Tempt Me (15 page)

Work was over. It was time to play.

The bed shifted with his weight, and he was back at her side. “Good, you’re stretching,” he said. “Let me get rid of these.” With a series of one-handed tugs, he pulled all the pillows out from behind her back, tossing two up to where the head of the bed met the wall.

She shrugged and rolled her shoulders to loosen her tight back muscles. What a relief to lay flat again! Modeling—holding a single position, whether nude or not—was a lot tougher than she ever imagined. When she rolled her own neck as she’d seen Rafe do, there was an audible snap.

Rafe winced. “Sorry. Here.” He handed her a glass—he’d poured the water—and gestured for her to drink. “That took longer than I anticipated.”

Propping herself up on an elbow, she took several sips of the cool water. “Thanks.” After handing the chunky glass back to him, she lay back down, settling back against his sinfully soft sheets.

Mr. Smooth looked a little startled. Come on, had he really expected her to reach for the bathrobe, lying in puddle on the floor? To hide under the covers? Her stomach twisted, and her pulse kicked up a notch. Should she? Was she being...too slutty?

“Bailey? Look at me.” Rafe stretched out on his left side beside her, propping his head on his hand and cupping her cheek with the other. “This doesn’t go any farther unless you want it to.”

His words were soft and even, but his tawny eyes were hot, molten. His posture was ultra-casual, but his muscles were tense. His nipples were tiny, hard pebbles under the threadbare T-shirt. If anything, the bulge behind his fly was bigger now than it had been when he’d been sketching her.

He wanted her.

She released the breath she wasn’t aware she’d been holding, the tension hissing out like the air in a balloon. She wasn’t being too slutty; he was simply making sure she wanted this.

How could he possibly misinterpret her outrageous need?

“Bailey?”

Her fingers itched to cup the hard treasure hidden by those ancient jeans, but right now she wanted his hands on her bare skin even more. Taking his hand in hers, she raised it, pressing it between her breasts. His breath hitched as they touched, sending her confidence soaring. “You’re so warm,” she whispered. Singling out his charcoal-stained thumb, she drew it the length of her sternum, transferring a dusty smudge to her skin.

Rafe tried to pull away. “Shit, I should have washed my hands...”

“No.” She took his hand on a meandering journey, dragging it over her collarbones, up her neck, under her chin, up to her lips. His greedy gaze mapped every inch of the route.

Opening her mouth, she captured his thumb and bit.

The mattress shifted as he rolled, levering his upper body over hers. His tawny gaze bored into hers, hot and needy. When she wrapped her tongue around his finger, Rafe exhaled sharply, his abs bunching and clenching against her stomach. She tasted charcoal dust, hot skin, and the slightest hint of herb-infused hand soap.

Her legs shifted restlessly against the soft sheets. She was frantic to feel his hard hands, his lips and mouth, his heavy, long-limbed frame pinning her to the bed. But first...

She reached behind his head, found the elastic band holding his hair back, and tugged. The soft, blond waves spilled down, brushing gently over her breasts. “Ah, God,” she gritted out. Reality felt better than any fevered fantasy.

She threaded her fingers into his hair at the temples, looking up at his lush lips and clenched jaw, the rampant masculine beauty of his face shadowed by sheaves of wheat-toned hair. The juxtaposition of hard and soft made her core give a voracious, greedy clench. “Kiss me, Rafe. Please.”

His lips crashed down on hers with absolutely no finesse, his tongue pushing for immediate, desperate entry. She couldn’t open her mouth quickly or widely enough. His hands clamped onto each side of her head, holding it in place, but her hands were free to move. She frantically clutched at his shoulders, his back, his hips. She needed the delicious weight of his body on top of hers, needed to feel that outrageous ridge of flesh cradled between her legs.

Groaning into her mouth, he complied, swallowing her moan of pleasure as their hips aligned, locking together like two puzzle pieces. She twined her legs around him, and his hips gave a single, languid roll.

“Sorry,” Rafe said against her lips.

“For what?”

“I'm too heavy.”

When he tried to shift his weight, she simply clutched tighter. “Don’t move. You're perfect.”

