Questions? Yes, I had questions galore about what he'd been doing near Tanya's body, but first things came first, and at that exact moment, Raphael's mental and physical well-being topped my list of priorities. I pushed the book off the bed as I slid down. "Oh, well then, seems to me it's my duty as a humanitarian to render you whatever aid you require."

I got to my feet and wrapped my arms around his neck, wiggling my hips against him as I kissed a trail around his lips. He slid his hands under my sweater and teased my nipples through my bra as his mouth captured mine.

"I am going to require a lot of aid," he said between nips to my lower lip. His hands were burning my breasts, stroking and teasing until I gave in to his demand and parted my lips, welcoming that bossy tongue of his into my mouth with a hum of pleasure. "I will be needing so much aid, it's going to require multiple applications."

"Multiple, hmmm?" I slid my hands down his back, lovingly stroking the hard curves of his behind. "I like the sound of multiple."

He growled as I sucked his tongue into my mouth, tugging his shirt out of his pants. His hands tightened around my breasts as I gently raked my fingernails up his belly until I reached his chest.

"Nipples," I cried in delight. "Imagine finding them here! I must explore more fully."

"That's not fair." His breath was hot and ragged on my neck as he nuzzled me, licking and kissing and nibbling while his hands slid around to my back. "You have bare flesh in your hands. It's only right I should have some as well. I want bare flesh. I need bare flesh!"

I saw the reason in his argument as soon as he got my bra unhooked and his hands had pushed that annoying bit of material away to cup my breasts, his thumbs teasing my nipples mercilessly. Tiny little rivulets of fire started in my toes and worked their way up my body as I gently scored my fingernails up his sides, throwing my head back so he would have better access to my breasts. He peeled my sweater off, tossed my bra after it, his hair brushing against my bare skin as he bent to take a breast in his mouth.

"OK, that's it, I give." The feel of his mouth on my flesh was making my bones turn to jelly. I arched my back and pushed my breast at him in a brazen, shameless sort of manner. "I was going to torment you and tease you and arouse you till you had steam coming out of your ears, but I give. You're just too much for me. I surrender."

"Baby, if you arouse me any more, I'll explode," Raphael growled, the steamy look in his eyes confirming his claim. "As I calculate it now, I have about three more seconds before that happens."

We had our clothes off in record time. Raphael hit the bed first, me following immediately thereafter. I ignored his little grunt when I landed on him rather than the bed. I straddled his waist, sitting up and running my hands over his belly and chest, thinking about all the many and varied things I wanted to do to him.

Raphael swore.

"What?" I froze, wondering what I had done wrong.

"Just a minute." He put both hands on my hips and heaved me off him, rolling over until he was sitting on the side of the bed. "Stay there. Don't move. And don't stop thinking about what you're thinking, because I like that wicked glint in your eye."

I stared at his back for a moment, then figured out what he was doing. "Would you like me to hum a little condom-donning music while you're busy over there? Something in a march, perhaps? Or a Latin beat? Or maybe you prefer skaaaaAAAAAAAA!"

Quicker than you could say "extra personal space" he was on his back again, and had me hoisted over him.

"Wait a minute," I said, looking down from where he held me about a foot and a half above his body. "I see what you're doing, Bob, don't think that I don't. You're not going to impale me with that thing until I'm good and ready to be impaled, and that's not going to be until I do some of those wicked things you saw glinting in my eyes, so let me down nice and slow and no one will get hurt."

He grinned and slowly lowered me until I was sitting on his groin. "It's like sitting on a broomstick," I said, my eyes widening as I wiggled around on him a little, sliding back and forth along his long, hard length. Raphael's hands grabbed my hips, his fingers biting hard into my flesh as his head thrashed side to side on his pillow. "Oh, my! Maybe I'm ready now. Maybe those wicked things can wait. Maybe I was a little overhasty in ruling out an immediate impaling."

"Thank God," Raphael croaked, his voice as harsh as gravel. In one smooth move he lifted me up, positioned himself, and thrust upward as I sank down. His groan of sheer pleasure rang in my ears as my body accepted his. He was heat, he was fire, a very, very hard fire that pushed and shoved and burned its way into my tender flesh, filling me, stretching me, pushing me beyond everything I'd known into some new world inhabited only by us. I ceased to be one person and happily joined myself with him.

The last thing I saw before my eyes rolled up in my head was his back arching up off the bed as I tightened every muscle I had around the hard heat of him.

"Do you know, you're almost panting in time to your heartbeat, which says a lot, considering your pulse rate must be at least in the two hundreds."

Raphael groaned beneath me. I was drawing lazy circles on his chest, enjoying the feeling of his chest hair tickling my face as I pressed occasional kisses onto his flesh. His chest rose and fell quickly beneath me, making me wonder if I was squashing him. I put my hands down onto the bed and levered myself up slightly. Immediately his hands settled onto my bare behind and held me in place. I smiled to myself. We were still physically joined, a testament to his girth that we hadn't parted ways, so to speak.

"What does it feel like when you use a condom? I mean after. Does it feel ooky? I can't imagine it's a terribly comfortable feeling, what with all that… um… just hanging around the end there."

Raphael's hands slid up to rest on my back, but other than that he made no response to my question. A perfectly good question, too, I thought. But perhaps he was embarrassed that he'd only lasted a couple of thrusts before blasting off. Poor man. That was all it had taken for me, too, but unlike women, men invest so much ego in their sexual prowess. I didn't want to make him feel anything less than a stud muffin, so I decided to let the subject drop and talk about something else.

"Did you have a chance to see Arielle after the police questioned her? I was going to sit with her, but that minion of Inspector Bartos… what was his name?… Detective Kovar made me go over the whole evening again. Poor, poor Arielle."

"Why is it women can work just as hard as men while they're making love, but when it's all over, they can still put words together and have them make sense?"

I smiled at his disgruntled frown. "It's called afterglow, sweetheart. Pillow talk is the best kind of talk. Do I take it you'd rather I let you recover in peace than discuss the important topics of the day?"

Raphael moaned an affirmative, his eyes closed tight. I grinned and pushed myself into a sitting position. His eyes shot open when I wiggled just enough to remind him that my cheerleaders were still entertaining him at their homecoming dance.

"Baby, I wish I could oblige you, but I think you killed me a few minutes ago."

I raised up just a little, then sank slowly back down, gripping him as tightly as I could. He bucked beneath me and sucked in half the roomful of air.

"You don't feel dead to me," I said, leaning forward to tease the tip of his little brown nipple with my tongue. "You feel hot and hard and very, very alive. I can feel your pulse deep inside me. Here." I did my best Kegel squeeze.

"Ah, Christ," he groaned, grabbing my hips and holding on as he rolled me onto my back. He scooped my legs up until they rested on his shoulders. Slowly he pulled out of me until just the very tip of him rested inside; then just as slowly he stroked forward, filling me with so much more than just a delicious bit of flesh that tears came to my eyes with the beauty of him.