“A showing?”
“You. Me. And that damn cup of ice. You have no idea how much I want to take you back to our room right the hell now.” Rafe’s voice grew rougher the higher his hands went. “I want to taste every inch of you. Touch you. Make you scream so hard your throat goes raw. And all before I finally bury myself into this lush little body.” Rafe let out a long, low groan. “This bathing suit is just fucking cruel, sweetheart.”
He skated his hands just below the swells of her breasts. Penny sucked in a sharp breath as the backs of his knuckles brushed over her tightened cloth-covered nipples. Her reaction brought a smug smile to his lips.
“So is what you’re doing to me right now,” Penny panted breathlessly.
His smile made her heart skip a beat. For Penny, the lines of reality quickly started blurring together. Add in her own swelling feelings, and her mucked-up head didn’t know which way was right or left, real or for the sake of their cover.
With Diego’s men across the patio, there was no reason to mutter such words—unless he meant them—which was dangerous in its own right. It was way too close to what she desperately hoped would happen, and would keep happening.
She pulled her legs from his grasp, needing to put some distance between them before she did something so embarrassing there was no returning from it. She stood too fast, the epic heels catching on the lip of the patio. Graceful, she wasn’t. Her arms flailed as she pitched forward…right into the cavern of Rafe’s waiting arms.
Penny didn’t have the chance to voice her complaint aloud when his hand brushed over her cheek and into her hair. Gentle yet guiding, he held her in place as he brought his lips down against hers. One nip to her lower lip and she went boneless.
“No running, Roja,” Rafe murmured his order, his voice low and rough. “Not from me. Not ever.”
He brought his mouth back to hers in a kiss that sucked the air straight from her lungs. It wasn’t a hesitant meeting. It was a full-scale invasion as his tongue slid past her lips and into her mouth. Between the hand entwined in her hair and the one settled proprietarily on her ass, she couldn’t move. She didn’t want to move. She gripped his shoulders and let herself be plundered.
The kiss rode waves of change: soft and steady, hot and needful. All devastating. This was the dangerous part of their operation, because it didn’t take long before it wasn’t Nell Hanlan kissing Rafael Manuel. It was Penny kissing Rafe.
About the time she started giving back what he demanded of her, Rafe’s body stiffened beneath her palms.
Penny stopped, noting that her leg had coiled itself behind his knee. Good God. She’d been about to climb the man like a tree. No wonder he’d frozen. They were in public, for God’s sake, with not only Fuentes’s guards surrounding them, but dozens of cameras probably hiding in every nook and cranny and filming the entire show.
Embarrassment coated her cheeks pink as she uncoiled her body from around Rafe. Two seconds from apologizing, she noticed his attention focused over her shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. His sudden spike of tension told her that she probably didn’t want to know. “Rafe?”
“It looks like Fuentes invited another guest. Show nothing when you turn around, Red. I mean it. Absolutely nothing. And if I tell you to run, you run.”
The urgency in his voice made her want to run right then—and hide. “You’re making me nervous.”
“Then you’re not alone.”
And that made her really nervous.
“Rafael!” Diego’s voice boomed, demanding attention.
Penny turned, attention focused in the direction of Rafe’s gaze. Standing next to Fuentes was a much younger man.
“I’d like to introduce my nephew, Marco.” Diego brought the young man closer. “He has been overseeing the production aspect of our product and will be the one to guide your tour of our facilities. I’d been expecting his arrival sooner, but he had been unexpectedly detained. The matter has now been cleared, and he will be joining us for our discussions.”
Rafe’s fingers dug into Penny’s waist in a supportive hold. To the untrained eye, Rafe looked relaxed, but every muscle was prepped to move fast. “How nice. A family business.”
“And I aim to keep it that way,” the nephew stated matter-of-factly.
When the nephew’s eyes shifted her way, both Penny’s heart and breath lodged in her throat.
“Breathe, baby,” Rafe whispered. His lips brushed against her ear with a soft kiss.
It was the jolt needed to push the air from her lungs before she passed out cold.
Because standing in front of her was the abusive bastard from the alley.
*