Miranda Lee - It Started With A Kiss

But she envied her that baby. And Luke as its father. He was going to make a truly wonderful father.

Suddenly, all her earlier excitement faded and she wanted to cry. Before she knew it she was crying, tears flooding her eyes and overflowing down her cheeks.

Isabel dashed them away with the back of her hands, angry with herself. If only she hadn’t let Luke go racing off to Lake Macquarie that Friday. If only she hadn’t been so darned reasonable she would have been here tonight, with him. They would have been married, and she would have been making a baby in this bed. Or at least trying to.

Instead, she was here with Rafe!

Throwing herself onto the bed, Isabel buried her face in the mountain of pillows and wept.

Rafe was taken aback when he walked back in and found Isabel crying on the bed. He hated hearing women cry. His mother had cried for a long time after his Dad had been killed. It had upset Rafe terribly, listening to her sob into her pillows every night.

‘Hey,’ he said softly, and touched Isabel’s trembling shoulder.

With a sob, she turned her back to him and curled up into a ball on the green-printed quilt. ‘Go away,’ she cried piteously. ‘Just go away.’

Rafe didn’t know what to do. He hadn’t a clue what was wrong. She’d said she hadn’t loved her fiancé. Had she lied? Had she taken one look at this place and this bed and wanted not him, but Luke?

Dismayed, Rafe went to leave, but then decided against it. She shouldn’t be left alone like this. She needed him, if only to comfort her for now.

He lay down on the bed and wrapped his arms around her from behind. ‘It’s all right, sweetheart,’ he soothed, holding her tightly against him. ‘I understand. Honest, I do. I’ll bet you’ve been holding your hurt in this last fortnight, and now that you’re here, where you should have been with Luke, his dumping you for that Celia girl has hit you hard. Look, I know what it’s like to be chucked over for someone else. And it’s hell. So cry all you want to. I did.’

Talking to her and touching her seemed to do the trick. Her weeping subsided to a sniffle and she turned over in his arms to stare up at him. ‘You did?’

‘Yep. Maybe it’s not the done thing for a bloke to blubber, but I was like Niagara Falls for a day or two. Heck, no, longer than that. I was a mess on and off for a week. I didn’t dare go out anywhere. It was most embarrassing. I drank like a fish too, but that didn’t help at all. Made me even more maudlin.’

‘Why did she dump you?’

‘Ambition. And money. And influence. Be assured it wasn’t because the other chap was better in bed,’ Rafe added with a grin, and she laughed. It was a lovely sound.

He took advantage of the moment and kissed her. Not the way he’d kissed her back in Sydney this morning, but slowly, softly, sipping at her lips, showing her with his mouth that he did have a gentle side. He kept on kissing her, nothing more, and gradually he felt her defences lower till finally she began to moan, and move against him. Only then did he start to undress her—and himself—still taking his time, touching and talking to her as he went, reassuring her of how much he admired and desired her.

It wasn’t easy, keeping his head, especially when he uncovered her perfect breasts and sucked on their perfect and very pert nipples, but he managed, till they were both totally naked and she was trembling for him.

It almost killed him to leave her and go get a condom. But a man had to do what a man had to do.

He was quick. Real quick. After all, he’d been slipping on condoms for years. Though rarely when he’d been as excited as this. Had he ever been as excited as this, even with Liz?

Maybe his memory was defective but he didn’t think so. This was a one-off experience, perhaps because Isabel had made him wait two weeks to consummate what she’d evoked in him the first time he’d looked at her. This was lust at its most tortuous. And frustration at its most fierce.

He was thankful she felt the same way.

Or so he’d thought, till he hurried back to the bed and saw her looking at him with something like fear.

But why would she be afraid of him?

‘What is it?’ he asked as he joined her on the bed once more and drew her back into his arms. ‘What’s worrying you?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Nothing.’

‘Is it still Luke?’

‘No. No!’

‘Is it me, then? You’re worried I might hurt you.’

She blinked her surprise at his intuition.

‘Oh, honey, honey,’ he murmured. ‘I would never hurt you. I just want to make you happy, to see you smile and hear you laugh again. I want to give you pleasure. Like this,’ he said as he stroked her legs apart, his fingers knowing exactly where to go and what to do.

She gasped while he groaned. How wet she was. It was going to feel fantastic, being buried to the hilt in that.

Waiting any longer was simply not on. And possibly counter-productive. He would feel safer inside her. Less tense. He might even relax a bit.

As though reading his mind, she shifted her thighs apart and bent her knees, inviting him in, murmuring yes in his ear over and over. His fingers fumbled a fraction as he sought to push his suddenly desperate flesh into hers.

Rafe sighed with relief, then just wallowed in blissful stillness for a few seconds. But any respite was short-lived.

As soon as he began to move, her legs were around him like a vine. Or was it a vice? She was squeezing him with her heels and with her insides, rocking backward and forward.

Rafe felt a wild rush of blood along his veins, swelling him further, compelling him to pump harder as he sought release from his agony.

And he’d thought he’d be more relaxed inside her.

Foolish Rafe!

‘Rafe,’ she cried out, her arms tightening around his neck, her lips breathing hot fire against his throat. ‘Rafe…’

Her first spasm sent him into orbit, to a place he hadn’t known existed. Was it pleasure or pain as his seed was wrenched from his body? Agony or ecstasy as her almost violent contractions kept milking him dry, making him moan as he’d never moaned before.

Rafe didn’t know if he was experiencing happiness, or humiliation. All he knew was that no sooner did he feel himself falling away from that place she’d rocketed him to, than he wanted to be there again.

‘You’re right,’ she murmured, kissing his throat and stroking his back, his shoulders, his chest. ‘You didn’t hurt me.’

His eyes opened to stare down at her.

‘You looked so big,’ she explained breathily. ‘I haven’t been with a man that big before.’

Rafe was startled. He’d always thought of himself as pretty average. What she’d been seeing was mostly her doing. Still, he was secretly flattered.

‘I’d thought you were worried I might hurt you emotionally,’ he said.

‘Oh, no,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘No, that won’t happen. I won’t ever let that happen.’

Now Rafe felt piqued. Which was crazy. She’d spelled out what she wanted when she’d propositioned him and he’d agreed. Sex on tap for a fortnight without any strings and without any follow-up.

He’d thought such a set-up was every man’s fantasy come true. Now, for some reason that he hadn’t anticipated, Rafe wasn’t so sure.

Oh, for pity’s sake, stepped in the voice of cold reason. What’s got into you? This is every man’s fantasy come true. Stop playing the sensitive New Age guy and start being exactly what she thinks you are. Rafe the rake!

The trouble was Rafe wasn’t really a rake. Never had been. Still, it might be fun. He could do every outrageous thing he’d ever wanted to do and get away with it. Make the most wicked suggestions. Play Casanova to the hilt, with a bit of the Marquis de Sade thrown in.