He braced an arm against the top of the chaise, and rewarded every plea by strumming his fingers between her legs, timing the rhythm to match the speed of her begging. Eventually her lips couldn’t move as fast as she needed, and all she could produce were inarticulate cries.

“Please what, Chelsea?”

His clipped words told her the strain affected him too. For some reason, he needed this from her, and, God help her, she needed it, too. She drew in a shaky breath and prepared for more personal growth and self-discovery. “Please, Rafe.”

The reward was instant and staggering. He trapped the throbbing bundle of nerves where the ache centered between his thumb and forefinger, and squeezed. Air backed up in her lungs. Light flashed behind her eyes. For one impossibly long heartbeat she knelt there, enduring the sweet agony. Then the pressure splintered into shards of pleasure and tore through her in a devastating cascade.

“I lost count, Miss Wayne. Was that three or four?” Rafe’s voice rumbled in her ear, low and unmistakably smug. She pried her eyes open and watched in the mirror above the bed as he traced tally marks across her stomach with his index finger. With the chore completed, he tipped his head, met her gaze in the mirror, and gave her a slow smile. Heat seeped into every cell of her over-stimulated, utterly exhausted body. She closed her eyes and snuggled into the pillow. When had he moved them from the pool to his bed? Her sluggish brain couldn’t pinpoint the moment. Somewhere between her second and third orgasm.

She didn’t need to open her eyes to know he watched her. What did he see? A series of images replayed in her mind. Had she really knelt on a lounge chair and begged him to fuck her? Yes, she sure had. And that had just been the beginning. Now she lay here, four orgasms later—she hadn’t lost count—slightly amazed and strangely proud of herself. A part of her had worried she didn’t really have it in her to indulge in sex solely for the thrill of it, and not be racked with guilt or shame. Three cheers for personal growth and self-discovery. Laurie had been absolutely right. Focus on fun, attraction and bone-dissolving sex. What more could a girl want? She turned onto her side and hugged a pillow.

To her surprise, Rafe turned with her, wrapped his arm around her waist, and hauled her closer. “I’m not done with y—”

A phone rang.

His long exhale tickled her temple. “Fuck. That’s Luc.” He eased away. “I’d better take it. Don’t go anywhere.”

A totally inappropriate cloud of disappointment formed on her emotional horizon. “Take your time.” She mustered up a smile and started to get up, thinking she’d go into the other room, but when he rose from the bed and strode to the dresser to answer his phone, she couldn’t tear her gaze away from him. Wide, withstand-anything shoulders tapered down to narrow hips and chiseled glutes that still bore tiny crescent-shaped indents from her fingernails.

His side of the phone conversation faded to a hum as she stared at the evidence of how completely she’d lost control. Her newfound pride refused to give ground to the sudden flare of embarrassment. This afternoon’s exploits made one fact painfully clear. Up until now, her approval-seeking ways had followed her into the bedroom. She’d always concentrated on her partner, not herself, and put her pleasure second. Maybe the absence of a relationship liberated her, or gave her permission to be selfish, but Rafe factored in, too. He obliterated her catering instincts. He didn’t want them, didn’t need them, and seemed to consider anything less than unconditional surrender from her an insult.

Each little red mark she’d put on him suddenly seemed like a signature of her new self. Before the urge to kiss every last one of them became too much to resist, she got up and headed to the closet while some happy but very sore muscles reminded her they hadn’t been used so thoroughly in…this lifetime. Biting back a smile, she shrugged into one of the thin, waffled cotton robes the resort provided its guests, and tiptoed past Rafe.

A quick hand snagged the back of her robe and pulled her to him. “I told you not to go anywhere.”

She sent him a pointed look, and then the phone, while heat crawled up her chest.

“I’m on hold. My father’s assistant said he’ll be with me shortly, which is Luc’s way of announcing he’s pissed about something.”

“I’ll give you some privacy.”

“Don’t wander off. Dinner should arrive soon.”

At her raised eyebrows, he leaned in and kissed her chin, and explained, “I ordered for us earlier this afternoon while you were”—his lips roamed her jaw—“I’ll call it napping.”

Not exactly an invitation, but considering he’d placed the order while she’d languished in an orgasm-induced coma, why bother playing games? She was available for dinner, obviously. His mouth found a ticklish spot below her earlobe and she shivered. “I’ll go back to my villa, have a bath, and dress for dinner.”

“Do that here,” he murmured. “Your things are already in the room.”

She drew back to look at him. “They are?”

“I went over to your villa and brought back the essentials.”

Dinner was one thing, but a sleepover? What did her new rulebook say about such a thing? Disconcerting as it was to realize he’d taken the decision out of her hands, she still had a hard time moving away from him, especially when wide palms slid down to cup her backside while he traced her upper lip with his tongue. “Who said I was staying over?”

“I did.” He nipped her jaw. Those presumptuous hands squeezed, and then pressed their lower bodies together, and an equally bold part of him prodded her stomach.

“Rafe?” she whispered, clinging to her quickly evaporating sense of responsibility.

“Hmm?” His mouth grazed hers.

“Your call?”

He sighed and rested his forehead against hers for a heartbeat. “Right.” Stepping away, he gave her a half smile. “If I’m still on the call when you’re done with your bath, do me a favor. Wrestle the phone away and toss it in the ocean.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Not even if I could win a wrestling match with you. I don’t want the St. Sebastian SWAT team coming after me for destruction of company property.”

He gave her the panty-melting scowl. “You should worry more about who’s coming after you in the near term. I have extensive plans for tonight.”

The promise sent a feather down her spine. After everything he’d done to her this afternoon, could she handle “extensive plans”? She entered the master bath on less than steady legs, closed the door, and leaned against it, hoping the escape would restore her equilibrium. But as she looked around the marble and tile room, she realized she hadn’t really escaped.

His dark leather toiletry case sat on the marble counter next to the candy-stripe pink makeup bag her mother had given her. A stainless steel Patek Philippe lay alongside her sunglasses, phone, bikini and the sundress she’d left on the patio table earlier in the afternoon.

The sight unsettled her. She started the bath and then picked up her phone to check messages, all the while telling herself not to hyper-analyze the domestic display of their belongings commingling in such a personal space. Why should putting her toothbrush next to his, or seeing her sunglasses alongside his wristwatch, seem so intimate?

When you got right down to it, she and Rafe barely knew each other. Oh sure, they’d shared some intimacies, mostly physical, but she didn’t truly know him. Not the way she’d known, or rather, thought she’d known, Paul.

She glanced at her phone. Only one new text had arrived while she’d been busy. Laurie, reaching out to tell her Cindy had been blowing up Instagram with ultrasound photos. Apparently she and Paul were expecting a baby boy.

Woo for them. Frankly, she barely gathered up the energy to care. Yes, the news underscored how long she’d been oblivious to something going on right under her nose, but she owed Paul and Cindy a big thank-you for showing her, once and for all, nice girls finished last.