Keeping his gaze locked on hers, he pulled her knee to his hip and tested her readiness. She was warm, wet, and completely open to him. With a shift of hips, he slipped into her pliant body as if he was always meant to be there.
This time, they both trembled. There was nothing on earth that compared to the sweet feel of her body. Flesh on flesh. Heat on heat. In and out, he withdrew and sank back in a series of thrusts that had them both panting in a matter of seconds.
“You’re so fucking tight, baby.” Afraid of finishing before they even began, Rafe took a deep breath, groaning as her body contracted around him like a pulsing vise. “I don’t want to hurt you. Dear God, tell me I’m not fucking hurting you.”
Her soft hands settled on the curve of his ass. With a squeeze and an upward thrust of her hips, she urged him deeper. “I’m not as breakable as I look.”
Rafe’s control snapped. With a caveman growl, he surged in the last few remaining inches. Beneath him, Penny gripped his ass tighter. He brought his mouth down on hers as if he were a man dying of dehydration and she were a bottomless well, and only when his head began to swirl did he come up for air. He kissed a path of kisses over her cheek, her nose, the curve of her slender neck.
Every inch of her was smooth and supple. He couldn’t get close enough, feel enough, when it came to this woman. He slipped a hand beneath her hip and braced her body as he plunged in and out. It didn’t take long before the bed beneath them creaked and groaned with the force of each thrust.
Her hands touched him everywhere: the muscles of his arms, his back. Their heavy pants fueled the already raging fire until Rafe lost track of where he ended and she began. Need for release warred with a need to never let go. The second her lips met his mouth in a kiss that pushed them both over the edge, Rafe knew.
One more night—fuck, a million nights—would never be enough.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Penny would never look at sex the same way again, because with Rafe it hadn’t felt like sex. It was intimacy and total abandon disguised as a marathon of hot touches and hotter kisses. He woke things deep inside her that she never knew existed.
In Rafe’s arms, there’d been no walls. She gave herself to him without fear that would’ve before made her turn the other way and run like hell.
She was in love with him.
And she didn’t regret it. Not a kiss. Not a touch. Not the way he made her feel as if she could do anything and still be herself—and it was enough. Somehow, he’d managed to make vulnerability feel good.
Until this morning.
At some point after the fourth round of lovemaking, something shifted. A dark cloud of tension followed Rafe as he paced the room, collecting the clothing they’d strewn about. He hadn’t spoken to her, hadn’t looked in her direction for the last five minutes except for the occasional sneaking glance. At first she’d been confused, then hurt. Now she was angry.
It wasn’t as if she expected the coo of sonnets or a devotion of love ever after. Though they’d practically clawed her throat raw, she’d been careful not to mumble those three little words that could make him regret everything they’d shared.
She’d shed her clothes knowing that making love wouldn’t change anything, and she hadn’t regretted a moment of it—until the first time he refused to glance her way.
“You can stop stomping around like you’re on a death march. I don’t have any expectations.” Her words sounded a hell of a lot steadier than she felt.
Rafe’s back went taut before he tugged on his shirt.
“You should,” he muttered.
“Excuse me?” Her voice went up in pitch.
Finally, Rafe turned. Jaw tightly clenched, he could’ve just been told he had one month to live and she wouldn’t know it by the steel hardening his eyes. The man staring back at her hadn’t been the one who’d made love to her throughout the night, nor the one who was so eager to get inside her that he couldn’t wait to get her into a bed. Standing in front of her right now was the stern-faced commando from their first San Pedro Sula encounter.
“I don’t do relationships, Red,” Rafe reminded her, his voice low and even. “I don’t do complicated, messy feelings. Hell, it’s more than the fact I don’t do them. I can’t. I know absolutely jack shit about being in a relationship in general, much less a healthy one. Disappointment, detachment, and danger—I’m your man. Anything else may as well be a fucking fairy tale.”
“You do realize that I was raised by the world’s most unaffectionate father, right?”
“But you had Rachel. And you had Trey and his family. You had people in your life who showed you that wasn’t the norm. I had foster parents who usually didn’t bother memorizing my last name, much less asking me how I felt about things. It’s not that I don’t wish things were different. It’s just reality. Relationships aren’t in me to give. Not even to you.”
His words were as lethal as a dagger through the ribs. She tore her gaze away and sat to pull on her shoes, battling against the shake of her hands.