He knew what she wanted, what he wanted, for the first time their needs the same.
He reached into the pocket of the trousers he still wore, finding the slim wallet and retrieving the foil packet it contained. He left her body only to discard the trousers, never once taking his eyes from her, as he placed the latex over himself.
‘This is the last time I will ask, Sofia. If you have any doubts—’
This time it was she that cut off his words, reaching up to pull him down to her, her hot hand like an anchor at the base of his neck, her legs parting for him as if welcoming him home, her lips barely an inch away from his as she said, ‘This is what I want, Theo. That is the last time you will ask me.’
Never had he seen her so regal, so commanding, so powerful in her focus, her intent, her need.
He slid into her, filling her slowly, shifting and...
And the moment he felt her tense, he stopped. Shock and surprise as much in him as it was in her. Theos, he hadn’t even thought. Hadn’t even imagined...
‘Sofia—’
‘Wait, please...just...’
His body was almost shaking, and he bit back the curse that lay on his tongue. As the implications of her innocence struck him, anger poured through him and he realised the true extent of the lies of her first marriage. She was a virgin and he had not known. And somewhere deep within him that made him both fiercely angry and deeply satisfied. But he held back, because he knew his fury would scare her. Damn, her naivety burned him, etching her name on his soul.
As her body relaxed into him, she moved her hips experimentally beneath him.
‘Sofia,’ he tried again, tried to warn her of what she had already lost.
‘I knew what I was asking for, Theo.’
No, she hadn’t known. But she would. Soon, she would know and for the first time he hated himself for the path he had set for them both.
She shifted once more against him, his body utterly at her mercy now. All thought fled and, coward that he was, he hid in his body’s needs, in Sofia’s wants, and finally released the hold he had on his control.
Gently, so gently, he withdrew from her, only to resume a torturously slow return. Subconsciously his body recognised the difference, the change from hurried intent to languorous pleasure, pleasure that was to be all hers.
Theo lost track of time in the sounds of her cries, needful and wanting, he knew only the ripple of her skin, the acres of smooth silk beneath his hands, the warm, luxuriously wet heat of her as he drew them towards the point of completion again and again.
Finally, at Sofia’s desperate pleas, he took them into an abyss full of starlight and his last thought was that he was fundamentally changed for ever.
* * *
As the water poured over her skin, her heart still racing from what they had shared, still pounding before she’d even lifted her eyes to the scattered stars across the still night sky through the large windows of her room, she marvelled at the stretch of unfamiliar muscles across her body. Languid, but poised, as if already wanting Theo again.
She had meant what she’d said. She had known what she was asking for, asking of him. But she had not realised that it would make her feel... She shook her head in the shower, scattering drops of water from her hair. What did she feel? It was too much for words.
But there were words she did know. She knew that they needed to talk. Needed to confront the past...or as much of that night, ten years before, as she would be able to share. Because whether he’d wanted to or not, he had given her a moment of choice, of control. And as a result, it had become vital that she explain, vital that he knew that she hadn’t had a choice when she’d left that night. That she hadn’t purposefully set him up as he clearly believed. She couldn’t tell him everything, the secret that locked her heart tight against the truth of her father’s diagnosis, the secret that was to protect her country from instability and chaos, one so deep she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to reveal it. But she hoped that she could give him something...give him some sense of resolution about the past. Give him some truth amongst the one lie she still maintained.
She left the shower, wrapping herself in the large towel and retrievin
g a lightweight trouser suit, readily accepting any armour she could against the conversation that she knew would follow, any protection against Theo’s impossibly penetrating gaze.
She dressed and went to sit beside the large windows, peering through the darkness to the elusive shadowscape of her beautiful country. The rolling hills she knew lay beneath the deep night, the mountains in the distance, and all the sleeping inhabitants of Iondorra in between. She heard him stir behind her, the sound of his roughened palm against the smooth silk of the chaise longue, consciously or unconsciously reaching for her, she wondered.
‘We should talk.’
‘Then I should have coffee.’
She gestured to a coffee machine in the corner of the living suite of her rooms. Soon, she heard the spluttering, juddering sound it made as it filled the air with the fragrant, almost bitter taste of coffee that instantly made her mouth water, and turned to find him standing there in his suit trousers and nothing else. She pushed down the distraction of the smooth planes of sun-darkened skin across his powerful torso. They needed to have this conversation. If there was any hope...
‘If we’re going to marry—’
‘If?’