The T-shirt caressing her breasts was soft as a cloud, and the drag of denim against her inner thighs felt deliciously naughty, but she wanted to feel his skin. She grabbed two fistfuls of T-shirt and tugged upward, exposing his lower back. Snaking her hands back down, she burrowed them under the sagging waistband of his jeans.

Nothing but skin.

Rafe groaned aloud, pushed up on his arms, and levered himself to an upright position straddling her hips. Gazing up at him, she tried to freeze-frame what he looked like at this precise moment: eyes glittering with need, his chest heaving, his long hair messy and tumbled from her hands. His unruly erection strained against the button fly of his jeans.

He dragged his T-shirt up and off, yanking it over his head and tossing it away. His chest was...Holy Mother, his chest was sheer perfection. Tawny skin stretched over defined muscles and heavy bones. His pecs were lightly dusted with silky blond hair several shades darker than the hair on his head, and his nipples looked like caramel kisses. South of his cobbled abdomen and belly button, a slightly darker trail of hair disappeared into his waistband. Reaching out, she followed the trail with her thumb.

He covered her hands with his own. “Keep doing that and this will be over before it starts,” he said disgustedly.

The thought that Rafe Sebastiani, hedonistic sex demon, might lose control at her touch sent a shockwave rocketing through her.

“Look at you. Here in my bed, where I've wanted you forever,” he murmured, taking his long fingers off his own body and finally putting them on hers. He stroked her hipbones with his thumbs, smiling when she sucked her stomach concave at his touch. “So delicate.” He inhaled as he stroked her blond pubic hair. Her breath locked in her lungs, but he didn’t linger, instead taking a teasing, meandering route upward, stroking the pale scar where her appendix had been removed when she was a teenager, and dipping his pinky into her belly button.

If she was a hair trigger away from orgasm because he touched her surgery scar, what would happen when he finally touched—

“There’s that pout again,” he teased. “What do you want?” His eyes bore into hers, dark with heat.

He knew exactly what she wanted, but there was nothing stopping her from taking it on her own. Grasping his wrists, she pressed his palms to her breasts. Her helpless gasp at the electric contact combined with his groan. Time dragged by in milliseconds as he mapped her scant curves.

“You're so sensitive,” he whispered next to her stiff nipple, his voice sending diabolical vibrations through the violently aroused flesh. He touched the tip of his tongue to her nipple, tasting her, teasing her, before latching on, finally giving her the rougher touch she craved.

Now it was her turn to hold
his
head in place, to not let him move. He seemed to know just how to touch her, alternating tender laps of his tongue with tugs that held more than a hint of teeth.

“Rafe...” She tugged at his fly, and the buttons slipped their moorings without a fight, spilling the thick length of his cock into her hands. His body jerked, and his grunt of reaction around her nipple thrilled all the way to her greedy, empty core. She delved one hand into his gaping fly. She’d just reached his silky balls when her wrist gave a warning twinge.

She needed more room. “Take these off,” she ordered.

She felt him smile around her nipple. “Your wish is my command, babe.”

Babe
. He’d called her that once before, up at the cabin. Maybe he called all his lovers “babe” because it was easier that way, but she sure liked the sound of it slipping from his tongue.

She liked it too much. And he wasn’t taking off his pants.

Pushing at his shoulders, she sat up and started working on the jeans herself. He surrendered her nipple and lay back on the bed, eyes glowing as he watched her tug and pull. Helpfully shifting and lifting his hips, she finally yanked the ancient denim over his knees and narrow, elegant feet. Finally, he was completely nude, sprawled for her gaze. If he felt the least bit embarrassed that she was devouring him with her eyes, he didn't show it. No, if anything, his beautiful penis, already outrageously hard, grew longer, harder, and prouder.

He was fantasy personified, and she was...holy shitkittens, she was wildly out of her league. What had ever made her think she could satisfy him?

“Hey.” He grasped her around her hips, lifting her up and setting her down on his stomach. “You okay?”

Though his cock nudged impatiently against her backside, his hands were gentle, and the care in his gaze made her eyes sting. Gulping, she opened her mouth and closed it again without saying a word.

“Come here.” Wrapping his arms around her, he drew her down until their chests met, until they were skin to skin. He stroked his hands down her back, gentling her for endless moments, making no demands whatsoever. Until she felt really, really foolish.

