Lily almost told him she was too hungry to wait for lunch. Only will-power kept her on the bed. Had
n’t she passed the kissing category with flying colours? Why else had they reached the bed so fast? Only Rauf was now expecting her to jump several categories all at once and without any prior practice. This was Rauf she was with, though, she reminded herself bracingly. He would make the experience as good as it could be. Adverse circumstances challenged him, brought out the very best in his competitive character.
‘This feels so sexy…’ he purred, inching down her zip only inch by inch, dragging out the moment as befitted what felt like an historic occasion, for he had never seen an inch of Lily exposed between throat and knee.
‘Does it?’ Lily muttered tautly as cooler air touched her spine.
‘You have incredibly soft skin.’ Lean fingers brushing over her narrow back, Rauf let his lips zero in on the pale perfection of one slender shoulder and linger there.
His knowing mouth felt like a brand on her and she trembled, suddenly plunged back into aching awareness. Weak with longing, she leant back into him for support. But instead, he turned her round to face him, took her lush mouth with hungry urgency and drove every thought from her mind. Her dress and her bra fell to the carpet without her even being aware of their smooth removal. Every inch of her skin felt supersensitive, thrumming with wild anticipation to the passionate melding of his mouth on hers and the even more erotic plunge of his tongue. Nothing else existed for her, nothing else mattered, and she laced her fingers into the springy depths of his hair to hold him to her.
But when Rauf drew back and lifted her to pull the bedspread back from beneath her and settle her on the cool crisp sheet instead, the real world reclaimed Lily again. As she tumbled back against the feather pillows she was startled to find herself clad in only her panties and embarrassment inflamed her at the sight of her own bare breasts.
But Rauf wasted no time in coming back to her again, smouldering golden eyes raking over her with very male appreciation.
‘You’re gorgeous,’ he breathed with roughened conviction as he absorbed the picture she made against the white linen: blue eyes bright as stars, her lips reddened from his, her glorious hair semi-veiling her in sensual disarray, allowing only a tantalising glimpse of one pouting, pink-tipped breast. With Lily in his life, getting out of bed to make an early meeting would prove to be the toughest challenge he had ever faced. But also the most enjoyable.
Heart hammering at the charged appraisal she was receiving, Lily parted dry lips. ‘I should warn you…I still haven’t…er…done this before.’
Taken aback by that unlikely claim, Rauf screened his sardonic gaze and tried not to wince for her. Surely she didn’t still expect him to believe that she was pure as driven snow? But then, as he had chosen not to confront her about her liaison with Gilman, she might feel that she had to keep up that pretence. But even after several years had passed?
In the taut silence, Lily worried anxiously at her lower lip. ‘Does that put you off?’
‘Nothing could do that.’ Relieved that she had said something he could answer with honesty, Rauf took the easy way out. Bringing her back to him again, he crushed her inviting mouth under his own and kissed her breathless.
Reeling from that impassioned onslaught, Lily lay back in his arms, quivering at the hot, hard weight and lure of his muscular body lying half over hers. She collided with shimmering golden eyes as he moulded the tender swell of her breasts and her spine arched, pushing her sensitised flesh up into shameless, satisfying contact with his palms. Sweet sensation fired her with a wicked, restive impatience that embarrassed her. Without pause, he captured a straining pink nipple between his lips and an audible gasp was dragged from her. An insistent throb had begun at the very heart of her. Suddenly her body was in control of her, desperate and hungry for more of that tormenting pleasure and unable to conceal the fact.
‘Never have I wanted a woman as I want you now,’ Rauf admitted with a ragged edge to his dark drawl. It was the truth, but a truth he bitterly resented.
But that confession thrilled Lily and her eyes shone and she had not a doubt in her head from that moment that she was doing the right thing: giving where once she had been afraid to give and sharing in the same way. ‘It’s the same for me,’ Lily whispered, looking up at him with complete trust.
Only it had not always been the way and Rauf was all too well aware of that fact. A dangerous smile curved his expressive mouth. ‘Now that Brett’s gone?’
Lily blinked, unable to grasp the connection and then suddenly wondering in shrinking dismay if Rauf had suspected all along that there was something odd about her relationship with her sister’s ex-husband. But she shrank from the idea of telling Rauf about Brett’s loathsome behaviour towards her when she had been a teenager. Brett might never have touched her, but he had left her feeling soiled and she was convinced that Rauf would be disgusted, repulsed…or, worse, that he might even wonder if in some way she might have invited or encouraged that attention from the other man. Either way, she believed that Rauf would think very much less of her.
‘Sorry…I don’t follow,’ Lily muttered in a discomfited rush.
She was pale, blue eyes awash with strain and conflict that Rauf interpreted as guilt. A guilt that gave him no satisfaction but that sent sudden ferocious anger flaring through him. If he ever got his hands on Gilman, he knew he would hammer the bastard into a pulp.
Veiling his fierce, glittering scrutiny, he just pushed himself up and reached out to yank Lily back across the small space that separated them into his arms again.
‘It may be a big bed,’ Rauf quipped, ‘but that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to stray.’
It was pure caveman but she melted into the lean, hard heat and strength of his muscular frame. Even as relief that he had not said any more about Brett washed over her every nerve-ending she possessed went on red alert at the renewed force of desire that overwhelmed her that close to him.
She burned with a helpless mix of nerves and anticipation as she felt the hot, hard length of his arousal against her belly. He rearranged her, teased the throbbing peaks of her breasts with his tongue until she writhed and gasped, and she was lost in sensation again long before he sought out the slick dampness between her slender thighs. He caressed the most sensitive spot of all and she moaned out loud, startled by her own feverish response. The intensity kept on building until she was panting for breath, pitched to a torment of wanting by his merest touch.
‘Rauf…’ she gasped, and she didn’t even know what she wanted to say, only that the hunger was almost unbearable, the ache consuming her a growing torture to withstand.
Scorching desire blazed in the golden eyes that scanned her as he donned protection. He sank his hands beneath her squirming hips and came over her in one lithe move. He entered her with a smooth, expert thrust and wanton little tremors of pleasure assailed her at that initial sensation of his fullness stretching her tight.
Then he said something in his own language, surprise darkening his heated gaze as he had to lift her and tip her up further to sheathe himself in her fully. A sharp stab of pain jolted Lily at the height of that manoeuvre and for a split second she went rigid and wasn’t quite quick enough to bite back a startled yelp of complaint.
Rauf felt that resistance too late. He stopped, in fact he froze as if a fire alarm had gone off, but his own powerful momentum had already carried him through that delicate barrier. ‘Lily…?’ and his voice just failed him for the first time in his life.
‘It’s all right,’ Lily mumbled dizzily, adjusting with admirable speed, ease and appreciation to a category of sensation that her body sensed harboured the promise of possibilities she had not even dreamt might exist. ‘I’m getting used to it…oh…oh, yes…’
Eyes tight shut, Lily wrapped both arms round him, shifted her hips experimentally and was seized by such a blinding wave of delicious sensation that she was left breathless and craving more. Hunger for her reignited to fever pitch but, fighting it, Rauf moved to withdraw, but she arched up to him in encouragement and at that point he succumbed by sinking back into her with an earthy groan. Her excitement mounted with every fluid thrust of his lithe body into hers, his primal rhythm driving her pleasure to uncontrollable heights. Then she hit a glorious peak and broke up into a million tiny, ecstatically happy little pieces. She coasted down from that dazzling experience with a sense of profound wonderment.