The sudden stop sent her tumbling off Rafe’s lap and onto the floorboards. She sat there for a moment, panting and dazed, while the object of her lust climbed out and paid the cabbie. She stayed right there, too, until he reached in and hauled her out, swinging her up into his arms and striding toward the attended doorway of a posh uptown building.
She wrapped her arms around his neck for balance and set her spinning head against his shoulder, hoping the dizziness would fade before they got to his bedroom. She didn’t want anything at all to interfere with her ability to sense and savor every single thing he did to her.
“Good morning, Mr. De Santos.” A uniformed doorman with a studiously bland expression nodded to Rafe and ignored the fact that he was carrying a disheveled blonde with wide, unfocused eyes into the sort of establishment where these things tended not to happen. “Nice to see you again, sir.”
“I’m not at home, Carson.”
“Of course you aren’t, sir.” The doorman followed them into the building and strode ahead to a set of gleaming elevator doors. When he pressed the UP button, the doors slid open immediately, and Carson reached inside, selected the twentieth floor, and stepped back. “Enjoy the rest of your night, sir.”
Rafe growled something unintelligible as the doors slid shut in front of them, and the elevator started with a smooth glide upward.
Tess looked at the digital floor display above the bank of buttons and saw the difference between their current location and their destination. Even if she wasn’t capable of mathematical calculations in her current state, she was cognizant enough to realize there was a large gap between the two. She turned back to Rafe, blinked once as if in slow motion, then dove for his mouth.
She caught his lower lip between her teeth and tugged at it, as if trying to pull his mouth into hers. When she released it, she went immediately back for more, nudging his lips apart and plunging her tongue inside to forage for his own. His response consisted of backing her up against the wall of the car, flipping open the button on her jeans, and sliding his hand inside her panties. Tess screamed against his mouth and bucked her hips against his hand.
He tore his lips from hers and swore, something low and savage and foreign. He shifted to brace one arm under her bottom in order to raise her higher while his fingers sliced through her wet folds to find her opening and thrust deep.
Tess threw her head back and screamed again. Two long, wide fingers speared into her, stretching her and filling her. The unexpected penetration made her mind fog and her muscles clench, and she sobbed for the breath he had stolen from her. Her hips tilted and her legs climbed higher, until her knees were clamped about his rib cage and his fingers had slid as deeply as they could reach. His wrist twisted, fingers screwing inside her, and she moaned in pleasure and need.
“God, yes!” she panted, lips parted and eyes squeezed shut. “More … touch me…”
He leaned closer, clamping his teeth on the base of her throat, growling like an animal. Then his fingers moved and began thrusting, establishing a rapid, driving rhythm that caressed her internal walls and drove her closer to the edge. She could feel her muscles bunching and tensing in preparation for climax, and she whined at the unbearable pleasure.
Her fingers clutched at his shoulders, creasing the fabric of his suit jacket and biting into the flesh beneath. If he’d been shirtless, she might have drawn blood, but she didn’t care. Her body bowed in his arms, hips thrusting mindlessly against his hand. He shifted her again, his touch withdrawing momentarily and tearing a frantic cry of protest from her.
“No! More! Please, more.”
She could barely understand herself, but she needed him to understand. She needed him to understand that she would die if he stopped touching her.
She would die.
Then his fingers slid back, three this time, thrusting deep inside her, stretching her entrance and driving her higher. She thought she might have screamed again, wondered vaguely if the elevator was soundproofed, then squeezed her channel around him and forgot everything else. She could feel her moisture flooding his hand and shuddered. The awkward confines of her jeans meant his hand cupped her mound while his fingers drove her higher, keeping him from the deeper penetration she craved. She whimpered and squirmed and tried to draw the breath to beg. But he twisted his hand and pressed his thumb against her clit and nothing else mattered because she shattered, blind and breathless, sobbing in his arms.
