The Wedding Party And Holiday Escapes Ultimate Collection. Кейт Хьюит
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on reserves of strength he didn’t know he had, Rafe pulled away.
Her eyes flew open, locked on his for a timeless second. He tried and failed to back away. “I’m not marrying Adam.” Her words rushed out. And suddenly it was her hands in his hair, pulling him down, and Lexie rising up to him, pressing her lips to his.
Her mouth fitted perfectly against his. She tasted of sweetness and sunshine. For long, exquisite moments there was just that simple joining, lips to lips and somehow soul to soul.
He broke the kiss. “Say that again.” He needed the words that made sense of everything.
“I’m not marrying Adam. We broke it off.” She reached for him again and her kiss was everything he needed and wanted in the world. She was his perfection.
Still kissing her, he moved with her into her room, shut the door behind them. Lexie sighed against him as she melted into him, an echo of his own surrender.
And he lost himself in her kiss.
Thought deserted him, overwhelmed by sensation.
“When?” he finally asked, minutes later.
“After I kissed you the last time. I knew then that—”
He pulled her against him, hip-to-hip, her yielding softness against his hardness. His hands desperately learning her shape, sliding beneath the silk of her blouse, touching heated skin smoother than the silk, tracing her contours, the flare of her hips, the curve of her waist, filling himself with the feel of her, her taste, her scent. Imprinting her against him, within him.
Her tongue danced with his, an erotic twining as they each teased and explored. Nothing sweet, all heated desire. He cupped the soft weight of her breast, his thumb caressing the lace-covered nipple.
“Why?” He heard his own doubt. Felt his desperation.
She hesitated. “Because I don’t love him. I can’t love him. Not the way I want to.”
Could it be the insanity telling him he heard the words he needed to hear? The relentless grip of his ungovernable need for her? He undid the top button of her blouse.
“He was very gracious about it.”
Showed what a fool his brother could be.
“I think he was secretly relieved.”
Not half as relieved as Rafe was. He undid the second delicate button. “Why are you still here?”
“For Adam.”
He frowned, his fingers stilling on the third button. “You do still have feelings for him?”
“No. I told him I’d stay and attend any engagements I’m expected at. If I left so soon it wouldn’t look good. There would be all sorts of speculation. I leave after the christening.”
Rafe’s hands resumed their exploring.
“It turns out he was mainly going through with this to please your father and the country. Apparently, a wedding, any royal wedding, will be good for the country’s morale. Funny how no one thought to mention that to me.”
“You’re not angry with him?”
She shrugged and he felt the movement beneath his fingertips. “I was hardly in a position to take the moral high ground.”
He undid the fourth and final button and, with a profound sense of achievement and victory, pushed apart the sides of her blouse, revealing a strip of creamy skin and partially uncovering the swell of lace-covered breasts.
His breath caught in his throat.
He arranged the blouse to his liking and traced a finger along the edge of the lace. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“Because I didn’t want this to happen.”
He paused. “Why are you telling me now?”
“Because now…now I want this to happen. I can’t bear it any longer. The wanting you. I didn’t break up with him because of you. We’re supposed to be keeping it a secret, but…”
He didn’t need buts. She wasn’t engaged to his brother, and the realization filled him with euphoria, swamped any other thought.
He cupped her sweet face in his hands and kissed her again. He could no more have stopped himself than he could from taking his next breath. He wanted to know her, every inch of her.
She wasn’t marrying Adam. She didn’t love his brother. His brother didn’t love her. That was all he needed to know.
Wrapping his arms around her, he held her to him, drowning in the sensation of her, in the shape of her and how she fit against him, body and mouth and soul.
Her hands slid from his shoulders to his head, her fingers threading through his hair, her touch becoming fevered.
He kissed her lips, her eyes, her jaw, her throat. His hands learned the exquisite shape of her body as he led her to the broad bed in the center of the room. He eased the sides of her blouse farther open, kissed her breast above the lace of her bra, moved lower till his lips covered the nipple beneath the lace.
Sweet Lexie arched into him.
He pushed her blouse from her shoulders. Her skin was so pale, so beautiful. He found the single button at the back of her skirt, a short zip, and the fabric slithered to the floor. She stood before him in delicate scraps of lace and her shoes.
Almost perfect.
He unpinned her hair, let it cascade over his hands as it came loose. He undid the clasp of her bra and her breasts spilled free. He tossed the lace aside and then drew her panties down her legs. Breathless, he looked at her, his fantasy complete.
Now she was perfect.
And Rafe was both honored and humbled.
Her lips curved into a slow, sensuous smile. With just a touch of hesitancy she reached for his belt. Urgency replaced the hesitancy as she worked the buckle and then the button and zipper behind it.
He pulled his top off, stepped out of his shoes and the pants she’d pushed down his legs. He held himself still while those pale, delicate hands of hers explored his torso, lighting sparks with her curious, reverent touch.
Demure Lexie was his siren. Bold, beautiful. Smiling. Her hair whispering over her shoulders.
He could bear it no longer. He scooped her up and lowered her down onto the bed. Where he’d wanted this woman from the moment he saw her dancing in the nightclub. He raised her arms above her head, captured her wrists in one hand so that his other was free to caress and slide and cover and tease. And to claim. Every inch. Sliding his hand up one pale thigh to her apex, he covered her and she arched into his hand. She closed her eyes, as he’d imagined, as he’d dreamed.
He found her center and took delight in her pleasure and her growing need till her head swung from side to side, her breathing ragged.
The only thing he wanted was to give her pleasure.
He covered her lips again with his and moved his body over hers. She parted beneath him, welcomed him as he slid slowly into the depth of her, sheathing himself in her heat. She opened her eyes then, and her gaze locked on his as he began to move within her.
Slowly. He should take it slowly, but she moved beneath him, urging him faster, her hips rising to meet his thrusts, the hands he’d freed now clasping his hips, pulling him in deeper.
Little moans and mewls of pleasure escaped her, driving him out of his mind with need for her. Along with the spiraling need, a rhythm that was theirs alone grew and hastened. All the world narrowed down to this one joining. Her with him.
As she cried out his name, he lost himself in her.
Afterward, she lay within the circle of his arms, her hair auburn and beautiful spilling over the pillow, across his shoulder, its faint floral scent