Rae
The elevator doors opened to the hallway outside their suite, and Rae’s eyes slammed shut from the glare barreling through the windows. She had grown up with the desert sun burning the plants and drying the soil to dust, but snow-glaring sun felt like lasers to her watering eyes. “Holy cow.”
Wulf glanced down at her and motioned to the wall of windows opposite the elevator doors. “Let’s close those curtains.”
The security guys were already fanning out through the suite, and two guys tugged gossamer sheers over the tall windows, filtering the cold, white blaze.
Wulf asked, “Better?”
“Yeah. A lot.” Rae wiped the corners of her eyes with her sleeve. “Wulf, honey? Can we talk about something?”
“Of course.” He led the way through the living room—the shining dark wood and navy blue velvet balanced the snow outside and the sunlight beating through the windows—to a bedroom beyond. Wulf had mentioned that he stayed in this suite whenever he skied in Argentina, so it made sense that he knew the layout.
She followed him because she sure as heck had never been to this elite ski chalet before, nor gone skiing in June before, nor had ever been skiing, nor had even been in the Southern Hemisphere. Rae was lost.
He shut the door behind them and tugged off his black leather gloves and long coat. Underneath, he wore a black suit similar to all his security men’s, similar if someone couldn’t see the difference between the precisely tailored cut and the very fine fabric of his, as opposed to the suits that cost only a few thousand dollars that he bought for his men, and their suits were altered in very specific ways, looser under the arms and longer.
Rae took a deep breath. No woman likes saying stuff like this. “Wulf, honey, you don’t have to pretend that you didn’t see her. It’s okay to look.”
One of his blond eyebrows dipped, and he actually smiled a little for her. “I beg your pardon?”
She did love his accent. It was still predominantly English, pah-don, but when he relaxed, German and French shadings sneaked in, and she made it a game to tease them out. “It’s okay with me. She’s pretty. Heck, she’s gorgeous. And I’m getting kind of thick around the waist, so it’s okay to look.”
“You thought—” Wulf blinked, looking down for a moment while he sucked in a breath, but then he took two steps across the room with his long, long legs and caught her in his arms.
Her body bent in his strength. “Wulf?”
His harsh whisper brushed the skin of her neck. “I wasn’t looking, and certainly not like that.” His fingers clutched her hip, digging into her flesh just enough to get her full attention. “You’re carrying our child. Every time I look at you—the curve of your hips, the swell of your body—I am brought to my knees.”
His lips came down on hers, and then he was pushing her up against the wall, rubbing his hand up under her sweater to find her skin. He kissed down her neck, and his bare fingers were cool against her ribs.
Rae wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder. The fine wool of his suit jacket against her cheek absorbed the little moisture leaking out of her eyes due to the harsh snow-reflected sunlight, she told herself.
Wulf’s breath heated the skin on her neck, and his murmur drifted through her long, auburn hair loose around her shoulders. “Every time I look at you, I want you. I swear to God, my body wants to make you more pregnant somehow. You are so thoroughly mine that there is a part of me growing inside your body. I don’t want to look at another woman. I want to watch you every moment so I don’t miss even a second of this. You devastate me,” he whispered.
Wulf always whispered in such moments, and when he did—rarely, quietly—Rae’s heart broke open. It was like he wore a shiny shell, one that concealed a deep vulnerability.
Wulf’s hands found Rae’s elbows and he grabbed her arms, stretching them over her head, and he pinned her wrists to the wall with one of his strong hands.
“Oh,” she breathed.
His whisper turned to a growl. “Yes, who’s against the wall this time?”
She twisted her hands, trying to free herself from where he pinned her because she wanted to touch him, to run her fingers over his massive shoulders and through his thick hair, but he pressed her tight against the wall with his hand and his hard body. The plaster chilled her back and butt, but Wulf’s other hand warmed her breast as he lightly rubbed his thumb over the peak, and his mouth opened on her throat.
A bite of pain sparked from her neck, and she gasped.
Wulf’s low chuckle rumbled beside her neck.
He stripped the bulky winter clothes off her body, holding at least one of her wrists above her head the whole time, spinning her one way and then the other against the wall, pressing his body against her and dizzying her. One moment, he tugged her new cashmere sweater over her head, but he caught her hands again and spun her, ending up behind her and sliding his hands over her hips to push down her old jeans that were getting snug everywhere. He yanked them off her ankles and let his suit jacket drop to the floor at the same time, releasing her hands in his haste.
By the time he spun her back around and his lips came down on hers, he had flung his tie and shirts to the wood floor, and the hot skin of his muscular chest warmed her. Ebony and red ink, the cap of an enormous tattoo that covered half his back, crawled over his shoulder under her left hand. Just a trace of his cologne lingered—warm spices like cinnamon and orange and Wulf’s natural male scent under it—and she inhaled along his neck for more. She was just spreading her hands on his chest, feeling his golden chest fuzz under her palms and sliding her hands down toward the hard bricks of his abs, when he grabbed her wrists and stretched her against the wall again. His other hand dove lower, caressing down her stomach, gently lingering over the new softness there, and then he stroked lower, touching her.
She moaned against his lips, and he kissed her harder, spurred on by her voice.
He caressed her inside her folds, his cool fingers sliding through her, wetter with each stroke over her clit, until her body began to tighten. Even in her own ears, she could hear her breathing quicken from a languorous sigh of pleasure to a tight rasp of need.
