head to toe and felt sated.
More than anything, he wanted to have the time to do that, right here, right now.
As for the kiss, it was their first real one. He didn’t count Kauai or the desert. Those had been nice, sweet even, but each nothing more than a quick contact, a tease, a moment of playfulness.
Not this kiss.
This kiss stabbed him deep in the belly with its sharp, needy claws, and had nothing to do with quick or playful. This kiss was the result of weeks of hunger and desire. And though he had never been told of her past, of her sexual experiences, when he opened his mouth and slid his tongue in to dance with hers, he knew.
When she gripped him tighter and let out a soft gasp, he knew.
This wasn’t just two people scratching an itch, this wasn’t research, or a job, no matter what they claimed.
This was just two people, a man and a woman, looking for that elusive thing only a few lucky bastards ever really found.
Looking to be loved.
11
WHEN THEY BROKE APART FOR AIR, Emma gulped in a few breaths and stared at him. She could hear him panting, too, could see him staring at her, as if he wasn’t sure how she’d gotten into his arms.
During the past crazy few minutes, she hadn’t even noticed, but they’d stumbled down yet another step and now stood thigh deep in his pool, skin to skin except for his drenched shorts and her skimpy bikini. It was difficult to look at him knowing that the kiss wasn’t the end to an incredibly erotic experience, but just the beginning.
Her body was shaking, close to the sort of pleasure she usually only dreamed about. She had a hard time understanding how in the past she’d had to strive so hard to climax, and yet all he’d done was kiss her and she was on the edge.
“Rafe-”
He lowered his head and kissed her again, a slow, deep, wet kiss, before slowly pulling back. “Stop me, Emma. Stop me now.”
No. No way. She took in the tic in his rigidly held jaw, the pulse at his temple, the way his fingers dug into her. He wanted her. He wanted her more than she could remember being wanted. No way was she going to stop him now. She slid her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and tugged, trying to bring his mouth back to hers. At the same time, she practically crawled up his body, wrapping one leg around his hip, opening herself up so that she could slide against him.
This wrenched a rough groan from his throat, but he held her off, moving his hands to her hips. “Emma, if I kiss you again, we aren’t going to stop there. If I kiss you again, I want you naked, beneath me, gasping my name as you come.”
Her knees liquefied. “How do you know I’ll…come?”
“Oh, baby, you’ll come.”
That cocky statement should have irritated the hell out of her; instead she ached for him to prove it. So she pulled him in for another kiss, fisting her hands in his hair to hold his head, but he didn’t try to get away. One hand moved back to her bottom, the other moved to the string ties of her bikini at the back of her neck. He tugged at the knot until she felt the bow give.
He drew back slightly so that the cups of her top loosened, threatening to expose her breasts, but not quite. He picked up the very end of one string and dragged it along her collarbone, nudging the material away from her skin as he skimmed the string down the line of her cleavage. Then both his hands drew the cups down, spilling her free, exposing her to the opposing sensations of the cool water dripping from her hair and the warm spring day.
His gaze was locked on hers, and the heat and hunger there made her shudder.
“You said you wanted hot and wild,” he said.
“For my research.”
“We both know this isn’t about your research.” He dropped the strings of her top and covered her breasts with his hands.
“It…isn’t?” she managed to say.
“No.” He replaced his hands with his mouth.
Her legs weren’t going to hold her and she heard a horrifyingly needy whimper-her own.
“Yeah. Love that sound.”
Her nipples had been hard from the moment he’d answered his door shirtless, but they pebbled even more now as he teased first one and then the other with his tongue, his eyes burning with the knowledge that this wasn’t about work but about them and what they did to each other, with the knowledge that he could make her so helpless, she could hardly speak. He showed her even more, bending her over his arm a little, looking his fill first, then using his thumb to slowly and maddeningly rasp over one wet and aching nipple while blowing his hot breath on the other.
She couldn’t suppress her cry, or her shiver.
“Cold?” he whispered, and since she didn’t have a voice, she could only shake her head. “No? Good.” He got a good grip on the second black string of her top and pulled, all while watching her with those dark, dark eyes.
The black crochet fell away from her torso completely and hit the water. His palm skimmed down her belly and her eyes drifted shut.
“No fair hiding.” His knuckles brushed over the material barely covering her mound. “Open your eyes, Emma.” And he slid the very tops of his fingers just beneath the material.
Another whimper escaped her. Already her hips were moving in an age-old rhythm. She needed him, needed this so desperately she couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, could hardly draw air into her lungs.
He slid his fingers a little lower, gliding them through her thin strip of closely trimmed hair until they hovered right above where she needed him most.
Almost out of her mind, she gripped his wrist in her hand and tried to guide him to the right spot, clamping her thighs tight, holding him in place so that he couldn’t move.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised softly, mouth to her ear.
“I need-”
“Tell me.”
His voice was soothing, his fingers were not.
“Mmm, nice.” His finger stroked once over her, unerringly finding the right spot.
Her eyes flew open and she bit her lip to hold back the sounds trying to escape her throat, but he shook his head and leaned in, pulling on her lower lip with his teeth, then kissing the spot to soothe it. “Don’t hold back, please don’t hold back.”
He wanted in, wanted all the way in. As if to prove it, he kept his hand in her bikini bottoms but stilled his finger, making her squirm and arch, urgently in quest of his touch.
“Tell me what you want,” he coaxed. “Anything.”
“You know what I want.”
“Tell me.”
She stared at him, words escaping her.
“Anything,” he whispered again, and put his lips to her throat, dragging a hot kiss over her jaw to the sensitive spot beneath her ear, just as his fingers started moving again. Slowly he rimmed her opening, up one side and down the other, spreading her own wet heat as he went, easing his way and increasing her pleasure. “Anything, Emma…”
All she had to do was tell him, but she couldn’t talk, she could only feel and what she was feeling so overwhelmed her that she had to blink rapidly just to keep her in focus.
“What is it? An orgasm?” He took more of her weight over his arm, licked the rim of her ear as he lightly skimmed his finger over the very center of her being, just a teasing, butterfly touch that was pure torment.
She stifled a cry and he let out a hot breath in her ear as he gave her another stroke. “Is that it? You want me