Okay. I want this. I can do this.

When she shifted her hips against his, an understated but unmistakable roll, his hand stilled.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured against his chest.

“For what?”

“Being such a spaz.” She nuzzled his chest hair with her lips until she found his nipple. “I’m thinking too much.”

He smiled gently.

“I really want this, Rafe.”

“Then take it. Take what you want, what you need...however you want it or need it.” He lay there patiently, his expression accepting and relaxed, but behind her, his penis pulsed, seeking and stiff. And she wanted it—wanted him, desperately.

Rafe suddenly cursed. “Hold that thought.” Hanging on to her with a heavy arm slung around her waist, he reached over to the bedside table, opened a drawer, and withdrew a strip of condoms.

Thank God, at least one of them was thinking about practicalities. She’d been on The Pill for a long time, more to regulate her cycle than anything else, but if they started exchanging sexual histories right now, they'd be here all damn night without even getting to hers.

The condoms were here. The discussion could wait.

“Let me.” She tore one of the Magnums from the strip, ripped open the packet, and rolled it onto his penis.

She nearly snickered. He was definitely bigger than Wyatt.

The snicker turned to a moan as his long, callused fingers trailed up her tender inner thighs, delving into her soft, scalding heat.

“You are so wet,” he murmured as he explored her drenched folds. His finger circled around the entrance to her body, teasing ever so softly, pressing but not entering.

A wave of sexual hunger slammed into her, stronger than she'd ever known. Lifting herself up on her knees again, she scooted back slightly, positioning herself over the erect rod of flesh. Wrapping her hand around the base of his shaft, she locked eyes with him and lowered herself.

Rafe hissed as the broad head pressed in, stretching her wide. He clenched his teeth, letting her control the pace. “Ah, God,” she gritted out. The pleasure was going to split her in half.

Nostrils flaring wide, he grabbed her hips, stopping her downward slide. “Too much?”

“Not enough.”

Relief, and a whisper of a grin, washed over his face as she slowly lowered herself onto him, enveloping his flesh with a long, languid glide. Rafe growled when she rested her full weight on his hips, with him fully seated in the intimate clasp of her body. She stared down where their bodies were joined, to where their pubic hair tangled together. When she reached down to touch, Rafe's hand was already there. Before long, his fingers stroked upward, to where her tender folds joined in a tiny kernel of flesh.

“Ride me,” he said starkly.

Resting her hands on his chest, with his hands on her hips, she did as he asked, rising and falling, up and down, slowly, then gaining speed, until they both leaped into oblivion.

––––––––

B
ailey pulled into the Sebastiani Building’s underground parking ramp as the sun rose over the horizon. Loaded down like a pack mule with her computer bag on one shoulder and her overnight bag and purse on the other, she strode to the lobby, approaching the last elevator in the row as quickly as her high-heeled boots and wobbly knees would allow.

She looked at the wall blankly. No call button. Where was the...”Crap.” Setting down her bags, she pawed in her purse for the matte black key card granting her access to both the penthouse elevator and Sasha and Antonia’s top floor apartment. Finding it, she waved it over the security pad, and after several seconds’ delay, the doors opened. Nudging the overnight bag onto the elevator with her foot, she heaved her computer bag with both hands, transferred it into the lift, and immediately set it down again. 

Her wrist stung like a bitch.

She averted her eyes as the elevator began its upward climb, refusing to look at herself in the elevator’s mirrored walls. She’d seen quite enough in Rafe’s floor-to-ceiling bathroom mirror not a half hour ago. Her damp hair was slicked flat against her head, her lips were puffy, and one side of her neck was scraped raw by Rafe’s morning beard. One of her earlobes was very slightly red from where he’d suckled on it in the night. According to Rafe’s heated murmur, she had adorable earlobes. “Like an elf.”

Who knew?

She gave her sweater’s neckline a useless upward tug. With any luck, Sasha and Antonia were still asleep, because there was no way in hell her succubus roommates would miss the fact that she’d just gotten well and truly laid. The sexual satiation had to be rolling off her in waves.

Rafe had insisted he’d be a poor host indeed if he didn’t give her a personal tour of the shower before she left.