‘You wouldn’t happen to be playing any games with me, would you?’ Theo asked softly.
‘Don’t know what you mean...’
‘Oh, really, Becky,’ Theo said drily. ‘Would that be because you’re just a poor invalid who’s feeling too under the weather to be thinking straight?’
‘I feel a bit better now that I’ve had something to eat.’
‘And that would account for the suddenly relaxed body language?’
Becky didn’t say anything but their eyes tangled and neither could look away—neither wanted to break the electric charge zapping between them. She could hear her breathing slowing up and could almost feel the rush of hot blood through her veins. Her skin prickled and her nipples were tightening, pinching, hard, throbbing buds poking against the flesh-coloured lace.
For Theo, things seemed to be happening in slow motion, from the darkening of her turquoise eyes to the raspy unsteadiness of his breathing.
His erection was a sheath of steel and would be outlined against his lightweight tan khakis. Dip your eyes a bit lower, baby, he thought, and you’ll have more than your fill of exactly how turned on I am right now.
She did.
And that, too, seemed to happen in slow motion, as did the way the tip of her tongue erotically wetted her full lips. Her hair was everywhere, spread against the white pillows and over her shoulders, wild and tangled and utterly provocative.
‘No sex,’ he reminded her in a rough, shaky undertone and Becky looked at him, eyes lacking all guile as she considered what he had just pointed out.
‘You stopped touching,’ she heard herself say in a breathy voice—because suddenly it seemed very important for him to tell her that he still fancied her, even though she could read that he did in his eyes, and in the very still, controlled way he was standing. And in the erection he was not bothering to hide. She just needed him to say it...
‘As per your instructions.’
‘I know, but...’
‘Are you fishing for me to tell you that I wanted to keep touching you? Because you won’t have to throw your line very far to hear me say it. I wanted to keep touching you...’ He raked his fingers through his hair. This was what he wanted and it was what he had wanted all along. When he thought about her body and what it could do to him, he had to suck his breath in sharply just to control his wayward libido from doing what it shouldn’t. ‘I wanted you after I left the Cotswolds and I haven’t stopped. It’s been hell looking and not being able to touch. Is that more or less what you wanted to hear...?’
Becky thought that she would like to hear much, much more. But want was all she was going to hear and she was sick of pretending to herself that she could keep pushing that aside because it didn’t come with love.
She was too weak.
She had a few days left here and she was too weak to keep trying to be strong.
Whatever capacity Theo had to love, it was never going to be her. Privately, she didn’t think he would ever love anyone.
‘He never saw me in love,’ his mother had whispered sadly to her only the evening before when he had been called away on one of the rare emergency conference calls he had allowed through. ‘He just saw me when I was sad and alone. That’s made him the man he is today. Afraid of love... Until now...until he found you...’
Becky had ignored the bit about Theo being afraid of love until he found her, which was a joke, and analysed and analysed and analysed the rest of what his mother had said. It might have been an over-simplification, but it was probably grounded in truth. His background had made him what he was when it came to love. He would never trust anything that had the power to destroy and, in his mind, his mother had been destroyed by love. He couldn’t see beyond that and never would.
What he had to give and all he had to give was...his touch.
‘More or less,’ Becky agreed on a broken sigh. She pushed down the duvet, revealing the lacy nonsense she was wearing, which concealed nothing. Her pink nipples were visible through the lace, as was the shadowy dark down between her thighs.
She rested her hand on the mound between her legs, wanting badly to squeeze her legs together to relieve the fierce burning between them. His eyes were practically black with unconcealed lust and a heady sense of power raced through her veins, obliterating everything in its path.
‘Becky.’ Theo barely recognised his voice. ‘There’s something you should know...’ All those half-truths were coming home to roost but she needed to know, needed to know that in life there was no such thing as coincidence, needed to know the truth about her cottage. What had seemed a good idea at the time, concealing the purpose of his arrival there so that he could feel out the terrain, was now an unthinkable error of judgement.
‘Don’t say a word,’ Becky rushed in before he could say what she knew he was going to, another one of those warnings that what they were about to do was meaningless. She just didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t need to have that rammed home to her. Again.
‘We have a few more days and after that we go our separate ways. We won’t see one another again, so nothing has to be explained. We can...just enjoy this window...and then tomorrow is another day...’
CHAPTER NINE
HE WOULD TELL HER. Of course he would. Instead of being an anonymous buyer in three months’ time, he would show his hand. He would also pay over the odds for the cottage he had originally intended to buy at a knock-down price, poetic justice for the people who had bought it at a knock-down price from his mother.
In three months’ time, what they had now would all be water under the bridge. They’d probably chuckle as they exchanged contracts because, face it, she would have emerged a winner. She would be in a brand-new job in a brand-new location, renting a brand-new apartment. Work would have been done on the cottage so that the time left spent there would be comfortable. No buckets collecting water from a leaking roof!
She wasn’t interested in hearing long stories now about his appearance at the cottage and the reasons behind it.
And he wasn’t that interested in killing the moment by telling her either, although, in fairness, he would have done had she not waved aside his interruption.
