Читать книгу Modern Romance October Books 1-4 - Мишель Смарт, Miranda Lee - Страница 16

CHAPTER SIX

SOPHIE EMBRACED HER father tightly, holding onto the wonderful feeling of safety that engulfed her for the last time.

This was a different goodbye from all the others they’d shared. Before, there had always been the knowledge that Sophie would return, not necessarily to her parents’ home but to England, somewhere close enough that their lives would entwine again.

Living in Madrid as she intended to do for at least the next eighteen years, that would not be possible.

Then she embraced her mother and squeezed her even harder.

Without these dear, loving people taking her into their hearts and their home, who knew how her life would have turned out? She owed them everything.

And then they were gone, bursting with happiness for their only child, their blinkers well and truly switched on, seeing exactly what they wanted to see, as they had always done and as Sophie had always enabled.

They had watched her perform hundreds of times, blissfully unaware that her heart had yearned to be elsewhere.

Now they had seen her marry a fabulously wealthy man, seen the home she would raise their grandchild in, and that had been enough for them to leave with contented hearts.

If either thought it strange that neither had had the nerve to embrace their new son-in-law, their faces hadn’t shown it.

Sophie turned her head.

Javier was leaning against his giant sphinx artefact, his arms loosely crossed over his stomach. He’d removed his jacket and tie during the horrendously awkward meal they’d shared with her parents. The meal hadn’t been pre-planned. He’d snapped his fingers and ordered it to be done after they’d exchanged their vows and before Sophie had had the humiliation of telling her parents the celebrations they expected were not happening. A bottle of champagne had been produced, the first alcoholic drink served since Sophie had moved in. Javier had stuck to the same sparkling grape juice that she’d consumed.

Sophie thought hard, trying to remember if he’d drunk alcohol in front of her at all, but came up blank. Was he being considerate of her pregnant state?

Somehow she could not believe that to be the reason. Javier would not make a concession like that when he barely knew what the word ‘concession’ meant and refused point-blank to learn it.

But he had arranged the meal and raised a toast to his bride, all for her parents’ benefit.

Maybe he did have a conscience in that steel heart of his.

She sighed. ‘I’m going to have a bath and go to bed.’

He nodded but made no verbal answer.

She wished she could read him but he was impossible to interpret. She had never known anyone so capable of keeping their thoughts and emotions hidden.

Did he even have emotions? That was something she was beginning to doubt.

But she thought she’d seen something in his eyes when he’d given her that fleeting kiss right after they’d exchanged their wedding rings.

He hadn’t touched her since, not even an accidental brush of his arm to hers.

She ran the bath and added a good dollop of scented bubble bath to it, watching the foam develop in the swirling water, determined not to cry.

When it had filled sufficiently, she walked back through the bedroom to the dressing room and armed herself with a pair of pyjamas, her oldest, most comfortable pair. Javier wouldn’t care that they were as sexy as a clown’s outfit. She’d worn her prettiest nightdresses all week and he hadn’t even cared to look at her in them.

She was about to step back into the bathroom when a vibrating sound caught her attention and a quick look found her phone on the bedroom table. A member of the staff must have put it there. She’d forgotten all about it, not having used it since at the hotel with her parents that morning.

She turned it on to find three returned messages from Freya.

She read the first.

What? Sophie, you CANNOT marry Javier. He will eat you alive. Come to France. We’ll take care of you and the baby.

The second:

Call me.

Then the third—the one she’d heard vibrate a moment ago.

It’s never too late. Please, Sophie, for your baby’s sake, take your passport and run. If you cannot escape then just say the word and we will rescue you.

Sophie read the messages with unfamiliar anger swelling inside her.

She fired a message back.

I don’t need rescuing. Javier is the father of my child. I’ve married him.

Less than a minute later came the reply.

You don’t know what he’s capable of. He destroyed Benjamin and they’d been friends since they were babies. His own twin has disowned him. He is unfit to be a father. He’s dangerous. He will destroy you and your baby. Let us help you.

‘You look worried.’

Sophie screamed and jumped.

She had no idea how a man as large as Javier could tread so quietly that she hadn’t heard him enter the bedroom.

She backed against the wall and pressed the phone to her chest, an automatic action, which caused him to narrow his eyes.

‘Something I should know about?’ he asked when the only sound coming from her was ragged breaths.

