by Lucy King
‘That was not meant to happen,’ he said roughly, clearly as poleaxed by the strength of the chemistry that flared between them as she was.
No, well, obviously not, she thought, righting her clothes with shaking hands, hugely glad that the door was behind her for support since she wasn’t sure her legs were up to the job. ‘I’m sorry.’
His gaze shot to hers and his brows snapped together. ‘What?’ he growled, rubbing his hands over his face and shaking his head. ‘No. You have nothing to be sorry about. I do. I overstepped the line. I apologise.’
Oh. Right. ‘I thought there was no line.’
‘There’s a line.’ His dark eyes glittered and she shivered. ‘And you should go.’
‘Or what?’ she challenged rashly, responding to the warning she could hear in his tone before she could reflect on the wisdom of her question.
He let out a quick, humourless laugh. ‘You do not want to know.’
Oh, but she did. ‘I do.’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
‘Fine,’ he bit out. ‘If you don’t go, we cross that line together and your virginity becomes history.’
For a moment his words hovered in the space between them, charging the air with electricity and tension, and then Kate swallowed hard, her heart thundering and the blood drumming her ears. Dear God. What was he saying? Did he want her that much? Or was he merely teasing?
‘Are you serious?’ she said hoarsely.
‘Deadly.’
‘You want to have sex with me?’
His eyes drilled into hers as he thrust his hands in his pockets. ‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’
‘Well, is this a pity thing?’ she asked, accepting the mortification that surged through her because she had to make sure. ‘You know, help the poor orphan virgin with her pathetic self-esteem issues? Are you still trying to prove a point?’
His jaw clenched and he looked as if he wanted to hit something. ‘No,’ he grated, evidently hanging onto his control by a thread. ‘You were right. I am not that altruistic. And believe me, pity is the last thing I am feeling at this precise moment.’
‘I see,’ she said, although really she was too bewildered, too stunned, to see anything.
‘Good,’ he snapped, taking a step back. ‘So, for your own sake, Kate, I suggest you leave. Now.’
It was excellent advice. There was no doubt about that. The evening had taken an unexpectedly dramatic turn. Kate was so out of her depth she was in danger of drowning. With the way her head was spinning and her body was ablaze she ought to be feeling for the handle, yanking open the door and legging it to the lift, to safety, as fast as her trembling legs could carry her.
But she didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want safety. She wanted more of those wild kisses, more of the magnetic darkness and thrilling passion she could sense in him, and she wanted it all with an urgency that was breathtaking.
The strength of her feelings ought to have made her wary. Instead they were electrifying. She’d been hoping to offload her virginity for years. As unbelievable as it was, Theo appeared to be a hair’s breadth from taking it, and she desperately wanted him to have it, because that attraction she’d so blithely dismissed as impossible earlier? Blazing.
So to hell with the consequences. So what if he was who he was and she was significantly less? It wasn’t as if she were going to bump into him again. They quite literally operated on entirely different levels. Besides, recent events had taught her that life was short, and in all honesty she’d rather regret something she had done than something she hadn’t.
She took a deep breath, licked her suddenly dry lips and opened her mouth to speak.
‘Kate,’ Theo cut in tersely, as if he was able to read her mind and found her thoughts deeply ill-advised.
‘Yes?’ she replied, knowing it was far too late for warnings when the decision was already made.
‘Think very carefully.’
‘I have.’
‘Don’t be a fool.’
‘I know what I want.’
‘I make no promises.’
‘I don’t want any.’ Reality had no place here. ‘Once is enough.’
He took a step towards her, his gaze cleaved to hers, and her entire body began to tremble with desire, excitement and anticipation.
‘Last chance, Kate,’ he said, his voice so low and gravelly it scraped along her nerve-endings.
‘I’m going nowhere.’
* * *
And it was at that precise moment that Theo’s patience, already stretched paper thin, snapped. He’d tried to warn Kate off—repeatedly—and he’d given her every opportunity to leave. If she chose to defy him then she was just going to have to face the consequences. She was an adult. As she’d told him earlier, she was perfectly capable of making her own decisions. He was only human, as much at the mercy of scorching desire as the next man, and so, really, there was nothing else to be done.
‘Yes, you are,’ he muttered, grabbing her hand and peeling her off the door as he inexorably caved in to the raging need he’d been holding at bay for the last five minutes.
‘Not here?’ she said with a little gasp of surprise.
Up against a door? Her first time? Not a chance. ‘Not here.’
‘Then where? The sofa? Your desk?’
‘My bed,’ he said, leading her straight past all the furniture and towards the door cleverly built into the wall and disguised as a bookcase.
‘What—?’ she started, pulling back a little, instinctively resisting the idea of walking into a wall, until he pushed the section he’d had constructed, the door opened and he led her through.
‘Oh, wow,’ she breathed, looking around the white minimalist room that was bathed in the soft light of the setting sun. ‘You have a suite.’
