Desperado (19 page)

Rafe was gone for a long while, and every few moments, as she built the fire higher and higher, Helen glanced over to the blankets piled in the corner. She knew that Rafe was giving her time, that if she actually made a bed for them, it would be her answer. He was throwing the choice in her lap as to whether they made love or not.

Should I?
The mere question flicked a switch in her already overly aroused body. She wanted to. Yes, she definitely wanted to.

What about Elliott?
Helen immediately discarded her engagement as a deterrent. No matter what happened—or didn't happen—with Rafe, Helen was not going to marry Elliott. She knew now that she didn't love him, even though he was a good man. She couldn't stop dreaming of marriage and a stable home and children, but they would mean nothing in a loveless marriage.

Control? I have no control over Rafe, or over myself when he gets too close
. Helen didn't like feeling so helpless. She'd built a life for herself based on logic over emotion. If she allowed herself to unravel this one time—this one night—would she be able to put herself back in order again? Probably not. Still . . . What would it be like to really lose control with a man? With Rafe? She closed her eyes for a second at the overwhelming tide of want that flooded her at that alluring possibility.

I don't even like him
. Well, that wasn't quite true. The more she got to know Rafe, the more she realized she didn't know.

Love. That was the big element here
, Helen concluded. What if she fell in love with Rafe? What if she already loved him? Now, that was a dangerous prospect. They had no future.
They were too different—their ideals, their backgrounds, their dreams.

He doesn't want children
.

A one-night fling, that's all it would be. Would that be enough? Of course not. But what was the alternative? Not knowing. Never experiencing. Taking no risks.

With a tinkling laugh of surrender, Helen rose and shook out the blankets, laying them near the fire. Later, she would move the saddles closer for pillows.

Pensively, she began to undo the buttons down the front of her gown, from neck to stomach.

“Helen.” Her name came off Rafe's tongue in a rasp, like a dark, smoky plea.

She glanced up and saw him leaning against the cave entrance, watching her with a feral expression on his face.

“Don't stop.” He folded his arms across his chest, waiting. His rampart erection gave visual evidence of his desire for her. His skin was dark everywhere, a reminder of his Hispanic heritage. Without the modern trappings of his clothing, he looked just like the wild, desperate bandit he was accused of being. A desperado.

Rafe's heart was beating like a jackhammer. Hot breath burned his lungs. This was the moment he'd been awaiting for so long. His dream. “Don't stop,” he repeated in a voice much harsher than he'd intended.

Helen stood frozen, like a frightened deer, her brown eyes wide. Did she view him as the hunter? A threat?

Calm down, calm down,
he told himself, taking deep breaths.
Put on the brakes. You'll scare her with your raging hunger
.

“Will you strip for me, Helen?” he asked gently. “Real slow.”

She nodded hesitantly and undid another button. Eight more to go.

“Make it last, baby. Make me want you
so bad.
”

Another button. This one at chest level. The fabric of her green gown parted, giving a glimpse of creamy white skin and a scattering of freckles.

He felt as if he would explode if he didn't touch her soon. Instead, he clenched his fists. “How do you feel?”

“Wanton.” Another button.

Wanton?

The inside curve of her breasts was exposed. A shudder ran through him.

She waited.

“Feel your skin. Is it hot?”

Refusing to break eye contact with him, she popped another button, then pressed the fingertips of both hands against her bare abdomen. “Scorching.”

He gave out a short laugh of delight. Helen was losing her shyness.
Good
.

She undid two more buttons hastily and peered up at him questioningly.

“Do you know what I want, Helen?”

She smiled ruefully. “Oh, yes.”

He smiled back. “Not
just
that, babe. No, I want more . . . much more.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Honey, I want to do things to you that no man has ever done. I want to make you feel things you've never felt before.”

“I already feel things I've never felt before,” she confessed. “I'm not a virgin, Rafe, but I feel like . . .” She fought for words. “I feel like . . . well . . . this is the first time.”

Strangely, he did, too.

