Undressed by the Boss (Mills & Boon By Request) (17 page)

‘Forgive you?’ She frowned in bewilderment.

‘Please …’ Taking her hands in his, he raised them to his lips. All his life he had been the hunter, but now his only thought was to protect Casey from further hurt.

‘One last kiss?’ she suggested hopefully.

He looked at the smile on her face. It might have worked if her eyes hadn’t been full of tears. ‘Come here …’ He put a sheltering arm around her. She was so warm and so vulnerable, and he could only imagine how humiliating she must be finding this.

He dipped his head with the intention of kissing her once more, chastely on the cheek. However painful that would be for both of them, he meant it to be a goodbye to that side of things.

And he thought he knew her?

She ripped his
howlis
from his head with surprising force, and, twining her fingers in his hair, she dragged him close.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he demanded in surprise.

‘I think you know,’ she said steadily.

He could pull away at any time, but he wanted to make her see sense first. ‘Casey, don’t be silly—’ But he would never hurt her and she held on.

One of his hands found its way to the hollow at the base of her spine, where she felt so fragile. A sullen wind chose that moment to whip their faces, and as concern overrode caution he drew her beneath his robe so she could share his warmth.

In that moment he was lost. The erotic world he had been resisting claimed him. The feel of Casey’s body against his, the thunder of her heart and the whisper of her breath—he was kissing her, and not at all chastely.

As he kissed her, he reached for her hand, lacing their fingers together. It was a promise from him to keep her safe. It was a promise she understood, and when she looked at him with trust in her eyes their positions were reversed, and he was hers to do with as she liked.

They kissed and caressed in front of the dwindling fire in a way he hadn’t done since adolescence, until—‘Have I made you cry?’ He frowned, tasting her tears.

‘I blame you,’ she said, laughing and crying softly at the same time.

‘Explain,’ he insisted. His lips were tugging with amusement as he brought her round to face him.

‘Don’t laugh at me, Raffa.’ She touched his lips and he was instantly serious. ‘No one has ever made me confront my fears before.’

‘And you’re still frightened?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted.

‘You have always thought lovemaking must be rough, painful and fast, with all the pleasure on the man’s side?’ he suggested.

She couldn’t believe she was talking about something like this with Raffa. This was something she hadn’t even been able to discuss with her own parents—and they were experts in the field.

‘You think a man must take absolute control and you are expected to lie beneath him and endure whatever happens as best you can?’

‘How do you know that?’ Then she smiled, remembering how Raffa had teased her. ‘Years of experience?’ she said, pretending disapproval, but then she laughed, and they both clung to that shred of humour.

‘Did you think I was going to throw you over my shoulder and carry you off to the desert as my captive virgin?’ Raffa suggested. Thumbing his jaw, he added thoughtfully, ‘That’s not a bad idea, actually …’

‘Raffa,’ she scolded, by now completely relaxed.

‘Maybe you would have preferred that?’ he said, holding her
in a loose embrace in front of him. ‘And there’s still time,’ he warned, pretending to be fierce.

‘But I trust you,’ she said.

‘I should hope so.’

‘I still have hang-ups.’

‘Only because you don’t know the rules.’

‘What rules?’

‘Rule number one: no hang-ups allowed in the desert.’

If only it were that simple, Casey thought, hugging herself. She had just made a spectacle of herself in front of Raffa in the most acutely embarrassing way. He had talked her round and reassured her, but she was still aroused. She had never been so aroused. Her nipples were on fire and she was throbbing with need between her legs, where she felt swollen and moist. She had never wanted sex more and never been more certain that she wouldn’t know what to do if they made love—except that she would make a complete and utter hash of it.

‘Dreaming again. Or just worrying?’ Raffa prompted.

‘I’d be useless at it,’ she blurted out.

‘Useless at what?’

‘Sex.’

He made a low, confident masculine sound. ‘But I’m not …’ Touching her chin, he made her look at him.

‘This isn’t funny, Raffa.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ he agreed, turning serious. ‘You have parents who advise other people with sexual problems, and for some reason you seem to think you have all those same problems yourself.’

