Modern Romance - The Best of the Year. Miranda Lee

We usually leave before now.’

      The we struck him somewhere forcibly. He stood up and saw how Sam’s eyes widened. His body reacted to that look and he cursed her again.

      He reacted viscerally. ‘I think this is a mistake.’

      She frowned. ‘What’s a mistake?’

      ‘You...here.’ Dammit, he couldn’t even string a coherent sentence together. The longer she stood there, the more he was imagining her naked, opening up to him, giving him the release he’d only ever found with her. Seeing her here at the factory these past two weeks had been giving him moments of severe déjà vu.

      She was still frowning, but had gone still. ‘Me...here... What exactly do you mean, Rafaele?’

      Why was it that the way she said his name in that soft, low voice seemed to curl around his senses, making everything even more heightened?

      He gritted out, through the waves of need assailing him, ‘I shouldn’t have insisted you work here. It was a bad idea.’

      The unmistakable flare of hurt made her eyes glow bright grey for a moment, reminding Rafaele uncomfortably of another day, in another office, four years before.

      Stiffly she said, ‘I thought I was doing everything you wanted—we set up the research facility here in one week. I know it still needs more work, but it’s only been two weeks—’

      Rafaele slashed a hand, making her stop. ‘It’s not that.’

      Sounding wounded, she said, ‘Well, what, then?’

      Rafaele wanted to laugh. Could she not see how ravenous he was for her? He felt like a beast, panting for its prey.

      He smiled grimly. ‘It’s you. Uniquely. I thought I could do this. But I can’t. I think you should go back to the university...someone else can take over here.’

      Sam straightened before him and her eyes flashed—but with anger and something more indefinable this time.

      ‘You insisted on turning my world upside down, Rafaele, and now, just because you can’t abide the sight of me, you think you can cast me out again? It seems as if you rather overestimated your desire for control, doesn’t it? Well, if you’ve quite decided where it is you want me then don’t worry. I’ll be only too happy to get out of your way.’

      * * *

      Sam was quivering with impotent rage. She wanted to go over and slap Rafaele. Hard. It could be four years ago all over again. With nothing learned in the meantime. She was standing before Rafaele in his office and he was basically rejecting her. Again.

      And, like before, Sam was terrified she’d crumple before him, so she fled for the door. But when she tried to open it with clammy hands it slammed shut again, and she squealed with shock when she felt a solid, hard presence behind her.

      She whirled around to find her eye level at Rafaele’s broad chest and looked up. Emotion was high in her throat. Her eyes were burning. ‘Let me out of here, now.’

      The hurt that had gripped her like a vice in her belly at hearing him say so starkly that he basically couldn’t stand to see her every day was still like acid.

      ‘You’ve got it wrong,’ he gritted out, jaw tight, seemingly oblivious to what she’d just said. His hand was snaking around her neck under her hair, making her breath catch. His eyes were like green gems. Glittering.

      Sam swallowed the pain, determined he wouldn’t see it, but she was acutely aware of how close he was—almost close enough for his chest to touch her breasts. They tightened, growing heavy, the nipples pebbling into hard points.

      ‘Got what wrong?’ she spat out.

      ‘I didn’t overestimate my desire for control... I overestimated my ability to resist you.’

      Sam blinked. But now Rafaele’s chest was touching her breasts and she couldn’t think straight. His hand tightened on her neck and his face was coming closer. Her lips tingled in anticipation. All the blood in her body was pooling between her legs, making her hot and ready.

      Fighting the intense desire not to question this, Sam put her hands on Rafaele’s chest. ‘Wait...’ she got out painfully. ‘What are you doing?’

      Rafaele’s breath feathered over her mouth, making her fingers want to curl into his chest. She couldn’t seem to take her eyes away from his, green boring into grey, making reality melt away.

      Sam struggled to make sense of this, when only moments ago she’d believed he wanted her out of his sight because something about her repulsed him. ‘But you don’t...you don’t really want me.’

      He asked, almost bitterly, ‘Don’t I?’

      Confusion filled Sam—and a very treacherous flame of hope. She fought it desperately, fearing exposure. She pushed against him but he was like steel. ‘Let me go, Rafaele. I won’t be your substitute lover just because you’re turned on for five seconds. I don’t like to repeat mistakes.’

      Rafaele laughed again and it was unbearably harsh, scraping over Sam’s sensitised skin like sandpaper.

      ‘Five seconds? Try four years, Sam—four years of an ache that never went away, no matter how much I tried to deny it...no matter how many times I tried to eclipse it...’

      His voice had become guttural, thick. Sam couldn’t fully process his words, but somewhere deep inside her they did resonate, and she felt something break apart—some resistance she’d been clinging onto.

      ‘I want you, Sam, and I know you want me too.’

      And then his mouth was on hers and it was desperate, forceful. Like before, but not. Without the intense anger and recrimination behind it. And once again, like a lemming jumping over a cliff to certain death, Sam couldn’t help but respond. And she couldn’t deny the fierce burst of primal pleasure within her, deep inside where she’d locked it away.

      But the kiss didn’t stay forceful. Rafaele drew back, breathing harshly, and Sam followed him, too much on fire to be embarrassed by how much she wanted him. He wanted her, and the knowledge sang in her blood. She had nothing to be ashamed of.

      Rafaele bent close again, and when he pressed a hot kiss to her neck Sam felt his hand do something behind her. She heard the snick of the lock in the door. It should have made alarm bells ring in her head. It should have reminded her of similar heated moments in the past. But it didn’t. Or she wouldn’t let it. She was weak and she’d ached for this for too long. Long nights when Milo hadn’t wanted to sleep and she’d walked up and down, breasts sore from breastfeeding, but aching, too, for another far more adult touch.

      Rafaele straightened and with an enigmatic look took Sam by the hand. For a second she felt absurdly shy and bit her lip. Rafaele stopped and reached out, freeing her lip with his thumb.

      He muttered, ‘Dio, I’ve missed that.’ And Sam’s insides combusted.

      He drew her over towards the desk and then turned to take Sam’s bag off her shoulder, along with her jacket. They fell to the floor. Sam felt the back of the desk against her buttocks. Her legs were wobbly.

      Rafaele cupped her face and jaw with his hands and then his mouth was on hers again, hot and hard, firm but soft. Demanding and getting a response that she had no control over. Her tongue stroked along his. She was desperate to taste every inch of him, revelling in the spiralling heat inside her. She was vaguely aware of her questing hands going to his chest, exulting in the feel of rock-hard muscle, her fingers finding buttons and opening them so that she could reach in and explore, feel that hair-roughened skin.

      Rafaele’s hands moved down, coming to her buttocks, kneading them, and then lifting her so that she rested on the desk. He came closer, wedging himself between her legs so that his belt buckle was hard against her belly. Below, the most potent part of his anatomy was also hard, right there between her legs, constrained by their clothes and making her want to strip everything between them away.