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
