‘Shh...’ Theo murmured, as if she had spoken.
After lying in complete silence while he had tried to focus on work Alexa had eventually fallen asleep. He had known by the change in the rhythm of her breathing and, oddly enough, having her asleep next to him had made him a little jumpy.
He had managed to subdue his disobedient libido when it had reared its head and he had done that by rationalising it out of existence. He was in an unnatural and forced situation—heading down the aisle and not by choice. He was with a woman whose emotionalism was not the kind of thing he sought or appreciated in any woman—certainly not in a woman to whom he was to be married. And, physically, since when had he ever gone for small, curvy girls? That had always been his brother’s domain.
But just knowing that she was next to him in the bed had kept him awake. At one point he had seriously considered slipping out of bed and heading for a cold shower—especially when those cushions had been kicked away and, like a little mouse gravitating towards the source of warmth, she had wriggled closer and closer until she had been touching him.
‘You were moaning,’ he whispered. ‘Having a bad dream? Or a really good one?’
Alexa squeezed her eyes shut and remembered exactly how erotic that dream of hers had been. Heat was still making her want to snap her legs together.
‘I’m sorry if I woke you,’ she whispered back. ‘The cushions...’
‘Turns out that soft furnishings don’t make very successful fortifications...’ He sifted his fingers through her hair. His body was raging, his libido in full surge—a primitive response over which he had no control.
Right now, right here, Theo wanted her in a way he had never wanted any woman in his life before. This wife-to-be he had never asked for and from whom he knew he should keep a safe distance. Because if he slept with her...slept with someone who was looking for a guy who was most certainly not him...that single act of passion would make the next year even more impossibly awkward than it was already showing signs of being.
And yet...
‘Why did you feel the need to stick a row of cushions between us?’
His hand dipped to the curve of her waist. She wasn’t pulling back with a screech of maidenly outrage and more than anything else that was a massive turn-on—because it was proof that despite all her protests she wanted him. She didn’t want to want him...just as he didn’t want to want her...but their bodies were not on the same page as their intellects.
In a life that was formidably controlled this lack of self-control felt good...satisfying...addictive.
How the hell was he going to endure twelve months of wanting her and banking down his desire?
They were both adults, he reasoned. They fancied one another, and he knew from experience that it was a very short journey between fancying a woman and boredom setting in. He had no doubt that if she fancied him it was something she was fighting to ignore, which meant that the same would apply to her. If they slept together they would rid themselves of an inconvenient lust—a bit like taking the right medicine to kill a fever.
‘Did you think...?’
His voice was low and soft, and Alexa knew that it was no shock that she was finding it impossible to pull away from him when he was hypnotising her with his deep, dark, sexy drawl.
‘Did you think that if it weren’t for some scatter cushions you might have found yourself wanting to touch me?’
‘No!’
‘Liar.’ He laughed softly under his breath. ‘I’ve felt the way your body tenses up every time I’ve touched you and seen the way you slide hot little glances over at me when you don’t think I’m watching you... Except I’ve been watching you a hell of a lot more than you probably thought. In fact a lot more than I ever anticipated...because I’m feeling what you’re feeling...’
‘I never said...’ Her voice was so feeble and unconvincing that she wasn’t surprised when he laughed again.
‘Sure about that? Because there’s a foolproof way of proving whether you’re telling little porky-pies...’
He was going to kiss her—and she wasn’t going to fight it. Her body was on fire and she wanted him to touch it...she wanted to touch his...and she had never wanted to touch any guy like that—hadn’t even come close...
She’d never suspected—not for a second—that lust could trample all over her principles and turn them to mush.
She closed her eyes on a sigh, leaned into him, and Theo, trailing the most delicate of caresses along her jawbone, simultaneously slipped his finger under the baggy nightie and beneath her underwear and into her wetness to finger her.
It was shocking and unexpected, and Alexa wriggled away from the touch, reaching down to push his hand away, squirming free, but knowing that she didn’t want to create space between them—she wanted to abolish it.
She shouldn’t want this but she did. She wanted his fingers exploring her and she burned with mortification. When he slid his hand along her stomach desire held her fast, stopped her from breaking their connection. It felt like an extension of her dream, weird and surreal and somehow not really happening—at least not in a way that felt dangerous or threatening.
Her breathing quickened. She heard herself pant a desperate ‘No!’ but it felt so good. She slid her treacherous, trembling hands over his chest, yanked them away, repeated the caress, this time tracing the broad, muscled width of his shoulders.
The sexless nightie felt itchy and uncomfortable, and she wanted to squirm out of her underwear—and was immediately horrified and panicked by the impulse.
So she fancied him. And he, to her amazement, fancied her. Maybe it was the strangeness of the situation into which they had both been thrown. In fact that was probably it—because if she had bumped into him under normal circumstances, at one of those social events which she hated and which he saw as part and parcel of being who he was, then she was sure that she would never, ever, have been attracted to him. And he would have had one of those leggy, supermodel airhead types clinging to him like ivy. He wouldn’t have given her a second glance.
But here they were...
She tentatively let her hand stray to his waist, and then a bit lower, and she shivered as she felt the massive bulge of his erection pushing against the boxers. It was terrifying, and she withdrew her hand as though she’d suddenly plunged it into an open fire.
But she wanted to touch him so badly...
‘Theo...this is crazy...’
‘Is it? I don’t think so. In the whole crazy charade, this feels like the least crazy bit...’
‘I don’t do this sort of thing.’
‘You mean make love to your fiancé?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I know what you mean, my dearest wife-to-be. But do you want to...?’
‘Yes! No... Oh, I don’t know... Theo! I can’t think straight...not when you’re touching me...’
‘Not thinking straight suits me—and what does “Yes! No... I don’t know...” mean?’
‘It means I find you attractive. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
He’d never had to ask a woman if she wanted him, had never received such a grudging response, but hearing her say that put him on top of the world.
He gradually pushed up the nightie. He was as out of control as a horny teenager about to lose his virginity. Crazy. He cupped the fullness of her breast and then rubbed his thumb over her stiff nipple, over and over, until she was moaning