‘I haven’t... I don’t look after myself down there like I used to.’ Her cheeks burned.
Zafir’s nostrils flared. ‘Kat...when are you going to get it? Nothing about you could turn me off.’
His words unleashed a fresh flood of heat, and she realised now how careful she’d always been to live up to some ideal that she’d thought he wanted. His hand explored further, over the curls she’d always been told she had to remove for the sake of lingerie modelling contracts.
When his fingers touched her very core she arched her back off the bed. Within seconds her panties were gone and her legs were splayed. Zafir clamped big hands on her thighs, holding her captive as he bent his head and proceeded to explore her drenched sex with a thoroughness that rendered her insensible.
Her first orgasm had taken her by surprise. This one built and built until she almost screamed with the need to release the tension—and then Zafir circled her clitoris with his tongue, sucking it roughly, and she exploded into a million pieces.
When he loomed up over her he looked like a god. A dark, sexy, dangerous god. His muscles gleamed with sweat and she could smell his arousal—and hers. And even though her body wanted to float on a sea of bliss after that orgasm, when she heard the snap of latex and looked down to see Zafir’s hands on his straining erection, need gripped her like a vice again. He made her insatiable. Greedy. She felt as if she’d been starved of some vital thing and was only now realising how empty she’d been.
He came down over her and aligned their bodies. She could see nothing else but him, feel nothing else but him. He surrounded her utterly.
After a breath he thrust into her body, deep and hard and unequivocal. As if stamping his brand on her. Kat breathed in the sheer expanse of him, awed at the way he filled her so completely. It was all at once familiar and altogether new. It was exquisite.
For a heart-pounding moment Zafir stayed embedded in her like that, as if he too was savouring the moment. And then something inside Kat broke apart. She reached for him, wrapping her arms around his neck, arching upwards. And as he started to move in long slow strokes in and out of her body’s tight clasp, she gave herself over to the sensations racing through her body, rendering her mute.
His movements quickened and became less controlled, he reached for her left thigh and brought it up, holding it firmly, deepening his penetration. Kat was only aware of the pinnacle of pleasure beckoning. It came at them like a steam train, blasting them apart and then welding them back together as Zafir’s big body slumped over hers. They were so joined at every possible point, Kat wasn’t sure she’d ever been a separate entity.
She fell into an exhausted slumber under Zafir’s weight, unaware of him moving off her and standing up from the bed, looking at her as though he’d never seen her before.
* * *
Zafir was still reeling a few hours later as he looked out at the dawn breaking over the Paris skyline. The storm had passed—a storm he’d only been peripherally aware of. He felt as if a bigger storm had just happened in this hotel room.
In him.
He could see the shape of Kat on the bed in the reflection of the window, her elegant curves, her breasts...
He turned around and looked at her properly, his gaze inevitably tracking to her left leg, where it ended so cruelly short. He could see the faint imprint of his hand on the pale skin of her thigh, where he’d obviously gripped her in the throes of the most urgent lust that had ever gripped him.
As if hearing his thoughts, she moved minutely on the bed, and Zafir’s chest tightened when he saw how her left leg instinctively wanted to stretch out. He wondered if she experienced the ‘phantom limb’ that people spoke of, when they could feel the pain of their amputated limb even though it wasn’t there any more.
Seeing her like this... It made him feel so many different emotions he wasn’t sure where one started and the other ended. But mostly he felt angry that she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him. And, worse, that she’d clearly expected him to turn tail and run.
But then, he had to concede heavily, why would she have thought otherwise? After all, he’d pursued her relentlessly after seeing her model lingerie on a catwalk. Why wouldn’t she believe that he was shallow enough to value physical perfection over anything else?
He shook his head. Sex with Kat had always been amazing. So amazing that it had prompted him to track her down again. But this...what they’d just shared...had reached a whole new level. He didn’t remember it ever being so carnal or so visceral. He’d literally had to have her...or die. Sinking into her that first time had impacted on him on a level where sex never usually did.
He went cold as the significance of that sank in. It had felt like coming home. But not in the way that returning to Jandor always felt like coming home... This had been far more profound and disturbing. It had felt like coming back to a place he’d longed for without even realising it.
Zafir’s immediate reaction was to negate this revelation as a lust-induced delusion, but the truth was harder to deny.
Things with Kat had morphed out of all recognition. And it had nothing to do with the fact that she’d been hiding the truth that she was an amputee. It had everything to do with the fact that after having sex with this woman closure had never seemed more distant.
He dragged his gaze back up her body to her face. She was awake now, and looking at him with wide golden eyes. And just like that desire returned—urgent and swift.
Her gaze tracked down his body, obviously taking in his helpless physical reaction. Her cheeks coloured as she said in a sleepily husky voice, ‘You showered...’
For a second Zafir warred with his emotions and tendrils of panic growing inside him. This was so far beyond what he’d expected to experience with Kat again that he wanted to tell her that last night had been enough. He wanted to walk out through the door and never look back. Because suddenly things weren’t as simple as he’d thought they would be.
But that urge to leave curdled in his belly.
He didn’t want to leave. He wanted her.
Compelled by a force stronger than he could deny, he twitched his towel off his hips and stalked back to the bed. He lay down alongside Kat and touched her thigh, seeing how something in her eyes veiled itself.
‘I marked you...’