“And you’re hot,” he whispered in her ear, taking the opportunity to nip it.
Wren squealed. “Won’t be in a minute. We’re going to run out of tropical water and be back in the arctic. You need to be quick. Can you be quick? I bet you can’t. I bet you’re one of those guys who likes to take hours.”
Adam laughed, but in one long thrust he buried himself balls-deep and bit his lip against the intense pleasure that brought. The sensation of being held so tight in her slick warmth made his legs tremble. He began to move harder and faster, slipping almost at once into a frantic, driving pace that would have shoved her into the tiles if he hadn’t grasped her hips and held her against him. No problem being quick. When had any woman or man he’d been with wanted quick?
Orgasm already bubbled in his head, tingled in his nuts and sent electric licks fluttering up and down his spine. Wren’s muscles gripped him so hard when he withdrew, then again when he thrust back, he thought he’d catch fire from the friction.
He slid one hand up the tiles to clasp hers, the other he dropped from her hip to settle between her legs, still protecting her with his arm from banging against the wall. He rubbed her clit as he bent his knees and powered into her body. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Oh my Go…d,” Wren wailed.
Her ragged breaths and tiny cries morphed to a long keening sound as she came and it dragged him the rest of the way over the cliff. Sparks flickered in his head and sprinted to his balls. As though he’d been caught up in a blast that turned him inside out, Adam emptied himself inside her, spurt after wrenching spurt bursting from him until he wondered where it all came from.
For a long while, they didn’t move. He clung to her, frozen in the moment. The last time he’d felt this…good after sex with a woman was five years ago. In Venice. As time passed, he’d tried to convince himself he was mistaken, that the clumsy coupling in a Venetian garden had been great, but not that great. He was wrong. There was something more between the pair of them, a connection he couldn’t explain. He nuzzled her ear, breathing heavily, waiting for his heart to calm.
“I didn’t mean that fast,” Wren whispered.
Oh God, she’s funny and cute. “How can I make it up to you?”
“Maybe you need to practice more.”
Oh God. When had a woman ever teased him like this after sex? “Are you offering?”
“You could buy one of those blow-up dolls and a kitchen timer.”
“Careful.”
Wren reached back to hold onto his waist.
“Let me get rid of the condom,” he said quietly.
With great reluctance, he withdrew from her warm body. They washed each other without saying a word and escaped from the shower when the water began to cool. As he reached for a towel, she snagged it from his hand and dried him, patting the water from his face, his back, his legs, his belly, his balls. Her gentleness brought a lump to his throat. She pulled a comb through his hair and kissed away the water trickling down his cheeks. Adam slung a towel around her neck and pulled her close.
“It’s been a long time since anyone dried me,” he said. “My nanny wasn’t so gentle, though I did try her patience.”
“A nanny? What did you do? Fart in the bath to annoy her?”
“Only until I was seventeen.”
Wren tsked.
He tugged her even closer and kissed her nose. “As soon as I could bathe myself, I was left to do it. My parents had good jobs and paid for a succession of nannies to care for me while they worked long hours and traveled abroad. They saw independence in all things as the way to rear a child and the moment I was able to, I dressed myself, fed myself, played by myself.”
“I had to look after myself too, but not because my mother thought it was the right way to bring me up. She mostly didn’t care what I did as long as I didn’t bother her.”
Adam cuddled her. “No father?”
“Too many.”
Shit. He could guess what that meant and felt unaccountably angry. He hadn’t realized he’d tensed until she stroked his arm.
“It’s okay. They didn’t touch me. She made sure of that, though I suspect not for the right reasons. It was as if I was a ghost. She just pretended I wasn’t there. When I was little I used to think I was a ghost.” She grinned at him.
That she could talk about this and smile amazed him.
“I learned how to be self-sufficient. My foster mum couldn’t believe it when she came down the first morning I went to live with them and found I’d cooked, eaten my breakfast and washed up.”
