Читать книгу The Revenge Collection 2018 - Кейт Хьюит, Эль Кеннеди - Страница 59
ОглавлениеSOPHIE QUIVERED WITH anticipation but this time it was her decision to take things slowly. He had pleasured her in the most intimate and wonderful way possible and now it was her turn to give.
She wriggled so that she was kneeling and gently pushed him so that he was lying down. His initial expression of surprise quickly gave way to one of wicked understanding that she wanted the opportunity to take the reins instead of leaving it all to him.
‘No touching,’ she whispered huskily.
‘That’s going to be impossible.’
‘You’re going to have to fold your hands behind your head.’ She grinned and then looked at him with haughty reprimand. ‘It’s only what you asked me to do.’
‘Well, then,’ he drawled, ‘I’d better obey, hadn’t I?’ He lay back, arms folded behind his head. He could have watched that glorious body for ever, the shapely indent of her waist, the full heaviness of her breasts, the perfect outline of her nipples, the scattering of freckles along her collarbone, that tiny mole on the side of her left breast...
Her eyes were modestly diverted but he knew that she was aware of him with every ounce of her being and that was a real turn on for him.
He’d never felt so alive to the business of making love. Somehow, he was functioning on another level, where every sensation was heightened to almost unbearable limits.
Was it because he was finally making love to the one woman who had escaped him? Was this what it felt like finally to settle old scores?
Would he be feeling this had he had her the first time round? No. That was a given. However crazy he’d been about her, he knew far more about himself now than he had back then. He knew that he wasn’t cut out for permanence. If they had slept together, carried on seeing one another, if circumstances hadn’t interrupted their relationship, it still wouldn’t have lasted. Because, whether he liked it or not, he’d been focused on one thing and one thing only—the acquisition of the sort of wealth that would empower him, afford him the financial security he had never had growing up.
He no longer questioned his motivation, if indeed he ever had. Some things were ingrained, like scores from a branding iron, and that was one of them.
He had no burning desire for children and not once, over the years, had any of the women he had dated given him pause for thought. He expected that if he ever married—and it was a big if—it would be a marriage of convenience, a union years down the road with a suitable woman who would make him an acceptable companion with whom to see in his retirement. A woman of independent means, because the world was full of gold-diggers, who enjoyed the same things he enjoyed and would make no demands on him. He would look for a harmonious relationship.
Harmony in his fading years would be acceptable. Until then, he would make do with his string of women, all beautiful, all amenable, all willing to please and all so easily placated with jewellery and gifts if he ended up being unreliable.
They were all a known quantity and, in a life driven by ambition, it was soothing to have a private life where there were no surprises.
Except, right now, Sophie was the exception to the rule, and a necessary exception.
And he was enjoying every minute of her.
She straddled him and he looked down, to the slickness between her legs, and then up as she leant over him so that she could tease his hungry mouth with her dangling breasts.
He was allowed to lick, but only for a while, and allowed to suckle, but only for a while.
And he wasn’t allowed to touch, which meant he had to fight off the agonising urge to pull her down so that she was on top of him and take her.
She did to him what he had done to her. She explored his torso with her mouth. She kissed the bunched muscles of his shoulders and then circled his flat, brown nipples with her mouth so that she could drizzle her tongue over them with licks as dainty as a cat’s.
She could feel the demanding throb of his erection against her but it was only when she moved lower down his body that she circled its massive girth with her hand, pressing down firmly and somehow knowing what to do, how to elicit those groans from him, how to sharpen his breathing until each breath was accompanied by a shudder.
Instinct.
Or something else. Love. Love that had been born all those years ago and had forgotten that it was supposed to die. Like a weed, it had clung and survived the worst possible conditions so that now it could resume its steady growth. Against all odds and against all better judgement.
Well, worse conditions loomed round the corner, but before she encountered those she would enjoy this night to the absolute fullest.