She wanted to smile and say there was nothing wrong but knew her scarlet cheeks would betray the lie.

He treaded slowly towards her with his hand extended. ‘Give me the phone.’

She shook her head and whispered, ‘You don’t need to see this.’

He really did not need to see those messages.

‘I will be the judge of that.’

He stood before her, the expression in his eyes clearly stating she would be going nowhere until she gave him her phone.

She dropped it into his hand, her heart dropping to her feet with it. If she didn’t let him read them it would fester in him. He might make assumptions that were even worse.

They needed to build trust between them, which meant openness and honesty.

But she wished he wouldn’t read them.

By no stretch of the imagination could Javier be described as an angel but those were messages no one should have to read about themselves.

He scrolled through them, emotionless.

After an age had passed he looked back at her, a pulse throbbing in his temples. ‘Do you believe yourself to be in danger from me?’

She didn’t have to think twice about her answer. ‘No.’

He was dangerous, that she did believe. Javier was a man you crossed at your peril. Cross him and he would strike back twice as hard with all the force at his disposal.

His chest rose as he breathed deeply. ‘Maybe you should believe it.’

‘And maybe you should trust that if I thought you were a danger to me or our child I would never have exchanged vows with you. I would have kept our baby a secret from you.’

Silence stretched between them and with it a tension, there in the air they breathed, thickening as it wrapped its tentacles around them.

The intensity of his stare upon her, the swirling shapes forming and darkening the light of his eyes...

She had never seen it before. Not even when he’d leaned in to kiss her...

Low in her belly a heat began to grow. It spread into her veins and down into her bones, then pulsed to cover her skin with warm, darting tingles.

His breathing deepened visibly but still he didn’t speak, his jaw clenched too tightly for words.

The ache she carried with her intensified and suddenly Sophie knew, as she knew he would never hurt her, that he would never make the first move to touch her. She didn’t know why but she knew it to be true.

If she wanted their marriage to be a true one and not a piece of paper she had to be the one to instigate it.

Gathering all her courage, she slowly turned her back to him and tried to breathe through the thuds of her heart. ‘Could you undo my dress for me, please?’

There was a long pause.

‘Please? I can’t reach.’

She closed her eyes and held her breath.

The hairs on the nape of her neck lifted and her skin warmed as he stepped to her.

At the first touch of his fingers to her spine the breath she’d been holding escaped.

Javier fought to keep his mind detached from what his fingers were doing.

He found the top button, a tiny, delicate creation, and, careful not to touch her milky skin, undid it.

Then he unbuttoned the one below and the one below that, not allowing even a breath of air into his lungs as he worked.

When he reached the final button at the base of her spine, he stepped back and cleared his throat. ‘You’re done.’

Was that his voice sounding so thick?

‘Thank you,’ she murmured.

About to make his excuses and leave the room, she turned back around and faced him.

Her eyes were a darker shade of blue than he had ever seen.

The lump that he’d only just cleared from his throat returned.

Her eyes not leaving his, she took the top of one lace sleeve between her fingers and slowly slid it down her arm, then did the same with the other.

When both arms were free, she pulled the dress down to her waist, pinched a hidden zipper at the side and pulled that down too, then let the dress fall to her feet.

Javier tried to force his feet to move, to leave this room and all the danger charging in the electricity Sophie was creating, but they refused to obey.

And now she straightened, those beautiful eyes still on him, not a single word uttered from the rosebud lips, wearing only a lacy white bra and matching knickers, and the most incredible high, lace-covered white shoes.

His mouth ran dry.

Suddenly he no longer fought his feet to move. Now he was fighting his heart’s erratic rhythm and his fingers’ itchy determination to touch the silky white skin.

Hermosa. That was what Sophie was. Beautiful.

He’d noticed the changes their child was making to her body earlier but seeing it like this now, in the flesh, sucked all the air from him.

In a little under three months her athletic femininity had softened. The small breasts his hands had covered so thrillingly had grown, the flat stomach now softly rounded, her narrow hips wider. She was like a flower coming into bloom and there was not a single part of him that did not ache to see it.

Still looking at him with that open yet endearingly shy expression, she raised a hand to her hair and pulled a long pin out of it. She cast the pin aside as the blonde tresses fell down.

Heavy beats sounded around the room like a drum was playing in it.

And then he realised the beats were coming from inside him, from the rapid tattoo of his heart.

