Everything stilled between them in that moment as she looked up at him, her eyes full of desire, but also clear...and decided.
"Be wild with me." She stroked her hands down his chest, her nails lightly scoring his chest. "Please."
Rafe had never been particularly gentle in bed, but he wanted to be gentle with Brooke. Tender, too, because of how special she was to him.
Of course, the irony was that just when he was trying to be gentle and tender, she was asking for wild. For kinky.
Still intent on doing whatever he needed to do to resist her pleas, though he wanted that wildness just as badly as she did, when she reached for his shaft, the only way he could keep the game from being over right then and there was to grab her wrists and pull them as far away from his erection as he could.
It was in that exact moment that he gripped her arms tightly above her head—a throaty moan leaving her lips as if he were already inside of her—that Rafe realized the power Brooke had over him.
He’d vowed not to let himself go crazy, had sworn that he wouldn’t let himself forget to be gentle. He could never forgive himself for stealing Brooke’s wide-eyed innocence, for sullying any part of her sweetness.
But the way she was begging was more than enough to drive a guy crazy...and to have him losing what was left of his patience.
Needing her now, Rafe used his knees and thighs to push her legs open wide, and then wider still. She writhed sensuously beneath him, her eyes cloudy with desire, her pretty mouth plump from the kisses with which he’d ravaged them, her skin flushed with arousal, her br**sts so full and soft and sweet that he had to close his mouth over one peak again.
He pulled back from her breast with a scrape of his teeth over her sensitive flesh that had her begging again. Her words shouldn’t have made any sense—Need. Please. Take. Want—but he had no trouble deciphering them at all because they were the same ones playing on repeat in his head.
He’d planned on taking her slowly. He’d warned himself to be gentle with her. But as her heat, her scent, the sweet taste of her mouth pushed him to the edge, with her wrists still tightly restrained above her head in one of his hands, Rafe used the other to shove on the condom. He pushed into her in one hard stroke, so deep that she gasped aloud.
Oh God, I’ve hurt her.
He tried to still himself inside of her, but before he could manage anything even close to it, or apologize for being too rough, she was moving beneath him, her soft curves and muscles working hard to take him even deeper. Her neck was arched back, her eyelids fluttering, her strong fingers opening, then clenching above where he was holding her wrists. A sheen of sweat gleamed on her skin, and he could have sworn she was glowing.
Just as her inner muscles began to pulse around him, her lips curved up into a smile. One so full of bliss, so pure and heartfelt, he could hardly believe he was lucky enough to be the one to see it...and to be the man who had made her that happy.
Watching her giving herself up entirely to pleasure and perfect joy beneath him, Rafe couldn’t do anything but give himself up to the unbelievable pleasure, too.
No longer holding anything back, he thrust into her hard, and then harder still. Sweat dripped from his body to hers, one drop running down between her br**sts as wet skin rubbed against wet skin.
"Now, Brooke." Her eyes flew open, so dilated with arousal that the black of her pupils had pushed out nearly all of the green. "Now."
As if she’d simply been waiting for his command, before either of them could take their next breath, she was exploding beneath him, around him, holding nothing back at all as her climax rocked them both.
Chapter Sixteen
"That was better than chocolate!"
Rafe lifted his head from the crook of her neck. "How much better?"
Uh-oh, she hadn’t realized she’d said the words aloud. But how could she be embarrassed with him after how close they’d been? How close they still were, actually, with his wonderfully large body pressing hers into the mattress.
"Way better," she replied. "Especially that last part."
He looked surprised when he saw that he was still holding her arms over her head, almost as if he hadn’t realized he’d done it at all. Cool air rushed over her wrists as he quickly let her go. "Did I hurt you?"
She frowned at his question. "Of course you didn’t." But when she looked at her wrists, she could clearly see the imprints of his fingers across her skin.
"Damn it, I did."
She shook her head. "No, it’s just that I’m so pale. My skin always marks a little when something’s pressed up against it, but it disappears really fast."
When he got up to throw away the condom, she knew he was going to blame himself for something he hadn’t done, but she wouldn’t let him do it. Not to himself. And not to her, either.
She reached out for him. "Come back to bed, Rafe."
Standing in the moonlight shining through her bedroom window, she watched him fight with himself for a few seconds, that muscle jumping in his jaw again. Finally, he moved back toward her and took her hand.
She drew him back onto the bed and made him lie on his back so that she could settle into the crook of his shoulder. "I love every single thing we did together. When you were holding onto my wrists like that," she whispered, "I felt freer than I ever have before." She lifted her gaze to meet his as she added, "And I can’t wait to do even more next time."
She watched a new flash of heat jump in his eyes before he tamped it down. "Having your wrists in my hands is as kinky as we’re going to get, Brooke."
She could have argued with him, could have told him he wasn’t going to win this one. Instead, she simply smiled and said, "You finally said kinky."
The smile was still on her lips as she ran her fingertips lightly over his scar in the dark, then lay her palm flat over his beating heart and closed her eyes.
* * *
Rafe couldn’t believe he’d fallen asleep in Brooke’s bed. Morning light streamed in over him, and he worked to get his sluggish mind to click into gear. When Brooke had wrapped her arms around him and snuggled close, his entire body had desperately craved her softness, her warmth...and the sense that she was healing the broken parts of him one kiss at a time.
Still, he was amazed that not only had sex with Brooke been super crazy hot, but that she was just the same afterward as she’d been before. Full of smiles and the sweetness that had always been such a big part of her, rather than trying to get him to talk about feelings.