Engaged For Her Enemy's Heir

Then Rafael drew her against him even more tightly, so her cheek was pressed against his chest, her body pressed against his, and Allegra closed her eyes, letting the music wash over her. She needed this. She closed her eyes, the music and Rafael and the champagne all combining to overwhelm her senses even as it made her want more, to let herself be swept away on this tide of emotion and see where it took her.

Underneath her cheek Rafael’s chest rose and fell in steady, comforting breaths. His fingers stroked her arm and his breath feathered her hair. Everything about the moment felt incredibly intimate, more so than anything Allegra had ever experienced before. If only they could go on like this for ever, feeling each other’s breaths, each beat of their hearts.

The music built to its desperate, haunting crescendo and then the strains fell away into silence. It had been, Allegra knew from having listened to the piece many times, just over eight minutes, and yet it felt like a lifetime. She felt both drained and intensely alive at the same time, and in the ensuing stillness neither of them moved or spoke.

‘Do you know,’ Allegra finally said softly, ‘the cello is closest instrument to the human voice? I think that’s why it affects me so much.’ She let out a shaky laugh, conscious of the tears on her cheeks, the rawness of the moment. The music had affected her more now than it ever had before.

‘It is a stunning piece of music,’ Rafael said quietly. His thumb found her tear and gently swept it away, stealing her breath, making her ache. ‘It causes me to both yearn and mourn.’

‘Yes...’ The sensitive, sincerely spoken observation pierced her to her core. This was the connection she craved, and unthinkingly she twisted in his arms, smiling through her tears, her face tilted up to his. Then she caught the blazing look in his eyes, felt its answer in the sudden, desperate thrill that rippled through her body. And this connection, even sweeter and more powerful than the last...

He dipped his head and she held her breath, the whole world suspended, expectant—and then his mouth was covering hers in a kiss that felt like both a question and an answer, a need both sating and sparking to life. It was enough, and yet it made her want so much more.

Allegra’s hands clenched on the crisp cotton of his shirt as his mouth moved with thorough and expert persuasion on hers, gentle and yet so sure. She’d never known a kiss could be like this, touching her to her very core, piercing her right through, knowing her. And right now she wanted to be known.

And then it became wonderfully, thrillingly more. In one easy movement Rafael swept her up and across the room and she found herself lying down on the soft leather cushions, his face flushed and his eyes jewel-bright as he looked down at her.

‘You are so beautiful. So lovely.’ With gentle hands he pushed her disordered curls away from her face, his fingers skimming across her skin, exploring her features. Allegra closed her eyes, submitting to his touch, revelling in it. The feel of his fingers on her face felt as intimate as the kiss, his touch so gentle and reverent it made her ache in an entirely new way.

He slid his hands lower, each touch a question, his fingers feeling her collarbone and then his palm moulding to the curve of her breast.

‘A different kind of music,’ he murmured, his mouth following the trail of his hand, and she laughed, the sound shaky and breathless. Yes, this was new music, and he was teaching her its breathtaking melody. She’d thought, in this moment, that she might feel fear, or at least uncertainty, but she didn’t.

She felt wonderful, and she wanted to keep feeling wonderful, to come alive under someone’s hands, feel as close to another person as she could. For one night. One moment. When would she ever get a chance like this again?

Somehow Rafael had managed to slip her dress from her shoulders, and now her upper half was bare to him. He bent his head, nudging aside her bra with his tongue, and she gasped aloud, the feel of him against her sensitised flesh a jolt to her whole body.

‘Oh...’ The single syllable held a world of newly gained knowledge as pleasure pierced her with sweet arrows. Her hands roved over his back, drawing him closer to her, desire an insistent pulse inside her.

Of their own accord her hips rose, welcoming the knowing touch of his hand. His fingers brushed her underwear and she bit off a gasp. She’d had no idea...

Rafael lifted his head, his gaze glittering as he looked down at her, his breathing as ragged as her own. The obvious fact that he wanted her as much as he wanted him solidified her certainty that this was what she wanted. What she needed. A connection, pure and true.

‘Will you come into the bedroom with me?’

She nodded wordlessly, knowing there was only one answer her aching body and heart could give.

‘Yes.’

In one fluid movement Rafael rose from the sofa and drew her towards the bedroom. Allegra followed, barely conscious of her rucked-up dress, her tangled hair.

The bedroom was as elegant and luxurious as the living area, and Allegra glanced at the massive king-sized bed, standing on its own dais and covered in a navy satin duvet. Rafael turned her to face him, framing her face with his hands as he kissed her again, even more deeply, and she responded, his kiss drawing a deep, pure note from her soul.

Rafael tugged the zip down the back of her dress so the black silk fell away, leaving her in nothing but her bra and pants, both simple and black, hardly sexy, and yet his gaze gleamed with approval as he looked at her, and her heart swelled. She had never realised how wonderful it felt, to have a man look at her like that. Want her like that. He drew her towards him, her breasts brushing against his chest, her hips nudging his so she could feel the hard length of his arousal against her stomach.

