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‘I suggest we strip off and get straight into bed,’ he said.
‘S-strip off?’ she verified cautiously.
‘I don’t know how much longer I can bear to prolong the anticipation,’ he confessed, his voice low and velvety. ‘Once I start kissing you again, I don’t know if I can trust myself not to rip that damned dress from your body. Which would be a shame.’ His gaze flickered over her cotton-covered curves. ‘Because it’s such a pretty dress.’
‘Okay,’ Mia agreed with a nod of her head, aware of the curls tickling her bare shoulders. She kicked off her sandals. ‘Why not?’
She swallowed as his shirt fluttered to the ground and he smiled as he met her widening eyes—as if her rapt voyeurism was perfectly normal. Was this what he usually did when he took a woman to bed? she wondered. Did he stand there removing his clothes with that look of lazy provocation glinting from his eyes, while she was expected to do the same?
Yet in a setting which must have seen far more experienced sexual participants than her, she remained as nervous as hell—and her environment wasn’t helping. It was a room which was a testament to masculinity and power. There was no softness here. The soaring dimensions and matchless view over the sapphire sea hinted at the wealth of its owner—as did the bold oil paintings, the glass sculpture of a woman, and a seat beneath an arc-shaped lamp, which Mia imagined would feel like sitting on a moonbeam.
Fearfully, she stared across the vast room to the equally vast bed. Its smooth, unruffled surface made her think of it as an arena where, instead of ponies trotting around performing to music, countless women must have flaunted their magnificent bodies and demonstrated the sophisticated sexual tricks they’d picked up along the way. Wasn’t he going to be awfully disappointed when he found out the truth about her? That she knew absolutely zero about sex.
But it was too late to back out now—and the truth was she didn’t want to.
She jerked her hand round to the upper part of her back, wishing she’d attended more of those yoga classes which would have given her a bit of added flexibility as she struggled to locate the tip of the zip.
‘Here, let me,’ said Theo, his silken chest gleaming as he walked towards her.
‘Honestly, I can manage on my own,’ she squeaked, her face getting hotter as she tilted her head back to make it easier. Because she didn’t want him touching her when she felt so disadvantaged and out of place. When the balance of sexual experience felt so heavily weighted in his favour. She needed to calm herself down. To steady her breathing and remind herself that this was what she really wanted—which it was—and everything would be fine.
Theo frowned as he undid the belt of his trousers and slid the zip down over his aching shaft, unable to shake off the feeling that this wasn’t quite what he had been expecting. Whathadhe been expecting? He had no idea—because he’d never thought it would happen and, in many ways, Mia was still an unknown quantity. He had let her closer than he’d ever let any other woman—before or since—yet he hadn’t seen her for over half a decade. Which made her...unique. And, because he was a man who had experienced just about every permutation of seduction in the book, wasn’t the novelty value of this encounter making his heart feel as if it wanted to explode?
He had thought she might flirt a bit more, or play games. Tease him and provoke him with her sexual power—for she must be in no doubt about how much he wanted her. But she seemed almostnervousand, though he knew he could dissolve those nerves with one long kiss, she was making him curious enough to want to observe her behaviour rather than seek to change it.
At least she had managed to unzip her dress at last, her cheeks growing even more heated in the process. His breath caught in his throat as the flower-sprigged garment slid to the floor and he was confronted with the vision of Mia standing before him wearing nothing but her bra and pants. He ran his gaze over her generous curves with a mixture of awe and lust. How could he have forgotten how utterly magnificent she was? An abundance of creamy flesh was spilling over the top of a lace-edged bra which barely constrained her delicious breasts. A pair of surprisingly sensible panties adorned the luscious hips—but it was amazing how a garment which had clearly been chosen to support rather than enhance should manage to achieve both so effortlessly. He liked the faint curve of her belly and the soft lines of her arms.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she beseeched and then seemed shocked at having spoken out loud.
‘Like what?’
‘Like...’
‘Come on, Mia,’ he reprimanded silkily as she stemmed her words by biting down hard on her lip. ‘Surely you and I go back far enough to enjoy the luxury of speaking the truth in the bedroom. What’s wrong with the way I was looking at you?’ He paused, and even though a shaft of jealousy sliced through his body like a hot blade, he forced himself to ask the question. ‘Surely men must have looked that way at you before?’
Her expression of intense concentration was followed by one of wobbling uncertainty, and if Theo had been a gambling man he might have wagered a bet on her blurting out that this was a bad idea and then rushing from the room. His brow furrowed as he wondered if he would attempt to stop her, despite how much he was aching for her. He wasn’t sure. Because wouldn’t part of him have agreed that this was a very bad idea?
‘I’m a virgin!’ she burst out.
Theo froze.
‘Please tell me I’m hearing things,’ he said quietly.
‘You’re not. I’m a virgin. I’ve never... I’ve never had sex with anyone before. Obviously,’ she said, with a shrugging attempt at humour which didn’t quite come off.
Theo could feel the sudden pounding of his heart as his gaze bored into her, unable to shake off a surreal sense of disbelief. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me this before?’
‘When, Theo? It’s not the sort of subject you can casually introduce into the conversation, is it? Should I have announced it when I arrived? Or on the way to see my grandfather? Perhaps I could have slipped it in when we were enjoying a glass of lemon cordial, though obviously I would have needed to have waited until Sofia had left the room since I’m not sure how good her English is.’
Theo felt the boil of rage and frustration and the equally annoying sensation of being wrong-footed—and in the bedroom of all places. Why the hell hadn’t he guessed, when the clues had been there for him to see all along? Didn’t that explain the subliminal aura of innocence which always seemed to surround her—even after all this time? Or the sense of wonder she’d displayed when he’d kissed her earlier today, as if no man had ever kissed her like that before? He frowned. Had that really only happened a few hours ago?
‘You should have told me,’ he said flatly as he bent down to pick up his discarded shirt. ‘Call me selfish, but I would have preferred not to have started all this, then been forced to stop.’
‘Stop?’ She was blinking at him. ‘Who’s talking about stopping?’
‘I am!’ He hauled the shirt on over his shoulders, needing to get out of that room as quickly as possible, unwilling to watch her put her dress back on and struggle with the damned zip and wriggle that delicious body until he was in danger of losing his mind. His throat constricted. ‘Obviously, this changes everything,’ he said tightly.
‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘I mean, why does it have to?’