‘I
know
I have,’ she interrupted.

‘How do you know?’

‘I can get so far down the road and then I can’t go any further. I’ve read the books, so I know—’

‘You don’t know anything,’ he interrupted. ‘How can you know anything when you’re still a virgin? You’ve read too many books, Casey, and life has to be experienced outside of
the covers of a book. Books are instructive and interesting—and surprising, sometimes—but they can never take the place of living in the moment and all that that entails: feeling, sharing, caring, cherishing, laughing, crying.’

‘Loving?’ She stared at him steadily until she read the answer in his eyes.

‘Loving in the moment? Yes, of course.’

That was Casey’s cue to move away from him. He knew it was a lousy answer, but he had nothing to offer her long-term, and he wouldn’t pretend. Casey was special—very special. But she made him feel like the worst type of man as she hugged her knees, burying her face again. It was as if all the good that had been done over the past few days had been wasted.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No—I’m sorry.’ She cut across him, lifting her head. There were no tears now, just an expression of resignation, which he found almost worse. ‘I shouldn’t have pressed you like this. I’ve got no right.’ She threw her hands up in mock despair. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking.’

Everything she was entitled to think—that he had brought her here to make love to her. It was a perfectly reasonable supposition. He just wished Casey didn’t believe her parents’ books held the answer to everything, or that fairytales could sometimes come true.

Picking up the
howlis
from his neck, he readjusted it until only his eyes were showing. ‘I’m not a very romantic Sheikh, am I?’

‘Oh, I don’t know …’ She stared with him into the vastness of the desert. ‘You brought me here.’

The wry tone in her voice was so much better to hear than Casey’s awkwardness and uncertainty. ‘Should I try harder?’ he suggested dryly.

‘You can try …’

‘Your eyes are like stars,’ he intoned solemnly. ‘Will that do?’

‘I suppose it will have to.’

She was still smiling when a cloud scudded across the moon,
plunging them into darkness. Sensing her unease, he reached for her. ‘Don’t tell me you’re frightened of the dark as well?’ When the cloud rolled away she was staring up at him. As he met her gaze he wondered if this was the most intimate moment he had ever shared with anyone. And then she whispered, ‘Make love to me, Raffa …’

W
ITHIN
moment Casey’s mind was wiped clear of why she shouldn’t, or mustn’t, and above all why she couldn’t. Every excuse her lack of self-confidence had ever thrown at her was effectively obliterated by Raffa’s overwhelming sensuality. She had never felt passion like this before and pressed close, her breasts aching for his touch.

When he deepened the kiss, plundering her mouth in a brazen imitation of what he’d like to do to her, swollen lips pulsed with need and she groaned her approval. ‘Oh, please,’ she begged, clinging fiercely to him. ‘Don’t you dare change your mind now.’

There was no chance of that.

Raffa removed her clothes with ease.

The words ‘years of experience’ flashed between them in a look. The revelation that sex could be fun boosted Casey’s confidence. It had always looked like such a serious undertaking between the covers of her parents’ books. But with Raffa—

That was as much thought as she could manage before Raffa’s lips crushed her mouth, opening her lips with the pressure of his, invading and tasting her, only to pull back and tease her with his tongue, tracing the line of her mouth, before plunging deep again, in a blatant rehearsal of what he meant to do to her.

She was on fire for him, every part of her pleading for his touch, for his attention. Mindless with delight, she bucked
towards him. A dam had broken, and now her hunger was released she wanted everything he could give her.

She offered her breasts, begging in words she hardly recognised for him to ease the ache inside her. Taking her nipples, he chafed them while soothing her with words in A’Qabani. But she refused to be soothed. Her nipples were almost painfully extended, and the pleasure was streaming between her legs, where it gathered in insistent pulses.

Raffa’s answer was to brush her nipples with his lips, and then he suckled while his hands explored, tracing a leisurely path over her quivering belly towards the source of her need.

She was almost frantic with desire by this time. She had waited so long for this moment, and was almost frightened of losing control again before Raffa could complete his investigations.

‘Are you warm enough?’ he demanded, when she shuddered uncontrollably.

