Page 314 of From Rakes to Riches

Expected what?She wanted to ask.

Wouldhave asked.

Had he not done exactly what he promised, and kissed her.

The shock of his hot wet mouth against her warm wet sex... She never could have imagined the contrast of it. The pure illicit pleasure it evoked.

She felt those lips everywhere.

Or perhaps her entire world simply faded to only contain what his mouth currently did to her.

All she knew was the heat of his breath.

The slick velvet of his tongue.

The gentle coaxing of his lips.

Mercy looked down the topography of her body as if such an act needed a witness.

Their eyes locked, and she thought of the serpent again—especially as his tongue flicked and slithered in gentle pulses over her most sensitive flesh.

The light burnished him in stark relief, his shoulders so corded and wide against the thin white skin of her limbs. His arms, so densely muscled, held her a willing hostage as he consumed her like a condemned man might his final meal.

The peaks of her breasts were drawn into tight, aching beads, and without thought, she cupped one. Hoping to warm it, to soothe some strange throbbing there.

The groan he emitted vibrated through her loins and drew a surge of bliss into a threatening crest. His lips never left her sex, sealed to her with a rhythmic suction that created subtle, shadowed hollows in his cheeks.

It was the bliss on his features that transfixed her. The rhythmic undulations of his hips against the counterpane where he sprawled. The deep sounds of pleasure she felt in her very bones.

He enjoyed this.

A storm built below his mouth. Swirling in the movements of his tongue.

The thunder was no longer in the distance.

No, it was inside of her. Rolling and pulsing and deeply erotic.

Tears stung her lids. She was suddenly unprepared for something so profound. So powerful it threatened to tear her away from herself.

So inevitable, she knew she could not fight it.

That it would not stop.

“Raphael?” She whimpered his name for the first time.

His gaze found hers, his pupils so dilated his eyes looked demon black.

“What is—? I don’t—I’m—I’m—” Through a sort of feverish delirium, she couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentences she desperately needed him to hear.

What is going to happen?

I don’t know what to do.

I’m lost.

He didn’t stop. He didn’t hesitate, slow, or even pause.

But his eyes contained a sincere sort of understanding, and he released her thigh to slide his hand—palm up—across the sheet at her side.

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