She wanted to feel like a woman. She wanted to be his woman.
He looked at her and the universe seemed to take a breath and hold it.
Lily saw the heat and the longing. She saw the need and desperation she felt in her body reflected in his gaze. She reached for him as he reached for her.
‘I want you.’ They said it in unison.
‘Are you sure?’ he said.
She stroked his stubbly jaw, mesmerised by the way his gaze had softened. ‘I’ve never been surer. I want this. I want you. I don?
?t want my bad memories to haunt me any more. Give me good ones to replace them.’
To store away and revisit when this is all over, as it surely will be all too soon.
He cupped her face in with his hands, his gaze dark, concerned. Conflicted. ‘I’m not the right man for you. I’m not the right man for any woman right now.’
Lily gazed into his warm green-brown eyes. ‘I think you’re the perfect man. It will be like the first time for both of us.’
‘I can’t offer you anything but this.’ His mouth was already nudging hers, his breath mingling with hers in that hotly intimate way that made her shiver and shudder with desire. ‘You have to understand and accept that.’
‘This is all I want.’ Liar. You want the whole shebang. You want the fairytale you keep reading about: boy meets girl, boy loves girl, boy rides with girl off into the sunset. ‘I want to feel passion again. I want to feel alive again.’
‘I want that, too.’ His voice sounded deep and tortured. ‘You have no idea of how much I want that.’
‘Show me.’ She breathed the words against his lips. ‘Show me...please?’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
RAOUL HAD BEEN making love—having sex was probably a more accurate way of putting it—with women since he was seventeen. He knew their bodies. He knew what turned them off and what turned them on. He was a master at seduction. He knew every move, every caress, every touch and stroke that would make his partner feel as if he was the most amazingly competent lover in the world.
But with Lily Archer he felt like he was starting all over again. He didn’t have a clue. He felt out of his depth. He was floundering. Worried. Terrified he might hurt her or make her scared.
Her mouth felt like soft velvet under his. It was so responsive, hungry, searching and yet hesitant, as if she were still feeling her way with him. Relearning the steps, tasting, touching and feeling. Her shyness mixed with her simmering passion made his body throb and ache with need. The way she touched him, the way her arms came around his neck, the way her fingers threaded through his hair made his desire for her roar inside his loins.
She made little murmuring sounds of pleasure as he explored her mouth. But he had to keep a firm lid on his response. He was fully erect and aching to let go but she was nowhere near ready for him. He sensed it in the subtle ways she moved, jerking back, shifting, like a shying horse facing a jump that was too high.
‘I’m not going to hurt you.’ He stroked a finger down the curve of her cheek. ‘Trust me, Lily.’
She gave him a tentative smile that was little more than a tiny flutter of her lips. ‘I trust you.’
‘If you want to stop at any point, then you just have to tell me.’
‘I don’t want you to stop.’ She moved her pelvis against his. It was a subtle movement, probably more instinctive than conscious, but it caused a raging inferno to roar through his veins. ‘I want you to make love to me.’
He moved a gentle hand over her breast. It fitted his palm perfectly, her nipple pressing against his flesh as if in search of his touch. He wanted to feel her skin on skin, to feel her silky heat against his, to feel the satin of her flesh against the rough rasp of his.
He slid a hand under her top, gauging her reaction, letting her dictate the terms, but if anything she encouraged his exploration. She arched her spine like a cat so her breasts would be in closer contact with his hands.
He lowered his mouth to the tight pink nubs of her nipples he’d exposed, savouring each one in turn. She bucked and writhed as he tantalised her senses, her hands grasping his head, her fingers digging into his scalp as he rolled his tongue over and around her sensitive flesh.
She suddenly eased back from him. ‘Should I get, um, undressed?’
She looked so adorably out of her depth. He was used to women shrugging their clothes off before he got them through the door. He was used to women showing off their assets in clinging, revealing clothing that left nothing to the imagination. He was used to women telling him what they wanted and going out to get it, no holds barred.
Touch here. This hard. This slow; this fast.
It was so damned mechanical.