The Way You Look Tonight (17 page)

As if it were her reward for good behavior, he began to inch the final piece of silk down while they kissed. When her panties were down just below her hips, and without breaking their kiss, he moved his hands from the blue silk to cup her bare bottom.

Brooke’s legs automatically opened as he dragged her even closer. It was pure instinct to rub herself over the thick bulge behind the zipper of his jeans and, thank God, he didn’t stop her this time. She’d never done anything this wild before, had never tried to get herself off against her lover with her panties around her thighs. Rafe’s hands on her hips urged her to move higher, faster, against him and her lower belly fluttered as she came closer and closer to an explosive climax.

At the last second, Rafe stepped back. "Take your panties off the rest of the way and climb up on the bed."

His command was rough and as ragged as her heartbeat. She was nearly completely naked now. He was still fully clothed. She vowed to one day reverse that pattern.

But with pleasure this close, she simply slid the blue silk down to her ankles, then stepped out of her underwear to move with shaky legs over to her bed. He hadn’t said how he wanted her, and she instinctively waited with a hand on the colorful quilt, looking over her shoulder in silent question.

"Jesus, Brooke. The way you’re looking at me..."

He ran a hand through his hair as if she’d just pushed him too far—even though she’d done nothing more than stand naked before him. Clearly, he was doing everything he could to keep hold of what was left of his control.

It serves you right
, she thought as her own desperate need raced through her system.

"I know you didn’t want me to blindfold you, but maybe," she suggested in as steady a voice as she could manage, "you should blindfold
me
."

Muscles were jumping in both his jaw and temples now as he growled, "We’re not going to use a damned blindfold." But she could see how much he liked the idea of it, and how hard he was trying to convince himself that he didn’t. "On your back. That’s how I want you. With your eyes wide open so I can see your reaction to every single thing I do to you."

A thrill shot through her at his command. Yes, it was sexy, but underlying the sheer eroticism of his words was the warmth that had always been between them, long before they’d decided to go to bed together. And, of course, he would never have asked her to do anything he didn’t know for sure that she wanted, too.

She would have moved faster if she could have, but it seemed Rafe had so much power over her that even her muscles obeyed his earlier command for patience. The velvet patches sewn into the quilt felt impossibly sensuous as they brushed over her bare skin, as did the tips of her hair as they moved over her back and breasts. A heron called out for her lover from across the lake, and just as the male bird answered with a deeper call, Rafe moved onto the bed with Brooke.

His gaze roved from her face to her breasts to the slick skin between her legs. That was where they stayed and where his hands went, too, moving to her thighs so that she was completely open to him.

At last, there was no more teasing, no more need for patience, as he lowered his dark head between her legs and gave her the naughtiest kiss she’d ever experienced. On a cry, she arched up into his mouth. Needing something to ground herself with when it felt like her body was shattering from the center outward, one cell at a time, Brooke clawed at the pillows, finally gripping the iron headboard for dear life.

The sound of iron creaking had Rafe looking up from between her legs. She wouldn’t have believed his eyes could get any darker, could grow any fuller with desire, if she hadn’t seen it right then for herself.

Because when he saw her holding onto the headboard, it was as if something snapped inside of him. And inside her, too, as the dangerous heat on his face tossed her straight to the top of the peak she’d neared so many times already...and then all the way over.

Her hips moved all on their own now, chasing ecstasy. He lowered his head again, and his tongue and lips were joined by his fingers, working together to draw her climax out. When he finally let her go limp from pleasure, she knew she was the luckiest woman on the planet as Rafe slowly kissed his way up her body.

And now it was her turn to make him feel just as good...

Chapter Fifteen

Rafe was amazed to realize that Brooke’s sensuality was just as fresh and innocently seductive as the rest of her. In the same way that he’d thought he could eat just one of her chocolates last night at the bonfire and then had devoured nearly the whole box, still hungry for more, Rafe now realized that one more perfect climax beneath his tongue wasn’t anywhere close enough to filling the deep well of need he had for Brooke.

