The house was still and silent, and she had never felt peace like it.
Nothing like it.
She had never felt so sure that the choice she made now would be right, no matter what it was. The decision was hers.
She could step out of the bathroom and turn right for the spare room and that would be okay.
She could go downstairs and make breakfast and that would be fine too.
Or she could slip into bed beside him and ask for nothing more than his warmth, and that would be the right choice too.
It was her choice, and she was so grateful he was letting her make it.
His door was always open, and she stepped inside and stood a moment.
He needed to shave—his jaw was black and he looked like a bandit. His eyes were two slits and she knew he was deeply asleep. He was beautiful, dark and, no doubt—according to her mother—completely forbidden, but he was hers for the taking—and she wanted to take.
Annika slipped in bed beside him, her body cool and damp from the shower, and he stirred for a moment and pulled her in, spooned in beside her, awoke just enough to ask how her shift had been.
‘Good.’
And then she felt him fall back to sleep.
His body was warm and relaxed, and hers was cold, tired and weary, drawing warmth from him. She felt him unfurl, felt him harden against her, and then he turned onto his back. She lay there for a moment, till his breathing evened out again, and then she rested her wet hair on his chest and wrapped her cold foot between his warm calves. She slid her hand down to his hardening place, heard his breath held beneath her ear, and turned her head and kissed his flat nipple. Her hand stroked him boldly—because this was no sleepy mistake.
‘Annika …’
‘I know.’ She did—she knew they were supposed to be taking it slow, knew he was going away, knew it was absolutely bad timing—but … ‘I want it to be you.’
‘What if …?’
‘Then I still want it to be you.’
Her virginity, in that moment, was more important to Ross than it was to her. To him it denoted a commitment that he thought he wasn’t capable of making, yet he had never felt more sure in his life.
She traced his lovely length to the moist tip, and then he lifted her head, gently pulled at her hair so that he could kiss her. His hand was on her breast, warming it, holding its weight. Then he was stroking her inside, her warm centre was moist, and she was glad his mouth had left hers because she wanted to bite on her lip.
He kissed her low in the neck, a deep, slow kiss, and he was restraining himself in case he bruised her, but she wanted his bruise, so she pushed at his head, rocking a little against him as his lips softly branded her.
‘Put something on,’ she begged, because she wanted to part her legs so badly.
‘Are you sure?’ It was the right thing to say, but it seemed stupid, and Annika clearly thought the same.
‘Yes!’ she begged. ‘Just put something on.’
He was nuzzling at her breasts now, as his fingers still slid inside her, and his erection was there too, heavy on her inner thigh, teasing her as his other hand frantically patted at the bedside drawer.
She was desperate.
Little flicks of electricity showered her body. She was wanton as he suckled at her breast and searched unseeing in the drawer. Then she held him again, because she wanted to. She took his tip and slid it over her, and he moaned in hungry regret because he wanted to dive in. Side by side they explored each other’s bodies as still he searched for a condom.
‘Here …’ He waved it as if he had found the golden ticket, his hand shaking as he wrestled with the foil.
Still she held him, slid him over and over the place he wanted to be till it was almost cruel. He was so hard, so close, and she didn’t want him sheathed. She wanted to see and feel—but he had a shred of logic and he used it. He sheathed himself more quickly than he ever had, but he didn’t dive in, because he didn’t want to hurt her. He claimed her breast again with his mouth, and she cupped him and stroked him again. She teased him, but she could only tease for so long—and then she got her reaction: he was gently in. She was breaking every ingrained rule and it felt divine.
‘Did I hurt you?’ he checked.
‘Not yet.’
And he swore to himself that he wouldn’t.
Yes, he’d made that promise more than a few times before, but this time he hoped he meant it.
She wanted more, and he pushed so hard into her that she had to lie back. She wanted to accommodate him, to orientate herself to the new position. Those little flicks of electricity had merged into a surge—she couldn’t breathe. He was bucking inside her and she was frantic. She thought she might swear, or cry out his name, but she held back from that. She could feel his rip of release and she wanted to scream, but she wouldn’t allow herself. She bit on his shoulder instead, sucked his lovely salty flesh and joined him—almost.
Not with total abandon, because she didn’t yet know what that was, but she joined him with a rare freedom she had never envisaged.
Then, after, he waited.
As she fell asleep, still he waited.
For the thump of regret, the sting of shame, for him to convince himself that he was just a bastard—but it never came.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HE WAS a very patient teacher—and not just in the bedroom. Round and round the field she bobbed, trot, trot, and she even, to her glee, got to gallop. Then Ross showed her the sitting trot, in which her bottom wasn’t to lift out of the seat. He did it with no hands, made it look so easy, but it was actually hard work.
Around Ross she was always starving.
‘It’s all the exercise!’
She laughed at her own little joke and he kissed her. Then, when she wanted so much more than a kiss, very slowly he took off her boots and she lay back. She could feel the sun on her cheeks and the breeze in the trees, and life was, in that moment, perfect. He sorted out her zip and she let him. In everything she was inhibited—at work, with friends, with family—but not with Ross.
In this, with him, there was no fear or shame, just desire.
‘There,’ she told him, because where he was kissing her now was perfect.
‘Again,’ she said, when she wanted it there again.
‘More,’ she said, when she wanted some more.
She pulled his T-shirt over his head, berating him the second his mouth stopped working so it resumed duty again.
She wanted more—and not just for herself, so she pulled at her own T-shirt till all she wore was a bra. Then she didn’t care what she was wearing. She could feel his ragged breathing on her tender skin and sensed her pleasure was his.
He was unshaved, and she was tender, so she had to push him back, just once, and yet she so much wanted him to go on.
And he dived in again, but she was still too tender.
So she pulled at his jodhpurs and freed him instead.
He was divine, his black curls neat and manicured, the erection glorious and dark, so that she had to touch. Her fingers stroked, guided, and he was there at her entrance, moistening it a little. It was so fierce to look at, yet on contact more gentle than his lips.