He kicked the door shut, let go of her hand and strode past her towards the bed. ‘I do.’
‘It’s incredible.’
‘It’s convenient,’ he said, loosening the knot of his tie and pulling the whole thing off.
‘For seducing the odd virgin who comes along?’
He looked at her. ‘You’re the first and you’re not odd.’
‘You’re funny.’
‘You’re still talking.’
‘I may be a bit nervous,’ she said. ‘Your bed is huge.’
Theo tossed his tie onto the armchair that sat in the corner of the room and undid the top two buttons of his shirt. ‘If you change your mind—at any point—we’ll stop.’ It might well kill him, but he would.
Kate gave her head a quick shake and the relief that flooded through him was so fierce he didn’t want to analyse it ever. ‘I won’t want to stop,’ she said, staring at the wedge of his chest that was now exposed with a hunger he doubted she was even aware of. ‘Especially not if you make it good.’
Good? Good? ‘With chemistry like ours,’ he said tautly, ‘I won’t even need to try.’
‘Nonetheless, I’m expecting great things.’
‘You don’t know what to expect.’
Her lips quirked into a quick smile that for some reason stabbed him right in the chest. ‘Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, Theo. I’ve had orgasms. Good ones. However, I want more. I want fireworks.’
‘Demanding,’ he muttered, his pulse racing as his head filled with images of how she might have gone about achieving all those good orgasms.
‘Long-suffering and impatient and extremely ready to get on with it.’
‘Then stop talking.’
‘Tell me what to do.’
‘Come here.’
She walked—no, sashayed towards him, pulling the band out of her hair so that it flowed around her shoulders like liquid gold, and it was all he could do not to stalk over to her, pick her up and tum
ble her straight down onto the bed before whipping the desire into a frenzy and then sinking into her. Instead, he drummed up a modicum of control to merely pull her into his arms and capture her mouth with another kiss that blew his mind.
There was nothing mere about her response, though. It was as fierce as it had been when he’d first taken her in his arms and they’d shared the kiss that had been utterly unplanned, deeply unwise and yet stunningly hot.
Now as they devoured each other, she wound her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him, every inch of her seeming to fit to him perfectly, and the desire beating through his blood erupted.
Somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind he was aware he shouldn’t be doing this, that if he knew what was good for him he would stop and put as much distance between himself and Kate as was humanly possible. He was no Prince Charming and it wasn’t his job to help with her issues. God knew he had plenty of his own to fix. Besides, one touch of her and he turned into a man he didn’t recognise and liked even less, a man driven by the basest of instincts, a man without control.
Yet he couldn’t have stopped now even if someone had been holding a gun to his head. He wanted her with a hunger it was impossible to ignore, a hunger that had had him pinning her up against a door and forgetting his name.
He could tell himself all he liked that if it wasn’t him relieving her of her virginity it would be someone else—a notion that was so distasteful it made him want to retch—or that it was just because it had been a while since he’d taken a woman to bed, but in truth...well, in truth there was no reason beyond clawing need and a desire that demanded to be assuaged.
And it would be fine, he assured himself, his muscles tightening as she slid her hands beneath the lapels of his jacket and pushed up. Kate might be innocent when it came to sex but she wasn’t stupid. She knew the score. His conscience was clear on that front at least. Once it was over that would be that. He’d put her in a cab and out of his mind, and the entire evening would be consigned to history. He’d lock up the memories and throw away the key. He’d have no need for them. In the meantime, however, he was going to focus on her, on them, and on getting naked as soon as was humanly possible.
Breaking off the kiss, he shrugged his jacket off and it fell to the floor. ‘Anyone would think you’d done this before,’ he muttered thickly as she moved her hands to his shirt and started tackling the buttons while he set to work on getting her out of her skirt.
‘I did once get to second base,’ she murmured, her breathing all ragged and shallow. ‘But that was only because of a bet.’
What? A bet? Somewhere in the recesses of his mind Theo was aware that little bombshell needed processing, but there was no way it was happening now. Not when all his blood was rushing from his brain to a different part of his anatomy entirely.
‘Doesn’t matter.’ Kate frowned and bit her lower lip. ‘This isn’t working,’ she said with a little growl of frustration that had him leaning away to tug on the back of his shirt and pull it over his head and off.
He let it drop on top of his jacket and a moment later her clothes and his trousers had joined the growing heap on the floor. He ran his gaze over her, taking in every incredible inch of her, her skin golden and glowing in the setting sun and, aha, there it was. The tattoo. What looked like an upside-down bird the size of a two-pound coin at her hipbone. He’d wondered. Now he knew. He did not need to know what it represented. That was not what this was about. Instead he focused on the expensive cream lace of her bra and knickers and the intriguing contrast it made with the shapeless navy suit she’d been wearing.
‘This is sexy,’ he said gruffly, touching her hip and tracing the lace there with his fingertips.
He heard and saw her breath hitch in her throat and the knowledge that she was turned on so easily had the blood thundering in his ears.
