Author: Bella Andre

"It’s not fair," she pouted. "You already got to taste me last night." Instead of letting her yank his shirt away, he slid his fingers through hers and lifted them to his mouth to press a soft kiss against each of her knuckles. "When you do that, you make me forget."

"Forget what?" His eyes were still dark with desire, but as he teased her, they also danced with a hint of the light she’d been wanting so badly to see in him again.

Somehow she managed to remember. "That it should be my turn now."

He leaned down to cover the side of her neck with his mouth. "Tell me how you make truffles."

With the blood rushing thick and hot in her ears, she could barely make sense of his words, could only repeat, "Truffles?"

"How long does it take to get them right? To whip the chocolate into just the right consistency?"

She might have been able to follow his questions more easily were it not for the fact that he’d just found another sensitive spot on the other side of her neck.

"Can you rush the perfect sweetness, Brooke? Can you rush the perfect smoothness?" Each word fell hot and damp against a different patch of skin on her neck, the underside of her chin, and then her mouth as he licked her once, then twice as if he hadn’t gotten nearly enough of a taste the first time around. "Can you rush the perfect taste of pleasure on your tongue?"

"No." She gave up her answer under sweet duress, the kind only Rafe could employ.

"You have to be patient with your truffles, don’t you?"

Again, wicked persuasion was the only thing that could have drawn the "Yes" from her lips that was sealing her fate.

"You and I aren’t going to rush anything, either," he told her as he slowly teased his fingertips down over her waist to the waistband of her shorts. "One slow, sweet orgasm at a time is how we’re going to do this tonight. All night long."

Thank God he at least had enough mercy to quickly unzip her shorts and let them fall to the floor. Before they kissed, she’d already been aroused, and every kiss had ratcheted up her need higher and higher. Now, Rafe’s eyes caught—and held—on her matching silk panties, no longer a light blue between her thighs.

"I got you all wet."

It was just what she’d said to him that first night when she’d hugged him in her wet bikini. But now, the words meant something else entirely. Something deliciously dirty that only made her wetter, especially when he put one arm around her waist to hold her steady while he reached out with the other hand to cup her through damp silk.

His eyes closed as he slowly moved his fingers over her. A muscle in his temple jumped. When his eyelids slid open again, the look he gave her was so full of desire he stole away what was left of her breath.

"How the hell am I supposed to survive this?" he asked her. "To survive you?"

"I could help make you feel better," she whispered against his neck, loving the brush of his stubble against her lips. She wanted to rub every inch of her body against him, and one day she vowed to take the lead and have him just the way he was having her now.

"So stubborn." He didn’t sound at all upset about it, more pleased by what he was learning about her. "So impatient."

As if to prove him right, she rocked her pelvis into his hand. Just a little harder, just a little longer, and she’d be—

But just as she was arching into the swell of pleasure, he took his hand away. She opened her mouth to protest, and he covered it with his lips. His mouth was hot and hard on hers as their tongues tangled again. She couldn’t even come close to getting enough of him as every kiss made her desperate for another, and then another. A half-dozen kisses later, she realized her bra was loose around her rib cage.

She kissed him again in a heated thank-you for stripping another piece of clothing away, and then gave a little shimmy that had the silk falling from her breasts to the floor to join her shorts and tank top.

"Better?" he asked, six little letters that liquefied her insides.

"A little, but—"

"You want more?"

"Yes." God, yes.

He softly cupped her breasts in his large hands. "Is this what you want?"

"Yes, and—"

Both of his thumbs stroked over her nipples, and her breath came out in a hard rush at the exquisite sensations that rippled through her.

"Good?"

Somewhere in the back of her head, she knew he was using his sexy little questions in just the same way he was using his hands, to tease her even more, to take her even closer to the edge without letting her fall all the way over.

"It’s so good, but—"

"It’s not enough, is it?" The corners of his mouth curved up as she shook her head to let him know it wasn’t nearly enough. "Poor baby, you must be aching so bad by now."

No one had ever had this kind of power over her, to fill her with such need that her fists were clenching against his chest as she tried to control the urge to beg. It was what he wanted, but she already knew better, knew that he’d just eat up her desperate pleas...and then likely make her wait even longer.

"Tell me," he urged, the spark dancing even brighter in his eyes now as he reveled in her sensual torture. "Are you aching, Brooke?"

She swallowed hard and tried to corral enough brain cells to hit him back with, "Are you?"

"Like never before," he confirmed, then lowered his mouth to her breasts, cupping them together so that he could lave both nipples with his tongue. "Does that help?"

"No." God, no.

He was so beautiful when he smiled at her that she almost forgave him for what he was doing to her, for making her need this much.

"What if I did this, instead?" At long last, he slid his thumbs into the sides of her panties. But instead of sliding them down, he used his leverage to pull her closer and scatter the rest of her brain cells with a kiss.

Despite her frustration at being made to wait patiently for her pleasure, how could she do anything but unclench her fists and move her hands to cup his face and kiss him back just as passionately?

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—