She straightened, eyes dark with desire, and half-smiled with a sense of heady power as she registered his utter lack of control. She might be the inexperienced one here, but when it came to the power of lust she wasn’t the only one to be in its grip. She wasn’t the only one who was out of control.
And that balanced the scales a bit.
Hot and consumed with a sense of recklessness she would never have thought possible, she sat astride him so that he could breathe in the musky scent of her, positioning herself over him so that he could explore between her legs with his flicking tongue.
She breathed in sharply as he found her sensitive clitoris and probed it with the tip of his tongue.
He still wasn’t touching her, still had his hands behind his head, as she had her fists clenched at her sides.
But the heat between them was indescribable all the more so because of the tantalising promise of fulfilment that lay ahead.
She let him taste her until she could stand it no longer, until her breathing was so fractured that she wanted to scream. She could move against his mouth but there was no way she was going to come again, not like this...
She worked her way down him until she was the one tasting him. The solid steel of his erection fascinated her. She took it into her mouth, sucked on the tip, played with it with her hands, tasted it and loved the way it tasted.
She explored his hard six-pack with the flat of her hand as she sucked, enjoying the hard, abrasive rub of muscle and sinew under her palm.
‘Okay.’ Javier rose onto his elbows to tangle his hand in her tumbling hair. ‘Enough. My blood pressure can’t take any more.’
Sophie glanced at him from under her lashes.
‘You’re a witch,’ he breathed huskily. ‘Come here and kiss me.’
Their kiss was a mingling of scents and Sophie lost herself in it. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and never let him go. She wanted to be needy, clingy and demanding, and all those awful things that would have him running for the hills without a backwards glance.
She wanted to be open and honest, tell him how she felt and declare her love for him, and the fact that there was no way that she could do that felt like an impossible weight on her shoulders.
She sighed, rolling as he propelled her gently onto her back. Balancing over her, he looked at her seriously.
‘Still nervous?’
‘A little,’ she admitted. She could have admitted a lot more. She could have admitted that what really made her nervous was the prospect of what happened when this glorious night was over and they both returned to their own little worlds. There was no way she would duck away from this but the aftermath still made her nervous.
She didn’t think he would like to hear about that.
‘Don’t be,’ he murmured. ‘Trust me.’
He nudged her with the tip of his erection, felt her wetness and gently, slowly eased himself in.
She was beautifully tight. Would he have guessed that she had never made love before? Probably. She would have winced, given her inexperience away. That said, he was pleased that she had thought to confide in him and more than pleased that he was going to be her first lover.
Whatever feelings still lingered for the creep who had married her for all the wrong reasons, he would be the man who would be imprinted in her head for the rest of her life. Not her ex-husband. When she lay in bed, the loser she still refused to hold in contempt would no longer dominate her thoughts. No. Instead, he would be in her head now, and the memory of this first night spent together.
Sophie inhaled and tensed but she was already so turned on that the tension quickly evaporated. Nor did she want him treating her like a piece of china that could shatter into a thousand pieces if he happened to be just a little too rough.
She wanted him to thrust long and deep into her. She wanted his urgency.
‘Move faster...’ she moaned.
It was all the invitation Javier needed. He was unbelievably aroused. Holding on had required a superhuman feat of willpower because having her touch him had driven him wild.
He began moving with expert assurance, felt her wince as he drove deeper, then gradually relax as he picked up pace until their bodies were moving in harmony, as sweet as the coming together of the chords of a song.
Still, he refused to satisfy himself at her expense, waiting until her rhythm was inexorably building and he could feel her fingers dig into the small of his back and knew that she had raised her legs, wrapped them around his waist, all the better to receive him...
Sophie came, spinning off to a different world where nothing existed but her body and its powerful, shattering responses. She was distantly aware of Javier arching up, his whole body tensing as he reached orgasm.
Apart yet inextricably joined. She had never felt closer to anyone in her entire life. And it wasn’t just because of the sex. Somewhere in the core of her she knew that it was what it was because of what she felt. She couldn’t disentangle her emotions from her responses. The two were inextricably linked.