He yanked his pants off and pushed himself between her legs, rubbing deeper between her slippery thighs. Rae wanted to grab his shoulders, to hold onto him, but he still held her hands above her head as he slipped through her wet skin, driving her higher with each rub. His breath blew hot on her lips, and his tongue stroked hers in her mouth.
“Please!” she whimpered, her hands writhing in his grasp above her head. She was trying not to moan because surely the security guys were on the other side of the wall.
He let go of her hands and lifted one of her legs, wrapping her thigh around his lean waist. Rae grabbed him around the neck with both arms, holding tight. He kissed her again, tangling one hand in her hair, almost pulling it, and he found her center and slowly pushed into her.
He filled her, stretching her, and even though he eased in, she let her head fall back and gasped. Wulf bent and scraped his teeth over her neck, and his hand reached lower, grasping her other thigh.
Just as he filled her to the hilt, pressing his body against her clit, he lifted her other leg and gravity dragged her down farther, pushing him deeper into her.
He trapped her between his body and the wall, buried in her, and she was already tightening around him as she locked her legs behind his back. He thrust up hard, holding her under her thighs and against the wall as he pulled away and jammed himself back in, slamming against her clit, and every shove inside her coiled her more tightly. Her head was thrown back so far that almost the top of her skull rubbed against the smooth plaster wall, and her breath rasped in her chest and throat to keep from screaming.
She panted, “Yes, oh yes,” near his ear, his short hair brushing against her cheek as he forced himself up into her, deeper every time.
His rhythm strengthened, became insistent, banging her clit and rubbing deep inside her. He grunted near her cheek, and her body wound tight around him, grinding tighter until she couldn’t breathe. One more of his hard thrusts broke the sob from her throat and unleashed the orgasm that tore through her and up her spine, blinding her as the world went white like the snow-glaring sun.
Rae could hear her own breathless gasps first, then Wulf’s hoarse sighs near her ear, panting and rasping in his throat. His arms tightened around her as her legs gave out and she almost fell.
His breath brushed her shoulder as he whispered, “I will never look at another woman. I would never betray you.”
He pulled away to slip out of her, and Rae held him more tightly around his neck. “I trust you.”
He reached under her knees and picked up her legs to carry her to the bed. His warm chest felt so solid under her cheek, and she rubbed her face on his shoulder, just feeling his skin. Even that comforted her.
He steadied her on her feet, keeping one arm around her, as he shoved the bedcovers away so they could crawl in. Fatigue drew her down, and she slid into the softness of the bed. Wulf wrapped his arms around her, and she lay on her side with her forehead against his shoulder, still fighting for breath.
He smoothed her hair back, stroking her cheeks, and his warm lips pressed against her forehead.
Rae felt herself drifting, breathing in the humid scent of sex and the clean musk from Wulf’s body.
He stirred beside her, adjusting his broad shoulders on the bed.
Wulf wouldn’t fall asleep, not from just sex. He had slept for nearly five hours last night in the bedroom on the Gulfstream airplane, tired from an intense workout and an all-nighter the night before due to a financial crisis somewhere in Eastern Europe that he had had to circumvent, so he might not sleep more than an hour or two that night, not unless he exercised a lot.
Rae opened her eyes just a little, and the sunlight dazzled her sight so she shut her eyes again, but she had seen Wulf gazing out the huge windows at the pristine ice and the fresh powder blowing in the breeze. The slanting light shined in his eyes and turned them bright blue like clear neon light.
She said, “Go ahead.”
“Go ahead, what?” he asked, looking down at where she lay with her head on the down pillow. She could just see him through the fringe of her eyelashes.
“Go ski,” she said.
“I shall not. This is an après-ski vacation,” his French accent on après-ski was perfect, of course, “where we will do all the things that one does after skiing, like lounge around the chalet and drink hot chocolate and watch the snow. I don’t plan to ski.”
“Because I can’t.”
“Because you shouldn’t.”
“Because I’m knocked up,” Rae said.
“And I would never take such a risk, not with you, not with the little stranger in there.” His hand stroked her stomach under the blankets.
“Go ski. I need a nap.”
“I’ve overtired you.”
“Nope. Just been busy growing a lung today. It’s exhausting. Go ski and let me nap.”
“I truly did not plan to ski.”
“You brought your skis and all your gear. There were twenty bags of skis.”
“The security gentlemen all ski so we had to bring their kits, and it would have looked odd to travel all the way to a ski chalet in Argentina without bringing my equipment.”
And Wulf never invited questions about himself. “I’m kicking you out of my bed. Be back in time for supper at eight.”
“Rae, I shan’t leave you.”
“I have to be well-rested for when we get church-married next week. This is supposed to be my sleep-cation. Go away.”
“I’ll stay in the living room. I have some matters to attend to.”
“Do not stomp on the tail of the pregnant mare unless you want to get horse-kicked in the head.” Sure, that could be a pithy, Western saying, even though she had just made it up out of whole cloth.
“That sounds dire.” A smile lightened Wulf’s voice.
“Oh, it is. Go ski.”
“If you insist, my princess.” She felt his lips on her temple before the bed shifted away from her and he walked away to shower.
She lay in the plush bed, dozing and drifting off, even as she realized that, once again, Wulf had told her exactly what she needed to hear and he not had told her why he had been staring so intently at Marie-Therese Grimaldi.
Rae raised her hand, intending to call him back and re-start that conversation that Wulf had so thoroughly, impressively derailed, but she had been growing a lung all day and was already asleep.