She must have walked into the room because his body relaxed a little. A second later she was halfway to the piano. She stopped, confused.
“All my life.”
Despite the tension that was flooding her, her lips quirked at that. “All your life?” She queried, teasingly. “You must have been some clever baby.”
His only response was to stand up and begin to walk towards her, slowly enough that if she wanted to she could have stopped him at any point.
“I never learned to play an instrument. I’m not musical. I can’t sing – not in key, anyway. But I love music. Listening to it, that is.” She was babbling. He stopped right in front of her, pressing a finger to her lips, silencing her. His proximity was enough. She couldn’t string two words together now.
“Why are you here?”
She furrowed her brow. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“No?” Their eyes locked and she felt her resolve crumbling. What was she doing?
“I didn’t come looking for you.”
“Ah,” he nodded slowly, his face angled to hers, his torso separated from her breasts by barely an inch. “Would you like me to leave?”
Oh, God. Feelings twisted her gut. He was giving her another chance – telling her to choose. Stay or go. Yes or no.
Heaven help her, why couldn’t she push him away as she had any other man who’d shown interest in her? Why couldn’t she remember that this was wrong on a personal level, not to mention completely unprofessional?
His hands lifted, pressing to her hips first then slowly guiding higher, pausing in line with her breasts. She held her breath as he moved them inwards, cupping her breasts, his fingers grazing her nipples lightly so she trembled silently.
One hand drove lower, to the waistband of her robe, undoing the cinch and staring at her, waiting for her to say something.
Her robe opened and her body lifted in goosebumps, not from a drop in temperature but because she felt so exposed to him now. Even though the singlet top was the kind of thing most women wore out in public, it was skimpier than anything Lauren ever wore, and Rafaelo was looking at her as though he could see through the flimsy cotton. Heat stole through her.
“I can’t…” his hands stilled. He waited.
“Should I stop?”
Say it. Say something. But her body, her treacherous, needy body, swayed forward, and the only words that emerged from her mouth were a grumbled, husky plea. “No. Don’t stop.” She hated herself in that moment and she probably even hated him a bit too, but the die was cast.
He made a guttural noise that heralded relief and he swept forward, closing the miniscule distance between them and dragging her against his body all at once, lifting her feet from the floor and carrying her as his lips found hers, kissing her hard, his tongue thrusting into her mouth and parrying with hers, his mouth moving in time with his urgency, stoking fires deep in her belly. She lifted her hands and wrapped them around his neck, in case he had any ideas of stopping, and her legs moved of their own accord, trying to get higher, to bring him closer. He made a small noise of amusement crossed with impatience as he sat her on the keys of the piano so that a strange burst of sound filled the room, a dozen keys compressed at once. He lifted her singlet top to reveal her naked breasts and groaned as he dropped the flimsy cotton to the ground. A second later and his head had dropped to claim one of her pert nipples in his mouth, circling it with his tongue first before sucking on it, hard enough to leave a mark.
She trembled, the pain of that so welcome, so perfect – a physical manifestation of the torment of this desire. It felt so right but she knew she would regret this, even as she welcomed every single thing they were doing. Pleasure and pain held hands tightly. She tilted her head back, waiting, needing, wanting, and finally he transferred his attention to the other breast. She lifted her own fingers to the nipple he’d mastered, needing to relieve some of the pressure there, to release the pain, but touching herself only intensified her desire. His mouth moved over her other breast and as she pulled at her own skin his hand came between her legs, sliding beneath her waistband, his fingertips brushing the soft warmth of her sex, teasing the gentle curls there before parting her seam and pressing inside.
She cried out, shock at the touch – so intimate – sending searing flames bursting through her, making her whole body ignite.
What was she doing?
Who cared? This was happening and she refused to fight it.
His mouth tormented her breast as his fingers ravaged her. Lauren felt as though she were flying, untouchable, immortal.
“Rafaello,” she groaned, scratching her nails across his back, wishing he wore fewer clothes. Perhaps he understood because he broke away for the briefest moment – just long enough to strip down to his boxers – and his eyes held hers the whole time as though daring her to change her mind. And yet she knew she could have – she knew that at any point she could have put a stop to this and he would have listened. There was a sense of safety that came from that, a sense of knowing she was in charge. It was, undoubtedly, an illusion – neither of them had the power to control this physical impulse - but it helped.
“You wanted to touch me,” he prompted, his eyes daring her, cajoling her, so she lifted her hands to his chest and pressed her palms there lightly, taking in every detail of the ridged abdomen, the muscles, the tattoo beneath his left pectoral muscle, the thin trail of hair that ran down his middle and into his boxer shorts. He was warm and muscled to the touch, so vital and alive, so full of latent strength and palpable energy.
She pushed those thoughts from her mind, thoughts were a harsh betrayal of Thom, that made her aware of how unwell he’d been on the few occasions they’d been intimate. God, she couldn’t think of him right now. Pain clutched her heart. She felt panic, and then she felt hope and determination, because Raf was real and right in front of her, and just this once, she was going to take hold of something real – to hell with the consequences.
She pushed her hands lower, finding the elastic of his boxer shorts and sliding her hands inside them, and in the back of her mind she was shocked by her daring, unable to believe that she was moving trembling fingertips towards his arousal. When she brushed his length with the lightest of touches he shuddered, his whole body wracked with awareness and she pulled her fingers out as though burned, unsure suddenly of what she should do.
“That felt good,” he groaned, as though knowing she needed reassurance. His laugh was husky as he dropped his head to hers and captured her lips once more. And all uncertainty was swept away with the power of that kiss; her body lifted off the keyboard, cleaving to his. She kissed him with everything she was, refusing to listen to the warning bells, the cacophony of sense that was shouting for her to pull back and walk away. Her body, for once, was taking charge.
His hands pushed at his shorts as he kissed her and a second later disposed of the last of her clothes so she was naked on the piano, her body close to his. He put her on the shining top so her feet pressed the keys, making a thunking musical noise that she barely heard over the rushing of her heart. A moment later and his body was over hers, kissing her and pressing her to the top of the piano, his arousal at her entrance, his mouth seeking hers, his hands pleasuring her body as his knee nudged her legs apart.