apprehension she had earlier felt when she had seen his impressive size had faded completely.
He was in no rush. He stroked her spine and then, when she propped herself up once again, he kissed her slowly, tasting every morsel of her mouth. Her hair fell around her and he pushed his hand through its tangle and gazed at her in perfect, still silence.
‘You’re beautiful, Sophie.’
Sophie blushed, unused to compliments. She felt as though she had given away her carefree youth somewhere along the line and that single compliment had returned it to her for a little while.
‘I bet you say that to all the women you get into bed with.’ Her voice was soft and breathless and he quirked an eyebrow in amusement.
‘Is that the sound of someone fishing for compliments?’
Sophie thought that actually it was the sound of someone trying to be casual when in fact she was eaten up with jealousy over lovers she had never met or seen.
‘It’s been a very long time since anyone paid me a compliment,’ she told him truthfully and for a few moments Javier stared at her seriously.
‘Weren’t you tempted to get some sort of life of your own after your husband died? Or even when he was alive, given the extraordinary circumstances?’
Sophie felt a distinct twinge of guilt that she had allowed him to believe something that couldn’t have been further from the truth. But then she reminded herself that she was simply avoiding opening a can of worms and where was the harm in a very small white lie? It hardly altered the fact that she was a virgin, did it?
She decided to completely skirt around the whole thorny business of life as she had known it when she had been married to Roger.
‘By the time my husband died,’ she said instead, snuggling against him, ‘I was so snowed under with financial problems, I barely had time to eat a meal and brush my teeth, never mind launch myself into the singles scene and start trying to find a man.’
‘And you must have been pretty jaded with the male sex by then,’ Javier offered encouragingly.
‘Um...with life in general,’ she returned vaguely.
‘And with your husband specifically,’ Javier pressed. ‘Understand one hundred percent—he lied and used you and on top of that managed to ruin what was left of your family company.’
Sophie sighed. Put like that, she marvelled that she had had the strength to go on after her mother had moved down to Cornwall. She marvelled that she just hadn’t thrown in the towel and fled to the furthest corners of the earth to live on a beach somewhere.
She had been raised to be dutiful and responsible, however, and she could see now, looking back on her life, that those two traits, whilst positive, had in fact been the very things that had taken her down the wrong road. At the age of just nineteen, she had been dutiful and responsible enough to put herself last so that she could fall in line with what everyone else seemed to want from her.
‘Let’s not talk about all that,’ she said gruffly, sensing the tears of self-pity not too far away. What a fantastic start to her one big night that would be—snotty nosed, puffy eyed and blubbing like a baby in front of him!
It enraged Javier that she still couldn’t seem to find it in herself to give the man the lack of due credit and respect he so richly deserved, even with a string of unpalatable facts laid out in front of her. But, he thought with harsh satisfaction, who was she here with now? Him! And he was going to take her to such heights that by the time he walked away from her he would be the only man in her head. No one forgot their first lover.
‘You’re right,’ he breathed huskily, expertly reversing positions so that he was the dominant one now, on top of her. ‘I’ve always found talking superfluous between the sheets...’
Sophie sadly thanked her lucky stars that she had ended her rambling conversation before she could really begin to bore him witless. If he didn’t care for women talking when they were in bed with him, then she shuddered to think what he might feel if she began weeping like a baby and clutching him like a life jacket flung into stormy seas to a drowning man.
Javier lowered himself and began to kiss her. He started with her mouth and he took his time there, until she was whimpering and squirming, then he moved to her succulent breasts, nibbling and nipping and suckling. Her skin was like satin, velvety smooth and warm. When he began to lick her stomach, her sides, the path down to her belly button, she moaned with fevered impatience.
She reached down compulsively and tangled her fingers in his hair.
‘Javier!’
Sophie met his darkened gaze and blushed furiously. ‘What...are you doing?’
‘Trust me,’ he murmured roughly. ‘I’m taking you to heaven...’ He gently pushed her thighs open and she fell back, then sucked in a shocked breath. The delicate darting of his tongue as he explored her was agonisingly, explosively erotic.
She moved against his mouth, rocking and undulating her hips, and groaning so loudly that it was a blessing the house was empty. She arched up, pushing herself into that slickly exploring tongue, and cried out when two fingers, gently inserted into her wetness, ratcheted up the wildly soaring sensations racing through her as fast as quicksilver.
‘I’m going to...’ She could scarcely get the words out before a shattering orgasm ripped through her and she clutched the sheets, driving herself upwards as his big hands supported her tightened buttocks.
It was an orgasm that went on and on, taking her to heights she had never dreamed possible, before subsiding, returning her gently back to planet Earth.
She scrambled onto her elbows, intent on apologising for being so selfish, but Javier was already out of the bed and rooting through his trousers.
It was only when he began putting on protection that it dawned on her what he was doing.
The last thing he would want was a pregnancy.
She barely had time to register the treacherous stab of curiosity that filled her head... What would a baby created by them look like?
‘Lie back,’ he urged with a wolfish grin. ‘The fun is only beginning...’
SOPHIE 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
