Somehow he’d expected a slow seduction, but this wasn’t it. This was fevered, hungry sex, and Raed lost himself to it. His body worked over Lise, and all of his senses fired with her. Her hair, spread out over the pillow. Her mouth, panting for breath. Fingernails down his back. Her hips, rising to meet his, again and again and again.
All the ideas of the kind of woman Raed had wanted flickered through his head and winked out one by one. How could he ever want anything but this? Anything but Lise? He felt connected to her below the skin, in the very center of his heart and body. The sounds she made called to something in him, something ancient and possessive, and he lowered his mouth to her skin to tease it with his teeth.
“Oh—” she said into the palm of his hand. “Oh, oh—”
And then Lise’s strength met his as she wrapped her legs around his waist and shoved, rocking them both onto their sides and then pushing Raed down onto his back.
She climbed over him.
In the dim, filtered light of the hallway, she rose up above him, head thrown back. What little light reached them caught in her hair, and it caught on her breasts, casting dusky shadows below their curves.
“Harder,” she said into that night. “Harder, Raed.”
His name on her lips made him feel wild, but he controlled it, controlled the way he took her hips in his hands and pulled her down to meet his thrusts. They were a perfect fit, their wildness mirrored in each other, and she was so tight around him.
Time slipped, memories converging again, and it could have been two years ago. He could have been taking her with this same furious energy two years ago or now. No time seemed to have passed at all. He had never come back to Qasha, never known a day without her, never missed a moment of her pregnancy, never, never, never.
Lise ground down against him, her hips rocking, and desire threaded itself together with his impending release. She was so hot around him, so hot above him. He knew, if he turned on the light, that her face would be pink and flushed. Raed ran two fingers down the hollow between her breasts and traced a line down and down until he could meet her clit with the pad of his thumb.
She froze, hands digging in for balance, and met his eyes as he circled that sensitive place once, then again.
The trembling seemed to come from deep inside her. Lise understood, without him saying anything, that she was to stay down, keep her hips locked on his, and she drew in a hissing breath. It must be hard, he thought. As hard as it was to keep his own body still inside of hers. Lise clenched around him, finding her own rhythm in those secret places, and even her thighs began to shake with the effort of staying in place as he circled and circled and circled, keeping the pressure light and teasing.
She went tight around him, even tighter than before, and held her breath.
Oh—she was asking him silent permission, though he could tell from the expression on her face that there were no words available to her in this moment. Only an overwhelming feeling, like coming face to face with the sun.
“Come for me,” he coaxed. “Right there. Yes.”
Lise exploded over him, her weight falling forward so that he had to catch her, hips shaking, body shaking, all of her convulsing with shockwave after shockwave of pleasure. Raed let it reach its peak before he rolled over her, bracing himself with one hand on the bed and thrusting in deep. Lise cried out, and the sound unleashed the very last of his control, what little he’d had left, and his own release overwhelmed him.
Together.
They were doing it together, body and soul, and when it was finished, Raed lowered his head to her cheek and kissed it, the softest thing he’d done in the last few minutes. Lise reached for his face and turned his mouth toward hers. He was still inside her as she worked her tongue into his mouth, battling, battling, and then a final aftershock moved through her and a soft sigh escaped from her lips to his.
Raed pushed himself up, his muscles on the verge of aching from the intensity, and Lise rolled over onto the bed, curling the blankets into her fist. Her eyes fluttered closed and he watched as her breathing slowed, finally calming. But her pulse—it stayed high, pounding at the side of her neck.
This was the most glorious sight he’d ever seen. A naked Lise, sprawled out on the luxurious bedding at one of his own properties. The mother of his child, blissfully spent and utterly relaxed in a way he hadn’t witnessed until this moment.
Raed drew himself upright. He’d spend the minimum time possible freshening up, and then he’d be back in this bed. Even if she slept for the rest of the night, he wasn’t leaving her side.
Not again.
13
The bed dipped, bringing Lise out of a half-dream in which she’d been sleeping on a canopy bed by the oceanside. It hadn’t quite made sense, in the dream, but what had made sense was that she felt so good that the darkness around her didn’t matter. All that mattered was the crash of the ocean and the softness of the bed underneath her.
A hand came down on her shoulder and slowly, methodically stroked down to her wrist, pulling it to the side. Then another long, lingering stroke over the curve of her hip and down to her thigh. Down to her knee, even. She rolled onto her back. More of that, yes. The fingertips grazed her belly, and finally she found the strength to open her eyes.
Raed sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at her as if he was seeing a priceless work of art. She swallowed a lazy dryness in her throat, trying to get her tongue to work again. This was what being happily tired felt like. It had been a long time.
“What are you looking at?” she asked.
He paused, and something changed in his expression. His dark eyes met hers and Lise could almost see the past there—and the future, too. “I’m imagining you carrying our baby here.” That gaze dropped back down to the line he was tracing around her belly button. “It doesn’t seem real.”
She laughed. “Even with the stretch marks?”
Raed bent over and kissed one of them, fading now but still visible against the rest of her skin. He kissed each mark on her body, turning it this way and that, tracing them until she was shivering again with a languid arousal. Lise couldn’t remember whether it had been this sensual before, but she didn’t think it had. This was deeper. All of her was on display. How could she hide her past from when they were apart when it was written there on her skin?
He kissed down to the bone of her hips and then forward until Raed had settled himself between her legs. He looked up at her from between her thighs—oh, god, did he—and then Lise dropped her head back against the pillow as his mouth met with her folds.
This was no glancing kiss. Raed licked her as if he might never have the chance again, exploring all of her, tasting, devouring. He added his fingers only when she was nearly wild with need, pressing one inside of her, then two, then three. And then, wickedly, he curled them, meeting a hidden place that sent sparks out to the tips of her fingers and toes. Those sparks were only a warning of the collision of pleasure that came from nowhere and blindsided her—how could it be so surprising, with Raed’s hands on her like that? But it was, it was. Lise gripped the covers and pressed her knuckles to her lips.
Raed wasn’t done with her yet.
He kept licking, coaxing another orgasm from her, and it was only then that he rolled on another condom and climbed over her. This time he kept his strokes long and slow and thoughtful. Each one felt like a promise, and some small part of Lise believed those promises. Another part cautioned against them, but both of them were subsumed in the rolling pleasure that wouldn’t let up.