Zoe shuddered convulsively.
‘Well?’ he pressed. There was a flare of hot desire in his eyes and the clean male scent of him was a further aphrodisiac. She didn’t need it! She already felt as if she had overdosed on the potent stuff! ‘Answer me.’ The command was issued thickly.
‘Not like this,’ she managed. She sounded like someone being tortured, she recognised. ‘Not—not when you hate me.’
His long mouth curved in what passed for a smile. ‘I don’t hate you. I hate the sin but not the sinner—hang onto that thought while I try to get an answer to my question.’
For a moment she didn’t understand. Enlightenment came when he raised both hands to cup her naked shoulders, his thumbs gently rotating against the tender hollows beneath. ‘Tell me to stop touching you, and I will.’
Zoe gasped for breath. How long had she ached for his touch? Years and years. He was convinced she was little better than a common whore. She should have enough pride to walk away from him. She couldn’t move; she had no pride where he was concerned.
‘No?’ His breath feathered the top of her downbent head. ‘Not yet?’ He felt her flesh quiver beneath his hands. He wasn’t proud of what he was doing. He felt uncontrollably driven. Driven by desire. Months ago he’d recognised the edginess he felt in her presence for what it really was and had taken steps to remove himself from the temptation of her. Reminding himself that sex wasn’t part of the bargain they’d made…that she was too immature…that he’d be taking unfair advantage…
Now things were different. His earlier suspicions of her promiscuity were confirmed. It should have made him turn his back on her for all time. But it hadn’t.
He wanted to put his brand of ownership on her, turn her off every man she’d ever had sex with for the rest of her life. She was his wife, dammit!
He smothered a groan. His hands slid lower, fingers sliding over the upper curves of her partially naked breasts. Blood was thundering hotly in his ears. But if she told him to back off he would.
Immediately.
Walk out and leave her to go for that annulment.
Her skin felt like the softest satin. The firm globes hardening in response to his touch, sending him insane. ‘Not yet?’ The repeated question was thick with his need.
Zoe made a soft whimpering sound at the back of her throat. The lingering touch of his lean fingers, his closeness, were playing havoc with her ability to think. His eyes had turned to smoke, hot with desire. He wanted her. He ignited her.
Aided by his fingers, the towel dropped to the floor. Another step closer, another turn of the screw. She felt a long shudder rake through his body, so close to hers she could feel the potent male strength and heat of him, sense the heavy pounding of his heart. How often had she fantasised about him touching her naked body? Countless. But she had never known it could be this wonderful.
His lean hands not quite steady, Javier lifted both of them and tilted her face towards him. Her eyes were glazed gold, siren-hot, half hidden by the heavy sweep of her dark lashes. She shifted her feet a little, like a sleepwalker. The burning, hard tips of her beautiful breasts were touching his shirt, searing him through the fine material. His body was one long ache for her and he didn’t know how much longer he could hang onto his control. The decision had to be hers.
‘Do I stop this?’ he asked, hardly able to breathe. ‘Tell me.’
CHAPTER FIVE
ZOE’S body throbbed with desire and his did, too—she could feel it. A major miracle had happened! Javier actually saw her as a woman, not as a needy child or a pesky adolescent, and he wanted her!
Add love to her side of the equation and there was no backing off, no denying herself what she had craved for long, empty years.
Did it matter what he thought of her? Wasn’t half a loaf better than no bread? Wasn’t this—him, her love for him—the only thing of any importance?
Lifting her hands, Zoe pulled his head down to hers, her mouth giving him his answer. I love him like crazy, was her last sane thought when, after a nanosecond of stony stillness, he groaned deep in his throat and kissed her back.
Kissed her with fierce passion, ravaging her mouth with his brand of possession, kissed her until she was drugged and breathless, craving the next intimate slide of his tongue, returning it with interest, clinging, her arms around his neck, hands sliding through the crisp blackness of his hair, her body on fire, almost exploding as his hands took off on a hungry quest to explore her willing and wanton nakedness.
His body shook as she lifted herself onto her toes, the eager arc of her hips lifted to meet the burning, insistent pressure of his. She melted into him as though she belonged. His heartbeat thundered as the irresistible force of desire intensified to primal need.
The provocative minx was turning the tables, branding him with her mark. She had made him jettison his self-respect as if it had no more worth than an old paper bag! He had no more self-control where she was concerned now than a newborn baby.
Her pouting lips were teasing now, feathering tiny tasting kisses at the corner of his mouth, grazing down to the underside of his jaw, her elegantly lovely hands slowly parting his shirt buttons.
Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, every atom of his being centred on what was happening here, the feel of her silky skin beneath his hands, the exquisite curve where her hips flared from her tiny waist, the scent of her, the pulsating, addictive warmth of her flesh. In a moment those perfectly formed, sinfully tight breasts would be touching his naked skin.
He was sweating, shaking with need. Lust. Knowing what she was should have had him fastidiously turning his back on her.
She was a witch. Had to be.
He was bewitched. Glad to be.
Those exquisitely delicate hands at last tugged his shirt free of the waistband of his trousers, the backs of her fingers sliding against his overheated skin. Javier couldn’t breathe.
She was offering what he’d craved for long, tormenting months. Months of doing the honourable thing, of removing himself from temptation as much as possible.
The events of this evening had ejected honour right out of the window.
He heard the tiny mew of her satisfaction as pebble-hard nipples rubbed against the tight drum that was his near-exploding chest and expelled a driven sigh that seemed to come up from the soles of his feet, before lifting her in his arms and carrying her with long, impatient strides to the waiting bed with its mocking smooth virginal covers.
She was his wife, dammit to hell and back again!
Her arms clung; she was boneless, fluid. Her beautiful golden eyes were glazed with passion, enticing, inviting, sending him out of his mind. She was avid for what he could give her and he needed it more than he’d ever needed anything!
She was heaven, spread out on that bed. Her long pale hair spilling over the pillow, her lush lips parted as her breath came in rapid, shallow pants. On driven impulse, Javier bent over her and took one rosy distended nipple into his mouth just briefly and then the other, his pulses surging as her back arched in wanton response, her hands reaching for him.
He
