That she was wanted—for this one night at least.
‘I hoped that was what you’d say.’
At least that was what she had meant to say, but she barely got the first sound out before her lips were taken in a fierce, demanding kiss. Her head fell back under the pressure of his mouth, her lips opening eagerly to his plundering tongue. His long body came up and over hers, crushing her back into the chair as his heavy, muscular legs slid between her denim-clad limbs. His hands seemed to be everywhere, holding her, hot fingers pushed into her hair, the hard weight of his palm against her thigh, her hip, sliding under the hem of her top, searing across her skin. Instinctively she writhed in delight, pressing herself further into his touch, her pelvis shifting against his, pressing up against the heat and hardness of his erection, dragging a moan from him that sounded right into her open mouth.
‘Raoul…’ She tasted him on the breath that had filled her mouth, felt it burn all the way down to her soul. She wanted this. Oh, dear heaven, but she wanted it.
She was sliding down deeper into the chair, almost to the floor, the heat and the weight of his body against her. And it was all too much. Too hard, too hot, too heavy. And she was too hungry, too needy to take this—just this—and nothing more.
She wanted him on top of her, covering her, the hard weight of him pressing her down into the worn and shabby rug before the fire. But when he was there, sliding over her, long legs entangling with hers, it wasn’t enough. He had too many clothes on and so did she. She didn’t want to feel the linen of his shirt, the fine material of his trousers rubbing against her, making the denim scrape against the highly sensitised nerves under her skin.
Her hands were moving over him feverishly, tugging at the buttons in his shirt, fingers sliding in through the spaces she had made, electrical prickles of response buzzing along her nerves as she felt the crisp brush of hair against her fingertips, the heated satin of his skin.
‘Ma belle… Imogen.’
There it was again, the sound of her name as only he could pronounce it, muttered against the arched lines of her neck, moving down, down towards where the curves of her breasts just showed above the deep vee neck of her shirt. The movement crushed the softness of her body against the hardness of his. So close—and yet far too far away. She wanted, needed, so much more.
But even as Raoul followed her down onto the floor, she felt the sudden tension in him, the slight drawing away from her, creating a gap between the burn of their bodies that let a disturbing drift of cooler air creep over her exposed skin.
‘Ton père—your papa.’
Raoul could have cursed himself for the muttered words that seemed to jolt her out of the burning response she’d shown, freezing the hands that clutched at his shoulders, forcing open those beautiful eyes. Eyes that even in the dim light of the gathering dusk he could see were still glazed with passion. The last thing he wanted was to destroy the mood that had flared so fast and so hot in the moment she had turned her head to kiss his hand. But he had no desire at all to have their passion interrupted by the appearance of her father—drunk or sober. Once had been enough.
‘Your room…’
It was on the other side of the house, up a separate flight of stairs. It would be silent and secret and would give them all the time in the world to give in to the sexual tension that had been burning between them since the first moment they had seen each other again, complete the connection that had never been destroyed by their separation. It had only ebbed temporarily, fading down to smouldering embers, needing the hint of a breath, a touch, a kiss, to coax it into an untamed fire that swept through them all over again, devouring every hesitation or doubt in its path.
This was what had always been between them, how he had always felt about this woman. And everything he had thought had destroyed it, the distance he had believed he had wanted to put between them, had only been a lie. This was why he had never been able to forget Imogen, why he had never been able to replace her in his thoughts, in his dreams, with any other woman. No matter how he’d tried.
And he’d tried, damn it! Tried and failed completely. So tonight was what he had been dreaming of for all the empty years since he’d walked away from her. It was all he had wanted in the time they’d been apart. And nothing—nothing—was going to stop it now.