* * *
Rafe felt her climax, felt the ripples of her contractions gripping his fingers, and fought for every shred of self-control he could muster. He wanted to tear off her jeans, throw her to the floor, fuck her right there in the elevator car, and to hell with the rest of the building. But he also knew that once he got inside her, he needed to stay for a good long time, and he could think of better venues for that. Simmering, he let her ride out her orgasm as the car drew to a halt and the doors slid open.
Her eyes had closed, and he doubted it had even registered that the elevator had stopped moving. Her arms still clung to his shoulders, her legs still gripped him like a vise, and her body still pulsed with aftershocks around his fingers. He didn’t bother to withdraw them as he carried her down the hall to his front door. There were only two other apartments on his floor, and if one of the residents happened to see, they could damn well deal. Rafe had no intention of removing his fingers until he could replace them with something infinitely more satisfying to them both.
He strode to his door and pinned her to the wall beside it, listening to the tiny whimpers she made every time his movements shifted inside her. Her face had the soft, dazed sweetness of an angel who had savored her fall, and he couldn’t resist kissing her, claiming her swollen lips and bruising them with the force of his desire.
When he pulled away, her eyes fluttered open, fogged and unfocused. She blinked up at him while he reached his free hand into his pocket and withdrew his key. He saw her teetering on the drowsy edge of sleep and growled, shoving the key into the lock and forcing the door open impatiently.
“Stay with me, damn it. I’m not done with you yet.”
He got no answer, but he didn’t think she was capable of one. Growling, he peeled her off the wall and carried her through the doorway into his entrance hall. He kicked the door closed behind them with no care for the resounding crash. He looked down at her, saw her eyes drifting shut again, and roared in frustration. Damn it, she could not fall asleep on him now. Fuck the bedroom. He needed to get inside her in the next fifteen seconds before she drove him over the edge. His head jerked up and he looked around him for one frantic moment before he saw his opportunity.
She gasped, her eyes flying open when she heard glass shattering on the gleaming parquet floor. He saw sleepiness evaporate and grunted in satisfaction, causing another crash of debris as he swept his arm across the surface of the inlaid art deco console table in the middle of his entry hall. He saw her look around, take in the gleam of the mirror behind the table, the smashed vase of tulips, the puddle of water, and the litter of broken pottery, and dented silver at their feet. Then her gaze flew back to his and her eyes widened.
“Rafe,” she began, looking uneasy and hesitant, and he snarled again.
“Now, Tess. I’ll have you now.”
He set her down on the edge of the table and pushed her backward, stripping off her jacket and sweater as she went. He heard her gasp at the impact of cool wood against her suddenly bare back, but he didn’t care. He wanted her bare to him, and he intended to have her that way.
He followed her down, leaning over her and setting his teeth to the narrow spot that joined the cups of her bra. He sliced through it and the lacy fabric fell away, exposing her nipples to his avid mouth. He latched onto one immediately, curling his tongue around the hard little point and tugging it into his mouth to suck hard. He heard her cry out, felt her hands bury themselves in his hair, and he grunted in satisfaction. She tasted like spice and warm cream, and he wanted to lap her u
p until he lacked the strength to lick his whiskers.
“Rafe! God, how do you do this to me?”
He didn’t answer, just set his mouth to her other nipple and drew on it just as fiercely. She moaned his name and cradled him to her, already shifting restlessly against him. His hands insinuated themselves between their bodies and attacked her jeans, yanking the zipper the rest of the way down and then peeling the heavy, clinging fabric off her hips. She helped him, lifted her hips off the table, raised her knees to bring them into reach. He snarled at the way it put the cloth like a barrier between them, but as he took her panties down, too, her bare flesh distracted him. He tugged the whole lot past her knees until he realized he’d have to step farther away from her to pull them the rest of the way off. And that was not going to happen.
