‘I’m...I’m not nervous about...about...’
‘Going to bed with me? Being touched all over by me? Your breasts and nipples with my tongue? Your belly...?’ He loved the fluttering of her eyes as she listened, the way her tongue darted out to moisten her lips and the way she was breathing just a little faster; tiny, jerky breaths that were an unbelievable turn-on because they showed him what she was feeling. He doubted that she could even put into words what she was feeling because...
Because of her inherent shyness. It almost made him burst out laughing because she was far from shy. She was a widow who had been through the mill.
‘I’m not nervous about any of that!’ Sophie glared at him. ‘Not really.’
‘You’re as jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof, Sophie. If that’s not nerves, then I don’t know what is.’
‘I need to talk to you,’ she said jerkily and watched as the shutters instantly came down over his beautiful eyes.
‘Is this the part where you start backtracking?’ he asked softly. ‘Because I don’t like those sorts of games. You did a runner on me once before and I wouldn’t like to think that I’m in line for a repeat performance...’
Sophie chewed her lip nervously. To open up would expose so much and yet how could she not?
How else would she be able to explain away the fact that she was still a virgin?
A virgin widow. It wasn’t the first time that she’d wanted to laugh at the irony of that. Laugh or cry. Maybe both.
Would he even notice that she was a virgin? He would know that she lacked experience but would he really notice just how inexperienced she truly was?
Could she pretend?
‘I’m not backtracking.’ She glanced up the stairs and then began heading up, glancing over her shoulder just once. At the top of the staircase, she eased the jacket off and slung it over the banister. ‘If I didn’t want to do this...’ she half-smiled ‘...would I be doing this?’
Javier looked at her long and hard and then returned that half-smile with one of his own.
‘No, I don’t suppose you would be,’ he murmured, taking the steps two at a time until he was right by her, crowding her in a way that was very, very sexy.
He curved his big hand behind the nape of her neck and kissed her.
With a helpless whimper, Sophie leant into him. She undid a couple of his shirt buttons and slipped her hands underneath the silky cotton and the helpless whimper turned into a giddy groan as she felt the hard muscle of his chest.
This was what she had dreamed of and it was only now, when she was touching him, that she realised just how long those dreams had been in her head, never-ending versions of the same thing...touching him.
Javier eventually pulled back and gazed down at her flushed face.
‘We need to get to a bed.’ He barely recognised his own voice, which was thick with desire, the voice of someone drunk with want. ‘If we don’t, I’m going to turn into a caveman, rip off your clothes right here on the staircase and take you before we can make it to a bedroom...’
Sophie discovered that she was wantonly turned on by the image of him doing that.
‘My bedroom’s just along the corridor,’ she whispered huskily, galvanising her jelly-like legs forward.
There were numerous bedrooms on the landing and most of the doors were shut, which led Javier to assume that they were never used. Probably in as much of a state of disrepair as some of the rooms downstairs which had been sealed off.
Her bedroom was at the very end of the long, wide corridor and it was huge.
‘I keep meaning to brighten it up a bit,’ she apologised, nervous all over again because, now that they were in the bedroom, all her fears and worries had returned with a vengeance. ‘I’ve had some of the pictures on the walls since I was a kid and now, in a weird way, I would feel quite sad to take them down and chuck them in the bin...’
He was strolling through the bedroom, taking in absolutely everything, from the books on the bookshelf by the window to the little framed family shots in silver frames which were lined up on her dressing table.
Eventually he turned to face her and began unbuttoning his shirt.
Sophie tensed and gulped. She watched in fascination as his shirt fell open, revealing the hard chest she had earlier felt under her fingers.
He shrugged it off and tossed it on the ground and her mouth went dry as he walked slowly towards her.
‘There’s...there’s something I should tell you...’ she stammered, frozen to the spot and very much aware of the great big bed just behind her.
Javier didn’t break stride.
Talk? He didn’t think so. The marriage she had hoped for and the guy she had ditched him to be with hadn’t gone according to plan. That changed nothing. She still remained the same woman who had strung him along and then walked away because, when you got right down to it, he had not been good enough for her.
‘No conversation,’ he murmured, trailing his finger along her collarbone until she sighed and squirmed and her eyelids fluttered.
‘What do you mean?’
‘No confidences, no long explanations about why you’re doing what you’re doing. We both know the reason that we’re here.’ He hooked his fingers under the checked shirt and circled her waist, then gently began to undo the buttons on the shirt. ‘We still want one another,’ he murmured, nibbling her ear.
‘Yes...’ Sophie could barely get the word out. Her body tingled everywhere and his delicate touch sent vibrations racing through her. She rubbed her thighs together and heard him laugh softly, as if he knew that she was trying to ease the pain between them.
‘This is all there is, Soph.’ There was a finality to stating the obvious which, for some reason, set his teeth on edge, although he didn’t quite understand why when it was pretty straightforward a situation. He was propelling her very gently towards the bed; she realised that only when she tumbled back, and then he leant forward, propping himself up on either side of her, staring down at her gravely.
Sophie couldn’t have uttered a word if she’d tried. She was mesmerised by the compelling intensity of his expression, the soft, sexy drawl of his voice, the penetrating, opaque blackness of his eyes.
Somehow he had managed to undo every last button of her shirt and the cool air was a sweet antidote to the heat that was consuming her.
He stood up and paused for a few seconds with his fingers resting loosely on the zipper of his trousers.
She could see the bulge of his erection and half closed her eyes when she thought about the mechanics of something so impressively large entering her.
But no talking, he’d said...
No talking because he wasn’t interested in what she had to say.
As though reading the anxious direction of her thoughts, he dropped his hand and joined her on the bed, manoeuvring her onto her side so that they were lying stomach to stomach, then she flopped over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.
‘Look at me, Soph.’ He framed her face with his hand so that she was forced to look at him. His breath was warm on her cheek and she wanted to evade the deadly seriousness of his gaze. ‘Whatever it is you want to tell me, resist, because I’m not interested.’ He felt a sharp jab of pain deep inside him but pressed on, because this had to be said, and wasn’t this all part of that wheel turning full circle? That she’d come to him and now, with her in the palm