Not good. Yet so right. She couldn’t imagine feeling anything like this for anyone else, ever, and that scared her because when this was over she would have no choice but to pick up the pieces and move on. She would have to put him behind her and one day find herself a partner because she couldn’t envisage spending the rest of her life on her own.
She was lying in the crook of his arm, both of them staring upwards. His breathing was thick and uneven and with a little chuckle he swung her onto her side so that they were now facing one another, their bodies pressed together.
Somewhere along the line he had disposed of the condom. He was a very generously built man, however, and even with his erection temporarily subsided she was still aware of his thick length against her, stirring her, although she was aching a little and as tired as if she had run a marathon at full tilt.
She wondered what the protocol was for a one-night stand. She couldn’t leap out of bed, stroll to get her clothes and head for the door, having thanked him for a good time, because it was her house. Which meant that she would have to rely on him to make the first move, and that made her feel a little awkward, because she didn’t want him to imagine that she was hanging around, waiting for an encore.
She was afraid to carry on being intimate, in these most intimate of circumstances, because she didn’t want him to guess the depth of her feelings for him.
She wanted to maintain her dignity. It wasn’t just a case of self-preservation, but on a more realistic level: he now had a slice of the family company. He might decide to take a back seat now that they had made love and completion had been established, might disappear never to be seen again, but on the small chance that she bumped into him at some point in the future the last thing she needed was for him to know her feelings. If she bumped into him, she wanted him to think that she had been as detached from the whole experience, on an emotional level, as he had been. She wanted to be able to have a conversation with him, with her head held high, and preferably with a man on her arm.
‘So,’ Javier drawled, breaking the silence and stroking her hair away from her face.
‘So...’ Sophie cleared her throat and offered him a bright smile. ‘That was very nice.’
Javier burst out laughing. ‘That’s a first,’ he informed her wryly. ‘I’ve never had a woman tell me afterwards that the sex was “very nice”.’
Sophie didn’t want to think about the women he had bedded or what sexy little conversations they had had post–making love.
‘You don’t have to tell me that.’ She was going to keep it light, brace herself for when he levered himself out of bed and began getting dressed. She didn’t think he’d be spending the night.
‘No?’
‘I already have a picture in my head of the sort of women you, er, entertain and I guess they’d be busy telling you how great you were and offering to do whatever you wanted...’
‘Did you think I was great?’
Sophie blushed a vibrant red.
‘Is that a yes...?’ He nuzzled her neck and then absently rested his hand between her legs.
‘What happens about the shoot?’
‘I don’t want to talk about the shoot. I want to talk about how great you found me between the sheets.’
Sophie didn’t want to laugh but her lips twitched because there was just something so incredibly endearing and boyish about his arrogance.
‘I’m glad we made love,’ she told him truthfully. ‘I...’
‘Don’t go there, Soph.’ He fell onto his back and gazed upwards because this was what he didn’t want. Any sort of half-hearted, limp excuses and explanations for the choices she had made seven years ago. She’d already told him enough. He knew enough. He wasn’t interested in hearing any more.
‘Don’t go where?’
‘This isn’t the point where we pick up sharing our life histories.’ He gathered her into him, his arm draped loosely around her. He could touch her nipple with his fingers and he liked that. He liked the way the little bud stiffened in response to the gentle pressure of his fingers rolling it. And he liked what that did to his body, the way it made him feel as though he could keep going indefinitely, his body resting between bouts of lovemaking only long enough to build back up the vigour to carry on.
After sex, no matter how good the sex had been, his instinct had always been to get out of bed as fast as he could and have a shower, his mind already racing ahead to work and business, deals that had to be done.
He’d never been one for hanging around between the sheets, chewing the fat and talking about a future that wasn’t going to happen.
But he wanted to hang around between the sheets now.
Minus the chat.