Leaving the fabric tangled around her ankles, he braced her feet against the edge of the table and grasped her knees, spreading them wide to make room for himself. Then he grabbed her hips and pulled them forward until her bottom bumped against her heels and she perched there, completely open to him. He shrugged out of his jacket as if it were on fire and reached down to open his pants. He grunted in satisfaction when he felt Tess’s hands on his shirt, fumbling with the buttons for a second before she uttered a frustrated cry and tore the fabric open. Buttons flew in all directions, clattering against the walls and the wood of the floor, but Rafe could see Tess’s gaze glued to his bare chest and felt a swell of pride.
If both of them hadn’t been so frantic, he might have taken a moment to savor the feel of her hands on him or the appreciative look in her eyes, but he couldn’t wait another minute to be inside her. He yanked down his zipper and freed his erection, guiding it to her dripping entrance. Poised there for a brief moment, he looked down into her eyes and felt an unfamiliar wave of possessiveness wash through him.
“Mine,” he growled, though he’d never said the word before in connection to a woman.
He felt his lip curl and his fangs extend, and he watched her eyes widen as he gathered himself. Then he drove hard and deep to her core with one heavy thrust.
She screamed and parted like liquid velvet around him.
“Yes,” he hissed, coming to rest deep inside her, buried to the hilt in her tight, hot core. She felt like heaven. She rippled around his penis the same way she’d rippled around his fingers, with slow, hot pulses and the slick flood of cream he knew he wanted to taste before too much longer.
But not now. Now he wanted to fuck her until she came apart around him and he spilled himself in her honeyed heat.
Bracing his hands on the table beside her head and his feet on the parquet floor, he let his muscles gather and began to pull back from her clinging heat.
“Wait! Wait.” She gasped and moaned, shifting restlessly beneath him. “Not yet. Can’t … I can’t. Not yet.”
He growled and continued to withdraw, sliding through her wet channel with slippery ease. Or it would have been easy, if she weren’t so tight and snug around him. Her body felt like a fist gripping him, and it was driving him crazy.
“You can. You will. Now.”
He heard her moan, whimper, heard a breathless sob as her body struggled to adjust to him. He knew he should go easy on her, give her time to get used to him, but he couldn’t. He needed her too badly to be kind. All he could do was try not to hurt her and make sure she came as violently as he intended to.
His hips stopped when she held just his tip inside her. He wanted to withdraw all the way so he could savor that first, maddening stretch as he entered her again, but he couldn’t bear to separate himself from her heat. This would be easier on her anyway. Now that he was already inside, he could ride her harder than if he withdrew completely and forced her to take him all over again.
He stood there, muscles trembling, bodies linked by a precarious inch, poised on the brink of his next thrust with her body soft and pliant beneath him, but he wanted more. He wanted her to look at him. To watch him while he fucked her, while he claimed her. Ignoring the unfamiliar feeling of possession, he leaned down to bite her lip, to get her attention. Her eyes flew open, once again dazed and dilated, and struggled to focus on him.
“Eyes open, Tess.” He order was gruff and harsh and he didn’t care. “Watch me. Watch me taking you.” She whimpered and shook her head, but she didn’t close her eyes. He grunted and leaned more heavily over her. “Good. Now take me.”
He thrust home with heavy force, spearing her so deeply he thought he could feel the back of her womb. She screamed and he froze, afraid he had hurt her, but her body trembled around him and her hips lifted toward him, so he relaxed and began to claim her in earnest.
Over and over, he thrust inside her, riding her hard. She felt so amazing around him, milking him, squirming and writhing beneath him. Her fingernails bit into his bare shoulders, cutting deeply, but the pain only egged him on. She cried out with nearly every thrust now, her knees gripping his hips as he drove high and hard inside her. He felt himself approaching meltdown and grabbed her hips to hold her still as he threw his hips harder against her. He battered into her, unable to be gentle, unable to hold back. All he could do was ride out the madness by riding her hard toward climax.
He felt it hit her unexpectedly. One moment she twisted and struggled beneath him, trying to get closer and get away all at once, and the next she clamped around him like a vise, arms, thighs, and body all tightening and gripping him to her. She screamed, the sound issuing hoarsely from her raw throat, and her body arched like a bow beneath him, coming up off the surface of the table until only her head and her hips supported her.
