Unfurl: Chapter 24

God, he’s a good kisser.

His lips are lush and pillowy, and the contrast with the taut roughness of his tongue is astonishingly effective. There’s a musky smell that I realise with a shock is my scent.

On Rafe’s face.

Oh my gosh.

But I don’t dwell on it, because his fingers are smoothing up and down my neck, brushing over my collarbone as he kisses me hard and luxuriously and so perfectly I could die. Just like he kissed me the other night in that chair. I loop my arms around his neck and grab at his thick hair so I can angle his face right and get our mouths closer.

Our tongues explore and entangle, our lips drag and slip, and the band of Rafe’s arm around my waist anchors me, cocoons me in the cradle of his body. I want to stroke his neck the way he’s stroking mine. I tug at the dog collar and it comes off easily—it’s just a little slip of plastic.

I’m struggling with getting his stiff top button open when he circles my wrist with his fingers and pulls away.

‘Get up for a second,’ he says, and I stand, bewildered.

A moment later he’s standing beside me, popping that tricky button easily before his dextrous fingers move down the placket. Delicious skin and hair appears inch by inch.

‘What are you doing?’ I ask stupidly.

‘I’m getting my kit off, and then I’m getting your robe off, and then I’m giving you the skin on skin time I suspect you needed after I blew my load all over your tits. Then we’re taking a shower and I’m cleaning you up. Got it?’

I open my mouth to protest, but the look he shoots me is so delicious and stern and determined, and his proposition so tempting, that I close it again and nod as I take in the spectacular sight of Rafe peeling his shirt off. He fumbles impatiently with the cuffs and then it’s off and he’s straight onto his belt buckle.

I stand and marvel at the beauty that’s possible in the male form. His skin is tanned, his pecs defined and perfectly dusted with a little dark hair, his shoulders broad and domed, his arms strong with excellent forearm porn. But then he’s hopping around to get his shoes and socks and trousers off, and I’m stunned. I’m in awe at his utter gorgeousness, at the lean beauty of his body.

He’s hard again, the jut of his erection even more impressive and terrifying against his nakedness. That thing really is massive. The physics of it getting anywhere close to inside me strike me as dubious.

He comes towards me, his expression predatory, and puts a hand on the knot of my sash. ‘May I?’

I nod again, and my eyes don’t leave his face as he tugs my sash open and pushes the robe off my body and slides an arm around my waist, pulling me towards him. I stand on my tiptoes and tilt my face up towards him and loop my arms back around his neck, and oh my God.

This.

The impossibly perfect sensation of his hard body, his warm skin flush against mine. My nipples encounter muscle and chest hair, and I shimmy against him slightly. The hand on my back moves south, fingers splaying over my bum so we’re pelvis to pelvis and that erection presses against my stomach.

He’s warm everywhere, and he’s warming me everywhere. A hand smooths my hair down my back, and I arch into his touch. This is what I’ve been missing. There’s no doubt he’s skilled with his fingers and his tongue (and, I’m sure, that huge dick), but this, for me, is a whole other version of alchemy, the kind of alchemy that comes from having a gorgeous, warm-blooded man doing his best to ensure that every possible inch of your skin is fusing with his.

It’s the alchemy of feeling his heart racing under my hand as I mould my palm to his pecs.

It’s the velvety miracle of the skin on his back under my fingertips. I mean, what guys even have skin this soft?

It’s the magic of feeling as though his body, his skin, is feeding and nourishing and electrifying every single nerve ending in mine.

And when he lowers his face and claims my mouth again with those lush, demanding lips, his hand cupping my backside like he never intends to let me go, the magic turns transformational.

That’s what alchemy really is, he told me once. The art of transformation.

My skin sings.

My heart opens.

And I unfurl in his arms like a flower.

It turns out wet skin on skin is even better than dry skin on skin. Water, that great conductor of electricity, adds a sensual slide to our hands on each other as Rafe cranks up the huge four-person shower (I don’t want to think about that concept right now) and pulls me under the spray with him. It makes our touches more fluid. Fluent.

I’m not sure I’ve ever felt anything better than Rafe’s muscular, soaking wet body rippling under my hands. His dick flexes between us so tantalisingly that I want to do something about it.

‘Ignore it,’ he mutters between ravenous kisses, as if he can read my mind. He twists and pumps some shower gel from one of the frosted glass bottles affixed to the wall, rubbing his hands together in a leisurely fashion as he looks me over. ‘Now I’m going to touch every inch of you on the pretext of soaping you up. Then I might just have to get you dirty again.’

