"OK, that's it, I give." The feel of his mouth on my flesh was making my bones turn to jelly. I arched my back and pushed my breast at him in a brazen, shameless sort of manner. "I was going to torment you and tease you and arouse you till you had steam coming out of your ears, but I give. You're just too much for me. I surrender."
"Baby, if you arouse me any more, I'll explode," Raphael growled, the steamy look in his eyes confirming his claim. "As I calculate it now, I have about three more seconds before that happens."
We had our clothes off in record time. Raphael hit the bed first, me following immediately thereafter. I ignored his little grunt when I landed on him rather than the bed. I straddled his waist, sitting up and running my hands over his belly and chest, thinking about all the many and varied things I wanted to do to him.
Raphael swore.
"What?" I froze, wondering what I had done wrong.
"Just a minute." He put both hands on my hips and heaved me off him, rolling over until he was sitting on the side of the bed. "Stay there. Don't move. And don't stop thinking about what you're thinking, because I like that wicked glint in your eye."
I stared at his back for a moment, then figured out what he was doing. "Would you like me to hum a little condom-donning music while you're busy over there? Something in a march, perhaps? Or a Latin beat? Or maybe you prefer skaaaaAAAAAAAA!"
Quicker than you could say "extra personal space" he was on his back again, and had me hoisted over him.
"Wait a minute," I said, looking down from where he held me about a foot and a half above his body. "I see what you're doing, Bob, don't think that I don't. You're not going to impale me with that thing until I'm good and ready to be impaled, and that's not going to be until I do some of those wicked things you saw glinting in my eyes, so let me down nice and slow and no one will get hurt."
He grinned and slowly lowered me until I was sitting on his groin. "It's like sitting on a broomstick," I said, my eyes widening as I wiggled around on him a little, sliding back and forth along his long, hard length. Raphael's hands grabbed my hips, his fingers biting hard into my flesh as his head thrashed side to side on his pillow. "Oh, my! Maybe I'm ready now. Maybe those wicked things can wait. Maybe I was a little overhasty in ruling out an immediate impaling."
"Thank God," Raphael croaked, his voice as harsh as gravel. In one smooth move he lifted me up, positioned himself, and thrust upward as I sank down. His groan of sheer pleasure rang in my ears as my body accepted his. He was heat, he was fire, a very, very hard fire that pushed and shoved and burned its way into my tender flesh, filling me, stretching me, pushing me beyond everything I'd known into some new world inhabited only by us. I ceased to be one person and happily joined myself with him.
The last thing I saw before my eyes rolled up in my head was his back arching up off the bed as I tightened every muscle I had around the hard heat of him.
"Do you know, you're almost panting in time to your heartbeat, which says a lot, considering your pulse rate must be at least in the two hundreds."
Raphael groaned beneath me. I was drawing lazy circles on his chest, enjoying the feeling of his chest hair tickling my face as I pressed occasional kisses onto his flesh. His chest rose and fell quickly beneath me, making me wonder if I was squashing him. I put my hands down onto the bed and levered myself up slightly. Immediately his hands settled onto my bare behind and held me in place. I smiled to myself. We were still physically joined, a testament to his girth that we hadn't parted ways, so to speak.
"What does it feel like when you use a condom? I mean after. Does it feel ooky? I can't imagine it's a terribly comfortable feeling, what with all that… um… just hanging around the end there."
Raphael's hands slid up to rest on my back, but other than that he made no response to my question. A perfectly good question, too, I thought. But perhaps he was embarrassed that he'd only lasted a couple of thrusts before blasting off. Poor man. That was all it had taken for me, too, but unlike women, men invest so much ego in their sexual prowess. I didn't want to make him feel anything less than a stud muffin, so I decided to let the subject drop and talk about something else.
"Did you have a chance to see Arielle after the police questioned her? I was going to sit with her, but that minion of Inspector Bartos… what was his name?… Detective Kovar made me go over the whole evening again. Poor, poor Arielle."