He’d
never
wanted like this.

Every moment with her was a sensual revelation. Hot. Effortless.

Perfect.

Pulling her into his arms, he kissed her mouth. "You taste good everywhere."

He felt her smile right in the center of his chest as she said, "So do you—at least, where you’ve let me taste."

The bright spark of fire in her eyes told him he wasn’t going to be able to hold her off any longer, so when she reached for the hem of his T-shirt, he helped her get it off over his head.

Her eyes were wide with clear delight as she ran her hands slowly over his shoulders. "You’re so big," she said in an awed voice that resonated straight to his groin, just like every other damned thing she’d said and done tonight. "And so hard."

Her hands were small, but he already knew how well she used them, and as her nails scraped lightly over his nipples, he sucked in a breath at the pleasure of being with her. Pleasure so big he actually forgot for a split second that—

"Rafe?" Her fingers stilled over his ribs, near a heart that was beating too hard, too fast for the beautiful woman beneath him. "What happened to you?"

Before he could respond, she was shifting so that she could see the long, jagged scar across ten inches of his skin. No one’s touch had ever been as gentle.

"Who hurt you?"

"No one that matters."

But she wouldn’t accept that, and when she said again, "Who?" he knew he had to tell her the full truth, a truth almost no one else knew, including his parents.

"An ex-husband of one of my clients."

She gasped in horror, her eyes wide and furious on his behalf. "He came after you?"

Knowing it would only be worse if he waited until after they’d made love to tell her, he admitted, "After I caught him cheating on my client and when their divorce was final, I ran into her again." He wasn’t proud of what he’d done, and there was a huge chance that, once she knew, Brooke might get out of the bed as quickly as she’d climbed into it. "We ended up in bed together." The flash of shock in her eyes came and went so fast, he almost thought he’d imagined it. "I was only that stupid once." He hadn’t been thinking straight the night he’d broken one of his cardinal rules—
never get involved with a client
—but had simply been hoping a quick hit of physical pleasure could erase the churning in his gut over what his life had turned into. "Of course, she immediately threw it in her ex’s face—that she’d slept with the man who had caught him cheating on her."

Rafe braced himself as he waited for Brooke to respond to his admission. She’d always been an open book to him before now, but suddenly he couldn’t tell what she was thinking...or if she was so disgusted with him that she was a breath from ordering him from her bed.

"How dare they?" He blinked in surprise as she said, "He might have been the one to use the knife on you, but she practically handed it to him."

Rafe’s breath started up again on a rush of relief...and the knowledge that he’d never done a single damn thing that was good enough to deserve Brooke’s sweetness or her fierce protection of him.

"I brought it on myself."

"No, you didn’t!"

He’d never heard Brooke raise her voice before, and he was suddenly reminded of the way his soft-spoken mother could emerge as a snarling tiger whenever her kids were threatened in any way. Brooke would be just as good with her own children, kids he could so easily see her playing with on the beach—jumping off the dock hand in hand with them, tucking them into bed at night with a bedtime story about princes and princesses.

He swallowed hard as he realized where his brain had gone—and how easy it had been to go there.

"You made a mistake by being with her, but they both took out their fury with each other on you." Brooke slid her arms around him, warm and strong. "And that could never be your fault."

The gash had hurt like hell that first week before dulling to a steady throb these past couple of months. But now, for the first time since the night he’d walked into the ER, bleeding through his shirt, he could hardly feel it. Instead, his senses were entirely captured by the steady beat of her heart against his chest, the fragrant scent of her hair, and the slick heat of her arousal against his thigh.

She pressed kisses down over his shoulder and chest, until she reached the top edge of his scar. Her lips feathered over it. "I don’t ever want anyone to hurt you again," she told him as she softly kissed the length of the skin and muscle that had been stitched back together in the emergency room.

