Perhaps she already knew he was the younger brother of a convict who had said, “If you’re my brother you will be my hermano, a brother of the sun. You will live for your brothers and die for your brothers, and steal and lie for your brothers. You will wear the insignia of the brothers on your arm, in your blood.”
Perhaps she knew. But he wasn’t going to tell her. “It’s my heritage,” he said.
Her eyes saw too much, yet she said nothing. She only moved her hand down his body, caressing, arousing. He felt his groin tense as her fingers skimmed his belly. He wanted her hand on him again, rubbing, tight and hot until he was hard enough to love her again. Merely looking at her stretched out naked next to him, her fingers dancing aimlessly across his abdomen, her mouth and breasts an inch away, the shadow of hair between her legs beckoning him… He didn’t need her to touch him. He was already there.
Instead of gliding lower, though, her hand detoured around his side and traced the long, slightly raised stripe of flesh that scored his skin between two low ribs. “And this?”
He should have expected this question, too. Sandra was inquisitive, always asking, digging, unearthing new information. No detail escaped her.
“It’s a scar.”
She angled her head to look at it, then traced it gently with her index finger. “It’s awfully nasty. How did you get it?”
“Sandra.” He wove his fingers into her hair and tried to divert her with a kiss.
She kissed him back, her tongue tangling with his, her body surging toward his. But when she pulled away her eyes sparkled with amusement and doubt. “You wish I’d shut up, don’t you.”
He smiled. Even if her questions irked him, her ability to joke about her nosiness turned him on. Everything about her turned him on.
“Yes,” he conceded. “I wish you’d shut up.”
She skimmed her finger over the two-inch ridge of scar tissue. “How did you get it?”
“Don’t interview me.”
She looked hurt. “Damn it, Rafael. We’ve just made love. I’m allowed to ask a question, aren’t I?”
“Will my answer appear in the Post?”
“No,” she said vehemently.
He didn’t believe her. God, he wanted to. He wanted to so much he pretended he did. “Okay,” he whispered and kissed her again.
She didn’t get anywhere near as caught up in this kiss as she had in the last. “How did you get it?” she asked again.
“I was cut.”
“Cut? What do you mean, cut?”
“I mean cut. Shivved. Stabbed. Knifed.”
She grew still, her palm molding to the curve of his side as if the blade had just been pulled out and she was trying to stanch the hemorrhaging wound. He peeled her fingers off and sandwiched her hand between his. He hoped she wouldn’t ask anything further—but he knew her well enough to brace himself for more questions.
“Who did it?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you not know? Were there witnesses? Wasn’t anyone arrested?”
“No. No witnesses, no arrests.”
She seemed to find that appalling. To Rafael, it was simply the way of the world he’d known as a youth.
“When did it happen?”
“A long time ago. Fifteen years.”
Her eyes were too lovely, her mouth too sweet, her shocked expression too innocent. He felt her fingers curl against his palm, her nails scraping gently over his skin like a kitten’s tiny claws. “To be stabbed in the back… You must have been seriously hurt.”
“Yes.”
“How did it happen? Were you mugged?”
“No.” He let out a long breath. Behind her lovely eyes, her sweet mouth, her innocent gaze and the quiet furling of her hand within his, he sensed the tenacity that so exasperated him. And excited him. If she were just a nice, compliant young lady she wouldn’t make him crazy with anger—or passion. She wouldn’t interest him at all.
He knew she would keep at him until he told her. “It was a fight,” he said.
“A knife fight?”
“I didn’t know there would be knives. I wasn’t armed.”
“Who were you fighting?”
Another gang. “Some neighborhood boys. It was a turf war. You know, this street belongs to us and that street belongs to you. It was stupid. I didn’t want any part of it.”
“Then why were you there?”
I was a Hermano del Sol. My hermanos told me I had to be a part of it. “It was one of those things. Everyone was there, the whole neighborhood.” He stroked her knuckles with his thumb, as if his soothing caress could answer her questions. And his own. He still had questions about that night, questions he’d long ago resigned himself to living with forever. “In those days the barrio was tough, but it wasn’t as it is now. Back then, people fought when someone spray-painted his name on someone else’s territory. It wasn’t like today, with gang-banging and drive-by shootings.”
“No guns. Just knives,” she muttered, as if she saw no difference.
“Guns are a coward’s way of facing his enemy. Knives are personal. You have to get close enough to stare into the eyes of the man you want to hurt.”
“Have you…” She swallowed and ran her tongue across over her lips, as if that would make her words flow more easily. “Have you ever hurt anybody?”
“With a weapon, no. I fought with my fists sometimes. Even knives seem cowardly. I never carried one.”
“Maybe if you’d had one, you could have defended yourself against whoever did that.” She gestured toward his scar.
Her comment surprised him. It almost sounded as if she approved of ghetto violence—at least if it was in self-defense.
He gave her hand a light squeeze, grateful for her empathy. The universe he grew up in was something she couldn’t begin to comprehend, yet she was trying—at least speaking the right words. “A knife wouldn’t have helped me,” he told her. “I was cut from behind. By the time I felt it, it was too late.”
“How badly were you hurt?”
He gave a brief, harsh laugh. “The blade broke a rib, tore through muscle, nicked an artery and punctured a lung. It was so dark that night
, and there were so many people running through the streets. And suddenly I felt a blow to my back. I thought I’d just been kicked…but then I started coughing blood, and my legs went out.”
“Rafael…” Her eyes brimmed with tears.
He squeezed her hand again. “It doesn’t matter. I lived.”
“You could have bled to death, or been trampled, or—”
“Diego saved me.”
Her eyes widened, and she smiled with dawning recognition. Maybe, like so many other people, she had wondered how two men with such different personalities could have remained close friends. Diego was as garrulous as Rafael was reticent, as open as Rafael was private. Diego was frisky, lecherous, preening and bursting with charm—everything Rafael wasn’t.
Yet he would trust Diego with his life, because Diego had already earned that trust in the most fundamental way.
“I don’t remember large parts of that night. But at one point my eyes came into focus. I was in an alley, and Diego was looming above me. My blood was all over him. He saw some people running by and he called to them, and told them to get a car. They drove me to the hospital.”
“Why didn’t they get an ambulance? Or the police—”
“The police didn’t come to our part of town,” Rafael said dryly.
Sandra didn’t speak for several minutes. She looked offended, and for a moment he felt sorry for having spoken so bluntly. It wasn’t her fault the civil authorities had wanted nothing to do with his old neighborhood, a community of illegal aliens, of sweatshops and sub-standard housing and people who spoke only Spanish.
But his apology died on his lips. Let her know the brutal truth, he thought. Maybe when she trumpeted his life across the pages of the Post, she would show some compassion.
Bad Boy Heroes Boxed Set Page 53
