Penny bit back a moan, and trembled with each practised movement of his fingers. She tried to tell herself that she hated him, despised him. But her eyes closed and she swayed back against him, pleasure overwhelming her rational mind.
She was transported back in time to when she had lived only for Raul. His mouth on her flesh was warm, sensual and so achingly familiar. His huskily murmured erotic words against her throat should have shamed her, but instead they inflamed her senses to fever pitch.
'Nothing has changed; you still want me,' he rasped, his other hand sliding from her waist down over her belly, his fingertips parting the soft blonde curls, seeking the moist inner skin. Her hands fell to her sides and with a will of their own curved against hard, masculine thighs; her head fell back on his broad chest, and this time she could not hold back the groan.
'That's it, Penny; let go,' Raul coaxed huskily. 'I know what you want, querida. What you need.' He moved so that his back was to the wall, still holding her captive, his tantalising fingers caressing her breasts and the silken centre of her femininity with rhythmic, sliding strokes.
Her fingers dug into the hard flesh of his thighs as w
ave after wave of sensation arced through her naked body. She wanted to scream at the humiliation, while her body begged for his touch.
Raul's mouth closed on her ear, biting and nibbling, and then went to her throat; she turned her head blindly to the side to give him easy access. She was lost, burning up with a fever of the flesh that only Raul could assuage. Her breath caught in her throat. 'Please don't—' was as far as she got when his fingers slid further into her body.
'Don't do this?' he rasped against her neck as the hand at her breast slid to her waist, holding her hard against his rampantly aroused male strength. 'When you do this to me?' he growled, and she knew that she was defeated; she could no more stop him than stop the tide, and, worse, she did not want to...
His wickedly caressing fingers trailed over her tiny nub of passion with exquisite, spiralling delicacy, and shudder after shudder claimed her slender body.
'Please... stop,' she gasped, in a last futile attempt to deny her own hopeless surrender to his sensual mastery of her quivering body.
'Never,' Raul husked, and in one lithe movement he spun her around in his arms, somehow managing to turn off the water at the same time.
With dazed, passion-glazed eyes she stared up into his dark face, her whole body one seething mass of frustrated desire. He lay back against the wall and curved an arm around her waist as his other hand slid up through the tangle of her long hair and then down her spine to stroke over her buttocks and haul her into the cradle of his thighs, making her even more aware of his blatant male arousal.
'Now—say you don't want me. I dare you,' Raul goaded silkily, supremely confident of his virile masculine power. Her eyes widened on his; she saw the simmering passion in the deep black pupils, overlaid with pure male triumph, and some of the mist cleared from her bemused mind.
Sensing her partial withdrawal, Raul bent his dark head and found her lips with his, thrusting his tongue into the moist depths of her mouth. She trembled, then meekly opened to him, her tongue stroking his, wanting him as she had before. More so, with the memory of more than two long, frustrating years to fuel her desire.
Raul ended the kiss and trailed a row of tiny, nibbling bites down her throat. 'I've waited years for this. Too long...' he growled throatily. 'Touch me, Penny. Touch me as you used to.'
Blindly she reached out and ran her slender hands up over his hair-roughened chest, across the broad shoulders, down again to his hard, flat stomach. It was as if the lonely years apart had never been. With tactile delight she relished the familiar, utterly masculine form.
Her head fell back as his lowered and his mouth closed over her aching, pouting breast. He tugged on the swollen nipple and her small hand slid lower to trace his essential maleness... He was so smooth, satin over steel, so powerful, and so ready...
‘That's it, Penny. Oh, yes,' he grated as his head moved from one breast to the other. His large hands curved around her buttocks and lifted her from the floor. Penny grabbed for his neck, for a second sure that she was going to fall backwards, but Raul held her firm. 'Wrap your legs around my waist. Do it, Penny,' he commanded huskily, and she did.
She clung to him while his satin strength found her, slowly, lightly. His sensuous mouth sought hers and kissed her long and hard as all the while he moved easily, softly against her, enough to tease, to stoke the fire of her passion, but not enough to quench the flame, until she wanted to scream for his possession.
'Tell me what you want, Penny. Say it. Tell me you want me,' Raul demanded raspingly over and over again, his mouth skimming from her lips to her breasts and back again, all the time his lower body moving barely an inch against her feminine core.
A streak of fire shot through her and she burned with an exquisite pleasure-pain that stopped her breath. She was hot and wet and shivering with desire. She clasped her hands around his head, holding him to her breast. Her shapely legs locked higher around his waist, trying
I to force her ultimate union, but Raul would not be
She could feel the straining, steely length of him against her, but he refused her the satisfaction she craved. She pressed hard, desperate kisses to his neck, his shoulder, his chest—anywhere she could reach. Her slender fingers curled in the soft dark hair of his head, pulling, making her own demand in a frenzy of need.
'I have to hear you say it, querida,' he grated, his great body rigid with tension, his biceps bulging as he fought to support Penny and control his own overpowering I need. His head reared back, his dark eyes, black with passion, clashed with hers. 'Say it...' he demanded -hoarsely. The skin pulled taut over his high cheekbones and his tanned face flushed dark red with the effort of controlling his passion.
She saw the muscle jerking spasmodically in his jaw, the sensuous line of his hard mouth; she felt his slight movement, the tip of his masculine strength teasing the centre of her desire, and she went up in flames, twisting her hips in a last desperate plea.
‘I want you, Raul. I want you,' she groaned, and gasped as he arched suddenly against her, spearing her with a hot, hard, pulsating passion. 'Raul!' She cried his name as he filled her completely.
Pleasure, fever, fire. There was no word to begin to describe the feeling as Raul moved inside her with slow, deliberate strokes, and still his mouth caught her breast. His strong hand clasped her buttocks, and she cried out as his other hand slid between their two bodies and touched her there—where they were joined. Penny felt as if she was falling apart, melting all over him. Never had it been like this. Somehow he was on the floor and she was splayed across his lap, and still he teased and drove her wild.
She was losing her mind. His long fingers seemed to be everywhere. She was riding a roller coaster, shuddering on the brink of oblivion, and then with a mighty lurch he held her hard down on his all-powerful body. She never heard herself scream; all she was aware of was the agonising pleasure as her inner muscles convulsed around the hard length of him and she was thrown into another dimension, burning up, consumed by the violence of their mutual, shattering release.
Her head fell against his chest; she could hear the heavy pounding of his heart as she fought to breathe. His arms came around her, and for a second she believed that they were still lovers, with no secrets between them. But slowly, as her mind began to clear, the reality of what had happened sank into her tired brain.
They were still joined in the most intimate way. They should have been as close as it was possible for two people to be. But sadly, Penny realised, it was no longer possible. In the old days they would have laughed together to find themselves sprawled on the shower floor, Raul would have carried her into the bedroom...