"Why is it women can work just as hard as men while they're making love, but when it's all over, they can still put words together and have them make sense?"
I smiled at his disgruntled frown. "It's called afterglow, sweetheart. Pillow talk is the best kind of talk. Do I take it you'd rather I let you recover in peace than discuss the important topics of the day?"
Raphael moaned an affirmative, his eyes closed tight. I grinned and pushed myself into a sitting position. His eyes shot open when I wiggled just enough to remind him that my cheerleaders were still entertaining him at their homecoming dance.
"Baby, I wish I could oblige you, but I think you killed me a few minutes ago."
I raised up just a little, then sank slowly back down, gripping him as tightly as I could. He bucked beneath me and sucked in half the roomful of air.
"You don't feel dead to me," I said, leaning forward to tease the tip of his little brown nipple with my tongue. "You feel hot and hard and very, very alive. I can feel your pulse deep inside me. Here." I did my best Kegel squeeze.
"Ah, Christ," he groaned, grabbing my hips and holding on as he rolled me onto my back. He scooped my legs up until they rested on his shoulders. Slowly he pulled out of me until just the very tip of him rested inside; then just as slowly he stroked forward, filling me with so much more than just a delicious bit of flesh that tears came to my eyes with the beauty of him.
"You think I killed you?" I gasped, flexing my legs to pull him deeper into me. "You're going to be the death of me if you do that again, you know that, don't you?"
He smiled a wicked, wicked smile so hot it singed my eyebrows. "I'm not going to kill you, baby. Just take you to heaven and back."
Oh, Lord, did he!
Chapter Fifteen
"So, Superman, it's been a half hour. Have you recovered enough to talk now?"
Raphael, lying on his belly, lifted his head just enough to press a tender, but sated, kiss to my ankle. "I may never recover, but if you don't require anything more strenuous than me moving my mouth, I will strive to satisfy you."
"Oh, Bob," I crooned, wiggling my toes and reaching over to tickle his feet, "there is no question about my satisfaction. I'm probably the most satisfied woman in the world. I certainly should be after the heroic effort you made to curl my hair."
He rolled over onto his side, a smug smile gracing his adorable lips as he teased a finger along the line of my pubic bone. "Looks like I succeeded."
I bit his ankle.
He sighed and rolled onto his back, taking one of my legs with him, idly stroking my calf as he spoke. "I assume you want to discuss the murder."
"Amongst other things," I said, thinking of Christian. "You… um… did talk to the police, didn't you? I mean, really talk to them?"
"I did." He didn't look too upset by the experience, so they must not have questioned him about anything but the murders. I breathed a sigh of relief.
"What, if anything, did the police say to you when they questioned you? They wouldn't answer any of my questions, they just kept telling me to explain again why I was in those trees rather than taking the shorter way to the hotel."
Raphael swirled little circles on my leg. "What makes you think they told me anything?"
I sat up and looked at him. "You're a man. Men like the police always feel it's important to keep women out of the loop. They disguise it as a protection tactic, but really they just want something to feel superior about. So, what did they say to you?"
His lovely amber eyes considered me silently for a long minute; then he, too, sat up. "Joy, that's something I c
an't tell you."
"What? Why? Because of this secret in your past that you refuse to tell me?"
"Yes, it has to do with that. I would tell you if I could, but I can't."
I didn't like the serious mien to his face. I slid my hand up his leg. "What do you mean, you can't tell me? You can't tell me because the police asked you not to, or you can't tell me because you don't trust me?"
He watched my hand as it traced the long bulge of muscle from his knee to his hip. "It's not a matter of trusting you. There's a lot more at stake than just your feelings. The police are conducting a detailed investigation, and I can't… I… ah, Christ. I wish things were different. I wish I could just…"
He left the sentence unfinished, but I had no trouble filling it in. He had a secret, and he couldn't trust me with it.