The bra was the next item to be removed.

Now he could hear his breaths too as he forced air in and out through his nose.

Her bare breasts jutted out, ripe, beautiful and more tempting than the apple in the Garden of Eden.

Then she put her hands to the band of her knickers and down they went too. When she stepped out of them, she stepped out of the shoes, naked from head to toe, every trembling part exquisite.

Her shoulders rose as she took a long breath, then put one foot in front of the other to stand close enough that the scented heat of her skin landed like a heady punch to his senses.

She placed a hand on his shoulder. Raising herself onto her tiptoes, she grazed the lightest of kisses to his mouth, then pulled back enough to stare into his eyes, a plea resonating from hers.

As if she had willed it—there was no conscious thought from himself in the action—his hand reached forward to rest on her hip. With no conscious thought from himself, his fingers kneaded into the warm satin skin.

All week he’d resisted the walking temptation that was Sophie, the consequences of their one coupling there in every step and every breath she took.

The detachment he’d been waiting for before making love to her had never felt so far away.

But his need for her had never been so great.

Dios, his skin burned through his shirt under the gentle weight of her hand on his shoulder.

He snatched at her hand and covered it tightly. ‘Do not expect more than I can give you, carina.’ He had to drag the warning from his tongue but he had to make her understand.

If any other woman had offered herself to him like this he would already have taken her but this was no ordinary woman and it wasn’t just because she carried his child.

Sophie was like no one he’d ever known before.

Her face drew closer to his. Her lips parted, brushing against his like a sigh. The sweetness of her breath mingled with his as she whispered, ‘I want no more than you can give.’

His heavy heart lightened although the beats continued to thump against his ribs.

The relief when Javier returned the pressure of her lips was so immense Sophie could have wept.

She’d never known she possessed the courage she’d found to strip completely naked for him. Nudity was nothing to a ballerina but this was different.

This was her opening herself to him and the very real danger of his rejection but she had known she had to keep going, known that Javier had the strength of mind and the willpower to lie beside her every night for the rest of their lives without making a move on her, and now she understood why.

He did not trust her to take him at his word that their marriage could never be about emotions.

In his own way he was trying to protect her.

She did not need protecting. Once, she’d had romantic dreams and ideals about this man but her eyes had been opened. To fall for him would be to have her heart broken.

But her desire for him had never dimmed. This was the man she had taken one look at and felt something inside her move as it had never moved before. Javier had awoken something in her. When he’d made love to her, that awakening had become a life force that refused to go back to sleep.

She didn’t want it to go back to sleep. She wanted this. All of this.

When the hand holding her hip slid round her waist and splayed on her back, the little control she had was lost. Suddenly it was Javier setting the pace, kissing her, sweeping his tongue into her mouth and filling her with his dark taste, holding her so securely that when her knees weakened at this wonderful assault on her senses there was no danger of her falling.

Such wonderful, heady kisses, deepening, tongues entwined, lips moving in a dance of their own creation, sensation fizzing through her all the way to the fingertips of her arms that looped around his neck.

Her mind closed to everything but Javier.

She shivered to feel his fingers spear her hair and then his mouth caressed over her cheek and dipped down to her neck, the stubble on his jaw rubbing against flesh she’d never known could be so sensitive.

And then she was lifted off her feet, her stomach swooping with the unexpected motion, and carried effortlessly to the bed she’d been losing hope would ever be used for anything but sleeping.

He laid her down with a gentleness that belied his strength and knelt beside her, upright, magnificent. Beautiful.

Nostrils flaring, he gazed down at her through his hooded eyes, deftly unbuttoned his shirt and threw it onto the floor.

Her heart expanded as she drank in the rugged hardness of his torso. Javier was the epitome of masculine. Whorls of dark hair covered his darkly tanned, muscular chest and thickened over the flat plane of his abdomen where his strong hands were pulling apart his belt.

Her own abdomen contracted and filled with fresh heat that burned like molten liquid inside her.

There was such sensuality to his movements and such arrogant confidence too as, his eyes not leaving hers, he pushed his trousers down and revealed the erection she’d touched and had buried deep inside her but had never looked at.

Everything inside her seemed to melt into a puddle.

With a sigh that seemed to come from her very soul, Sophie watched him rid himself of the last of his clothing and then he was as naked as she, but dark where she was light, hard where she was soft...

