His introduction of such an intimate topic silenced her and Sophie let him take her by the hand through a side entrance to an area of the house which she’d never used before and which took them directly into his private quarters. Her damp feet were cooled by the marble floor as she looked around her, blinking in amazement, feeling as if she’d fallen asleep and woken up in another country. It was an incongruous sight—to find such luxury and opulence on an Outback cattle station—and she tried to take it all in as he led her through the different rooms. A study lined with rare, old books led into an enormous sitting room, the walls covered with beautiful paintings of the country he loved so much.
But her admiration of the fixtures and fittings dissolved once he took her into a bathroom as big and as luxurious as any found in her Isolaverdian palace—although with decidedly more masculine overtones. ‘It’s huge,’ she said dazedly.
He paused in the act of sliding a strap of her swimsuit down over one shoulder, his eyes glittering with devilment as they sent a glance slanting in the direction of his groin. ‘I assume that wasn’t just a flattering innuendo?’
She prayed he couldn’t see the faint rise of colour in her cheeks. She prayed he wouldn’t discover that she was new to all this. ‘I’m talking about your suite of rooms,’ she said primly.
His fingers moved towards the second strap. ‘You mean you didn’t come peeping, before I arrived?’
‘No, I...oh...’ She bit her lip as he tugged the damp fabric down over her breasts. ‘I certainly did not.’
He bent to fasten his lips over one cold nipple and then the other, tantalising the acutely sensitised and puckering skin with the faint graze of his teeth. She looked down to see his dark hair contrasted against her pale skin and spangles of pleasure rippled over her body as she buried her fingers in the damp tendrils.
A sudden fervour seemed to grip him as he finished peeling off her swimsuit before removing his own wet shorts and towelling her dry. And before she really had time to register that they were both naked, he picked her up and carried her into a vast bedroom, putting her down on a king-size bed. Part of her felt like a sacrificial lamb as she lay there, outlined against his sheets in the silvery moonlight—but the heated hunger of her body was powerful enough to make any anxieties melt away. Plus, he was just so beautiful. Powerful and strong, with long, muscular legs and narrow hips, his buttocks a paler colour than the deeper olive glow of his skin.
Sophie licked her lips. She’d never seen a naked man before—not unless you counted the famous statues which brought visitors flocking to the Isolaverdian national museum during the winter months. And those naked men were made of marble, usually with a fig leaf covering their modesty. It occurred to her that Rafe would have needed an entire bunch of fig leaves to cover his most intimate part and that maybe she should have been daunted by the stiff, proud column of his erection. But she wasn’t. As he moved over her, she just felt...eager.
‘Well, just look at you,’ he said unsteadily, as his fingertip trailed a slow path from her neck to her belly button. ‘Aren’t you gorgeous?’
She gave a wriggle of pleasure. ‘Am I?’
‘You know damned well you are. A million men must have told you so.’
His remark brought reality creeping into the room but Sophie didn’t want reality. She wanted to feel, not to think. She wanted to feel a man’s fingers on her skin. To be intimate with a man who desired her, not because of her position or her status—but because they had a powerful chemistry which could not be denied.
So she coiled her arms around his neck and looked up at him, invitation vying with reprimand in her voice.
‘I don’t want to talk about other men right now,’ she said honestly.
His smile was hard as he cupped one breast with possessive arrogance, grinding his hips a little, so that she could feel the hard brush of his erection against her skin.
‘Me neither,’ he said.
He began to stroke her, the slow graze of his fingers exploring her. She gasped when his thumb first brushed against the tight bud above so much honeyed warmth, but within seconds she was hungrily anticipating more. Each practised stroke of his finger took her deeper—deep into a place of almost unimaginable pleasure and she heard him laugh as she gasped his name out loud. It felt as if her body was opening up to him, sensation flooding through her with relentless, rhythmical beats, and Sophie began to move restlessly, wanting more. And although he must have sensed her impatience, he took his time—eking out the pleasure, second by delicious second. He stroked her until she was writhing beneath him and, although she was eager to explore his body, she was shy about touching him there. Because what if she did the wrong thing? What if she destroyed the magic with some clumsy caress? Her lips sought his as she lifted her hips up, so that she could feel the weight of his erection pressing into her belly.
He made some little curse beneath his breath as he drew away and reached inside the drawer of the nightstand and Sophie stiffened as he tore open a little foil packet, scarcely able to believe that it was going to happen. After all the years of waiting, of saving her innocence for a man whose parents had bartered with her parents for her hand in marriage, she was about to lose her virginity in the anonymity of the Australian Outback, with the man who was paying her wages. A man who had promised her no tomorrows and scorned the idea of love. And yet she didn’t care. It was as if she’d been living in a dark cave which was about to be flooded by something brilliant and beautiful—and her life would never be the same again.
She watched as he began to stroke on the rubber and lifted his gaze, curving her a complicit smile as if silently acknowledging her enjoyment of the floorshow. Would he be shocked if he knew what she was really thinking—that she’d never seen either a condom or an erection before? Was he going to be disappointed once the truth was out and wouldn’t it be better to tell him now?
Instinct overrode her brief spike of conscience as she coiled her arms around his neck. Because this was an education, she reminded herself fiercely. A rite of passage. Something she needed to do to shake off the shackles of innocence and join the ranks of real women. Nothing more than that. This was what modern, normal people did. They met, they were attracted to one another—and they had sex. Why spoil it by revealing all her hang-ups and compromise her anonymity in the process?
He was moving over her and it felt slightly scary as he guided himself towards her—to where she was so hot and sticky. She tried not to tense up as he eased himself inside her, but he was so big she couldn’t help herself gasping out. For a moment he stilled, lifting his head to look at her—an expression of incomprehension etched onto his dark features.
His one-word question was incredulous. ‘You—?’
‘Yes,’ she gasped as her hips jerked forwards all of their own accord, so that he went in even deeper. ‘But don’t stop, Rafe. Please don’t stop.’
Rafe gave a strangled groan as he went deeper into her tight heat. How could he possibly have stopped when she was raining urgent kisses all over his shoulder and squeezing her pelvic muscles in a way which instantly made him want to come?
This really was just going to be once, he told himself grimly—so he had better make it something she would remember for the rest of her life. The best sex she would ever have. The only sex she would ever have—with him. Holding back his own hunger, he began to tease her clitoris with his finger as he thrust in and out of her, making her moan with pleasure—her cries getting louder with each penetration. He halted and lifted his head to look at her as a cold kind of anger rippled over his skin.
‘Keep quiet,’ he ordered. ‘I don’t want you waking the men.’
But she didn’t—or couldn’t—keep quiet. Least of all when she began to come and he sensed that her gasps of disbelief were going to morph into