He’d managed, just, to relegate her loser ex-husband to a box somewhere in his head that he could safely ignore. The last thing he wanted was for her to begin recapping her past, forcing him to confront the unpalatable truth that, whether she had come to him a virgin or not, she had still ditched him for someone else and probably still loved that someone else, even though the man in question had failed to deliver.
‘No,’ she agreed quickly. ‘I was simply going to say that it’s probably a good idea if you head back now. Unfortunately...’ she gave a derisive laugh ‘...the guest bedrooms aren’t exactly made up for visiting crowds. No crisp white sheets and fluffy towels, I’m afraid.’
She began to slip her legs over the side of the bed and he tugged her back against him.
He wasn’t ready for her to leave just yet. He hadn’t quite got his fill of her. Surprising, all things considered, but nevertheless true. And he didn’t want to give her time to think things over. He wanted her warm, ripe and soft like she was now; yielding.
‘I’m not sure I can face the horror story of a long drive back to London,’ he murmured, curving his big body against hers and pushing his thigh between her legs.
‘There are hotels,’ Sophie told him as her heart gave a silly little leap in her chest.
She didn’t want him to go. It was exhausting pretending that she didn’t care one way or another.
‘This may be the back of beyond for you,’ she carried on, ‘compared to London, but we still have our fair share of excellent hotels. All come complete with mod cons like clean sheets, windows that open and no lingering smell of mustiness from being shut up for too long.’
Javier burst out laughing. He’d forgotten how funny she could be and that was something that hadn’t been apparent over the past few weeks.
Probably over the past few years, he thought, sobering up.
‘Bit of a trek going to a hotel,’ he murmured. ‘That would entail me getting up, getting dressed...and who’s to say that they aren’t all full?’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I could always save myself the hassle and spend the night here,’ he told her.
‘Some of the bedrooms... Well, I guess I could make up the one at the end of the corridor. It’s shocking to think how fast things have gone downhill here...’ She sighed. ‘It’s as if the whole place was glued together with sticking plaster and then, one day, someone tugged some of the plaster off and everything else just came down with it. Like a house of cards being toppled. I can’t imagine the stress my dad had been living under for ages. It’s as well he’s not alive to see the way the house has gone downhill. And it’s a blessing that Mum is down in Cornwall. She honestly doesn’t know the half of what’s been going on here.’ She pulled back and looked at him gravely. ‘Sorry. I forgot you don’t like conversing between the sheets.’
‘That’s not what I said,’ Javier felt constrained to mutter. But she had hit the nail on the head. It was all tied in with his driving need to focus on the essentials—work and financial security. For the first time, he found himself projecting to places beyond those confines, the sort of places most people seemed ridiculously keen to occupy, places which he had shunned as irrelevant. ‘How can your mother not know what’s been happening here?’ he found himself asking. ‘How often do you go down to Cornwall to visit her? She surely must return here on occasion?’
‘Are you really interested? Because you don’t have to ask a load of questions just because you happen to be staying on here for a few more hours.’
‘So you’re going to put me up?’
Sophie shrugged. ‘It’s no bother for me.’
‘Good, because I’d quite like to have a look around the house in the morning—see how bad it is in the unforgiving light of day.’
‘Why?’ She propped herself up on one elbow and stared down at him.
‘Curiosity. You were explaining the mystery of how it is that your mother doesn’t know the situation here.’
‘Would you like something to eat? To drink?’
‘I’m fine here.’
But, even to her, chatting like this in bed felt weirdly intimate and she could understand why he avoided doing it. It would be easy to find herself being seduced into all sorts of cosy, inappropriate feelings, into thinking this was more than it actually was.
‘Well, I’m starved,’ she declared briskly, disentangling herself from him and scrambling for the door so that she could head to the bathroom for a shower.
Caught on the back foot, Javier frowned as he watched her hastily departing figure.
Since when did women turn down invitations from him to stay in bed—talking?
Actually, since when had he made a habit of issuing invitations to women to stay in bed, talking?