Those whirling eyes were devouring her in the same way hers devoured him, sweeping over every inch of her naked form.

For years Sophie had worked hard sculpting her body to be the best it could be. It had never been enough. She had never been the best.

Pregnancy had liberated her in so many ways, more than she could ever have expected, and now, for the first time in her life, under the weight of Javier’s sensuous stare, she felt beautiful.

She felt like a woman.

It came to her then that she’d been waiting her entire life to feel this way but then the thought was swept away before it had fully formed as he leaned down and set her mouth on fire with his kisses all over again.

She closed her eyes and embraced it, wrapped her arms around his neck to embrace him.

And then he made his way down her body to kiss her in places even fellow dancers’ eyes had never seen.

Over her swollen, sensitive breasts, kneading them, caressing them, so close to her he would be able to see and hear the jagged beats of her heart. Over her thickened stomach, a circle around her belly button, his tongue and mouth leaving trails of fire in their wake. He kissed and touched her everywhere with such expert precision that when he parted her legs to bury his face into her pubis her eyes flew open and, chest shuddering, she was pulled back to reality.

Sophie stared at the ceiling, a feeling rushing through her that she was part of a game that involved painting by numbers.

She was in danger of losing her mind but from Javier there was no sound other than his lips against her flesh.

The thought dissolved when his tongue flickered against her most feminine nub and then she did lose her mind.

Squeezing her eyes back shut, she submitted to the pleasure he was evoking in her, submitted to the pulses thickening and swelling deep inside her and let go, letting him take her high into a land where nothing but white light shone.

Only once the sensations had abated did he move back up her body and position himself between her legs.

Again came the distant thought that this was painting by numbers for him.

There was no danger of Javier losing his control.

He was going through the motions.

He had given her pleasure and now it was his turn.

But, again, the thoughts were pushed away as he covered her with his glorious body and drove himself deep inside her, filling her so completely that she was helpless to stop the cry that flew from her mouth at the sudden drive of pleasure.

Javier adjusted himself so his elbows lay by her shoulders and began to move, concentrating hard as he thrust deeply into her.

He had to keep his concentration.

Otherwise...

A black void beckoned him. It was a void falsely dressed in sunlight, a trick, a mirage, a promise of...something beautiful but which was a lie. It was a void with razor-sharp teeth hidden beneath its seductive exterior.

He had to concentrate.

He wanted Sophie to have the pleasure. All of it belonged to her. He would take his too but his would be the release of sex. He would not allow it to be anything more. He could not.

And so he gritted his teeth and kept his head exactly where he needed it to be and let Sophie’s reactions guide him.

Dios, she was so hot and tight around him...

Do not let go.

Hold on. Keep your head. Close your senses to the woman lying beneath you. This was only normal pleasure, nothing special. It meant nothing.

Nothing at all.

His resolve teetered when her fingers burrowed into his hair and he found her wide-eyed stare, full of wonder, piercing straight through him.

He shifted his position slightly and upped the pace, then screwed his eyes tightly shut and banished the sight of her open-mouthed sighs from his retinas.

But he couldn’t banish the sighs from his ears. They deepened, becoming moans. The hand tracing marks up and down his back tightened around him, the fingers burrowed in his hair grabbing as she crushed herself to him, limbs wrapped tightly around him as if she were melding herself to become a part of him.

He felt her climax as powerfully as if it belonged to him. It gripped him and pulled at him, winding him tighter and tighter...

The sensations were...

Incredible.

Dios, this was like nothing he had ever felt before, stronger and deeper than even their first time together.

He was starting to float, the void right there before him, ready to swallow him into its dangerous depths...

Right before he could fall into it, sanity found its way to him. Clenching his jaw so tightly that only the slightest extra pressure would see it snap, Javier turned his face from Sophie and forced his eyes open.

His gaze burning a hole in the wall, his attention wrenched far from the woman coming undone in his arms, he accepted the rush of his own, determinedly unremarkable release.

It was over.

When he was certain Sophie had taken all the pleasure she could, he let out a breath and rolled off her onto his back.

He swallowed hard, his gaze now fixed on the ceiling, and braced himself for her to say something.

For a long period of time the only sounds in his bedroom were their breaths, both ragged.

There was light movement beside him, the shifting of air...

He turned his head to see her slip into the bathroom.

She locked the door behind her.