Desire swirled around her, making it impossible to answer. She could only thrash beneath him, seeking more contact. These feelings, these incredible sensations—all of them new, and all of them so much stronger and more intense than she had dreamed.

‘There’s only one way to be sure,’ Raffa growled. ‘I’ll have to cover you all over.’

She gasped as he swung her beneath him, and then rubbed herself shamelessly against him, catching what pressure she could from his powerful thigh. ‘Please …’ she managed shakily, hungry for more pleasure.

‘You want more …?’

‘Everything,’ she groaned, opening herself to him.

Raffa tugged his robe over his head. He was naked underneath. He was magnificent …

‘I always wondered what a Sheikh wore underneath his robes,’ she murmured, reaching up to trace his ferocious tattoo.

‘Well, now you know.’

‘A condom
and
a tattoo.’

‘It’s enough, don’t you think?’

‘More than—’ Casey’s words were choked off as Raffa’s hand found its place between her legs with unerring accuracy.

‘Good?’ he murmured, testing her readiness.

She could only writhe with greedy delight. There could be nothing better than this, surely? Closing her eyes, she gave herself up to pleasure as Raffa worked with the greatest skill and sensitivity, until she was so engorged with need she could only whimper, ‘I need you … I need you … please … please …’ But though he teased and stimulated, he refused her release. ‘Oh, please don’t stop.’ She was practically sobbing with disappointment when he changed position.

‘Who says I’m stopping? I want you to feel me …’

Casey’s mouth dried. Reaching down nervously, she gasped at the size of him, but even as she shrank away Raffa moved so he could touch her with just the tip of his erection. ‘I would never hurt you, Casey.’

‘Oh …’ Her mouth fell loose. This was more sensation than she had ever known. Her breathing changed, quickened, as if every part of her was waiting, but he was so big, so huge …

Raffa was kissing her, deeply and persuasively, until all her fears dissolved and she was crushing her mouth against his, hungry for more contact, more pressure, more pleasure—more of everything he had to give her …

She was so tender and vulnerable beneath him, and yet she was driven by a hunger equal to his own. She had taken his shoulders in a vice-like grip and was urging him on with words that surprised him.

‘Okay, we can do that,’ he murmured, grinning against her mouth. This was all he had ever wanted for Casey … all he had ever wanted.

Her eyes had turned almost black, with just a slim ring of cobalt surrounding the dilated pupil. His must be the same. He wanted her as he had never wanted any woman before, and he eased her thighs a little wider. He found her to be just as he’d
expected only better—plump, warm and moist, and oh, so eager. He teased her with the tip again, for the sheer pleasure of hearing her soft cry of delight.

‘Please, Raffa … Please …’

‘Patience,’ he murmured against her lips, moving rhythmically so that each time he caught a little deeper inside her.

‘No—now,’ she insisted fiercely, taking the decision out of his hands by bucking towards him. ‘Oh, Raffa,’ she moaned, as he moved with infinite steadiness to claim her completely.

However much he wanted this he would never allow himself to forget how inexperienced she was. ‘Am I hurting you?’

‘If you stop now I’ll never ever forgive you …’

For ever was a long, long time he thought—and then, inevitably, the world outside real time slipped away.

Her world was composed of Raffa. Her concentration was all on him—on his muscular back beneath her fingers, and his rock-hard chest in front of her face, and the sublime rocking motion that was taking her places she had always wanted to go. Her eyes were full of him, and her ears were tuned to his erotic suggestions in A’Qabani. Her world was pleasure—pleasure that defied belief as Raffa settled deep inside her. He inhabited her completely—and not just her body, but her mind, her soul, her heart.

He stretched her beyond anything she would have believed possible before this moment, and as she grew accustomed to the new sensation of being one he withdrew. There was barely chance to voice her complaint before he plunged deep again, to her shriek of surprised delight.

‘For the pleasure of taking you again,’ he murmured against her smile. ‘And again.’

He moved faster now, in firm, measured strokes, but the build was so great the destination began to terrify her. ‘I can’t—’

‘Yes, you can,’ Raffa insisted. ‘I’ll keep you safe.’