Page 39 of Rio (Knight Empire #3)

RAQUEL

I start charging my phone as we drive back in Rio’s jeep.

As soon as my phone has enough charge, the messages and emails come flooding back, and I see Pierce’s email. He wants me back, quickly, to work on the Santos case. He says there’s no point me hanging around here now that we’ve filed. He’s ordered me to fly back tomorrow.

My heart sinks, and I push work related stuff far from my mind. I don’t want to tell Rio just yet.

No sooner do we get back to his hotel, we barely make it through the door when our mouths crash together, and he presses against me, hands framing my face as his mouth devours mine.

“Fuck,” he growls, in between reigning kisses along my jaw, my neck, along my sternum.

My fingers tug at his hair as his lips slide over me.

My tankini is dirt, just like his clothes are.

We’re both dipped in sinful sweat, and I need to shower.

He peels my clothes off me with expert ease, while I claw at his T, trying to get it off him.

His hands move all over my bare skin, feeling, touching, sliding, tweaking.

I struggle with his shorts, but he’s pushed me against the wall, and is peeling the clothing from me.

“Shower,” I murmur. “Need to clean up.” He falls to his knees, ready to sink his face between my legs again. “No.” My hand tugs his hair, lifting his face so that he looks at me.

“We said we’d shower.”

“I want to fuck. I’m ready, aren’t you?”

He moves to standing, and his cock is wide awake and ready again.

Caraca.

My mouth hangs slack. Here, in bright, unfiltered, strong light, I see it in all its raw, unfiltered beauty. This man is so insanely hot. His cock, so ridiculously, beautiful, and big, jutting out against his dark pubic hair.

My body jumpstarts into arousal overdrive, and a slickness dampens the space between my thighs. His fingers slip between my folds, and he nods. “Drenched, princesa. I want to slide right in and fuck.”

Just like that, so do I. Thoughts of cleanliness fall as easily as my clothes did.

This man, inside me, now?

Oh, yes.

He grabs my hand, drags me to his enormous bed, its white bedding so virginal and pure.

I climb onto it, on all fours, trying to get to the middle, when he grabs my ankle and yanks me.

I turn around, and he’s on me, straddling my hips, a condom wrapper in his hands.

He watches me watch him sheath himself, and when I sigh with want, with longing, he bends down, pressing a kiss to my lips while his big, hard hands shackle my wrists.

“I love your calluses,” I murmur.

He grunts in response, his tongue sweeping inside my mouth and taking my breath away. He lines up against my opening, and I arch my back in sweet expectation.

He slides inside me in one swift, smooth motion that fills all of me. I cry out, feeling the stinging stretch. Then he pauses, stills inside me. He’s heat, and steel, and I feel a few seconds of pain which quickly vanishes as I succumb to his size, and accommodate him.

His face inches from mine, he swipes his tongue over my lip. “You okay, princesa?” He drops a soft kiss at the corner of my mouth.

I feel full. My nerve endings jangling. My erogenous zones filling with blood, my senses heightened.

Our eyes lock, as he begins to thrust in and out, the room fills with wet sloppy noises as our bodies connect.

I jolt each time he thrusts in, my body jerking with each push.

We move together. It becomes faster, messy, needy.

Hands clutching everywhere. Mouths everywhere.

Hips grinding like we’re fusing together.

A riptide of pleasure surges through me.

I feel so close, and when his mouth latches onto my breast, first one then the other, I close my eyes, pressing my head into the mattress, tilting my head back, unable to take any more.

This is more than just sex. More than just a connection. Being with him feels like on another level. Like being in another dimension. Like I’m having an out of body experience.

His hands hook under my thighs, and he lifts my hips, angling them so he can thrust deeper. Just as I’m loving this new position, he grabs my ankle and moves my leg over his shoulder, diving deeper inside me. He hits the spot, and I dig my nails into his back, spurring him on.

The air turns hot and salty, the scent of our heated bodies filling the already thick and heavy air.

Our breaths are ragged, as he continues to drive into me, hard and fast, brutal, yet tender.

I’m almost there when he slams so hard into me, my cries fill the air, and I don’t care who hears us.

My back lifts off the bed while he holds inside me.

He watches me writhe and mewl and ride it out.

When I’m done, when he’s done watching me, he leans down and kisses me. “I love being inside you,” he whispers.

