Raoul slid a finger inside the leg of her panties and groaned again as he encountered her skin.
“So wet, so ready,” he murmured before pulling her underwear down her legs and dropping them on the floor.
Then, his hands were back. He cupped her again, this time inserting a finger, then slowly withdrawing it, his thumb working the swollen nub of nerve endings at her core, stoking the intensity of the fire that burned so bright inside her.
With his other hand he pushed her sweatshirt up higher, exposing the plain cotton bra she’d worn today. For a second she wished she’d chosen something more beautiful, more enticing, but when he unsnapped the front clasp and lowered his mouth to her breast she went beyond caring.
His teeth grazed first one nipple, then the other. Her skin was so sensitive to his ministrations she screamed softly, lost in the spirals of pleasure that radiated through her body.
More, she wanted more. She guided the blunt head of his penis to her opening and let go when he took over control, sliding his length within her so slowly she thought she might lose her mind. His thumb never stopped circling her clitoris and she knew she didn’t have long before she’d come apart, but she wanted this to be about him, as well. About what they could share together.
She clenched her inner muscles and felt him shudder against her. Her hands coasted up his abdomen, stroking his chest and skimming his nipples before tracing back down again to his hips.
Raoul kissed a hot wet trail from her breasts to her throat, then along her jaw to her mouth, capturing her lips again with his caress. Subtly, he increased the pressure of his thumb and Alexis couldn’t hold back another second. She gave herself over to the ever-increasing waves of pleasure that consumed her, that thrilled her to heights she’d never felt before with another man.
She clamped around him, again and again as her orgasm built in intensity until she lost awareness, was oblivious to the thrust of his hips and the ragged groan of completion that rent from his body as he climaxed inside her.
It could only have been minutes later, but it felt much longer, when Raoul stirred and withdrew from her.
“Stay there,” he said, his breathing still ragged.
She didn’t even want to open her eyes, she was so filled with the delicious lassitude that bound her in the aftermath. “I don’t think I could move if I wanted to,” she admitted, a note of wonder in her voice.
A rusty sound, almost like a laugh, came from where Raoul was adjusting himself back into his clothing. He left the room and she heard the sound of running water from the small restroom off his office, then he was back with a warm, damp towel in his hands. He wiped her carefully, his touch sending off little shocks of sensation to remind her of what they’d just shared.
“You don’t have to do that, I can take care of it,” she protested, pushing herself up onto her elbows.
“All done already,” he answered, leaving the room again.
She slid off the desk and reached for her panties, pulling them up legs that felt about as strong as overcooked spaghetti. But she felt compelled to move fast, to be dressed before he came back into the room.
His face was impossible to read when he returned and Alexis mentally braced herself, uncertain of what would come next.
* * *
“We need to talk,” Raoul started, and he saw her pale before him, her eyes widen.
“Wasn’t that what we were doing...before?”
He made a movement with his hand, brushing aside her words. “We need to discuss us.”
“Us? What about us? Do you want to stop...?”
Her voice trailed away as if she couldn’t quite find the words to define the exquisite pleasure they’d enjoyed together. But he had no such difficulty. It was what it was. Just sex. Period. It could never be anything else and she needed to know that.
“No. But I want to be clear going forward that it is only sex between us, Alexis. It will never be, and can never be, anything more than that. You want me to be alive. Fine, I’ll be alive—with you—but it won’t be anything more than this. I want us to be sexual partners, no strings attached. Can you accept that?”
He watched her carefully for her reaction. If she looked uncomfortable about this in any way, if the idea made her unhappy because she wanted more from a partner or because she secretly harbored feelings for him that she thought might be reciprocated, he hoped it would show on her expressive face. But for once she remained a closed book to him. A faint nod of her head the only acknowledgment of what he’d just said.