‘You look worried.’
Sophie screamed and jumped.
She had no idea how a man as large as Javier could tread so quietly that she hadn’t heard him enter the bedroom.
She backed against the wall and pressed the phone to her chest, an automatic action, which caused him to narrow his eyes.
‘Something I should know about?’ he asked when the only sound coming from her was ragged breaths.
She wanted to smile and say there was nothing wrong but knew her scarlet cheeks would betray the lie.
He treaded slowly towards her with his hand extended. ‘Give me the phone.’
She shook her head and whispered, ‘You don’t need to see this.’
He really did not need to see those messages.
‘I will be the judge of that.’
He stood before her, the expression in his eyes clearly stating she would be going nowhere until she gave him her phone.
She dropped it into his hand, her heart dropping to her feet with it. If she didn’t let him read them it would fester in him. He might make assumptions that were even worse.
They needed to build trust between them, which meant openness and honesty.
But she wished he wouldn’t read them.
By no stretch of the imagination could Javier be described as an angel but those were messages no one should have to read about themselves.
He scrolled through them, emotionless.
After an age had passed he looked back at her, a pulse throbbing in his temples. ‘Do you believe yourself to be in danger from me?’
She didn’t have to think twice about her answer. ‘No.’
He was dangerous, that she did believe. Javier was a man you crossed at your peril. Cross him and he would strike back twice as hard with all the force at his disposal.
His chest rose as he breathed deeply. ‘Maybe you should believe it.’
‘And maybe you should trust that if I thought you were a danger to me or our child I would never have exchanged vows with you. I would have kept our baby a secret from you.’
Silence stretched between them and with it a tension, there in the air they breathed, thickening as it wrapped its tentacles around them.
The intensity of his stare upon her, the swirling shapes forming and darkening the light of his eyes...
She had never seen it before. Not even when he’d leaned in to kiss her...
Low in her belly a heat began to grow. It spread into her veins and down into her bones, then pulsed to cover her skin with warm, darting tingles.
His breathing deepened visibly but still he didn’t speak, his jaw clenched too tightly for words.
The ache she carried with her intensified and suddenly Sophie knew, as she knew he would never hurt her, that he would never make the first move to touch her. She didn’t know why but she knew it to be true.
If she wanted their marriage to be a true one and not a piece of paper she had to be the one to instigate it.
Gathering all her courage, she slowly turned her back to him and tried to breathe through the thuds of her heart. ‘Could you undo my dress for me, please?’
There was a long pause.
‘Please? I can’t reach.’
She closed her eyes and held her breath.
The hairs on the nape of her neck lifted and her skin warmed as he stepped to her.
At the first touch of his fingers to her spine the breath she’d been holding escaped.
Javier fought to keep his mind detached from what his fingers were doing.
He found the top button, a tiny, delicate creation, and, careful not to touch her milky skin, undid it.
Then he unbuttoned the one below and the one below that, not allowing even a breath of air into his lungs as he worked.
When he reached the final button at the base of her spine, he stepped back and cleared his throat. ‘You’re done.’
Was that his voice sounding so thick?
‘Thank you,’ she murmured.
About to make his excuses and leave the room, she turned back around and faced him.
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