AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Nineteen
Stunned and shaken, Rafe blinked at Sophie while he tried to work out exactly what was going on.
His head told him that it had been a chaste kiss. A friendly kiss. A depressingly platonic and much too brief kiss. Yet while there was no denying it had been brief, there had been nothing chaste about it. At least not from where he was standing.
Chaste kisses were like the punctuation at the end of a sentence. Short, sharp and abrupt. That’s why they were called a peck. Furthermore, a peck was usually administered to the cheek or the forehead, not the lips. It was affectionate and pleasant but transient. Gone and forgotten in the blink of an eye as the world moved ever on.
Pecks did not bring the world to a shuddering halt. Did not charge the air or awaken nerve endings or linger in anticipation. And to the best of his knowledge, they did not make the lips tingle and the breath erratic. Nor should they, in the usual course of things, leave the receiver of the peck befuddled and rampant, or make the bestower frown. Sophie’s single quirked eyebrow over her rapidly blinking eyes suggested she was as bewildered by the actual definition of her kiss as he was.
‘What was that about?’ A part of him hoped the question would break the spell. Another part—the bigger part—was perfectly content with remaining bewitched.
She answered with a baffled shrug then stared at him with such intensity and indecision it was disconcerting. ‘Perhaps it is best not to over-analyse it.’ Without thinking, he used the pad of his index finger to rearrange the line of her brows, his thumb gently massaging the furrow between them. ‘Perhaps it is best to gloss over it and pretend it did not happen.’
‘Perhaps...’ But as indecision creased her forehead her palms smoothed down his lapels, then with a sigh of resignation used them to tug his mouth down to hers.
There was no misunderstanding the timbre of the second kiss. It started hot then burst into flames—and all initiated by her. She pushed him back against the door, plunged her hands in his hair and explored his mouth with her tongue. When that wasn’t enough, her hands joined in, raking over his shoulders and his chest as if she needed to know every inch of him.
She moaned when he wrestled his arm out of the sling and filled his greedy palms with her bottom, sighing as she ground her pelvis against his already straining erection before she reached behind him to open the door.
They staggered entwined into his bedchamber. Feasting on each other’s mouths while hurried fingers fought with hairpins, buttons and laces. Sophie removed both his coat and his waistcoat in one hurried movement, then tugged the shirt from his breeches and over his head. When his uncooperative bad arm struggled to untie her gown, she turned around, holding up her hair in invitation so he could see what he was doing.
His heart racing and his body burning, as soon as the stubborn bow at the top released, Rafe slowed the pace. Not to give them a chance to think about what they were apparently about to do, but to revel in it. Luxuriate in it. He took his time with the rest of the laces and, once loosened, eased the bodice gently to expose only her shoulders so he could lay a trail of open-mouthed kisses over that sensitive flesh. She arched her neck to give him greater access, her hands covering his where they rested on her hips, then lazily dragging his up to cup her breasts.
Even through several layers of fabric her nipples were hard and puckered with need and that heated his blood further. He traced the outside of them until she moaned and pressed the full mounds into his palms, anchoring them in place with her own palms in case he stopped.
When she could stand it no more, it was Sophie who tugged the bodice down until it puddled around her feet. Sophie who turned around so he could look at her stood in only her chemise and stays. Sophie who pushed him to sit on the mattress, forcing him to be a spectator while her fingers traced the clear demarcation line between the proud jut of her cleavage and the lace edge of her undergarments like a seductive siren luring him to the rocks. Like Eve tempting Adam she began to undo the ribbon between her cleavage which held it all together, inviting him to watch as she unbound her breasts then tossed her stays to the floor.
She smiled at his sharp intake of breath as she wiggled out of her chemise, teasing him by revealing herself inch by glorious inch, turning her back to him as the fabric caught on her nipples so that he had to see the delicate curve of her spine and ripe peach of a bottom as the final barrier to his eyes and her nakedness pooled on top of her discarded dress.
Then she tugged the last few trapped pins from her hair with impatience. Tousled dark waves fell in a silken curtain over her shoulders and down her back as she bent to roll off each stocking with the practised guile of a courtesan, still denying him the opportunity to see her in all her full-frontal splendour on purpose.
‘You’re killing me.’ And she was. Rafe had never wanted a woman more.
Her earthy, feminine chuckle was all seductive confidence, as if she knew she was torturing him, and knew he would thank her for it. The firelight behind turned her skin golden while intriguing shadows skimmed her curves.
She paused for a moment before she turned, her bold, expressive eyebrows and heated gaze confirming that she wanted this—wanted him—while giving him the opportunity to take it all in before she undulated towards the bed.
Naked, she took his breath away.
Full, heavy breasts capped with saucy dark nipples. A narrow waist which flared into seductive, womanly hips. The dark triangle of soft hair between her lovely, long legs.
Temptation incarnate with the promise of sin swirling in her beautiful dark eyes.
He caught her hand and tugged her to stand between his knees and watched her watch him as his fingertips reverently explored her body. Her eyes only fluttering closed when his lips teased her nipple. She sighed as he sucked it into his mouth, arching again to give him full access, her fingers tracing his face while they anchored it in place.
She seemed to feed on the pleasure, torturing them both by eking out every bit of it before she pushed him backwards. Her kiss was thorough and intense as she made short work of the buttons of his falls, but she tore her mouth away to watch as she tugged the tight fabric down his hips to reveal his hungry body. She made it plain she liked what she saw and his ego bathed and rejoiced in her lack of artifice.
Again, there was a confidence about her as she caressed him which inflamed Rafe further. She traced the shape of him with needy reverence, massaged the length of him in torturous, assured strokes and until his hips bucked on the mattress.
He growled as he reversed their position, and instantly she was submissive. Murmuring her encouragement as he touched her intimately, opening her body so he could pleasure it unhindered. Her hot, sensitive flesh slick and responsive to every gentle caress. Her hooded eyes locked with his as her fingers clenched the sheet.
As her passion built, she took control again, hauling him on top of her. His hardness strained towards her entrance and she tilted her hips to greet it. He hesitated, needing confirmation, and she reached between them to guide him, her body shuddering as he began to edge inside. As he adjusted position, he leaned on his bad arm and she saw him wince slightly. Quick as a flash, she rolled him on his back and took control again. Slowly lowering herself onto him until he filled her to the hilt. Then she smiled as she began to move, her eyelids fluttering closed as she focused all her concentration on taking them both to heaven.
It was then that Rafe lost all track of time and all his wits. All track of everything except the enchantress who held him enslaved as she unapologetically took her pleasure and in return gave it back to him in spades. Twice she brought them both to the edge of reason, and twice she denied them both release, the walls of her body caressing him relentlessly from root to tip until he was begging her to finish it. Finish him.
She moaned as he touched the bud of nerves where they joined, flinging her head backwards as he pushed her further and further towards oblivion. Watching her get there was the single most erotic thing Rafe had ever seen, and he ruthlessly held himself back so he could witness every second. And when she came and her body pulsed around his, she swallowed his cries of ecstasy in a kiss so carnal and so decadent he almost—almost—did not notice when he toppled with her into oblivion, that his body spilled into nothing.
