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bolder as she drew moans and gasps from him.

      She bent her face to his belly and followed the line her finger had just traced with her tongue. ‘Mmm...’ Her murmur turned into a soft squeal as he tugged her dress down over her hips.

      A couple of wriggles and a moment later she was lying there in just a pair of silky, French-cut pants. No longer lying on top of him, she was on her back, one leg anchored to the bed by his muscular, hair-roughened thigh.

      Her nerve endings reacted to the brush of his eyes as they would his touch.

      But then, the unexpected gentleness as he kissed her lips softly made her chest tighten with emotion.

      She touched his face and whispered his name. Raoul’s nostrils flared as he bent his head, but this time the kiss was not soft. It was hard and demanding, bruising in its intensity. He kissed her as if he’d drain her, and everything he wanted to take, Lara wanted to give, and more.

      Her fingertips dug into the golden skin of his back as they kissed, her body felt fluid and on fire, but when she felt his fingers slide under the lacy edge of her panties she tensed. Feeling his eyes on her face through her closed lids, she blinked them open.

      ‘Relax.’

      She smiled faintly, then breathed a tremulous sigh that was lost in the moisture of his mouth.

      She moved against his hand as he touched her through the silk, and closed her eyes, focusing on the sensation. Then as his fingers moved under the silk across the damp folds of sensitised skin Lara forgot to breathe, forgot her name; the pleasure was mindless and all-consuming. She dug her teeth into her lower lip as he slid her panties down her legs with what felt like tantalising slowness.

      When he nudged her thighs with his knee she parted them with a sigh of relief.

      ‘I can’t stand it.’

      Her agonised whisper drew a deep groan from Raoul, who caught her wrists onto the pillow either side of her face. His chest heaved as he lowered himself down, fighting the almost overwhelming compulsion to possess her fully in one thrust.

      The strain of fighting himself showed in his glistening face as he entered her, the knowledge that he had never wanted a woman this much before locked away for another time.

      Lara had been expecting some discomfort. What she hadn’t expected was to be overcome by a climax almost before her body had adjusted to the sensation of him inside her.

      It rocked her as every muscle clenched around him. A low keening cry was wrenched from her throat, and the waves of intense, mind-blowing pleasure just went on and on. She was so focused on what was happening to her that she didn’t immediately realise it wasn’t happening for him. Before she could come back down to earth he was moving again, pushing deeper into her with each thrust.

      Lara’s hips arched up to meet him, she could feel all of him and all of her, and the cell-deep awareness was almost painful, like some bright, beautiful light. Eyes squeezed tight in an effort to fully appreciate each individual sensation, Lara clung on because she didn’t know what else to do. Everything that was happening was new and wonderful. Her focus narrowed until her entire world consisted of just moving with him, flowing into him.

      The heat between them became a furnace as he reached deep into her. Just as Lara began to feel that she could not bear it, the invisible wall melted and it happened again, only this time it was even more intense—her body convulsed by a series of deep contractions until every nerve ending vibrated with pleasure. She actually saw starbursts through the paper-thin skin of her eyelids, and then as the tensions left her body in a series of juddering jolts she heard him groan and felt the heat of his release.

      ‘You’re beautiful.’ His voice cracked as he bent his head down to her, his nose brushing hers as he angled a kiss across her lips, before rolling away.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      STILL FLOATING, Lara opened her eyes. His bedroom was a monochrome blur, pale walls, dark furniture, a painting on one wall that appeared to be just a splash of red. She turned her head towards the breeze blowing in through three windows that reached the floor, the transparent drapes fluttering and billowing in the breeze.

      If she turned her head the other way she’d see Raoul. She could hear him breathing hard, almost as hard as she was.

      She turned her head the other way.

      Raoul’s eyes were closed, and his chest was lifting as he breathed in and out, the golden skin glistening under a layer of moisture. In profile his face had an austere quality, like a statue. His passion-sated body continued to exert a strong fascination for Lara; the strength, the hardness, the contrast between them was part of that fascination. He was in every way a physical male ideal—her ideal certainly—from his lean musculature to his long limbs.

      She had experienced so much with him. For a time they had been two parts of one whole and yet now they were separate—worlds apart.

      Lara suddenly felt sad, and she didn’t know why.

      He was lying with one arm curved above his head, and without opening his eyes he lowered it. She wanted to hang on to the perfect golden moment but all the questions she didn’t want to think about popped into her head.

      What would he say?

      What should she say?

      The sheet lay in a tangled heap between them. She hooked her toe in it and pulled, and had managed to drag a section halfway up her legs when she realised he was watching her.

      ‘Are you cold?’ Without waiting for a reply he reached for her, pulling her into his arms.

      She lay stiff for a moment and then relaxed against him, tucking her head against his shoulder. Raoul stroked a hand down the smooth curve of her back, enjoying the satiny texture.

      He had enjoyed her.

      He’d enjoyed many women, he enjoyed sex, but it had been the most erotic experience in his life and she’d been a virgin.

      Should he feel bad about that?

      If he was honest, the knowledge, when he had realised, had obviously been staggering but had also been a massive turn-on. He supposed it was programmed into male genes, a hangover from less enlightened times, primitive man claiming his mate.

      The theory did offer an explanation for the explosive surge of possessiveness he’d experienced when she’d nestled in his arms.

      Bleakness filtered into his dark eyes. It would pass—most things did.

      Before the dark thought claimed him she moved, snuggling in deeper, a slim arm snaking across his middle to anchor herself. She was half asleep already. Once more he felt a tightening in his chest, something breaking free that came perilously close to tenderness. He watched her eyelids, heavy with lashes that lay on her cheek like butterfly wings—she was sound asleep.

      Another situation that he was not used to. Raoul could not remember the last time he’d slept with a woman in his own bed, and as for actually sleeping...that was easy. Never, not once, since the early months of his marriage.

      Raoul closed his eyes. He had been functioning on a couple of hours a night since Jamie’s death. It had reached the point where he didn’t want to fall asleep, knowing that he’d relive the moment he found Jamie in his dreams, the images twisted and warped. He’d jerk awake in a cold sweat, the panic in his belly trying to claw its way out.

      Tonight he didn’t dream at all, so it was a shock to be woken so abruptly.

      Raoul was jolted into wakefulness by an ear-piercing scream. Beside him, Lara was sitting upright, her eyes wide, staring and unfocused. As he raised himself up on his elbow she turned her head and blinked several times.

      ‘You had a nightmare.’

      ‘Did I?’ She gave him a wide-eyed-kitten look.

      ‘You

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