He levered himself out and strolled to the bathroom which was a couple of doors along. He was surprised that the bedrooms weren’t all en suite and then surmised that the house predated such luxuries and, somewhere along the line, it had become too costly to have them installed.
He pushed open the door to the succulent sight of her bending over the bath to test the water.
Her hair was swept over one shoulder, the tips almost touching the water in the bath. She had one hand on the mixer tap, the other gripping the side of the cast-iron claw-foot bath. He could see the low hang of one breast swinging as she adjusted the temperature of the water, and he moved to stand behind her, grinning as she gave a little squeak when he straddled her from behind, cupping both breasts with his hands.
‘Couldn’t resist,’ he murmured into her hair as she straightened and leant into him so that her back was pressed against his torso.
He massaged her breasts and bent to nibble and kiss the slender column of her neck. With a sigh of contentment, Sophie closed her eyes and covered his hands with hers.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked thickly.
‘Is there any doubt?’
‘I was just going to have a bath...then maybe get something for us to eat.’
‘I have all I want to eat right here, right now...’
Sophie moaned softly at the provocative image that hoarsely spoken statement planted in her head.
They hadn’t talked at all. Not really. Not about the one thing they needed to talk about. Which was what happened next. She knew that she shouldn’t be sinking into his arms like this, should be maintaining some distance, but her body was turning to liquid as he continued to assault her senses.
She could have locked the door, of course, but somehow that would have felt silly and childish after they had just finished making love.
And maybe, she thought weakly, there was a part of her that wouldn’t have wanted to stop him from coming into the bathroom anyway.
She breathed in sharply as his wicked hand drifted lower. Now he was just caressing one breast, playing with the pulsing, pink nipple while his other hand roamed over her ribcage, exploring downwards at a leisurely pace.
‘Spread your legs,’ he instructed softly and Sophie obeyed, as weak as a kitten.
She knew what he was going to do, yet she still gasped as he immediately found the swollen bud of her clitoris with the flat of his finger.
He knew just how to rub her there, applying just the right amount of pressure. His fingers were devastating. She could feel her wetness on his hand, and she reached behind her to hold his erection, although the angle was awkward and she couldn’t begin to do half as much as she would have liked to.
And she didn’t have time.
Because the rhythm of his touching grew faster, his fingers sending a million darting sensations flowing through her body until she was rocking under the impact of an orgasm, bucking against his hand, unable to contain her low groaning cries as she reached the point of utter physical fulfilment.
She spun round, blindly kissed his neck, just as he had done to her only minutes previously, and then she knelt in front of him, tossing her hair behind her, and took his rock-hard bigness into her mouth.
He tasted...like heaven.
She sucked him and he curled his fingers into her hair. She could feel his loss of self-control as she continued, sucking and licking him at the same time, her slender fingers gripping his erection, moving and massaging, working her own rhythm.
Javier had never felt so wildly out of control before. She was exciting him in ways no other woman ever had and he could no more control his own orgasm than he could have stopped the sun from rising or setting.
Spent, he pulled her back to her feet and for a few seconds their bodies were entwined into beautiful, sated pleasure, the aftermath of their physical satisfaction.
‘I might have to share that oversized bath with you,’ he murmured, tilting her face so that he could gently kiss her on her mouth.
Sophie smiled, as content as a cat in possession of a full tub of cream.
This was just the sort of thing he might take for granted, think nothing of, but she was so scared of taking yet another step into him...into losing herself in a non-relationship that wasn’t going anywhere and never would.
But what was the harm in having a bath with him? What was the harm in another first experience?
‘Okay.’
‘And then you can cook something for me to eat.’ He had never uttered those words to any woman before.
‘Don’t expect cordon bleu food,’ Sophie warned him in alarm and he laughed.
‘Beans on toast would be fine.’
Sophie lowered herself into the water a little self-consciously, drawing her knees up as he took the other end. It was an enormous bath, easily accommodating the both of them, and he made a few approving noises as he settled into the water, pulling her legs out to tangle with his, looking for the inevitable signs of deterioration in the fabric of the building as he was now accustomed to doing after only a short space of time.
