I hear his breath hitch, as I reach behind me and unclasp the thin back strap. A second later I’m entirely bare. A few months ago, I’d have felt frighteningly vulnerable and embarrassed but with Raph, the want and need that I feel for him leaves room for little else. He awakens a side of me that I know didn’t exist before him. This brazen person that I become whenever Raph’s hands are on me, is someone that he alone seems to have created.
His eyes darken with barely repressed hunger as his hands travel from my hips to my sides, caressing the sensitive skin there with a featherlight touch. His touch achingly tender in contrast to the bruising desire I see in his eyes.
He’s looking at me with that awe and reverence which steals my breath even before he speaks those words which always feel like a punch in the chest whenever he says them.
“God, Jaz, you’re so beautiful.”
His hands finally move to cup my aching breasts and I hear a breathy moan escape my lips at the contact, followed by his responding groan which is sexy as hell.
Even through the thin material of his boxer shorts, I can feel him hard as granite beneath me and I don’t even seem to be in control of my own body as my hips press down on that hardness.
He curses and his hips thrust up to meet mine as I grind against him, desperate to sate the throbbing at my center.
“Fuck, baby, that feels so good,” he grinds out.
It does. It feels so damn good. But it’s not enough. I want him inside me. I want to claw at him until we’re so joined together, that nothing can tear us apart.
I can feel from the way his hard length is throbbing beneath me and the almost palpable waves of desire coursing from him, that he wants the same thing.
His hand moves from my breast, and the absence of his touch there makes me ache for his warmth. But the ache is quickly replaced by a deeper need as his hand travels down, past my abdomen, then lower still. When his finger spears through my tight passage, my skin burns with that need, until I feel like I’m about to burst into flame.
“More …” I gasp out, as the burning need inside me builds, stripping away all sense and reason. Raph’s responding growl is like fuel to the fire raging inside me.
When he adds another finger, the feeling of fullness makes me cry out and my whole universe narrows to the feel of them thrusting inside me at a rhythm which takes me closer and closer to the edge. The way he’s watching me as I take that pleasure that he’s giving me, undoes me completely and when our eyes lock, the intimacy is almost too much to bear.
I can feel the aching bud at my center throbbing with need, swollen and pulsing painfully, burning away any sliver of inhibition left in me. I can see from the wicked look in those midnight blue eyes, that Raph knows exactly the desperation that he’s driving me to.
My breathing grows ragged until I’m panting, whimpering and finally pleading.
“Please …” I gasp out as I grind down on his hand in an attempt to sate the need throbbing at my center.
Raph curses as he pulls me forward, until my body is flush with his, my breasts crushing against the rock hard expanse of his chest. His hands grab the sides of my face and his mouth crashes onto mine. I open myself up to him instantly and his tongue spears into my mouth so deep, it feels as if he’s trying to devour me, brand me, claim me and I’m only too willing to let him.
We’re both gasping for air when he breaks the kiss and his eyes lock directly onto mine, looking into my very core.
“You don’t ever have to beg me for anything, baby. Everything I am is yours.” His voice sounds so guttural, that I can barely recognize it and for a moment, I find it hard to breathe. I want him. I want him so much, that it feels like I might die from the sheer intensity of that desire.
I want to beg him to bury himself deep inside me until there’s nothing separating us, until our bodies are so fused together, that nothing can possibly exist but him and me.
But before I can open my mouth to voice what we both seem to want, he’s lifting me forward in one swift motion until I’m hovering over his face. I don’t even have a chance to object, because a second later his tongue slices through the center of me. My back arches and I think I see stars.
His groan of approval vibrates through my body and I’m utterly helpless against the torrent of pleasure coursing through my body, pulling me under until I’m gasping for breath. My hips move of their own volition, rocking sensually against Raph’s wicked mouth.
That skillful tongue works me to the edge, devouring me like a man starved and when it slips inside me, I can only cry out as I lose every single one of my senses.
When the waves of pleasure finally subside, I kiss my way down the rock hard expanse of Raph’s golden chest, down to his equally hard abs and further down still to the even harder muscle throbbing beneath. I can feel just how affected Raph is by that trail of fire in the way his powerful body quakes under my lips.
My mouth waters shamelessly at the sight of him and in the same way as he devoured me, I do the same. The way that his body rocks under my touch and the sexy masculine sounds that he makes, sends shivers of pleasure through my own body and when he begins to thrust and his hand forms a fist around my hair, I think I lose my mind at the same time he loses his.
Sometime later, we’re lying blissfully in each other’s arms and I wish for a moment that it can always be like this, that the world outside the one that we’ve created can just disappear.
My hand finds its way to the side of Raph’s left rib where the row of intertwined suns is etched into his golden skin.
“What does this tattoo mean?” I find myself asking, as my fingers trace the outline of the intertwined rays.
“It’s a symbol of the St. Tristan Dynasty,” he replies quietly. “I got it as a reminder of who and what my life belonged to.”
I feel a cold chill racing through me at his words, a reminder of who and what Raph is. A reminder of all that is against us.
“But that was before you,” he says.
“You’re mine now, Jaz and … I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you.”
Those luminous blue eyes lock onto mine and when I take in the perfect contours of his impossibly beautiful face, for a moment I feel like I can’t breathe. This guy—this infuriatingly arrogant and complicated, yet impossibly perfect, impossibly beautiful and frighteningly powerful guy is mine. He can have anyone. Any goddamn girl in this entire world most likely, but he wants me—and I want him. More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my entire life. And I can’t quite make myself believe it’s real.
Something inside me makes me hold onto Raph tighter, because I can’t shake the strange feeling descending on my shoulders, the thought that nothing this good, nothing this intense can ever last. Even the brightest stars burn out.
Raph seems to sense something in me, because his arms tighten around me, too. He leans his forehead against mine, his hand cupping my cheek and when he speaks, his eyes are locked directly onto mine, those impossibly blue eyes burning into me.
“What are you doing to me, Jaz?” he asks.