‘Myles...that is...would you like a coffee?’ It sounded so naked and vulnerable out there that she found herself babbling on. ‘It’s good coffee. Proper coffee beans. I brought them over with a little hand-held grinder...you know...as my luxury item.’
‘Good choice,’ he endorsed stiffly, but she noted he took another small step away from her. ‘I brought a guitar.’
‘Oh...yes... I can imagine you with an electric guitar...’
Like some kind of rock star. It suited Myles perfectly.
‘Acoustic actually.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘The electric sounds better with the amp and stuff, and I didn’t fancy lugging all that paraphernalia all this way.’
‘Right. Of course. Make sense.’
Abruptly, he glanced up and down the corridor before stepping back towards her, sweeping her inside and closing the door behind them.
‘Actually, I think a coffee would be nice.’
The metallic click charged through her, as though they were suddenly locked in their very own Faraday cage. It was thrilling and terrifying all at once.
Awkwardly, she moved across the room to make the drinks, moving between the metal cupboard where she kept the beans to the desk where the hand-turned grinder took pride of place. And all the while she didn’t dare to turn around, afraid that he’d be right behind her.
Afraid that he wouldn’t.
And as she made the coffee and then they sat and made excruciating small talk, she hoped he couldn’t read her mind. All she kept thinking of was that moment, back in that classroom, where he’d almost opened up to her. When he’d told her that being out here brought back those memories.
‘I’m sorry, you know, that I made you come out here. I didn’t know it would be so difficult for you.’
‘How could you have?’ His tone was clipped but at least he was answering. ‘Besides, it wasn’t as though you decided to come out here on a whim. You’d already gone through the process with Angela, long before I came along.’
‘But when things changed, when Rafe got those death threats and asked you to be my bodyguard, I could have explained things to her. Got my mission postponed.’
‘Well, it’s done now.’
No blame, no censure, just matter of fact.
‘I’m still sorry if this is hard for you.’ She swallowed, knowing she was risking angering him again, but not able to stop herself. ‘There’s no shame in talking about what happened...out there, you know.’
The silence was so heavy, so loaded, it seemed to compress the room down. The ticking of the wind-up alarm clock echoed louder and louder, making her heart pound in time to its ominous beat.
Tick. Tock. Tick.
‘I understand that.’ Myles broke the silence unexpectedly, his tone a little too even, too bright, to be genuine.
As if his head knew it to be the truth, but his soul wasn’t entirely in accord.
She waited a little longer but he didn’t expand. She hadn’t really expected him to.
‘So...’ she licked her lips ‘...would you like to? Talk, I mean? I’m a good listener.’
‘I’m sure.’ He looked at her but she had the distinct impression a part of him didn’t even see her. ‘But no. Thank you.’
‘Myles—’
‘How about you tell me about what happened with Justin? And that tape.’
He just about managed to keep the sneer from his mouth.
‘I thought you didn’t want to hear it?’
‘I’ve changed my mind.’
He was distracting her. She knew that. But he was also offering her a chance to finally give someone her side of events. Someone other than Rafe. Someone who mattered.
Still, she shifted uncomfortably.
‘If you don’t want to,’ he began, but she cut him off.
‘I do want to. It’s just that...it wasn’t exactly my finest hour.’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
Her temper flared and somehow it gave her the impetus she needed.
‘Fine, then how about you tell me what you want to know and I’ll give you all the gory details to satisfy yourself that I’m as wanton and easy as they like to say I am?’
* * *
‘I don’t want the gory details.’ Myles just about kept from snarling. It was madness how he’d spent so many years schooling himself to stay calm in the most incendiary of situations and yet this woman set him off like a match on an oil spill.
‘I get the picture, Rae. You got talked into bed by a guy who should have known better than to take advantage of you and during one of your, shall we say, intimate sessions, you decided to film it.’
He had no idea how he managed to act as though it didn’t rip his insides out just thinking about her with that sleaze, the man who was supposed to protect her in the aftermath of her high-profile father’s death.
‘That’s exactly what I’ve been telling you. There weren’t multiple sex sessions. I only slept with him that one time. That was it.’
‘You only had sex with the guy once?’ He was dubious.
She nodded her head, her body slumping slightly where she stood. Only her hands still on his chest appeared to hold her upright.
‘I only had sex with Justin once,’ she repeated, coughing awkwardly. ‘And the only person I’ve ever had sex with is Justin.’
‘You’ve only had sex once in your entire life?’
She’d said it earlier, or at least alluded to it, he couldn’t remember clearly; his head was still a jumbled mess.
‘Ironic, isn’t it? Given the reputation the press have given me.’
‘You did give them a sex tape.’
He regretted the words the instant they left his mouth. If he could have swallowed them back up then he would have. He didn’t even know why he’d said such a cruel thing. If he hadn’t known better he might have thought it was jealousy.
But that was impossible.
Wasn’t it?
‘I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.’
Her woebegone smile only made him feel worse.
