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Sofie sat up, only realising then that he must have pulled the sheet over her body as she slept. She couldn’t remember anything much after she’d passed out from an overload of pleasure. She cringed again and stole out of the bed. She saw her robe and night things neatly draped on a chair nearby and grabbed them, shoving her arms into the robe and belting it tightly around her waist, terrified that Darius would walk in at any second, before she was ready to see him again.
She ducked into the bathroom and groaned when she caught sight of her reflection. Her hair was a wild black tangle over her shoulders. Her eyes were huge and awed-looking. Her skin was pink. She had a little stubble rash along her jaw. Her mouth looked swollen. She touched it and her skin tingled.
She pulled the robe open and looked down. She remembered Darius cupping her breasts, squeezing the flesh...
Before she could die in a pool of embarrassment, Sofie took off the robe and dived under a hot shower, lamenting the washing away of Darius’s touch even as she wanted to try and gather her wits.
When she got out of the shower and went back to her own room she dressed in jeans and a shirt, her hair still damp.
She went downstairs and found Darius in the kitchen, sipping coffee. Thankfully he was dressed in jeans and a shirt, like her. He saw her and displayed no sense of the emotional turmoil Sofie was feeling—but then he was vastly more experienced than her. Used to this. Even if he didn’t remember.
‘The coffee is fresh.’
Sofie went in, forcing herself to sound as blasé as possible. ‘That sounds good.’
He poured her a cup and handed it to her. She took it and breathed in the aroma. Something familiar when suddenly everything seemed strange and new. Disconcertingly, it didn’t even feel like her own house any more. It was as if Darius had been here for ever and had ownership. Because he’d taken ownership of her body?
That rogue thought made her duck her head, averting her gaze in case he saw anything.
‘How are you?’ he asked.
She looked up again, taken aback. She hadn’t expected solicitude. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. To wake up in his arms? She knew she was glad it hadn’t happened like that. She’d needed to get her head around it all.
She probably never would.
‘I’m okay.’
‘Just okay?’
She blushed, because she knew she was more than okay. She was changed. Awed. Still in shock. But she couldn’t help a sudden small smile as the enormity of what had happened hit her.
‘That was... I didn’t know it could be like that. So powerful.’
Something occurred to Sofie and she went cold. ‘You could be married. Have a family...’
A snarky voice pointed out that she hadn’t been thinking about that when she’d been jumping into bed with him at the speed of light.
He made a face and shook his head almost violently. ‘Definitely not married.’ He held up his hand. ‘No ring and no mark of a ring.’
‘Lots of people don’t wear rings. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything.’
‘Trust me. I know I can’t know for sure, but I can feel it. I’m not married. I feel a strong sense of rejection at the mere thought of it.’
Sofie recalled the sensation of his release inside her, and how she’d felt that primal urge to trap him there, ensuring that she accepted his essence inside her.
‘Maybe you’re divorced.’
He made a non-committal sound and then put his cup down on the table. ‘Are you sore?’ he asked. ‘After last night?’
Sofie thought of the hot water of the shower hitting her sensitised skin and blushed and shook her head. ‘No, not sore...just a little tender.’
He took a step towards her and cupped her jaw. Instant flames licked across her skin, and deep inside a newly familiar tension coiled like a hungry beast. He bent down and pressed a light kiss to her mouth, she tasted him—and coffee.
He pulled back. ‘Too tender for that?’
She shook her head.
He kissed her again, a little harder this time. Pulled back again. ‘Too tender?’
She shook her head again. He took the coffee cup out of her hand and put it down. Put his hands on her waist and pulled her close. Close enough that she could feel his body responding to hers.
He squeezed her waist. ‘How about that?’
She shook her head, frustration building. He kissed her again and she wrapped her arms around his neck. This time the kiss was deeper, harder. She was losing herself all over again. Now she’d forgiven herself for acquiescing so easily last night, she was about to do it again.
But Darius had pulled back. His hand hovered close to her breast. On the edge of cupping it. She could feel her nipples respond, growing tight. Hard. Aching. Needing.
‘Too much?’
She saw the heat in his eyes and the glint of devilry. He was playing with her. Frustration boiled over. ‘No, nowhere is too tender. I want you, Darius.’
He cupped her breast and she groaned softly. He said, ‘Good, because we’ve only just begun.’
It was much later that day when Darius surfaced from the sensual idyll of indulging in Sofie’s luscious body. He’d just taken a shower and now stood by the bed with a towel wrapped around his waist, looking at his lover on the bed. For a novice she was a fast learner. Voracious. It was incredibly sexy and impossible to resist.
He didn’t have any memory of his sexual history, but he felt a skin-prickling suspicion that what was happening here with her was not usual for him. It was not that he hadn’t had great sex before—had it always been this amazing?—but that there was a serious lack of boundaries with this woman.
They’d never really had any boundaries in place, due to the strange circumstances that had brought them together, but he felt sure that boundaries with the women he made love to were of paramount importance to him. Because in much the same way as he was convinced he wasn’t married, or remotely interested in being married, he also felt a strong instinct to put some emotional distance between them.
Was he used to women using sex as a means to foster emotional intimacy? That was the only explanation for the way he felt right now. Except he was torn. Torn between wanting to put distance between them and wanting to just slide back between the sheets and rouse her back to urgent life with his hands and his mouth.
At that moment she stirred on the bed and Darius’s blood leapt all over again. Hot. She was a naked vision, all soft curves and silky skin. That jet-black hair spread over the pillow. Long black lashes rested on her cheeks. Her mouth made a little moue, tempting him back. So tempting.
But Darius took a step back and obeyed his instincts. Plus, he knew she’d be sore now. He’d tried to remain mindful that this was all new to her, but trying to make sure he was gentle had been a battle he feared he’d lost when she’d sat astride his body and taken him deep inside her, sending him spiralling into an orbit of pleasure so intense that he’d had to hold her hips as he’d thrust up and into her over and over again, shouting out his release when it came, hot and urgent.
It was disconcerting to have nothing to compare this lovemaking to and yet to feel deep in his bones that this was not like anything he’d experienced before.
Reluctantly he pulled the sheet up over her body, hiding it from his gaze.