Something swelled beneath his breastbone, an emotion that was bigger than this night, bigger even than the way Brooke was healing him one kiss at a time.

She reached for the zipper of his jeans, and he let her pull the denim down, but when his erection jumped beneath the light stroke of her fingers over cotton, he knew better than to let her pull off his boxers, too. All it would take was the slightest touch of her fingertips over him, and he’d lose it.

A few seconds after removing his boxers himself, he kicked off his last piece of clothing and both of them were finally naked. He kissed her and reveled in the amazing feeling of her bare skin sliding against his for the first time.

His.

She was
his.

The thought was echoing over and over in his head when she told him, "I’m ready now."

Slowly caressing her gorgeous curves, moving his hand over her breasts, waist, hips, and inner thighs, he finally slicked his fingers through her wetness. She arched into his touch, and he bit down on her earlobe.

"Baby, you’re more than ready."

He stroked her again, moving his fingers inside of her in just the right way to make her grip his shoulders more tightly as her inner muscles clenched hard over him. Her mouth was sweet against his as he kissed her with the ferocity that he wouldn’t let himself use in the thrust of his hand up against her.

"Soon," he promised her, knowing what she really wanted...his body moving into her, hard against soft. "But only after you come again for me at least one more time."

He matched the rhythm of his tongue against hers with the plunge of his fingers into her incredibly welcoming body. He’d always loved women and sex, but nothing he’d ever experienced before compared to being with Brooke. No woman he’d ever been with had been so pure in her sensuality, so willing to give herself over to his touch, to the press of his lips on her, to the stroke of his fingertips across every sensitive patch of skin, both inside and out.

She was still trembling, still pulsing over his hand as she said, "That feels so good, Rafe." She cupped his face in her hands and pulled his mouth back down to hers, kissing him in her sweetly seductive way.

He could have watched, listened to, felt her come all night long. But both of them had been more than patient for the past two days. Shifting away from her just enough to reach the condoms he’d pulled out of his jeans, he was about to rip one of the packages open when Brooke said, "Now that I did what you told me to," she said with that sexy spark in her eyes, "I can’t wait to be kinky with you."

Forgetting all about the condom in his hand, Rafe almost exploded right then and there. God, she had no idea how close he was to taking her hips in his hands and thrusting into her to lose himself in her softness, in her beauty, in the look in her eyes that told him he could do absolutely anything he wanted with her.

No.
Damn it, he needed to stay in control. Somehow, some way, he needed to remember that Brooke was different. Special.

And far more precious than any woman he’d ever been with.

"I told you," he somehow managed to grit out, "I’m not going to do that kind of stuff to you."

Her full lower lip pouted slightly at him, and he had to nip at it, even as she said, "But I want you to." Sweet Lord, she needed to stop saying those things, but then she added, "You told me last night you’d make me beg."

"No, Brooke," he pleaded with her, "don’t beg me."

Everything stilled between them in that moment as she looked up at him, her eyes full of desire, but also clear...and decided.

"
Be wild with me." She stroked her hands down his chest, her nails lightly scoring his chest. "
Please."

Rafe had never been particularly gentle in bed, but he wanted to be gentle with Brooke. Tender, too, because of how special she was to him.

Of course, the irony was that just when he was trying to be gentle and tender, she was asking for wild. For kinky.

Still intent on doing whatever he needed to do to resist her pleas, though he wanted that wildness just as badly as she did, when she reached for his shaft, the only way he could keep the game from being over right then and there was to grab her wrists and pull them as far away from his erection as he could.

It was in that exact moment that he gripped her arms tightly above her head—a throaty moan leaving her lips as if he were already inside of her—that Rafe realized the power Brooke had over him.

He’d vowed not to let himself go crazy, had sworn that he wouldn’t let himself forget to be gentle. He could never forgive himself for stealing Brooke’s wide-eyed innocence, for sullying any part of her sweetness.