Rafe wrapped his arms around her, holding her steady while he continued to drive inside her. Thrusting was more difficult now, as her body struggled to keep him inside, but he forced through her resistance with half a dozen savage thrusts until the pleasure took him, too, dragging him over the edge of climax. He poured himself into her on a rough shout, feeling his very being drain out of him and into her tight, encompassing warmth. Then he collapsed onto her, pinning her to the hard table, thinking with a sense of dread and wonder that he hadn’t nearly finished with her yet.
Seven
Tess kept her eyes closed and tried to figure out what the hell had just happened.
Well, aside from the most amazing orgasm of her life, of course.
Somehow her evening, which had started with a bowl of pasta and a seven-hundredth viewing of her copy of Best in Show on DVD, had ended with mind-blowing sex on the entry table in the front hallway of the apartment of a man she’d never met before … oh, three hours earlier.
The man in question turned his head, stubble rasping against her throat, and swept his rough, agile tongue along the tendon connecting her neck to her shoulder. Then he purred, and Tess felt the sound rumbling through her, from where his mouth pressed to her shoulder to where his erection still pressed hot and hard inside her.
Her eyes flew open. Still hard?
He stirred on top of her, inside her, and his hands slid down from her hips, over her legs, stopping when they felt the bunched fabric around her ankles. Oh, God. She was still wearing her jeans. She felt her cheeks flame.
He murmured something against her throat, shifting his weight to keep her pinned while he tugged away her short boots and stripped her jeans and panties the rest of the way off. Now she was left naked beneath him, with only the scraps of what used to be a bra hanging from her shoulders. Oh, yeah. She felt dignified.
She tried to squirm away, but froze when she felt his teeth sink delicately into her shoulder and heard a rumble of displeasure. Apparently he didn’t want her going anywhere. She lay still while his hands shifted from her to his own clothes. She felt the glide of fabric against her skin while he shoved his pants to the floor. He shifted inside her when he stepped out of the fabric, and she bit back a moan. Her sensitized tissues took every shift as a caress, and she felt herself flooding around him. He gave a pleased rumble and licked her shoulder.
Tess cleared her throat. “Um, this table isn’t really all that comfortable.” She squirmed and pushed at his shoulders. “Do you think you could let me up now?”
There was a brief moment of silence. Then Rafe lifted his head and gazed down at her with lazy cat’s eyes. “Sure.”
She felt his body slip from hers and drew a shuddering breath. Okay, step one. Now for step two. But before she could even attempt to put her feet on the floor and lever herself out from beneath him, Tess found herself lifted, flipped, bent forward, and penetrated. He had barely let her get her feet on the floor before he kicked them wide, pressed her hips against the edge of the table, and slid into her from behind.
“This is not up,” she gasped, struggling to remain coherent even as her body urged her to surrender to the power of their connection. The traitor. Never before had Tess found herself at odds with her own physical being. Her mind told her that any further shenanigans with the werecat in the room would lead to bad, bad things.
Her body told her mind to get lost.
She heard Rafe groan above her and her head automatically came up. Instead of meeting a blank expanse of entry wall, Tess found herself unexpectedly staring back into her own wide, blue eyes.
She had forgotten about the mirror, but judging by the hot, feral expression on Rafe’s face, he had not.
When he’d first carried her into his apartment, Tess had been a little too preoccupied to pay much attention to the decor, so the huge, gilt-framed mirror above the console table had barely even registered. Instead, she’d been too busy registering the feel of his hands on her and then his body inside hers. But now, bent forward over the very same table with her hands braced on the inlaid surface and a gorgeous, feral shapeshifter draped across her back, she found the mirror hard to miss. It was about six inches from the end of her nose.
Startled, she tried to pull away, to stand up straight and put some distance between herself and her reflection, but Rafe would have none of it.
Drive Me Wild Page 6
