Behind Closed Doors

She gave him a timid, questioning look.

“Lie down,” he repeated, wondering if she was ever going to take the initiative. She acted like she had no idea what to do with him.

Raine reclined on the bed and lay there like a sacrificial offering, her eyes wide and apprehensive.

Whatever. Fine. He liked being on top. It was his nature to run things, in bed and out. Probably she sensed this and behaved accordingly, like a good little courtesan. He shoved away the stab of anger that went with that fleeting thought, just in time.

Live the fantasy, he reminded himself. Keep it together.

She lifted her hair behind herself, spreading it out in a bright, glinting fan across the pillow, and then held out her arms to him with a shy smile.

His whole body reacted, and he didn't even remember moving. He just found himself straddling her, his heart thudding, staring down into that sweet, radiant smile, feeling famished and desperate.

Seth shoved her legs apart, trapping her beneath him instinctively, as if afraid she would try to escape. But she didn't struggle, just sighed and wiggled softly beneath him, wrapping her slender arms around his shoulders with a murmur of pleasure, as if seeking his warmth.

He pressed the burning length of his cock against her soft belly, buried his fingers in her satiny gold hair and kissed her, a starving, ravenous kiss. He wanted to devour that bright, welcoming sweetness. He wanted it all for himself. He wanted to claim it, to own it.

She twined her arms around his neck, her nails digging into his back. Her mouth was sweet and yielding beneath his. Her eager tongue ventured shyly into his mouth, her hands tangled in his hair and her slim, petal-soft body arched beneath him, silently begging him to finish what he had started. But she had already miscalculated once, and he knew himself well enough to know that once he was inside of her, he wasn't going to be able to stop, no matter what she said or did.

It was better to be sure, even if it killed him.

Raine clutched his hair and moaned as he slid down the length of her satiny body. He folded her legs up and rubbed his rough cheek against the incredibly soft skin of her inner thighs, savoring the hot smell of her sex. He loved the shocked cry of pleasure she made as he drew the swollen bud of her clit into his mouth.

Her taste drove him out of his head, the rich, earthy sweetness of her juices, the silken perfection of her secret flesh. She writhed under the slow, loving lash of his skillful tongue, her hips bucking in his grip. He held her ruthlessly still, licking and lapping at her, following the flow of energy that rose in her trembling body, pushing and coaxing. Slow and patient and relentless.

He nudged her over the top and sent her flying. He drank in her pleasure, the wailing cry, the convulsions that pulsed, wet and hot and uncontrollable, rippling through her slender body. He felt exultant, triumphant He lifted his head, wiped his mouth and studied her. Eyes closed, panting, her body wild-rose pink and damp with sweat, still trembling from the aftermath. She was as relaxed as she would ever be.

His turn.

Seth could barely control his own trembling eagerness as he mounted her, nudging himself into her soft, drenched body. Her eyes flew open at the blunt intrusion, but she opened up, embracing him.

She gasped as he shoved himself halfway in. “Wait a second,” she begged “Let me get used to it.”

He cupped her face and kissed her with pleading tenderness, making tiny rocking movements with his hips. “Relax. Let me in.” His voice was rough with desperation.

She clasped her legs around his hips. “I swear, I'm trying.”

He stared into her face. Her dilated eyes were gazing at him, her lower lip swollen from his rough kisses, trembling again with emotion. She reached up and touched his damp cheek, smoothing it.

She was wide open to him, utterly unmasked. Whipped cream and butter and silk, just as he had fantasized, just what he had wanted her to be. It was eerie. If it was an act, it was an unbelievably good one.

“Are you always like this?” he demanded, in spite of himself.

Her eyes opened, dazed. “Always like what?”

“Nothing “ He shoved away the stab of incoherent anger, flexed his hips and drove himself inside her, all the way.

The tight, slick heat of her hugging the entire length of his cock swept away the last vestiges of his self- control. He plunged in again, hearing her sharp, breathless cries as if from a long distance. He couldn’t tell if they were cries of pleasure or protest, nor could he have changed anything if he had known. He was lost, thrusting fast and furious. Locked into his own body's savage need; no hope of slowing, no chance of stopping. His orgasm bore down on him like a runaway freight train, and the explosion wrenched through him with brutal force.

Then he came back to himself, sprawled heavily on top of her. The silence in the room was deafening.

He lifted his weight up off of her. There was no sound but for their ragged breathing. Her face was turned away, only the delicate curve of her flushed cheekbone was visible. He felt irrationally afraid, as if he had ruined something as it was trying to bloom. Something as soft and fragile as a butter-fly.

He rolled off her, and she drew in a great, shuddering breath of air, her breath hitching in her lungs as if she were crying. He searched for something soothing or gentle to say, but his mind was blank, wiped clean by that mind-shattering orgasm.

She rolled away from him and got up off the bed. Her trembling legs buckled beneath her. She steadied herself against the wall and hurried to the bathroom.

The door lock clicked, loud and harsh.

He hissed softly through his teeth and sat up, burying his face in his hands. When a woman locked herself in the bathroom without a word after sex, it was not a good sign.

The rationalizations started immediately—hey, she'd been willing, every step of the way. It had just gotten out of control at the very end.

When it counted the most. Damn.

The silence was driving him nuts. He pulled off the condom and disposed of it, then lay back down on the bed, arms behind his head. He prepared to wait, for as long as it took. No way was he going to let their tryst end on this note.

It was a matter of pride.

Chapter 6

Raine crouched in the bathtub, shaking so hard that she could barely keep her balance. She lunged up for the shower nozzle, missed it and slid back, falling with a painful thud against the cold porcelain.

Shaken to bits.

This had been nothing like her fantasies. Nothing like the rude reality she had lived with Frederick. But the Frederick episode had been stupid and embarrassing, an error to forget and move beyond. Not like this. Not earth- shattering.

Her fantasies of how sex would be with a talented lover had been soft-focus and candlelit, glittering with tints of rose and gold like love scenes in the movies. Seth had turned on all the lights and left them burning: No soft, romantic dimness for him. Every detail of him was harsh and blunt and clear, his heavy, steel-hard body, his immense strength. His big penis, probing and penetrating her. His rough commands, his restless, ravenous masculine energy.

She felt ravished, plundered. She'd had no way of knowing that it could be like this to give herself to a man. No notion of how vulnerable her helpless, writhing response to him would make her feel. And now she couldn't stop shaking, couldn't calm down. She couldn't fall in love with a man just because she went to bed with him. She barely knew him. She wasn't even sure yet if she liked him. For God's sake, she was twenty- eight years old. She knew better.

And he was waiting out there on the bed, as lean and hungry as a panther. God only knew what he was thinking. She had to go out and face him. She clutched the sides of the tub with white-knuckled hands, shaking in