Her heartbeat thudded as he waited a beat before saying, “You go to his room.”

It was a statement, not a question, as if he had also read Rafael with uncanny accuracy. Still, she nodded in confirmation. She did go to Rafael’s room whenever he wanted sex. That was the way it was; people went to Rafael, he didn’t go to them. Afterward she always returned to her own room, which she had deliberately made as feminine and frou-frou as possible, in keeping with the Barbie doll persona she’d cultivated.

“Your room,” he prompted.

Drea glanced to the right. “Down this hall.”

He leaned down and stripped her pants to her ankles. “Step,” he said, and she did, lifting her feet out of the pools of filmy white fabric. She didn’t have time to feel awkward for wearing a tank top and a pair of four-inch heels and nothing else, because he simply hoisted her up so she had to lock her legs around his hips to anchor herself, and he carried her down the hall.

His rock-hard erection rode her cleft, every step he took rocking him against her softly swollen flesh. Drea tightened the grip of her thighs and rubbed herself against the thick length, spreading her own dampness on it, trying to push him past the limits of his control. A hot pool of sensation gathered at the point of contact, then rapidly spread through her, taking her by surprise. She’d already climaxed, so she hadn’t expected to get turned on again. Hell, she hadn’t expected to get turned on at all. Nothing about this situation was what she’d expected, and though she kept struggling to gain control she kept getting her feet knocked out from under her and she’d go under yet again.

He reached her door and she managed to say “Here” in a strangled tone, but she couldn’t make herself release him so she could turn the doorknob. He did that himself, pulling her more tightly to him with one arm under her bottom, while he opened the door with his other hand. The motion adjusted their positions just enough that abruptly his erection slipped into her; hot tingles shot along every nerve. The sensation was so electric that she moaned, every muscle in her body tightening. Helplessly she began rising and falling, trying to get as much of him as possible, her range of motion limited by his grip on her. At this angle she could get only two or three inches of his penis inside her, and though the thick ridge of the head set off mini-explosions as she worked herself back and forth on it, that wasn’t enough, she wanted more, she wanted all of it, deep and hard and fast.

The rhythm of his breathing hitched a little, the only sign he’d given, other than his erection, that he was the least bit excited. Abruptly Drea burned with humiliation at this evidence that, while he obviously wanted sex, he had no particular interest in her; she was here, she was available, and that was the extent of her use to him. She froze, and to her horror felt tears burn her eyes again. Doggedly she blinked them away.

What was happening? She wasn’t the one who lost control; she used sex to control men, to get what she wanted from them. What was wrong with her, that she let this one man frighten her so much that all her usual defenses came tumbling down? Okay, so he was, like, king of the badasses, but she’d dealt with badasses all her life, and if there was one thing she’d learned, it was that when the little head lifted and took charge, the big head stopped thinking.

That didn’t seem to have happened with him, but if she had a chance she could make him lose control; she knew she could. She wanted him to be as helpless as she felt, she wanted him fierce and hot and trembling, at her mercy instead of her being at his, but she wouldn’t have any mercy for him at all, any more than he did for her.

He reached the side of the bed, lifted her off him, and tossed her onto the mattress. By the time she stopped bouncing, he had most of his clothes off, and she held her breath as she watched him strip out of the rest. Naked, he was hard and muscled, almost lean. His chest was lightly haired, and at some time he’d been naked in the sun because he was tanned all over. For some reason, thinking of him naked and relaxed, drowsy in the sun, sent both her stomach and nerves trembling.

He bent over her and tugged her tank top up and off, leaving her only in those lethal heels. His dark opal gaze fastened on her breasts, a look so loaded with male interest that her nipples puckered as if he’d licked them. She jerked, fighting an inexplicable urge to cross her arms over her breasts to shield them. Somehow she felt more exposed, more vulnerable, more naked, when he looked at her.

Reaching out, he lightly traced one fingertip around both nipples, then braced his hands on each side of her and leaned down to suck each breast in turn, his mouth so gentle on her that she felt the heat more than the pressure.

Her breath caught and her body arched upward, seeking more than he was giving her.

Desperately she groped for his erection, wanting, needing to seize some of the power, to balance the scales. Her fingers closed around the thick shaft, and a split second later his iron grip was on her wrist, firmly moving her hand away from him. “No,” he said as calmly as if she’d offered him a slice of toast.

“Yes,” she insisted recklessly, reaching for him again. “I want you in my mouth.” In her experience, no man could resist that offer.

But the hard line of his lips curved in faint amusement as he caught her hand and anchored it to the bed with an unbreakable grip. “So you can make me come? You’re in a hurry to get rid of me.”

Drea stared up at him, her emotions in such a roiling storm of lust and anger and ever-present fear that she trembled.

He secured her other hand, too, holding her firm as he moved over her and took what he wanted.

THE HOURS THAT followed were a blur of lust and sex and fatigue, but a few moments were crystal clear. After her third climax she tried to squirm away from him, exhausted and overstimulated and unable to bear any more. “Leave me alone,” she said fretfully, slapping at his hands as he drew her back to him, and he laughed.

He actually laughed.

She stared up at the curve of his mouth, the flash of white teeth, by now expecting the way her stomach muscles clenched and the bottom fell away and she went rushing back down into the dark pit of longing that he’d uncovered. No other man had ever paid so much attention to her needs over his own, had lingered over her body, as he did, with slow touches and hot kisses. Orgasms, for her, had been what she faked with a man and provided herself when she was alone, and that had been partly her own choice because she couldn’t concentrate on providing the maximum pleasure for the guy if she was distracted by her own reactions.

He had done to her what she usually did, taken over her role, focused on her and provided so much pleasure she felt slightly drunk with satiation. He’d held back, stopping several times when he was on the verge of coming, and the strain was finally showing. His hair was damp with sweat, his face set in a hard, intensely focused expression; his eyes glittered with an intent so hot her skin should have scorched as he looked at her.

Until he laughed, and for a snapshot in time she saw him relaxed and momentarily-very momentarily-unguarded.

He hadn’t kissed her on the mouth. He’d kissed practically every other place on her body, but not her mouth, and suddenly she wanted that more than she wanted anything else he’d done to her. Impulsively she reached out and touched his face, her fingers lying lightly along the hard line of his jaw, feeling the faint roughness of whiskers and the heat of his skin. His dark brows lifted slightly in question, as if her touch puzzled him. Drea surrendered to the want, lifting herself and clinging her mouth to his.