“Ah well, cooking isn’t something I ever had to do. The moment I left home, I did as little as possible for myself and paid others to do things for me.”
“But not for drying you with a towel.”
He smiled. “No. Not that.”
“I had to bathe myself too with my first mum,” she said in a quiet voice. “I was only allowed a couple of inches of water in the tub. If I took too much, I was smacked. So I stopped taking a bath and someone told her I smelled.”
Her shoulders fell and he swallowed the lump in his throat. Had she told anyone this before?
“I was mortified, but she was furious. That night…”
“What did she do?”
“She scrubbed my skin until it was raw. After that, she made me use the water after her and I used to throw up. When I went to live with my new mum and dad, they let me fill the tub.”
Her face lit up. “I felt as if that was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for me. A whole tub of warm water. Makes me smile now. I think they were shocked I had more interest in taking a bath than going shopping for new clothes. They gave me bubble bath and showed me how to whip it up and then I lay with foam to my chin, an angel playing in the clouds. I’d still do that, but I don’t have a tub. That’s definitely on my list for my isolated beach house.” She gave an embarrassed smile.
“What a shitty childhood you must have had.”
“Only until I was thirteen. My mother worried her boyfriends were showing too much interest in me. I don’t think they were, but she was jealous so she gave me up, let me be fostered. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Adam thought he could have stood here forever in the warmth of the bathroom, wrapped in each other and soft towels. He held Wren tight against him, wanting to keep her safe and knowing he was years too late. He’d had everything. Top schools, the latest toys, the best computers, a new car on his seventeenth birthday, another on his eighteenth after he’d written off the first, a flat to live in while he was at university. His parents had given him everything except their time and love.
“Aren’t we a pair,” she whispered. “I suspect you had everything but the one thing you wanted. And I had nothing and wanted the same thing.”
“They’re dead,” he blurted. “Killed in a car crash.”
Wren bit her lip and nodded. “It’s sad they died not knowing what they were missing, what they could have had. My birth mother’s still alive, as far as I know. She was very cruel, and I still wanted her to love me. When I was little, she used to lock me in a room while she went out for the night. When I was eleven she left me alone for two weeks while she took a vacation with a new boyfriend. I went to school every day, cooked my meals and no one ever found out.”
The surge of fury at the way she’d been treated made his throat thicken. He routinely donated to children’s charities, though he knew money was no substitute for love. He was touched she’d share this with him.
Wren nestled against him. “My life started when I was thirteen—lucky for me—though it took me a while to accept it wouldn’t be ripped away from me. I’d had so many years of being promised things and never getting them, I had to learn how to trust. My new mum and dad never let me down. I sometimes think I trust too much now. But that’s better than not trusting at all, even if I sometimes get hurt.”
His heart ached to the point of pain. And that’s what she was doing now, trusting him with her secrets. He cou
ld guess how much it had cost her to tell him all this.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “Blow-up dolls don’t babble on and—”
“Shhh.” He kissed her. A soft brush of lips and she melted against him.
He knelt and finished drying her, started at her toes and followed each pass of the towel with a brush of his lips. Wren threaded her fingers in his hair and sighed. He reached no higher than the junction of her thighs. She was too tempting. He kissed and licked the folds of her sex, sucked and nipped her clit, worked faster and harder when he heard her breathing change and felt a thrill of delight when she came on his face, her wetness coating his chin, filling his mouth. He’d never been with anyone so responsive.
The way she exhaled his name made his stomach lurch.
The way she slumped, boneless, to curl up at his side on the bathroom floor made his pulse race.
The way she fit so perfectly in his arms made his heart sing.
I mustn’t hurt her. I cannot hurt her.
He carried her limp body to the bed, pulled the duvet over them and lay watching as her eyes fluttered closed. Adam felt he should say something and he wanted to, but he couldn’t find the right words. It seemed vitally important he used exactly the right words to tell her how he felt.