I manage a lazy smile, through the haze, as my body still tries to come back down from the high. I’ve barely had time to recover, when he flips me over on my stomach, his hands bracketing my hips, and pulling me to all fours.

He ropes my hair into his hand, and slams into me from behind, tugging my head back.

Shock knocks the wind from my lungs. Shock, and how fully he fills me again.

Tiny ripples of delight spread out from my core.

My legs feel like jelly, my breasts heavy, and tomorrow, I know I’m going to be sore down there, but in this moment, that doesn’t matter.

Rio fills me with so much pleasure, I can scarcely breath.

He rides me hard, and deep, and I lean on my elbows, while we go at it again.

The room fills with the slap of wet skin, his grunts and curses, my mewls and sighs.

“Are we together, princesa?” he asks, his balls slamming into me.

I’m not coherent enough to process what he’s asking. “Huh?”

“You and me? Are we together, or still playing games?”

“Not … a … game,” I pant, in between his thrusts.

“ This . This is what I dreamed of, princesa.”

“Me too. Ever since the ...the … Manhattan ... Blue .... bell ...” I manage to say, as the pleasure builds, all over again, and again.

***

I’m lying in Rio’s bed.

It’s something I’ve dreamed of, but I could never see happening. After all the bickering between us, letting go and giving in feels right.

The injunction is filed and the case will proceed.

I keep telling myself that this, what we have between us, is private.

It’s not nothing to do with the law. We hated each other so much, and we believed in different things, but he’s coming around.

He’s starting to believe me, and doubt his father more than ever.

I just have to leave him to figure things out. I can’t be seen to be involved in that. But as I lie in his arms, I feel content, and happier than ever. This feels right. And the silence, it feels comfortable.

“This will complicate things,” I murmur. Never one to completely let go of my working brain.

Rio presses a kiss on the top of my head. “I should have known better. Money is the only thing that matters to the old man. A part of me had suspicions that things were shady. I didn’t realize they were shady on this level.”

“Drinking water contaminated with construction runoff. Locals getting skin rashes from their own wells. Coral reefs dying because Delport rushed the permits and dumped rubble straight into the bay.”

His hand reaches down and tweaks my nipple. “We fucked up, but I swear I didn’t know about it before.”

“Slapping the word “eco” on a resort doesn’t give anyone the right to bulldoze mangroves and poison a village, Rio.”

“It doesn’t. I’ll look into it and I will find a way to fix it.” His fingers get to work again, kneading my breast, tweaking my nipple.

“I hate that the villagers are drinking bottled water and swimming in filth.”

“I hate that, too. I’m going to find that elder, the one at the community hall, and I’m going to look into his concerns.”

“You’ve been here how long? And you still haven’t gone out to investigate?” I should let it go. I need to. This isn’t the time or place to keep talking about work, but a part of me wants to pin him down. To say “I told you!” That’s the competitive streak in me.

“My old man kept me busy, I told you. And you were right. It was part of the process.”

“What’s in this for him?”

His hand stills again. “Money, the usual.”

“At any cost? That’s not … that’s not good, or human, Rio.”

“You don’t know how twisted he can be.”

“I think I do now.”I lace my hand through his.

“I love my mom,” he says, lifting our entwined hands up, like he’s examining how they fit together so perfectly. “She’s suffered a lot and I just want to make things perfect for her.”

I wait with bated breath. He’s sharing something deeply personal and I want to hear more.

“She fell in love with this businessman, thinking he was her prince. She fell fast, and hard for him .”

“Didn’t she ever want to marry him?”

“She did, but he kept coming up with excuses, and she was so smitten, she didn’t push him. It didn’t go down well with her parents, but she loved him so much.”

I snuggle against him some more, wanting to hear anything, and everything he’s willing to share about his past, and his family, and his upbringing. Anything I can get so that I can understand him better. But he doesn’t say anything more.

I intertwine my fingers in his, feel the roughness against my skin. “I thought you’d have baby soft skin.”

“I box regularly. Not just for fitness, but control and discipline. These calluses are from sparring and using the gym.”

I kiss his hand. “I think we found a great way to get fit just now.”

“Babe, I hope we can make that fitness a regular thing.” He slides lower, and we end up kissing again.

In the deep recesses of my mind, I know I need to shower, and that I’ve served an injunction, and that Rio and I being in bed isn’t a smart thing.

“You believe me now?” I ask him. “That there’s been a cover up? ”