She shrugged out of her gown, letting it drop to her hips.

His body went still, and his mind went blank.

Her hands dropped to her sides. Although her face flamed, she held his eyes in challenge, daring him to find her flaws.

There were none.

She was a goddess with her fiery hair. Her skin was creamy
smooth—not porcelain, or even deep tan, like so many women he'd known, but the peach-tinted hue of a pure redhead. Her slender neck led down to the most magnificent breasts he'd ever seen. Vargas breasts. Perfect globes of ivory capped with puffy aureoles and pebble tips of a raspberry tint. Champagne breasts, as he'd told her one time.

And that wasn't all. She had a narrow waist that flared out to curvy hips. Her flat stomach framed an indented navel that he longed to explore with his tongue. Her gown hid the rest, but he could wait. This was enough for now. Almost too much.

He started toward her. He couldn't wait.

She held up a halting hand. “Do you remember . . . do you remember what you asked me to do earlier?”

He frowned. Hell, he couldn't remember his own name, let alone something he might have asked her to do before. “When?”

“Tonight. Earlier tonight.” She raised her hands slowly.

And he remembered.
Hot damn!

She placed both palms under her breasts and lifted them a little, creating a more voluptuous cleavage. Then she moved her hands upward, past her breasts, and . . .
oh, my God!
. . . she licked first one forefinger, then the other. And touched her own nipples.

She closed her eyes and moaned.

He closed his eyes and moaned.

In three quick strides, he was in front of her, pulling her into his arms. She almost collapsed, grabbing for his shoulders.

His mouth covered hers ravenously, forcing her lips open with his thrusting tongue.

She returned the kiss with equal hunger, drawing him deeper.

He wanted to be gentle, but he forgot how. She deserved a masterful lover. He was out of control.

His brain said,
Time for a speed bump
. His brain-dead body said,
Shut up. We're off to Indianapolis
.

His hands swept over her back, from shoulder to buttocks. Pressing. Kneading. Exploring.

Her fingers gripped his shoulders, convulsively.

Slow down
.

He plunged his tongue into her mouth again, then withdrew.

Slow down
.

Her foolish tongue followed his into his mouth.

Slow down
.

He stroked in, and she followed back.

Slow down
.

Her mouth, his tongue. His mouth, her tongue. The deep, incredible kiss never ended. It became one fluid motion of sliding intimacy. A joining.

Slow down, or this will be over before it begins
.

Finally, his brain got through to his other organ. Either that, or his arteries were clogged with testosterone.

He leaned away slightly. Cupping her face with both hands, he braced his forehead against hers, panting for breath.

Helen's hands still clutched and unclutched his shoulders, spasmodically, until she calmed down. Only her heaving chest and a small whimper betrayed her continuing turmoil. If he was in a testosterone tailspin, she was surely in hormone heaven.

When he was able to speak above a croak, Rafe brushed his lips against hers. “Lady, you know how to make a man lose control.”

“Me?” she asked skeptically. “I'm the one out of control.”

“You are?” He grinned. “Good.”

“I don't want to wait anymore.”

“I don't either, baby.” He inhaled deeply. “But we will.” He took both her hands in his, kissing each of the fingertips, then held her arms out from her sides. He stepped back to get
a better view, then groaned. “I knew three times wouldn't be enough.”

“Enough for what?” she squeaked as he undid her last three buttons and whisked the gown off her hips to billow at her feet.

“To satisfy this wild need I have for you.” He skimmed the knuckles of one hand over her red curls for emphasis.

She sighed.

The soft silk, and her sigh, beckoned him to do more, but he exercised restraint. It wasn't easy. “Lie down,” he choked out and stumbled over to his pile of wet clothing. Eventually, despite his clumsiness, he found his wallet and took out the three foil-wrapped packets.

When he returned to the blanket, Rafe tossed the three condoms to the side and feasted for a moment on the sight of Helen waiting for him. She lay on her back, her arms thrown over her head in abandon, her nude body—her gloriously nude, beautiful body—waiting for him. To make love.

