style="font-size:15px;"> 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
