stared back at her, his features taut, a pulse throbbing on his jaw, hands rammed in his pockets, breathing heavily.
He was the one to break the oppressive silence.
‘You need to step out of my way.’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Sophie, at this moment I do not trust myself to be anywhere near you. Get out of my way.’
Holding her ground, she folded her arms across her chest. ‘No.’
He swore loudly.
‘I’m not moving until you tell me why you left me at the party without a—’
‘You didn’t look as if you’d care,’ he spat back, suddenly springing to life to brush past her and enter the house.
She pushed the door shut and turned in time to see him storm up the stairs.
Barefooted, holding the skirt of her dress up, she pursued him.
She might be pregnant but she was still quick and she reached the bedroom door before he could slam it shut and lock her out.
‘Sophie, you need to leave,’ he told her tightly as he held the door frame, his knuckles white, refusing her admittance. ‘Sleep in another room tonight. We will talk in the morning when I am not so angry.’
‘When you’re not so angry? I’m the only one who should be angry. You abandoned me.’
He winced at her choice of word.
Good. So he damned well should wince.
‘I told Michael I was walking home. I knew he would get you back safely.’
‘You left me there. You humiliated me in front of all those people who were already laughing at me.’
‘If you felt humiliated you did a fine job of hiding it. You looked like you were having a damned good time without me. Now, I need you to go.’
‘I am not going anywhere. You’re not shutting me out, Javier. Why did you leave? Tell me!’
‘It was either leave or throw your boyfriend out of the window. Would you have preferred I do that?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I saw you, carina. With that man. Laughing with him.’
She suddenly remembered the Englishman she’d briefly chatted with, the only bright spot of her entire night. ‘My God, were you jealous? Is that what this is all about?’
‘Right now, I do not know anything other than that I cannot trust myself to be in the same room as you and you need to get the hell out of my sight until I am calm.’
Struggling for air, her heart thumping, Sophie took a step back, saw Javier loosen his hold on the frame of the door and, before he could close it, used the advantage of surprise to push past him and into the bedroom.
‘Get out!’ he howled.
‘No, I will not! You’re behaving like an idiot. All I was doing was talking. Or is that illegal now? Do I need your permission to talk to a man? Or maybe you would like to cover me in a bin bag when I leave the house? And what do you even care?’ she continued, her voice getting louder as she gathered momentum, all her bottled-up feelings rising like poison inside her. ‘I’m just a possession to you, aren’t I? The second-best wife, not as good as your first choice, not as perfect, not good enough to be taken out in public with pride because I’m only a second-rate ballerina, not as pretty—’
‘That’s enough!’
His roar echoed through the walls as he lunged for her, taking hold of her biceps and leaning down to her, his breath hot on her face. ‘Don’t you ever put yourself down again, do you hear me? You are worth a million Freyas. Don’t you see that? You are the most incredible, special person I have ever met in my life and it scares the hell out of me that one day I might hurt you. I felt nothing for Freya and she felt nothing for me and that was safe. You do not make me feel safe. You make me feel things I should never feel and the thought of anyone hurting a hair on your beautiful head makes me want to rip heads off bodies and that’s what I’ve been fighting against since you walked into my life because I know the biggest danger to you is me.’
If a heart could burst then hers just did.
‘Oh, Javier,’ she whispered, a tear spilling down her cheek as she put a trembling hand to his face and gazed helplessly at the eyes that swirled with more emotion than she could have ever hoped to see in them. ‘You are not your father.’
Javier stared at the beautiful, open face that haunted his every waking and sleeping moment and suddenly he was lost.
Pushing her against the wall, he kissed her with every ounce of feeling contained inside him.
Her lips parted to welcome him and then they were clinging together, her arms tight around his neck as he fed on her kisses like a condemned man taking his one last meal.
A desperation he had never felt before overcame him, a need to touch and be touched, and it hit him like a fever in his brain, the blood that had sprung to life all that time ago for this beautiful, incredible woman awake and crashing through his body, refusing to be denied or ignored any longer.
He lifted her into his arms and cradled her in them, gazing into her eyes as he carried her to the bed, marvelling with wonder at the colours and emotions he saw in their depths.
How had he never seen them before?
And she stared back with equal intensity.
Laying her on the bed, he put his palm to her cheek and caressed the satin skin his fingers always yearned to touch.
And then he kissed her again.
And then he was drowning.
Working as one as they devoured each other with their mouths, they stripped their clothes off, throwing them without a care for where they landed, the need to be naked in each other’s arms too strong to care for anything but this moment, this here, this now.
Because whatever fever had him in its grip, it was in Sophie too, there in the hunger of her kisses and the urgency of her touch.
He wanted to feel every part of her, to give this woman who sang to his heart all the passion and love that had broken free from its casing for her.
He opened his ears to her sighs and let them seep into his senses and then he opened all his senses to her.
He was helpless to do anything else.
And she opened her senses to him.
Her fingers traced lightly over his chest, exploring him, her mouth following, her nose brushing over his skin to breathe him in, touching him in a way he had never been touched before.
Every breath of her mouth to his flesh seeped deep inside him to the bones that lay beneath.