I'm going to make love with Helen. After all these years and all the dreams, I'm going to make love with Helen
.

Helen felt as if she was standing outside her own body. This writhing creature couldn't be her. This was a woman with no modesty, no inhibitions. Her skin glowed with arousal. Her bruised lips parted. Her breasts ached with a sweet yearning to be laved. Hot liquid pooled at her center, inviting. No, this must be a fantasy.

But Rafe wasn't an illusion. No, the man standing above her, gazing at her like the answer to his dreams, was flesh and bone and pure turned-on male. She saw his desire for her. Not just in his erection, but in the fire of his blue eyes, his heaving chest, and his fists, which kept clenching and unclenching.

I have the power to do this to him
. She was delighted. She didn't understand any of the sexual force that wrapped itself about them, but, for once in her life, she didn't care about explanations.

Reaching up her arms, she drew him down to her. She reveled in the delicious agony of his crisp chest hairs abrading her sensitized breasts, the nip of his teeth again the curve of her shoulder, the intrusion of his thigh between her legs. She wanted to isolate each sensation, to savor each nuance, but everything was happening too quickly. One caress blended into another. Pleasures like none she'd ever experienced before slingshotted all over her body, wherever he touched.

It was too much, and not nearly enough.

“I want you so much,” he whispered as he brushed her hair off her face and took one earlobe between his teeth, tugging.

“Then take me,” she started to say, but his tongue was doing erotic things to the inner whorls of her ear. The wet tip traced its path, then plunged in as far as it could go. Over and over, he repeated the pattern.
Ear sex,
Helen thought, and would have giggled if her body weren't responding to the carnal rhythm.
Oh, my!
Without thinking, she parted her legs and moved against his thigh. “I want . . .” she mewled.

“I know, sweetheart. Soon,” Rafe promised and propped himself on one elbow, admiring her body.

She turned her face away, suddenly ill-at-ease, having him see how much she craved his sex. He tipped her chin back, forcing her to look at him. “Don't turn away, Helen. Show me what excites you.”

“Everything excites me, you fool.”

He grinned. “Really? Like this?” His fingertips traced a circular pattern around one breast, getting closer and closer to the peak. When he finally strummed it back and forth with a thumb, she bowed her back and keened with want.

“What?”

“It's . . . not . . . enough,” she ground out.

A glint of understanding flashed in his eyes and he lowered his head. He laved the nipple with his tongue till it was wet, then began to suckle in earnest. Soft at first, then harder,
and faster. Her breasts swelled and throbbed with every excruciating draw of his mouth. And each pull on her nipple brought an echoing thrum between her legs.

He lifted his head once to study the breast he'd been ministering to and she hissed, “Don't you dare stop.”

With a husky male sound of satisfaction, he answered, “Not on your life!” and attended to the other breast, flicking it with his tongue, grazing it with his teeth, then suckling deep.

“Oh . . . oh . . . oh, yes!”

Meanwhile, his hand moved lower, over her flat stomach. His fingers parted her, exploring her slickness, finding the swollen treasure. She screamed when he touched her there.

He jerked back. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.” She felt mortified at the extent of her arousal.

“Then what?”

“I want you too much,” she admitted.

His smile was boyishly triumphant as he reached for one of the condoms. “Oh, Helen, you could never want me too much. And, believe me, it's not half as much as I want you.”

Fumbling with the packet, his nervous fingers didn't seem to work properly. In the end, he ripped it open with his teeth and smoothed it on with one hand. Rolling over between her legs, he apologized, “I'm sorry. I can't wait longer.”

“Sorry?” she gasped at the first feel of his hardness against her. “Any longer and I'm going to go up in smoke.”

He tried to laugh but it came out strangled. Placing both palms under her buttocks, he arched her and began to ease inside her tightness. To her shame, he'd barely entered when her body convulsed around him in wave after wave of an involuntary climax.

She started to cry.

“Shhh,” he said, “I love the way you come. Don't be embarrassed.”