His hand closed fully over her left breast, and the air rushed from her lungs. He held her breast, stroked it, cupped it in his palm as if weighing it. He swept his thumb over her tender nipple, the rough pad rasping, until her nipple engorged and stood out firm and plump; then he moved on to her other breast and repeated the process.

Once again her senses reeled. The sheer pleasure of the caress scattered her thoughts, leaving her gasping and grasping for an anchor, something to hold her grounded. Whatever she had expected of him, it hadn’t been…this.

He bent his head and the heat of his mouth, the softness of his lips, closed over the sensitive cord in the side of her neck as he moved forward and pressed his body against her back, from shoulder to knee. Oh, God, he was so hot. She had felt cold, but his heat burned her. She had been braced for brutality, but he slid beneath her defenses with a touch that brought only pleasure.

“I won’t hurt you,” he murmured, his lips moving over her skin as he slipped his other hand under her top. He played with her breasts, stroking them, plucking at her nipples, while his mouth on her neck made the bottom drop out of her stomach again as if she were on a roller coaster, rising and falling on a dizzying tide of sensation.

She had no idea how long they stood there, just that the disconcerting pleasure went on and on. She was lost, at sea without a compass. This was so far outside her experiences and expectations that she had no idea what to do. Pleasure? Her relationship with Rafael was all about pleasing him; her pleasure didn’t factor into it at all. She had accepted that, concentrated on doing everything she could to make him happy. When had a man last even tried to please her physically? The memory was hazy, lost in the years, so long ago that she had ceased expecting any personal enjoyment. To feel it now, at the hands-literally-of a stone-cold killer, was staggering.