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His voice was a low husk of possession, and it reached across the distance between them. This was surreal...Impossible!Her life was scripted. Planned. Her days followed a routine down to the minute.
After London—after collecting the file and discovering the truth of her adoption—she’d returned to her life because it was safe And predictable. But she’d been unable to hide from all the questions in her head, from the intensity of what she’d felt.
The night she’d met him she hadn’t had to think. She’d operated on autopilot, supressing her emotions, never allowing them to overwhelm her. She hadn’t needed to be anything other than the woman she knew she could be. She’d managed to lock everything away.
Only now it all threatened to spill out, to escape. And she wasn’t ready for that. She had to be able to think clearly.
‘I’mnotpregnant.’ She swallowed convulsively. ‘We—you—used protection. I saw—’
Her body tightened deep down inside as the memory of the pleasure of feeling him pushing inside her flooded her brain. Her senses.
‘The condom tore,’ he told her, his tone matter-of-fact. Unemotional. Toneless.
Rapid and shallow, her breathing picked up pace. ‘Tore...?’
He moved then. Slid himself along the seat until there was no more than an inch between them. Their knees knocked, and it took all of her concentration not to inhale the scent of soap and clean cotton. Ofhim. The scent was something so familiar and yet so unknown that it was as terrifying as it was exciting.
‘If you hadn’t run,’ he said, ‘I would have told you that night.’
It was like a punch to the gut. Flora closed her eyes. Breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. ‘I... I was afraid,’ she confessed, opening her eyes to meet his unwavering steady gaze.
‘Of me?’ he asked, his voice deep. Gravelly.
She shook her head and swallowed thickly. ‘Couldn’t you feel it?’ she whispered.
A deep furrow appeared between his eyebrows. ‘Feel what?’
A blush crawled up her throat. What was the point of lying? He was here, and her decision to run had affected them both. Pulled them out of their dreamlike encounter into reality. Into her real life. Why shouldn’t she ask all the questions that had plagued her for weeks? About her reaction to him? About her body’s response to his touch.
She pressed her palms to her thighs and told him the truth. ‘The temptation to do it all over again.’
The vein in his throat became more pronounced as he asked, ‘This frightened you?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Because I hurt you?’
‘No, the pain was minimal. But the pleasure was...’ She hesitated. ‘It was all-consuming. It was too intense, too frantic, and I... I was afraid that what you’d awoken inside me would never go back to sleep if I stayed for a second longer in your bed.’
His fingers flexed at his sides. ‘You ran because you were afraid of who you were with me?’
‘Yes.’ She blew out a shaky breath between pursed lips.
Eyes narrowed, he nodded.
‘Is it always like that?’ she asked, because a part of her really wanted to know. ‘Sex?’ she clarified. ‘Is it always so...intoxicating?’
The idea that he might have tracked her down simply because he wanted her was distant. Was she naïve to think a man would seek her out because the sex had beenthatgood?
But shewasnaïve, wasn’t she? Had been sheltered from life on purpose. Wrapped in cotton wool so she didn’t accidentally discover that her biological mother had a disease that might live inside her too, deep in her genetic make-up.
His eyes darkened. ‘No.’
‘Was it like that for you too?’
Did it matter?
She didn’t know. Only that she wanted the answer. ‘With me?’ she asked.
‘I...’ He faltered. The pulse in his cheek hammered. ‘That is not important. Not right now. What is important is that it has been six weeks,’ he said. ‘Time enough for your body to tell you if there have been consequences of the pleasure you were so afraid of,piccolina.’ He paused before continuing. ‘Has your period arrived?’ he asked,
But the question wasn’t filled with recrimination or accusation. He wanted the facts. Facts she was still trying to put in order. It didn’t make sense. None of it.