‘Really?’ she couldn’t help but ask drily. Once upon a time, perhaps, but he was no longer a ‘beans on toast’ kind of guy.
‘And then you can tell me about your mother and how you’ve managed to keep this situation from her.’
He stroked her calf, which sent a frisson rippling through her body. She literally couldn’t seem to get enough of him and she marvelled at her body’s capacity to rouse itself at the speed of light, from satiated, pleasant torpor to wakening hunger to be touched again.
‘And then we can talk about this house, which appears to be on the point of collapse. But before all that you can wriggle up and turn round so that I can begin soaping you...’
* * *
Sophie looked at the newspaper spread out on the kitchen table in front of her.
It had been that easy to become accustomed to having him around. It had felt so natural. Working in London, having him in and out of the office, going through paperwork with him, sitting in on interviews, being consulted on absolutely everything to do with the company...
And then, when they were on their own, those precious times when they would talk, laugh, make love...
The company had picked up in the space of just a few short months. Swept along on the coat-tails of Javier and his remarkable reputation, business that had been lost to competitors was gradually returning and returning customers were treated to reward schemes that secured their loyalty.
Little changes had been incremental and she marvelled at how simple some of the solutions were to turn the company around.
With profit came money to start working on the house. And the profits had also secured Oliver’s release from the work he had never enjoyed doing.
He had returned to America to become a sports teacher at one of the prestigious private schools.
Everything had slotted into place and, of course, she had grown complacent.
Who wouldn’t have?
She had actually begun secretly to see a future for them, even though he never, ever made plans; never, ever mentioned doing anything with her at some point in the future.
The one-night stand had grown into a relationship that was now almost four months old.
They hadn’t talked about Christmas but she could envisage them spending at least a part of it together.
All told, hope, that dangerous emotion, had begun to take root. Loving him had taken away her objectivity, made her vulnerable to all kinds of foolish thoughts about them having a proper relationship, a relationship in which he might actually be persuaded to try to make a go of it, persuaded to think about commitment.
It was her own fault for not listening to the dictates of common sense...
No sooner had she told herself that she had to maintain some sort of emotional distance than she had hurled herself headlong into a relationship that was the equivalent of a minefield.
And this was where it had got her.
She was driven to stare at the picture occupying a large portion of the tabloid newspaper she had bought on the spur of the moment from the local newsagent. Lord knew, she wasn’t much of a newspaper reader. She had an app on her mobile that kept her fully updated with what was happening in the world.
The picture had been taken at a London gallery opening. She hadn’t even known that Javier had been invited. Ensconced in Yorkshire, where she had been for the past couple of weeks, getting the local offices in order and supervising decorating and refurbishment, she had seen him in fits and starts.
She looked forward to his arrivals with eager, edge-of-seat anticipation. She dressed in clothes she imagined him ripping off. She no longer felt constrained to hide how much he turned her on. Lust and the physical side of things were the only things that were out in the open between them.
She knew how much he wanted her and he knew how much she wanted him.
And he was going to be arriving any minute now. She had cooked and could smell it wafting aromatically from the kitchen, which had seen recent updates and now functioned the way it once had, with everything working and in spanking new condition.
She neatly folded the paper and then hovered until, at seven promptly, she heard the insistent buzz of the doorbell. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply to calm her shaky nerves.
She found that she’d even memorised the way he rang the doorbell, as if he couldn’t wait to stride into the house, shedding his coat even as he reached to scoop her towards him.
She still hadn’t become accustomed to that first sight of him. Even if she’d seen him the evening before, even if she’d seen him five minutes before, he still always blew her mind and took her breath away.
As always when he drove up north—quitting work earlier than he normally would because, he had confessed, those few hours behind the wheel of his car afforded him a certain amount of freedom which he deeply valued—he arrived still in his suit.
