Secrets and Sins: Raphael: A Secrets and Sins novel (Entangled Ignite) by Naima Simone Page B

Easy. Try to relax. Don’t fight it,” a sleep-roughened voice murmured. Rafe rubbed slow, wide circles over her back, continuing to soothe her with his gentle touch and low assurances.
    She’d been so preoccupied with purging everything she’d ever eaten—as well as an internal organ or two—she hadn’t heard him enter the room. In a far corner of her mind, it occurred to her she should be embarrassed. But hell, she was too sick to be humiliated. Too weak to ask him to leave. And besides, she welcomed his presence. For the first time she wasn’t going through this by herself. Ethan had been concerned about her, had empathized, but he’d never breached the bathroom door to comfort or hold her. But Rafe had. Even with how he felt about the situation—her, the pregnancy, being in his home. Her eyes burned with the threat of tears. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized she’d wanted someone there. Someone to assure her that she would be okay, that she could get through this. That she was strong enough.
    She sagged to the edge of the tub, exhausted but finally finished. Throat raw, stomach as tight as a vise grip, and legs like noodles, but she was finished. Rafe flushed the toilet, and seconds later nudged a squat glass of water into her hand.
    “Rinse, don’t swallow. I’ll be right back.”
    She followed his instructions, and when he returned to the bathroom with a robe from her unpacked suitcase, she’d just swished the last bit of water in her mouth, washing away the acrid, nasty aftertaste of bile. Silently, he helped ease her to her feet and into the robe. She shivered as the warmth from the terry cloth embraced her, and chased away the clammy chill left behind by sweat drying on her skin.
    He guided her to the living room, slowing his stride to match her slower hobble. Carefully, he lowered her to the couch, and she curled her legs up under her. He tugged a throw from the back of the sofa and tucked it around her knees.
    “Be right back,” he said before leaving the room.
    She stared after him, the “okay” stuck in her throat. A few minutes ago she’d been too busy waving a not-too-fond farewell to her lunch to pay attention to what Raphael wore—or wasn’t wearing. But as he leaned over her, wrapping the cover around her thighs, every sense, thought, and nerve was solely focused on him. The soft swish of long dark hair as it swept forward, brushing his high cheekbone and hard jaw, barely grazing the slope of his shoulder. The dark, heavy scrollwork accented with punches of blue and red that covered his arms and shoulders. The sexy contract and release of muscle under golden skin—skin that stretched tautly over his bare shoulders, chest, and abdomen. The silky trail of hair that started under his six-pack, forked around his navel, and disappeared beneath the waistband of the black sweatpants that rode low on his narrow hips.
    She remembered the strength in those arms and chest. Remembered how he could so effortlessly hold her up as he plunged inside her, stroking, taking her to a place where nothing existed but devastating pleasure and beautiful freedom. Remembered the wide, comforting plane of his chest as he held her close. Remembered how he whispered soothing words of assurance and comfort even as she splintered apart in so many pieces she feared never being whole again.
    The quiver in her belly had nothing to do with morning sickness and everything to do with the man who’d introduced her to a side of herself she hadn’t known existed. A side that kicked propriety’s ass out the door and enjoyed sweaty skin twisting against skin, raunchy erotic murmurs, and straining, grasping, fighting for the rapture found in a man’s arms. No, not just any man. Him. Raphael.
    And staring after his naked wide shoulders and back also inked in dark tribal swirls, his slim hips, and tight ass, that sleeping side of her stretched, awakening from the hibernation it’d fallen into four months earlier. The