Raoul leaned over her, supporting his weight on his forearms. Not a great fan of vanilla sex, right now it had never seemed more appealing. He parted her creamy folds and slid the tip of his throbbing cock into her, just an inch or two, still not totally convinced she was ready for this. Too far gone to deny her. He ached with a need Cantara could spend the rest of her life satiating—for him and for Zeke.
Part of him wished his buddy could have been there when Cantara took this big step forward on the path to recovery, both physical and carnal. Another part of him figured both of them at once would be too much for her when she was still so fragile. Zeke would get his, now she was back in the saddle, just so long as she didn’t react aversely to what they were about to do. He still didn’t know if she’d been forced to have sex with that bastard Salim. Raoul ground his jaw at the prospect, not wanting to know if she had been, but figured she needed to face it sooner or later. Make that later.
He was reassured when Cantara wrapped her legs around his waist and locked them at the ankles, as though afraid he might change his mind. Like he could! She was so damned tight—way tighter than he recalled, but perhaps it was more to do with the extent of his tumescence. He tried to work his way into her gently, but his feisty Cantara was having none of it. She thrust her pelvis upwards to meet his next thrust and before he knew it he was completely sheathed in her enveloping warmth. They groaned in unison and, satisfied that she was comfortable, Raoul picked up the pace.
“You used to spank me,” she said on a breathless sigh.
“Yeah, and you loved it.”
“Will you do that again?”
“I’ll do whatever you want me to, sweetness, but not too fast. We need to build up to these things.”
“Sure we do.”
There was a mischievous light in her eye as she thrust against him with increased force, gyrating her hips as she did so, creating an almost unbearably intoxicating friction between them. She clenched the muscles in her * against his length, adding to his agony. Straining to explode, Raoul couldn’t let that happen yet. She needed to come first, and come hard. She’d damn well earned the right. He increased the pace and ferocity of his thrusts, watching her for signs of distress that didn’t materialize. Instead her cute little needy moans increased in volume and intensity by the second.
“That’s it, darlin’. Now we’re really fucking. You’ve got everything I can give you, Cantara, honey. God, I never dreamed I’d get a second chance with you. I love you so damned much it hurts. I’m never gonna let you out of my sight again. Get used to it.”
“I love it that you’re so protective.”
“Yeah,” he groaned, breathless from the flickering heat building deep inside of him. “But do you love me, darlin’? Do you forgive me?”
“I love you, and I love Zeke.” Her fingers clawed at his back. “Don’t care if that sounds greedy. As to forgiving, there’s nothing to forgive, unless you count the fact that you’re deliberately teasing me when you know I need to come real bad.”
He chuckled. “Okay, darlin’, let’s do this together.”
“Raoul! Oh my God, I…”
Cantara had no breath left to finish her sentence. Raoul gloried in the feel of her tightening muscles around his throbbing cock, drank in her expression of astounded ecstasy as she thrashed her head from side to side and absorbed her orgasm like a woman with a point to prove to herself. A woman who definitely felt ready to embrace life again. Her pleasure was Raoul’s undoing. His dwindling self-control evaporated and with a growl of fierce possessiveness he shot his load deep inside the woman he had loved since the moment he set eyes on her. The woman whom he had thought was lost to him forever.
Against all the odds, they had been granted a second chance and this time Raoul and Zeke wouldn’t be taking any risks when it came to Cantara’s welfare.
Zeke whistled tunelessly as he carried the breakfast tray toward the yellow room, pleased with the simple domesticity of the task. Even more pleased with Cantara’s progress. The shell of the woman who had returned to them was blossoming into the wild and beautiful creature who had haunted Zeke’s dreams. Curiosity was replacing Cantara’s mental inertia. She asked more and more questions about their past, about what had happened to her, and Zeke was confident she would gradually remember everything for herself. Something small and insignificant would open the floodgates, and there it would all be. So would Raoul and Zeke, ready to help her through the traumatic aftermath.
Sanford was delighted with her progress. Now that he knew her better he agreed she was the sort of person who needed to remember, rather than bury the past. Only then would she be truly free to start living again. Once she had remembered, he and Raoul could concentrate on finding that sniveling bastard Levi and giving him what he had coming. A man who betrayed his country’s interests in order to save his own miserable hide was the worst kind of coward, and Raoul and Zeke would know no peace until he was held to account.
They had Cantara back, it was true, but that was no thanks to Levi. They lived with daily evidence of the horrors she’d suffered because of him—her haunted expression, her injuries, the nightmares, the long stretches of time she spent staring vacantly into space—to say nothing of the loss of her memory and three of the best years of her life.