Minus jacket, which, she knew, he would have flung into the back seat of the car, oblivious to the fact that what he treated with such casual indifference had cost more than most people earned in a month.
‘Have I told you that I missed you...?’ Javier growled, closing the space between them in one fluid stride.
He had. It had been three days and he’d gone to sleep every evening with an erection and woken up with one. Not even those sexy phone calls late at night to her had been able to do the trick. There was only so much pleasure to be had satisfying himself.
He kissed her thoroughly, so thoroughly that Sophie forgot that this wasn’t going to be the sort of evening they had both been anticipating: an evening of chat, food and lots of very satisfying sex. No, things were going to be different this evening because of that picture.
She pushed ever so slightly against him but immediately weakened as he plundered her mouth, driving her back until she was pressed against the wall.
She’d stopped wearing a bra in the house, liking the fact that he could touch her whenever he wanted without the bother of removing it, and she hadn’t thought to put one on this evening. Her head fell back as he pushed up her long-sleeved tee shirt to feel her.
He’d thought of nothing but her on the drive up and now to touch her breast, feel the tautness of her nipple between his fingers, was almost indescribable.
‘I want to take you right here,’ he confessed unsteadily. ‘I don’t even think I can make it to the bedroom. Or any room...’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Sophie returned breathlessly. She needed to talk to him. She knew that it wasn’t going to be a comfortable conversation, but talking couldn’t have been further from her mind as he dragged at the waistband of her jeans, fumbling to undo the button and pull down the zipper.
She rested her hands on his broad shoulders and her mind went completely blank, swamped by the powerful churn of sensation. Her tee shirt was still over her breasts and she could feel the air cooling her heated nipples. She wanted him to lick them, suckle at them, but, like him, she was frantic for them to unite, to feel him moving in her, free and unencumbered, because she was now on the pill, so there was no need for him to reach for protection.
She helped with the jeans, tugging them down and then somehow wriggling out of them, while he, likewise, dealt with his trousers and boxers.
When she opened drugged eyes, she saw that his white shirt was unbuttoned all the way down, revealing a broad slither of bronzed chest, and he had dispensed with his shoes and socks. When had that happened? Her socks were tangled up with her trousers.
They’d barely closed the front door and here they were, practically naked in the hall, unable to keep their hands off one another.
Hands balled tightly behind her back, she literally couldn’t keep still as he crouched in front of her and began tasting her, savouring her. She planted her legs apart to accommodate his questing mouth, barely able to breathe. When she glanced down to see his dark head moving between her legs, she felt unspeakably turned on.
‘You need to come in me now!’
She heard his low laugh and then he was lifting her up and she was wrapping her legs around him, clinging to him as he began thrusting hard inside her, his hands supporting her bottom, her breasts bouncing as they moved together.
It was fast, furious, raw and earth-shattering. And utterly draining. For a short while, Sophie was transported to another place, another dimension, one in which difficult, awkward conversations with unpredictable outcomes didn’t have to take place.
But as soon as she was back on her feet, hurriedly snatching clothes to put them on, her mind returned to what it had been chewing over before and she edged away from him, horrified at how easily she had dumped all her worries the second he had touched her.
And that was the essence of the problem, wasn’t it? He did things to her, turned her to putty in his hands. He put her in a position where she couldn’t seem to say no to him, which meant that this could go on until he got bored, and then he would chuck her aside and move on and where would her precious dignity be when that happened?
She was so cautious about never revealing the depth of her feelings for him, so fearful that he might gaze back into the past, understand how much she had meant to him then and work out how much he meant to her now. She was just so damned careful to play the adult game of keeping it cool, matching his control with control of her own.
She’d still be a mess when he decided that it was time to move on and he’d spot that in an instant.
The mere fact that she was about to tell him about that picture said it all but she didn’t care because she had to find out.
‘There’s something I want to show you,’ she told him in a rush, having put some vital distance between them. ‘Well, something I want to ask you.’ She sighed on a deep breath. ‘Javier, we need to talk...’