‘Cold?’ he whispered, and she shook her head.

No, she was not cold. It was a balmy spring evening, and the hotel suite was warm. The shiver was because of him, and he knew it, and she didn’t care.

He kissed her again, working his way down her jaw and collar bone to press his lips against the V between her breasts. She threaded her fingers through his hair, anchoring herself to him. She felt adrift in sensation, and his touch was the only thing that tethered her to earth.

Then he was moving his mouth lower, peeling away her bra and pants with his hands, sinking down onto his knees in front of her so Allegra swayed, shocked and overwhelmed by the feel of his hands on her hips, his mouth...

‘Oh...’ Her breath came out in shattered gasps. It was so unbearably intimate, to have him looking at the very essence of her, revering her in an act so selfless and giving and... ‘Oh.’

Rafael’s dark chuckle reverberated through her bones as her body trembled on the precipice of an orgasm that felt like an explosion. He rose again and drew her to the bed, leaving her trembling and aching and wanting more.

She watched, dazed, as he shucked off his clothes, revealing a bronzed torso, the muscles of his abdomen scored into hard, perfect ridges. His legs were long and powerful, and as for the most male part of him...

He was a work of beauty.

‘You may look,’ Rafael said as he covered her body with his. ‘And you may also touch.’ And then he was kissing her again, his arousal pressing into her with thrilling insistence, and that restless ache became an overwhelming clamour in her body, drowning out all thought, all doubt.

She gasped out loud as his fingers touched her in her most intimate and feminine places, teasing, toying, exploring, knowing. Her fingernails dug into the satiny skin of his shoulders as her body strained for the glittering apex she felt, just out of her reach, a pinnacle she needed to find, that she wanted them to ascend together.

And then, finally, he was sliding inside her, his breathing harsh and ragged as he filled her up, the momentary twinge of pain lost in the utter rightness of the sensation, the union complete and total.

He stopped, swearing under his breath, and, lost in a haze of need, Allegra stilled underneath him.

‘Rafael...?’

‘You are vergine?’ he demanded, and she gulped.

‘Yes...’

He swore again, his forehead pressed to hers. ‘I had no idea...’

‘Why would you?’ she managed, and he let out a shudder, his eyes clenched closed.

‘You should have told me.’

‘Rafael...’ She arched her hips upwards, letting her body plead in a way her words could not. She couldn’t let him stop now, not when everything in her was aching and demanding. With a groan he kept moving, the delicious slide of his body in hers making Allegra forget that tense moment as she gave herself up to the sensations cascading through her, building in a beautiful crescendo, and then the glittering apex burst into crystalline shards of pleasure around her as she let out a cry that rent the still air and then fell away like the most sacred note of music she’d ever heard.

* * *

Rafael rolled off Allegra, managing to suppress the curse that sprang to his lips once more. She’d been a virgin. He hadn’t expected that, not even when he’d decided she was artless and genuine, and guilt soured like acid in his stomach. He’d stolen someone’s innocence. He’d used someone who should have been protected, cared for. He’d done something he’d sworn he would never do again. Break a sacred trust.

He’d assumed she was a woman of some experience, even if she’d seemed a little shy. He never would have brought her upstairs otherwise. He never would have gone ahead with his seduction.

And yet...the music, the mood, the way Allegra had looked at him with hungry hope...all of it had made him yearn in a way that now left him feeling deeply uneasy. Sex was a transaction, nothing more, pleasurable and easy as it was. He didn’t ever let it mean anything, and he hoped like hell Allegra wasn’t imbuing it with some kind of emotion he would never let himself feel.

And yet it had been the innocent purity of her response that had been his undoing. He hadn’t even used birth control. The realisation crystallised like ice inside him. He’d meant to reach for a condom, but in the moment he’d completely forgotten. He’d lost his head. He’d certainly lost control of his body.

Next to him Allegra was still, a rosy flush covering her pale, porcelain body, the perfect foil for the creaminess of her skin. Her hair was spread across the pillow in a tangle of red-gold curls, making him want to thread his fingers through them even now, and pull her towards him for an open-mouthed kiss. Even now, with his climax still thudding through him, knowing how innocent she’d been, he wanted her. He’d never wanted a woman so quickly, or so much.

Allegra rolled on her side, curling into him, her arms wrapped around his chest. Rafael froze, confusion colliding with alarm, irritation with guilt. He didn’t do pillow talk. Ever. All of his bed partners knew what he expected in bed, and what he definitely didn’t want. He made it very clear from the beginning that emotional attachments were a no-go zone, except Allegra, of course, hadn’t received that memo. And as a virgin she would no doubt expect some intimacy now, some soft talk that he knew he was utterly incapable of. He didn’t let people get close. People he could hurt. People he could fail.

As he’d already hurt Allegra, deflowering her in what amounted to a tawdry one-night stand.