She was fired up.
He was fired up.
Talk was just something taking up too much time when there was so much they both wanted to do.
Becky watched Theo’s momentary flicker of hesitation and found that she was holding her breath. This was as proactive as she was capable of being. She knew that if he decided to back away now...if he thought that he wasn’t prepared to step back into the water, even though she had assured him that these last few days would simply be about giving in to lust and closing that door between them once and for all...then she would retreat.
She would have lost her pride but, even so, she would retreat without regret because she was no longer prepared to turn her back on what could be hers for a few days more.
She was sick to the back teeth of being a noble martyr.
In the heat of the moment and with surrender in her mind, she couldn’t, for the life of her, remember what had propelled her to fling down that ‘no sex’ addendum to the proposal he had put forward. She’d been so strident and sure of herself.
‘You’re not well,’ Theo said gruffly.
‘Why are you being so thoughtful?’ Becky teased, not quite certain of the response she would get, but he grinned rakishly at her.
‘Because I’m a gentleman.’
‘Maybe I don’t want you to be a gentleman right now,’ Becky murmured, wriggling slightly to make room for him on the double bed. ‘Are you sure you’re not scared of getting into bed with me because you might catch my germs? I know you said that germs would never dare attack you but...’
‘You’re a witch.’ Theo half-groaned. He walked towards the window and drew the curtains, plunging the room into instant darkness. He had to adjust his trousers, had to control his erection, which was throbbing under the zipper. He took a few seco
nds to stand by the window and look at her.
Very slowly he began undressing. This was more for his benefit than it was for hers. Move too fast and he would have to take her quick and hard, and he didn’t want that. He wanted to enjoy every second of this—he wanted to savour her body and remember the feel of it under his exploring mouth and hands.
He wanted to take his time.
Becky fell back against the pillows as he began to stroll towards her. Shirt discarded, trousers unzipped. He was physical perfection. He was lean and muscular and looked strong. The sort of man who would always emerge the winner in any street brawl. She could have kept looking at him for ever.
She had no idea where her cold had gone. She had woken up feeling rotten, and thinking that she could do with a day off to recover from the impact daily contact with him was having on her state of mind, and now here she was, cold forgotten, as though it had never existed.
She was on fire but not with fever. She was burning up for the man now staring down at her, his hand resting lightly on his zipper. She could see the prominent bulge of his erection underneath the trousers. He was well endowed and he was massively turned on. It showed. It thrilled her.
She reached forward and lightly touched that bulge and the soft sound of his indrawn hiss was as powerful as any drug, sending her already drugged senses into frantic overdrive.
She sat up while he remained standing next to the bed.
The duvet had been shrugged off. Theo looked down at her soft shoulders, her riotous hair and all the luscious places exposed by the very revealing, and for her very risqué, nightwear. He greedily took in the heaviness of her breasts, lovingly outlined by the lace, two shades of flesh combined, her flesh and the flesh-coloured fabric. The deep crease of her cleavage made him grind his teeth together and he had to clench his fists to avoid pressing her back against the pillows so that he could ravish her.
And now she was gently but firmly pulling down the zipper and tugging the trousers down.
‘Becky...’ He groaned.
‘I like it when you lose control...’ she said in a ragged voice. He had stepped out of the trousers and she knew that he was having to restrain himself from pushing her back against the mattress so that he could do what came so naturally for him, so that he could take control of the situation.
No way.
She tugged down the boxers and circled her fingers firmly around his massive erection. She felt it pulse and then she delicately began to lick it from the head, along the thick shaft, trailing wetness up and down and around until he couldn’t contain his groans. His hand was tangled in her hair. He wanted to keep her right there, doing what she was doing, even though, at the same time, he also wanted to tug her away so that she could stop taking him to that point of no return.
She took him into her mouth, sucking gently, then firmly, then back to gently, building a rhythm that was exciting her as much as it was exciting him. He was groaning, urging her on, telling her how he liked it. Before she’d met him, she would never have thought that she could be this intimate with a man, intimate enough to taste him like this. She’d never thought that she would be able to hear him say the sort of things Theo said to her in the height of their lovemaking...telling her where to go, what to do, urging her to do the same...describing all the things he wanted to do to her until she was burning up and frantic with desire.
‘Stop,’ he ordered gruffly, but it was too late, as she pushed him over the edge.
It was the last thing he’d wanted. He’d wanted slow and thorough. But it just went to show the effect she had on him. He hadn’t been able to stop himself and he cursed fluently under his breath as he came down from a mind-blowing orgasm.
‘Shame on you,’ he chided, settling onto the bed with her, depressing the mattress with his weight so that she slid towards him, her body pressed up hard against his nakedness. ‘I wanted to take things easy...’ He pushed some of her hair behind an ear and then nibbled her lobe, which sent little arrows of beautiful sensation zipping through her.
She squirmed and wriggled against him, then slid one thigh sinuously up along his leg, relieving some of the aching between her legs.