What do I feel?
Happy. Content. Wanted.
Secure?
Then, much as he tried to hold them at bay, because he was happy and content and secure, the doubts crept in. They always did. He might be a strong, controlled guy, but he hid his insecurities well, albeit under the flimsiest of covers. He was happy. At this moment, he felt wanted. But secure? No. He was merely basking in the afterglow of blistering sex. This was not reality. No matter how much he wanted her, Wren would never be enough for him. He could try but he’d fail. She deserved better. She deserved more.
It was his fault.
Everything was always his fault. Memories of being told he wasn’t good enough, hadn’t worked hard enough, that his exam marks were unacceptable, his piano playing deplorable, his behavior abysmal—awareness he could never get anything right made him a failure as a son. A bitter disappointment. The exact words his father had used when he received a report from Adam’s school about his attitude and poor marks. His heart clenched at the memory and he felt a rush of anger his parents could still hurt him after all this time.
He stroked Wren’s cheek and she didn’t stir. “We were both abused,” he whispered. “But in totally different ways. Our parents were assholes who should never have had a child.”
Adam had astounded his school and his parents by not only getting top grades in all his exams but winning two national prizes. He didn’t change his attitude. He was surly, rude and arrogant, but as far as he was concerned, he could behave in whatever way he wanted. He looked and sounded cocksure of himself when the truth was the exact opposite.
“I wonder what would have happened if we’d met when we were teenagers?” he murmured.
A girlfriend might have helped an unhappy young man with his self-esteem but even then, he’d known he was bi. He’d never kissed a guy until he was nineteen but he’d lusted after them for years, tormented at school by crushes on older boys. He’d slept with several girls when he was a teenager, never the same one twice. Once he’d enticed them into bed and fucked them, he lost interest. He knew he’d broken hearts. They sent letters to tell him. Why should he give a fuck? He cringed at the memory of how he’d behaved. He cringed because he’d have treated Wren like the others.
In his early twenties, he found a man and a woman. Except it turned out he wasn’t good enough for Bella outside the bedroom. He thought he loved them both but the other guy was older, richer, with a booming business. Steven had been happy to kick Adam out and the bastard offered to marry Bella. The marriage lasted less than a year. Adam had checked. Steven’s business didn’t go so well either. Adam had interfered. He sucked in a breath at the rush of guilt. Bella walked out when Steven’s money dwindled, but she hadn’t come looking for Adam.
While he was still stinging from Bella and Steven’s rejection, his parents had died. He was forced to accept he’d never hear them say they loved him, or that they were proud of him. Though he wasn’t proud of himself.
He started his own company, using his parents’ money and the computer skills he’d acquired at university, and made more money. He’d learned not to care about anyone but himself and the money kept pouring in. He’d learned to grab his pleasure where he could and not expect it to last. He disappointed himself constantly.
Adam stared at Wren’s long lashes, curled on her cheek. “After my parents died nine years ago, I tried to make myself a new man. Maybe I’d have succeeded if I’d been thirteen years old and had your heart and courage. I’m glad you found happiness.”
Making himself a new man was still an ongoing process, though Caspar and Ally had worked their own little kick-start miracle. At least he treated people with respect now. He’d always known he’d never find anyone to really love him. But then he hadn’t thought he could… He looked down at Wren and kissed her hair.
Was this merely hot sex or something more? Caspar had found his soul mate in Ally. Adam had always thought the concept was a crock of shit, but was Wren right for him? Was it more than pure chance she’d come back into his life? From the moment he’d seen her staring up at him from the floor in Ezispeke, he’d thought of little else. Except Tomas, who’d gotten right under his skin. So did Wren fill his mind because he was shocked to see her again? Because it reminded him of the time he’d lost his head in an Italian garden?
I am thirty years old, a millionaire several times over, in control of my life, my work, but not my dick. What has she done to me?