‘Underwear is about the only thing that fits me properly,’ she said raggedly. ‘I like to buy the good stuff.’
She had excellent taste, but—‘Lose it.’
‘Help me,’ she breathed. ‘I’m all fingers and thumbs.’
Gritting his teeth against the pounding desire, Theo put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. He unclipped her bra and he slid it off her, then swept her hair to one side and pressed his mouth to the spot where her neck met her shoulder. She shivered. Dropped her head against his shoulder and leaned back, and the sigh she let out hit him right in the chest.
He closed his eyes, the scent of her filling his head, and almost of their own accord his hands moved slowly down her back and then round, beneath her arms, to cup her breasts. As he took the heavy weight in his palms, she gasped softly and arched her back, which pushed her breasts further into his hands and her bottom into the hard, aching length of his erection, and it took everything he had to stay where he was instead of where he wanted to be.
He swore, low and guttural, the word smothered by her skin, as desire surged to an almost agonising level. While he continued to tease her breast and nipple with one hand, he stroked the other down the smooth silky planes of her torso, her abdomen, until he slipped it beneath the lace of her knickers and reached the soft curls at the juncture of her thighs. At the intimacy of his touch she tensed for a second, and he stilled.
‘Want me to stop?’ he murmured, hoping to God she didn’t.
‘Don’t you dare,’ she breathed, backing up her words by opening her legs and gripping his forearm.
He parted her with his fingers and stroked, and she was so wet, so hot, it nearly unravelled him. But she hadn’t done this before, at least not with anyone else. He had to go slowly, be gentle and give her time to adjust, however much it killed him. He would not be that man who lost control and shoved her up against a door.
Abandoning her breast, he took her chin and turned her head slightly and kissed her, while lower he slipped first one finger into her slippery heat and then another. Slowly he rubbed and stroked, feeling her tremble, hearing her sigh and gasp, and automatically registered her responses. When she moaned into his mouth, then whimpered, however, the sound of it blitzed his brain and he couldn’t help moving his fingers that little bit faster, that little bit harder.
One of her hands shot up to the back of his head and her kisses grew frantic. Her other hand covered his, urging him on, moving him exactly where she wanted him. Her hips twisted, minutely at first, then more frenziedly and suddenly she was wrenching her mouth from his, crying out and clenching around his fingers and it was so sexy, so intense, that Theo nearly came right along with her.
CHAPTER FOUR
KATE WAS STILL tumbling down from her first orgasm given to her by someone else when her legs were whipped from beneath her and she was picked up as if she weighed nothing. Her head was still spinning. Her entire body was still quivering, and little darts of ebbing pleasure kept shooting through her, and they hadn’t even got round to the actual virginity-taking part of the evening yet.
But as Theo deposited her on the bed and then turned his attention to the drawer of the bedside table, the heat dissipated and the fireworks faded. With every second that ticked by she became aware that she was lying there naked and exposed and vulnerable, and the insecurities that had been nowhere to be seen moments ago kicked in.
It wasn’t that she was ashamed of the wild, desperate abandon with which she’d responded to him. She wasn’t. At least, not much. It was more that she’d been so caught up in the way he’d made her feel she hadn’t given her body a moment’s thought beyond the pleasure it was experiencing. And then there was the fact that from the moment she’d started shedding her clothing at no point had Theo been able to look at her properly. To judge.
But with her sprawled across his bed like this, he could now, and she couldn’t help wonder what he would think. There was just so much of her. She might have the height of a supermodel but she did not have the frame. She had padding. Wh
at if there was too much? Best not to let him see, she decided, scooting beneath the sheets and clutching them to her chest, then watching him take a foil packet out of the drawer and rip it open.
Of course, in terms of surface area there was way more of Theo, but in his case that wasn’t a negative because he was quite the sight for sore eyes. She’d been right in her assessment of how hard he’d be. He had muscles everywhere. They rippled across the breadth of his shoulders and flexed in his strong powerful thighs. And she didn’t have to wonder about where else he might have a smattering of hair any longer. She could see it sprinkled across the lean planes of his chest, then narrowing down to the erection onto which he was now rolling the condom with what looked like impressive efficiency although what did she know?
Moments ago, all that hardness and strength had been rubbing up against her back, the friction driving her wild. With any luck it would be soon rubbing up against her front, driving her even wilder. Assuming he didn’t change his mind about the whole virginity-taking thing, of course. Which was a possibility because really he was out of her league in every single way. He might well take one proper look at her, wonder what on earth he was doing and leave her there feeling like a fool. And quite honestly, she wouldn’t blame him.
‘Stop it,’ Theo muttered, his voice low and rough.
Jerked out of her madly oscillating thoughts, Kate lifted her gaze to his and saw that he was looking at her, his eyes dark and his face tense. ‘Stop what?’
‘Whatever it is you’re thinking.’
Flushing, she bit her lip and glanced across at the curtainless windows. ‘Is there some way of shutting out the light?’