His voice is just rough enough, just ominous enough, to cause me to catch my breath. I aim for levity.

‘And will you give my hair another protein-rich conditioning treatment?’ I ask archly.

He raises an eyebrow as he, predictably, goes straight for my chest. His sudsy hands roam over my breasts, palming them and rubbing at my nipples in a way that has my arousal growing again.

How can it not?

I’m backed up against the cold tiles of a hot shower with an even hotter man running his hands over me. His face and body make me want to commit every sin I’ve ever been told will damn me straight to hell, and his dick is pointed straight at me like a loaded gun.

‘I wouldn’t make jokes if I were you.’ He rolls a finger around each nipple before abandoning them and stroking strong hands down my arms.

‘No?’ I aim for casual, but it comes out breathy. Dammit. ‘Why?’

‘Because.’ He gets slowly, deliberately, to his knees in front of me. ‘You really want to keep me onside, especially now I know what you need. Put your leg over my shoulder and hold onto those rails.’

I look down at him. He’s such a beautiful man. Water’s cascading down over his bronzed shoulders and back; the wet eyelashes through which he gazes up at me make his dark eyes look starry. I sling a leg over his shoulder and feel for two handrails that are far too well-positioned to be there by chance.

Clearly, a lot of action goes down in these showers.

‘What do I need?’ I ask. I want to bait him. Stoke the flames of his desire for me till I make him as delirious as he makes me.

He kisses the skin below my bellybutton before looking back up at me.

‘Let me see.’ His voice is low and rough. ‘My pretty little virgin wants to be defiled and worshipped at the same time.’

That pretty much sums it up, actually.

He bends his head. The way my leg is slung over his shoulder has me open to him. He parts my folds easily with two fingers and licks me from my entrance to my clit. I shudder. It feels… amazing. Dirty and heated and right. I hum my approval.

‘She wants me to treat her like my slave and my queen,’ he says against my clit. This time, his tongue swirls around precisely where the nub is filling with blood, and my head falls back against the tiles.

Oh God.

I’m not sure I’ll survive this. How is it that this man can command my body so easily? He may be the one on his knees, but I’m giving myself up to him completely.

‘My whore and my madonna.’

Lick.

His words are as perfect as the swipes of his tongue on my sensitive flesh. Because he’s right. God, he’s so right. How can it be that I want him to push me to my knees and tie me to his bed just as much as I want him here on his knees in front of me, lavishing me with praise and promises and threats? How can it be that after a five-minute conversation, during which I don’t think I explained myself particularly well, he gets me already?

He looks up at me as he pushes a finger inside of me. I’m wet, but it’s tight, and I gasp. His eyes glint with satisfaction as he twists it. I release one handrail and clutch at his hair and allow myself to drown in those eyes that have the power to submerge me.

Forget his skilful tongue and cruel fingers.

Really, all I desire is to have Rafe’s eyes on me.

Just me.

‘I need you to know, sweetheart, it’s all the same thing to me,’ he tells me now. We’re both stock still. It’s just his finger moving inside me, sliding up and down my inner walls as I bite down on my lower lip.

‘When I insist on being in your sessions so I can tie you up and tongue-fuck your pussy and get you on your knees and shoot my load all over you, it’s because I need to claim you and corrupt you and venerate you and revere you all at the same time. When I treat you like a whore, I’m paying homage to you in the filthiest way I know how.

‘You are so fucking beautiful and innocent. You’re Eve’s fucking apple in the most delicious skin I’ve ever, ever seen. You’re immaculate. I want to put you on a pedestal and admire you from afar just as I want you on the floor, writhing under me as I fuck you.

‘I knew the first time I saw you that I wouldn’t rest until you were on your knees in front of me, but I also knew you’d bring me to my knees. And look at me. You’ve done exactly that.’

We stare at each other. Something has shifted. The air hums with electricity.

I believe him.

‘You can do whatever you want to me,’ I whisper. ‘All of it. I want all of it.’

He closes his eyes for a moment like he’s trying to regain control.

‘That is a very dangerous thing to say to me, sweetheart,’ he murmurs, before he bends his head again and moves his tongue over me, coaxing my body higher and higher until I shudder out my second orgasm of the night caught between cool tiles and an inferno of a man.