He had to tell her. “I want to fuck you again. I want your long legs wrapped around me. I want to watch the changes in your face as you climax: need, anticipation, joy and release. I want to look into your eyes as I make you come, not hide behind your back.”
He needed her in a way he’d not experienced before, and he had to understand why. How could this be more than lust?
Twice in two days he’d been rocked by his reaction to another person. Tomas’ features swam into his head, dark eyes pinning him, and it unsettled Adam. A reminder he was bi and doomed to a life of quick fucks with men and women because he couldn’t settle for one or the other. He’d tried before and failed. If he carried on with this, Wren would be hurt. She’d read erotic romances and fantasized, that was all. Big difference between hot dreams and reality. He stared at her pale face and a fist clamped around his heart.
So what was he going to do? Ask Tomas if he fancied a threesome? The guy couldn’t even follow through on what he’d started with Adam. How could he subject Wren to that?
The ache in his chest worsened and he rubbed his ribs. He’d already hurt her.
“I need to think, sweetheart. I need to leave before I pull you into my arms and fuck you again and again until it loses all meaning. And I need to leave because I’ll never be the man you deserve.”
He had to do the right thing, and waking a sweet and naïve woman to tell her he didn’t know what he was doing, was definitely not the right thing. He needed his head on straight before he talked to her.
But as Adam slipped out of bed, dressed and crept out of her flat, he knew he’d let not just Wren down, but himself.
Wren opened her eyes when she heard the door of the apartment quietly close. She swallowed hard and blinked. Tears trickled down her cheeks, feeling as cold as icy fingers. He’d lain next to her—thinking, whispering—and then he’d gone. Why?
He’d said he wanted her but that he didn’t deserve her. What did that mean?
She’d watched his face, seen his pleasure, thrilled she’d made him come so hard.
She’d made him laugh and her heart swelled when his face creased in a smile.
She understood the shadow of pain in his eyes when he talked of his childhood. Really understood.
She’d
told him her secrets. Oh God, she never told anyone any of that, but she’d opened her heart to him.
But it wasn’t enough. The connection wasn’t there. The sex meant nothing. All his words meant nothing.
The pain in Wren’s chest made it hard to breathe. What had she told herself? No more charming guys. No more trusting charming guys. She curled into a ball and hugged her knees. She thought Adam would be different and he was. He was worse because she wanted him more.
It stopped now. Right this moment. Because if she let it carry on, and how easy it would be to do just that, in three weeks there would be nothing left of her heart.
Wren rolled out of bed. She’d never sleep now. She picked up the wet towels and took them into the bathroom. Her attention was drawn to a box on top of the cabinet and she grabbed it. Something to keep her busy.
Only after she’d finished slathering on the hair dye did she remember they’d used all the hot water.
Chapter Eleven
Tomas grabbed his coat and shrugged it on. Marco had told him he could leave even though the club wasn’t yet closed. He slipped out of a rear door into the alley that ran down the back of Cirque, his mind occupied by Marco’s interest in Ezispeke. Was it as simple as the guy needing to find someone to teach English to the women he trafficked into the UK? Why would he care if their English was bad? Tomas didn’t want Wren working for Marco. Tomorrow he’d try some of the other classes and find a guy to recommend. He didn’t want to recommend anyone, but too late now to get a cop in undercover, though—
The hard blow across the back of his knees sent Tomas crashing to the ground. He thrust out his hands and managed to save his face from kissing concrete but landed heavily and jarred his body. Aware only speed would save him, he rolled, but a foot caught his ribs under his heart and shunted him into the curb. Ah shit, that hurt. The sharp pain flashed straight through to his back and locked his lungs. He glanced up at his attacker, saw the glint of a blade in the dim light and adrenaline poured into his bloodstream. He rolled again and pushed himself into a crouch, readying to throw himself at the guy’s legs, only to hear the knife clatter to the ground. Someone had beat him to it.
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