‘Not entirely inaccurate, though, was it? Of course, my sisters played up to it as soon as they realised they might be able to gain from it, not that we knew it would become something as big as Life in the Rawl, and they fed the press all kinds of leads and false stories.’
‘Why didn’t you object? Why didn’t you defend yourself?’
‘I was embarrassed. Ashamed. Rafe would have been the only one I could talk to, and, as you already pointed out earlier, he was away on a tour of duty. I had no intention of contacting him. I didn’t want him to find out that way. I certainly didn’t know soldiers out there—his men—had access to it.’
She looked physically ill. It took Myles an inordinate amount of time to process what she was saying.
‘So that really was your first time?’ he asked eventually.
‘Are you listening to me at all?’ She scowled at him but eventually nodded her confirmation. ‘My first time. My only time.’
‘Which brings me back to the question I asked you earlier: why the hell did you film it?’
A look of pain twisted her face.
‘I didn’t. At least not intentionally. I had no idea the camera was even there. I trusted Justin. I told you, I thought I loved him. I thought he loved me. He told me he did.’
‘He was using you.’ Myles did little to disguise his clenched fists.
If the guy had been standing there, in front of him, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t simply have knocked him out with a single punch.
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me this when we met again in Rafe’s offices?’
‘Would you have believed me?’
Probably not.
So what had changed?
The fact that she was an incredible, dedicated, focussed doctor, or
the way she’d felt in his arms, her body wracked with the climax he’d given her?
‘Why not tell me that night?’
He didn’t have to clarify which night he meant. They both knew. Desire was beginning to move around the room, like molten hot lava threatening to consume her whole. She shifted awkwardly, trying to keep her head, trying not to give into these primal urges that seemed to flood her every time she was with this man.
‘What could I say, Myles? That what you did that night was like...nothing I’ve known before? I didn’t want you to know how inexperienced I was. I felt raw, and exposed, and I didn’t want a repeat of that night all those years ago.’
She tried to keep the pain out of her voice but the hoarseness was all too revealing.
‘So you rejected me before I could reject you again?’
‘I guess.’ She chewed her lip and he fought the urge to capture her mouth with his own. ‘I spouted all those lies. But you’re the one who believed them.’
‘I’m not sure I believed them. Not deep down. Not entirely. Not after the way you came apart at my touch.’
‘Is that true?’ she whispered.
‘You were too honest, too giving, too guileless. It was like a completely different person from the manipulative Raevenne of the press.’
Frustration poured through her.
‘Then why did you walk out as though you were so repelled by me?’
‘Perhaps my disgust was aimed as much at myself as at you. Your brother entrusted you into my care. I was supposed to be protecting you, not taking advantage of you. I was acting no better than that last no-mark bodyguard of yours did.’
Rae stepped towards him, her head swinging wildly from one side to the other, unable to begin to tell him how many things were wrong with that assessment.
‘You’re nothing like Justin. Nothing. You didn’t take advantage of me. I was a gullible and foolish eighteen-year-old back then, wanting to believe the first guy, the only guy, to tell me he loved me.’
‘Especially after I’d just made you feel about as desirable as a Christmas sweater knitted by a well-intentioned aunt?’ he offered with a touch of guilt.
‘I’m not trying to make excuses, Myles. I knew I hadn’t imagined the chemistry between us but you seemed to find it so easy to reject me whilst I’d just thrown myself, practically naked, at you.’
‘I was trying to do the right thing.’
‘I’m beginning to understand that. However, I’m a grown woman now. I might not be experienced but I’m also not imprudent enough to be pushed into things I don’t want to do any more.’
Myles raised his eyebrow at her, his dark expression doing little to calm her racing pulse.
‘Except when your brother talks you into having a bodyguard you don’t want?’
She hesitated, then shrugged her shoulders with as much nonchalance as she could muster.
‘Who knows?’
However honest they were being right now with each other, she still wasn’t about to tell him that a traitorous part of her had thrilled at the idea of having Myles in such close proximity again. Contrived or not.
Had it been anyone else, would she have capitulated to Rafe’s request as easily? Or at all?
She had a feeling her response to her brother would have been curter, more direct, and have culminated in her racing out of there before the doors had even closed to the office suite.
‘At least I know I’m not frigid.’ She plastered a bright smile onto her lips.
‘Say again?’
His dark tone had an edge, a sharpness, which she didn’t understand but which dug at her nonetheless.
‘That is... Well, I didn’t feel like I was,’ she stammered. ‘I thought I was quite...responsive?’
‘Why the hell would you think you were frigid?’ Myles demanded.
She wanted the ground to open up right where she stood. A sinkhole that would allow her to escape this new humiliation that she’d brought down on herself.
‘Forget I said anything...’ she began to plead.
‘Did that sleaze call you that?’
What was the matter with her? Drawing attention to all her shortcomings?
‘I wasn’t exactly...as responsive to him as I was with you.’ She echoed her earlier words awkwardly.