I thought again of the scene I had witnessed: Raphael bending over Tanya's body. Could I have been wrong about him? Hadn't he discovered Tanya accidentally as I had? And what was he doing out there rather than staying at the fair, where he was needed? Did he have a reason to want Tanya dead?
I shook the thought away as soon as it formed. I might not have known Raphael long, but I knew I trusted him. He was not a killer. "Why weren't you at the fair?"
His eyes narrowed.
"It was only eleven. You should have been watching over the crowds as the bands changed. Why weren't you there?"
A muscle in his jaw twitched.
"OK, let's try this question on for size. What hold does Dominic have over you? What does he know about your last job that keeps you, a man who is well educated and intelligent, working an inferior job at a moderately successful little traveling fair? Why aren't you some high-powered mucky-muck at an international corporation?"
"Joy—"
He had no intention of answering me, that was plain. I didn't matter enough to him; he didn't trust me because I was nothing but an unimportant floozy who threw herself into his bed. A holiday fling, Roxy had called it. Tears started pricking behind my eyeballs.
"No good? Well, how about this: What did you pick up when you were bending over Tanya's body?"
Raphael looked shocked by what I said. "You saw me pick something up?" he asked.
"Yes. Just before you went to the hotel, you picked something up from the ground near Tanya. What was it, one of her wax voodoo dolls?"
He looked at me as if I were a stranger. "You were spying on me? Following me?"
Maybe I was a stranger. Maybe I didn't know him at all.
Maybe I had made the worst mistake of my life. I shook my head. "No, I wasn't following you and I wasn't spying on you. And to tell you the truth"—I brushed away a tear that rolled down my cheek—"I'm more than a little insulted that you'd think I would."
Slowly he got out of bed and grabbed his pants from where they dangled from the doorknob. "How did you know I took something from Tanya?"
Oh, God, how could things be so good one moment and so bad the next? I pulled the sheet up until it covered my now chilled flesh. "I saw you. I wasn't spying on you, I was just taking the long way to the hotel because a bunch of kids were drunk on the east side of the meadow, and I didn't want to walk through them alone. I just saw you, that's all. You were acting funny, so I just watched to see what it was you were doing. And now, if you're finished with the third degree, I think I want to go back to my hotel. I have the feeling that I'm not terribly welcome here anymore."
He reached a hand into his pants pocket and pulled out a purple stone. I stared at it, a chill skimming my spine. "It's a rune."
He nodded.
"An amethyst rune."
He said nothing.
"Just like mine."
His eyes glittered with dark emotion.
"You found it on her body?"
"Yes," he said, the word stark and bare in the warmth of his bedroom.
I shook my head. "It's not mine. It can't be mine. I was reading them earlier, before she was killed. It must be from another set."
"I asked Paal. He only had one set of amethyst stones. He sold it to you."
I was still shaking my head, hard now. "No. It can't be mine. I was using them." I looked up from the stone to search his eyes. "I didn't kill her, Raphael."
He closed his fist around the stone and pulled me to his chest. "I know you didn't, baby. I didn't mean to give you the third degree, I just had to ask." His kisses were very, very sweet and apologized better than any words could. He put his mouth to my ear and growled in a low, husky voice, "I don't want you to leave. I need you."
Another tear spilled over at the pain caused by his sweet words. "But not enough to trust me with your secret?"
His arms tightened around me until we were pressed tightly together. "Ah, baby, I wish everything was different so I could explain it to you, but this is important."
I tipped my head back so he could see the pain in my eyes. "And I'm not?" I asked in a whisper.
"You're the most important thing in my life," he said softly, his eyes glowing. "It's because of my feelings for you that I need you to trust me and not ask me for answers I can't give."
"You want my trust but won't give me yours, is that it?" I asked, pushing back on his chest until we were separated.
"That's it," he answered, his gaze holding mine.
