to the best that money could buy. The apartment loaned to her was pristine, like something from the centre pages of a house magazine. This house, on the other hand...
They were in a cavernous hall. Javier could see that this would have been an enormous and elegant country estate once upon a time but the paint was peeling, the once ornate ceiling was cracked and he was sure that further exploration would reveal a lot more problems.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said gravely and Sophie looked at him, startled.
‘What for?’
‘You told me that penury was harder for you than it ever had been for me and you were probably right. I knew no better and things could only go up. You knew better and the journey down must have been swift and painful. But...’ he tilted his head to one side and looked at her ‘...you coped.’
‘I didn’t have a choice, did I?’ She suddenly felt shy. Should they be heading up to the bedroom? What was the etiquette for two people who had decided that they are going to sleep together? Not in the ‘clutching one another while stumbling up the stairs’ kind of way, but in the manner of a business transaction. At least that was what it felt like—two people putting an end to their unfinished business.
They wanted each other but neither of them liked it.
‘Show me the rest of the place.’
‘Why?’ She was genuinely puzzled.
‘I used to wonder what it was like. You talked about your home a lot when we were...going out. At the time, it had sounded like a slice of paradise, especially compared to where I had grown up.’
‘And I bet you’re thinking, how the mighty have fallen...’ She laughed self-consciously because all of a sudden she was walking on quicksand. This was the man she had fallen in love with—a man who was interested, warm, curious, empathetic... For a minute, the cynical, mocking stranger was gone and she was floundering.
‘No. I’m not,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m thinking that it must have taken a lot of courage not to have cracked under the strain.’
Sophie blushed and began showing him through the various rooms on the ground floor of the house. There were a lot of them and most of them were now closed with the heating off so that money could be saved. When she and Oliver had realised the necessity of putting the house on the market, they had made an effort to do a patch-up job here and there, but not even those dabs of paint in some of the rooms could conceal the disintegrating façade.
The more she talked, the more aware she was of him there by her side, taking it all in. If this was his idea of foreplay, it couldn’t have been more effective, because she was on fire.
Talking...who would have thought that it could have changed the atmosphere between them so thoroughly?
Her nipples were tight and tingling and the ache between her thighs made her want to moan out loud. She could feel him, could feel herself warming to him, and she had to fight the seductive urge to start mingling the past with the present, confusing the powerful, ruthless man he had become with the man she had once known.
When they were through with the ground floor, she gazed up the sweeping staircase before turning to him and clearing her throat.
‘The bedrooms are upstairs.’ She wanted to sound controlled and adult, a woman in charge of a situation she had engendered. Instead, she heard the nervous falsetto of her voice and inwardly cringed.
Javier lounged against the door frame, hoping that it wouldn’t collapse under his weight from dry rot or termites. He folded his arms and looked at her as she fidgeted for a few seconds before meeting his gaze.
‘Why are you so nervous?’ he enquired, reaching out to adjust the collar of the jacket which she was still clutching around her, and then allowing his hands to remain there, resting lightly on her. ‘It’s not as though you haven’t felt the touch of my lips on yours before...’
Sophie inhaled sharply.
She had got this far and now realised that she hadn’t actually worked out what happened next. Yes, on the physical level, terrifying and exciting though that was, her body would simply just take over. She knew it would. She remembered what it had felt like to be touched by him, the way he had made her whole body ignite in a burst of red-hot flame.
How much more glorious would it feel to actually make love with him...?
She was nervous, yes, thrillingly so at the prospect of making love with him. But there were other things...things that needed to be discussed...and now that the time had come she wondered whether she would be able to open up to him.
‘I’m...I’m not nervous about...about...’
‘Going to bed with me? Being touched all over by me? Your breasts and nipples with my tongue? Your belly...?’ He loved the fluttering of her eyes as she listened, the way her tongue darted out to moisten her lips and the way she was breathing just a little faster; tiny, jerky breaths that were an unbelievable turn-on because they showed him what she was feeling. He doubted that she could even put into words what she was feeling because...
Because of her inherent shyness. It almost made him burst out laughing because she was far from shy. She was a widow who had been through the mill.
‘I’m not nervous about any of that!’ Sophie glared at him. ‘Not really.’
‘You’re as jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof, Sophie. If that’s not nerves, then I don’t know what is.’
‘I need to talk to you,’ she said jerkily and watched as the shutters instantly came down over his beautiful eyes.
‘Is this the part where you start backtracking?’ he asked softly. ‘Because I don’t like those sorts of games. You did a runner on me once before and I wouldn’t like to think that I’m in line for a repeat performance...’
Sophie chewed her lip nervously. To open up would expose so much and yet how could she not?
How else would she be able to explain away the fact that she was still a virgin?
A virgin widow. It wasn’t the first time that she’d wanted to laugh at the irony of that. Laugh or cry. Maybe both.
Would he even notice that she was a virgin? He would know that she lacked experience but would he really notice just how inexperienced she truly was?
Could she pretend?
‘I’m not backtracking.’ She glanced up the stairs and then began heading up, glancing over her shoulder just once. At the top of the staircase, she eased the jacket off and slung it over the banister. ‘If I didn’t want to do this...’ she half-smiled ‘...would I be doing this?’
Javier looked at her long and hard and then returned that half-smile with one of his own.
‘No, I don’t suppose you would be,’ he murmured, taking the steps two at a time until he was right by her, crowding her in a way that was very, very sexy.
He curved his big hand behind the nape of her neck and kissed her.
With a helpless whimper, Sophie leant into him. She undid a couple of his shirt buttons and slipped her hands underneath