‘Naughty girl,’ he admonished softly, grinning. ‘You know you’re going to have to pay dearly for making me lose control like that, don’t you?’
He’d missed this—missed it much more than he’d ever imagined possible. Having her here in bed with him made him feel...weirdly comfortable, as though the inevitable was happening, as though he was meant to be here, doing this.
Finishing business, he thought, shrugging off a suddenly uneasy feeling he couldn’t quite define.
He smoothed her thigh with his hand. She was warm and he paused to ask her whether she was up to it.
‘You took something for your cold, I’m assuming?’
‘Since when are you a fussing mother hen?’ Becky laughed and leaned up to kiss him. His lips were firm and cool and so, so familiar. It amazed her how readily her body could recall his.
For a second, just a second, Theo stilled, then the moment was lost as he curved his fingers under the lace, finding her breasts, cupping them, moving to tease her nipple between his fingers. He gently pushed her flat against the bed and levered himself into the most advantageous position for exploring her body.
He started with her mouth. She’d taken him over the edge, but he was building fast to another erection, and this time he was going to take her all the way...feeling her wrap herself around him.
He kissed her slowly, tracing her lips with his tongue, then tasting her the way a connoisseur might taste vintage wine. He gently smoothed her hair away from her face, kissed her eyes, the sides of her mouth, then her neck.
She arched back slightly and shivered as those delicate kisses wound their way along her neck and then across her shoulders.
Her staccato breathing sounded as loud as thunder in the quiet of the bedroom. It was all she could hear. It was louder than the gentle background whirring of the ceiling fan, which she had become accustomed to keeping on all night, and punctuated with small whimpers and little, gasping moans.
She was desperate to rip the lace nightwear off but he wouldn’t let her. Instead, he traced his tongue over the fabric, inexorably finding her nipple and then suckling hard on it through the lace, rasping it with his tongue until he found a gap in the lace through which it peeped, dusky pink, a hard button standing to attention.
‘You’re going to wreck this brand-new top,’ she rebuked with a breathless giggle as she watched him toy with the intricate lace pattern until he had engineered two slightly bigger gaps, which he proceeded to position expertly over her nipples so that they were now both poking through.
‘You shouldn’t have bought it,’ he countered, glancing at her and meeting her fevered eyes. ‘You should have stuck to the baggy cotton tee shirts, then you wouldn’t mind if I ripped it to shreds to get to your delectable body.’
‘I was only obeying orders and replacing my wardrobe, as per your request...’
‘Since when do you ever obey orders?’ Theo asked huskily. ‘You’re the most disobedient mistress I’ve ever had.’
‘I’m not your mistress!’
‘You prefer “lover”?’
‘I’d prefer you to stop talking.’ Wife, she thought. She’d prefer wife. But lover would do, just as these snatched few days and nights would also have to do.
‘Happy to oblige.’ Theo took his time at her breasts. He sucked her nipples, giving them both the attention they deserved. He liked the way they stuck out at him through the lace, perfect, pouting and slickly wet from his tongue. He was almost reluctant to lift the top higher, to free them from their constraints, but he wanted to hold them in his hands. He had big hands and her breasts filled them, heavy and sexy. He massaged them and she writhed as he did so, tossing and turning, her eyes drowsy and unfocused with lust.
This was how he liked her. It startled him to realise that he had pictured this almost f
rom the very moment he had left the cottage, having been marooned there by the snow. He hadn’t just had her on his mind. He’d stored all sorts of images of her and projected them into a place and time where they would be doing just what they were doing now. Making love.
He nuzzled the undersides of her breasts, then trailed languid kisses along her stomach. Her skin was as soft and as smooth as satin. He paused at the indentation of her belly button, explored it with his tongue and heard her tell him that she needed him, that she was burning up for him. Her legs were already parted and he could smell the sweet, musky scent of her femininity.
She was breathing fast, panting, her stomach rising and falling as if she were running a marathon.
He cupped her between her legs and felt her wetness through the lace shorts, then he slipped his hand underneath and ran his finger along the tender, sensitive slit of her womanhood, finding and feeling her pulsing core.
The lace shorts restricted movement of his hand and he moved the barrier to one side. In a minute, he would take off the damned things completely, but right now he was enjoying watching her face as she responded to the gentle probing and teasing of his fingers.
Her eyelids fluttered, her nostrils were flared and her mouth was half-open. Her breathing was raspy and uneven, halfway between moaning and whimpering.
She was the very picture of a woman at the mercy of her body’s physical responses and he felt a kick of satisfaction that he was the one who had brought her to that place. She might make a big song and dance about his unsuitability but she couldn’t deny how much he turned her on.
Which was probably why his mother had not questioned their relationship. Normally so perceptive, Marita Rushing had not doubted for an instant that they were seriously involved. Yes, she might have wanted to believe it, and so had avoided gazing too closely for discrepancies in the perfect picture on display, but something about their interaction had convinced her that they were truly an item. Theo could only ascribe that to the physical pull between them which had transmitted itself to his mother by some sort of osmosis, making the pretence very, very real.
Snowbound With His Innocent Temptation Page 14