I looked at him for a long time, outwardly calm, but inside, hurt and anger were mixed up with love and the desire to give him what he wanted. I thought about what he meant to me. I weighed my love for him against a lifetime of never mattering as much to him as he did to me.
I picked up my clothes. "I'm sorry, those terms aren't acceptable to me."
"Joy—"
I turned my back to him and pulled on my clothes, tears streaming down my face as I tied my shoelaces. He didn't say a word, not one blessed word, not one word to stop me from leaving him. Once I was dressed, I paused and stared at his belly tattoo. I didn't want to look in his eyes. I didn't want to see the truth mirrored in them. I didn't want to see how unimportant I was to him.
"Thank you for a lovely evening. I hope you have fun doing whatever it is you are doing. I hope the police don't find out whatever it is you're hiding. I'm sure you'll understand if I decline any further invitations to your little love nest. If you'll excuse me, I'll be on my way now."
"Baby, look at me."
The endearment almost broke me, but I fought the desire to throw myself in his arms and swallowed back my misery. "I'm not your baby. Goodbye, Raphael. Have a nice life."
He walked me back to my hotel without saying another word.
Despite the fact that I had been up most of the night, discovered a body, and been grilled by the police for two hours, I didn't sleep. Having had my heart crushed by the man I loved more than anything else kept me wide awake. I tossed and turned in my cold, lonely, Raphael-less bed and alternated between a pity party to end all pity parties, and fury that he could treat me in such a callous fashion. In between the two extremes, the voice of reason popped up and pointed out that if I really loved Raphael, I would support him rather than damning him for whatever it was he was unable to share with me.
I told the reasonable voice to get stuffed.
I tried contacting Christian twice more before the sun crept up out of the mountains, but either he wasn't receiving me or he had chosen to ignore me. I wished there was something I could do to convince him to answer me, but if there was one thing I'd found in recent days, it was that vampires didn't like to be pushed around.
Roxy looked surprised to find me breakfasting at our usual table next to the window. The sun was out, indicating it was going to be another glorious day weather-wise.
"You look like hell," she said, sitting down and grabbing a breakfast roll from the basket, tearing off a piece, and stuffing it into her mouth. "Where's your better half? I figured you guys would be shacked up together until all hours making little Raphaels and Joys."
I grimaced. "No. That's all over with."
She stopped in mid-chew,
then gave a big swallow. "What do you mean it's all over with? It can't be all over with, I just decided to give you my blessing. What happened?"
I shrugged and looked back out the window. Nothing had changed out there; it was still the same tranquil scene. Birds flew overhead, people got into cars and drove away, late-blooming flowers bowed and dipped their heads in the wind. Everything was the same. Everything but me.
"Joy?" Roxy put her hand over mine, her voice worried. "Honey, what happened? Last night Raphael looked like he couldn't wait to get back to you."
I willed myself not to cry. I'd done enough of that during the long night, too. "He wouldn't tell me his secret."
She frowned. "What secret?"
"He has some secret, something to do with the police and his past. I think he was convicted of some crime and never really cleared. Dominic knows about it, and is using it to keep him with the fair. I asked Raphael about it, but he said he couldn't tell me. He could tell Dominic, but he couldn't tell me. He doesn't trust me, Roxy. I don't matter enough to him that he can trust me with some stupid secret about his last job."
"I don't believe for one minute you don't matter to him. I've got eyes, babe. I can see how he looks at you, and it is not the look of a man who's simply using the closest dipper to drink from the well. He's crazy about you. Serious crazy, too, which is why I changed my mind and decided that you two were perfect for each other."
"But his secret—"
She waved his secret away with a bit of breakfast bread product. "Have you told him every little secret in your life?"
"No, of course not, but this isn't little, this is something big, something serious, something that's affecting him now and will no doubt continue to affect him in the future. I wouldn't keep something on that level secret from him."
A Girl's Guide to Vampires do-1 Page 25
