And the removal of the thong became an erotic experience that almost banished all of her shyness.
But when his black head moved lower, she stiffened. He dropped a final kiss on the plane of her stomach and looked up, his eyes unexpectedly keen.
Colour flooded her skin. Rafiq smiled slowly, almost cruelly, and stroked one lean, long-fingered hand from the hollow of her throat. A thread of fire followed that deliberate claiming, radiating between the high peaks of her breasts, across her stomach, finally erupting when he cupped the wildly sensitive mound at the junction of her legs.
It was a gesture of pure possession—a statement of ownership—and oddly it gave Lexie a confidence she’d never have achieved otherwise.
Eyes holding his, she mimicked the sweep of his hand, letting her fingers linger on the antique pattern of hair across his chest, discovering the small, masculine nipples. The dark flush across his high, patrician cheekbones made her even bolder; she slid her palm across his flat, taut abdomen, relishing the hardening of muscles beneath her touch.
Narrow hips beckoned. Carefully, lovingly, she outlined them, bending to kiss the lean contours of his body.
And then her confidence faltered, faded. He was acutely aroused, and she literally didn’t know what to do next.
He laughed quietly, darkly glittering eyes registering her embarrassment without censure. Silently he moved his hand and, as she bucked beneath his probing fingers, he found the passage that waited for him so eagerly, and explored it with a gentleness she found unbearably stimulating.
A soft, almost guttural sound broke past her lips. Gripping his shoulders, she felt the slickness of sweat beneath her hands, but this time she was too lost in the shatteringly sweet sensations he was conjuring to understand what was happening to him.
She needed—her whole body yearned for—something. Connection, completion, she thought inadequately, a unity she could only imagine, yet it was what she’d been waiting on for these long years past.
‘Rafiq,’ she breathed, her fingers clenching on him as he moved over her.
‘Yes, my sweet one. Wait just a little time.’ His voice was laboured, hoarse, as he turned away.
Lost in the turmoil of her senses, she closed her eyes, but when he poised himself over her again she opened them, and slid her hands down his back to his hips, then smiled and pulled him down.
He dragged in a harsh breath. His half-closed eyes locked with hers, so that she thought she was falling into the centre of a green firestorm, as he slowly, carefully, eased himself into her.
For a split second pain threatened, and she tensed, but then he broke through that tiny invisible barrier. Shivering, she felt sensation flood through her in a wave of heat, of joy, of seeking that something wonderful that still lay ahead of her, and again she arched into him in speechless supplication.
Rafiq’s jaw clenched and, as though her movement had snapped the last shred of his self-control, he pressed home with a single, powerful thrust. Almost sobbing with pleasure, she soared at each welcome intrusion, up and up, and over a barrier into an ecstasy that shook the foundations of her world.
Almost immediately he followed her into that rarefied region, and when his climax was over he asked in a raw voice, ‘Why the tears, my lovely girl?’
‘I didn’t know,’ Lexie said unevenly, surprised to find that she was crying.
He rolled over onto his side, raising himself on one arm to look down into her face. Shaken to her centre, she closed her eyes, because she couldn’t see anything in his expression to match the tumult of emotions rioting through her—a kind of relief, fierce exultation, wariness, and a sweet exhaustion.
Obviously he felt nothing like that; once more he was fully in control, the arrogant framework of his face even more pronounced, the green eyes hard and accusing.
‘Was that the first time you’ve had an orgasm?’ he asked.
Flushing, she turned her face away, and resisted when an inexorable finger turned it back. He didn’t hurt her, but she knew he was scanning her face for every nuance, every fleeting emotion.
‘Look at me,’ he commanded.
‘No.’
Her heart thudded in the silence, until he said, still in that cool, controlled tone, ‘Or was that the first time you’ve made love?’
He couldn’t know. There was no way he could know. There had been only one swiftly vanishing second of pain…
But why did it matter so much to her that he shouldn’t know?
‘Is it important?’ she parried, wishing her voice wasn’t so thin.
No muscle moved in his face, but her heart quailed. However, his tone was grave when he replied, ‘I think it is, if it was the first time for you. I could have been gentler—?’
‘I didn’t want gentle,’ she flashed, determined to put an end to this hugely embarrassing conversation. Weren’t men supposed to roll over and go to sleep after sex?
But then, Rafiq de Courteveille wasn’t like other men. In that moment she realised that she was in even greater danger than she’d imagined.
The danger of falling in love, if she hadn’t already done so.
In words brittle with desperation, she said, ‘I’m sorry if it wasn’t—’
‘Hush.’ He stopped the tumbling words with his mouth, in a kiss that brought every emotion and thought to a crashing halt, vanquished by the turbulence of sensation and remembered rapture.
Rafiq lifted his dark head so that his words were spoken against her lips in the lightest of kisses. ‘It was—’ He paused, as though choosing what to say next, then went on, ‘Much more than I expected. I hope that for you it was good too.’
LEXIE breathed, ‘It was wonderful. Couldn’t you tell?’
Rafiq’s smile was wry. ‘Some women fake orgasms very well, but yes, I could tell. I’m glad.’
And without saying anything more he got up and stooped for his clothes, giving her a last view of his powerful back and leg muscles shifting in smooth harmony, the light of the lamps casting golden highlights and coppery shadows over his lean, magnificent body.
He looked both alien and heartbreakingly familiar, a man of sophistication backed by raw power, his combination of bloodlines and cultures so different that the only thing they had in common was this passionate desire.
Lexie’s heart clamped into a hard knot in her chest. What now?
Without hurrying, he got into his trousers and slung the shirt over one broad shoulder. She couldn’t read his expression; he’d retreated behind the bronze mask of his face to a place where he seemed entirely unaware of her.
Chilled, she sat up and reached for her dress. Perhaps the movement broke his introspection; he came across and picked it up from the floor to put it beside her.
‘Not a good way to treat such a pretty thing,’ he said conversationally, his eyes hooded and enigmatic, and walked away to the table where the champagne flutes gleamed in the lamplight.
Hastily scrambling into her clothes, Lexie wondered dismally what on earth she was supposed to do now.
What followed was a tense ten minutes spent in sophisticated conversation with Rafiq—conversation Lexie could match only with taut, disconnected answers.
So she felt relief and disappointment in equal measure when he walked her back to the door of her bedroom.
There