AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But, despite his reputation, there was no string of broken hearts, a few bruised egos possibly, but he had no interest in hurting women, and he could smell vulnerable a mile off. Luckily he was attracted to women who were, not just beautiful, but independent, who didn’t equate good sex with a meeting of souls.
In Anna Randall’s case her vulnerable aura was like a walk in a warm meadow, the sort that made you want to lie down...Shesmelt like a walk in a warm meadow and he had wanted to lie down with her from the moment he saw her. Actually, lying down was purely optional—any angle would have been fine with him so long as he could sink into her.
Obviously he wasn’t going to, and not just because she lit up the big red keep-clear lights in his head. He couldn’t allow himself to forgetwhoshe was—this situation was already complicated enough without him sleeping with his enemy’s granddaughter.
Soren took a firm grip of his wayward imagination, deleting the tormenting image of her stretched out on the sofa beneath him with her long hair spread out around them. He continued to deliver a monotone running commentary on what he was doing as he applied a light dressing to the raw area.
‘Anna, I said is that too tight?’
His voice sounded to Anna as though it were coming from a long way off. She heard the words but didn’t react to them. He had not released her foot; his fingers were moving along the curve of her arch slowly and then back again...over and over... She swallowed hard and clenched her lips over a whimper. The touch had started as soothing and moved into totally uncharted territory.
Who even knew there were so many nerve endings under the skin there? And each one was alive, connecting with other nerve endings; the surface layer of every inch of her skin was tingling. Cheeks flushed hot against her pale skin, her head fell back... This time nothing would stop the almost whimper, a broken sound that she could not immediately associate with herself.
She could hear the sound of the sea, only it wasn’t; it was, she realised, her own blood pounding in her ears.
She heard him swear. It was the hook she clung onto to drag her free of the deep drowning sensual thrall she was entangled in.
Stop drifting.
‘I think...’ But she didn’t think, she couldn’t. His eyes were so deep, drowning blue, bright and fierce, and she was... She swallowed hard and tried to adopt the expression of someone who knew what their name was...what they were doing.
‘Anna...’ He breathed her name, making it half warning but also strange and exciting. Under the heat in his eyes she sensed a bewilderment as deep as her own and a ferocity that she found unbearably exciting.
Without him breaking eye contact, his fingers moved higher up the curve of her bare calf then higher under the fabric as he reeled her in, pulling until her bottom was on the very edge of the sofa.
Her heart pounded out a heavy beat, until she was barely breathing.
His intense magnetism seemed to be exerting a physical pull. She found herself leaning in; he was leaning in. She recognised the moment they reached a tipping point, but not who made the final move that connected their mouths.
The heat that flared was instantaneous, the combustion seeming to consume the oxygen in the room as the slow, shatteringly sensuous exploration deepened.
The whimper was hers, the groan was his, the rest was lost in a hot blur. Then into the heat haze a noise: the vibration of a phone.
Soren, dark streaks cresting his cheekbones, swore and turned away, rising to his feet and presenting his back to her as he stared at the screen. He swore again, slid it back into his pocket and waited a moment before turning.
‘I wouldn’t have let you...it...go any...’ she blurted, trying not to think about the clash of teeth, the collision of tongues.
His shrug could not have been more languid. ‘Sometimes sex is not a bad way to relax after a tough day.’
Her jaw dropped. He made it sound like an option such as a stiff drink or a run in the park—for him it probably was—and it wasn’t that she disapproved of his attitude—in fact, on one level, she almost envied him—but she knew that sex for her could never be the casual transaction that it was for him. She knew herself well enough to know that she wanted more, she needed more; there was no way she could separate her emotions from the physical act.
She wanted that intimacy, she wanted to feel that close to another person, but she was also wary of the wanting, for wantingtoomuch. She didn’t need to see a therapist to work out she was wanting what she had never had.
But herfearhad always been greater than herwant.
She hated that in her; she hated that, even though she had grown into a confident, capable young woman, when it came to her love life there was still that little girl who hadn’t been special enough, pretty enough for her own mum to stick around.
Did that even make sense? Anna had no idea.
It was as though the craving for love and the deep-seated fear of rejection were constantly battling inside her.
‘I think I should be going home,’ she said stiffly.
‘No, you stay here, I will go, but first... I have an idea.’ Something about his casual tone made her think it wasn’t. ‘You wanted somewhere to hide?’
‘You said that—’
A hissing sound of exasperation left his lips. ‘I know you want to battle the forces of evil and clear your grandfather’s name—’