‘Because he couldn’t satisfy you he called you names?’ Myles was incredulous and, she realised with a start, angry on her behalf.
It was a heady experience.
‘It was my first time,’ she hedged. ‘But that night with you I wasn’t as bad.’
‘You weren’t bad at anything. Just as you aren’t remotely frigid. He had no right saying that to you.’
‘No. But I’m not exactly...’ She licked her lips. What was the opposite of frigid? ‘Not exactly passionate either, am I?’
‘Oh, but that’s exactly what you are.’
The statement was accompanied with a dark, intense look. Her stomach kicked. Hard.
‘Do you need me to prove it to you?’
His words were so low, so loaded. They slid over her skin, into her body, down to her core. She couldn’t even answer him.
‘I want to hear the words, Raevenne,’ he growled.
It seemed to Raevenne that she was summoning all her strength to answer him, yet when she eventually spoke she barely recognised the seductive, sensual invitation in her voice.
‘I shouldn’t have to beg you to prove anything to me.’
‘You just did.’ He smirked.
And then he was hauling her to him, her suddenly putty-like body moulding easily against his solid, unyielding one, her arms moving apparently of their own volition to loop around his head, his mouth claiming hers.
Branding her.
His, something whispered through him, after all this time.
But he stamped out the sound and told himself this was just about sex. About giving into a temptation that had haunted him for over a decade. It was nothing more than that.
They both understood that it never could be.
CHAPTER NINE
RAW, MASCULINE POWER blasted through Rae, like a towering, cresting wave, and if she didn’t learn to ride it, then she would surely end up drowning in it. He was so much. Too much. She felt intoxicated, reckless, lust-fuelled.
The kiss went on for ever, demanding, insistent, unrelenting. Every slide of his tongue against hers made her body pull in and ache for him.
His hand glided smoothly down her spine, caressing her, and making her tremble. When he trailed his touch over her hips she couldn’t help but shudder, and when he spanned her waist she stopped breathing.
She thrilled to him. To the way he was taking his time, acquainting himself with every inch of her, stoking a fire inside her that she feared would never burn the same way for anyone else. Never had in the past.
Need pooled within her as her nipples grew tighter, strained. She pressed herself harder against the wall of his chest as though that could offer her some relief, but it only heightened the ache. Then he was moving his hand around, his palm against her ribs, his thumb grazing the underside of one breast and she was helpless to swallow back the moan that escaped her lips.
‘Myles...’
‘We have all night,’ he murmured.
She shifted against him.
‘I don’t think I can last that long.’
She shifted as he hooked his fingers under the hem of her tee, pulling it over head and letting it drop...somewhere... Neither of them cared, her bra quickly following. And then his eyes, greedy and dark, were focussed on her naked chest making her rethink the breasts she’d always thought too heavy, too full, to be attractive.
She didn’t realise she’d voiced as much until he jerked his head to look at her with an incredulous expression.
‘Are you mad,
woman? My God, you are incredible,’ he breathed.
When he said it, she actually considered it might be true. But when he trailed a finger down the generous valley, cupping a breast in each hand as though testing them, worshipping them, before lowering his head to suck one hard nipple into his clever mouth, she knew it to be true.
As his tongue drew lazy swirls over the tight peak, one hand caressed the other, and all Rae could do was drop her head back and arch her body into him, pressing herself into his hands, his mouth. She wanted more, but didn’t really know how to go about getting it.
She should do something. Show Myles how much she wanted him. This time wasn’t going to be like the first time when she’d been with Justin, when she hadn’t known what she should be doing, hadn’t known how to ask for what she wanted.
This was Myles. And she knew exactly what she wanted to be doing. Where she wanted to feel him. The urge was so deep inside her, as if it was meant to be. As if it was right.
Reluctantly, she drew herself back, creating enough of a gap between them that she could divest him of his T-shirt as he’d removed hers. The fact that he let her, that he held himself so still whilst her inexperienced fingers fumbled a few times before succeeding in their task, only helped her to feel more in control. He boosted her confidence without saying a word.
Rae trailed her hands down that incredible torso, her knuckles deliberately grazing every muscle as they went, enjoying the ride, delighting in every sensation that cascaded through her. Until, at last, she was reaching down between them and feeling for his zipper; then there was the deliciously naughty sound of it sliding open, and the shake of her hand as she carefully eased him out.
He was magnificent, proud, and hot against her palm as she assayed the solid weight of him against her hand, which suddenly felt so very delicate in comparison. As if she could make him believe she knew what she was doing. His low groan of response was guttural, so primal, that she felt it in the apex of her legs, like a Molotov cocktail to her desire.
‘Rae...’
Hot need pooled, pulsed, ached, and she heard the sigh that slid of its own volition from her mouth as something pulled tight within her. She moved her fingers up and down his length, revelling in the way it flexed against her, making her feel insanely desirable. Powerful. She coiled her fingers around him, at least as far as she was able, and increased the pressure. Another groan from him reverberated through her, pooling at the apex of her legs.
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