There was a knock on the door, making her jerk upright. ‘Kat, are you all right?’
Her voice sounded strangled as she called out, ‘Fine. I’m fine.’
Zafir scowled on the other side of the door. Everything in him burned to go to her. He could imagine Kat’s naked body all too well—slick and wet, droplets of water beading on her nipples...
He paced back and forth, aware of his body responding to his imagination. Cursing softly, he pulled a towel around his waist, as if that could douse his desire.
She’d looked so proud just now, walking into the bathroom on her crutches, back straight and tall. The stark reality of what she’d gone through had impacted on him all over again. It had almost but not quite eclipsed what he’d felt when she’d told him she felt claustrophobic. Hurt. An emotion he’d only ever felt around his siblings when they’d used to shut him out.
Hurt was not an emotion he welcomed. He’d always liked and respected Kat, but he’d never claimed to love her. He wanted no part of that—not after seeing his brother so destroyed by it.
Once again Zafir felt the urge to just walk away. Consign this to the status of a one-night stand. A slaking of lust. But even as he thought that he knew it was a lie. His body burned for her. One night would never be enough.
Just then there was the sound of splashing and a muffled curse. Zafir didn’t even think. He walked straight into the bathroom.
Kat was sitting up in the bath and she looked at him. All he saw was gleaming pale skin and those glorious breasts rising from the water.
‘I heard...something...’ he said, feeling ridiculous.
‘I just dropped the soap.’
Kat’s cheeks were pink. Her hair was piled high, but long tendrils clung to her skin. Giving up the fight, Zafir muttered a curse and dropped the towel from around his hips, seeing Kat’s eyes widen as she took in his helplessly rampant response.
Zafir was climbing into the bath before Kat could react. She squeaked as he settled himself behind her, making water slosh over the edge of the bath. ‘What are you doing?’
His arms were around her, pulling her back against his broad chest, and the past and present meshed painfully for a moment, reminding of her of many such shared moments before.
‘Zafir...’ she protested weakly.
‘Yes?’ Zafir started to lather his hands with soap and then spread them over her body.
‘You don’t have to do this...’ Kat tensed her body, trying to hold back the emotion she was feeling.
Zafir’s hands stilled. He angled himself around to see her face. ‘What is it?’
Kat shrugged, as if this wasn’t a big deal. ‘I just... This kind of thing has been so far from my mind... I certainly never expected that when the time came it would be you...’
Her heart beat fast. This was the closest she could come to trying to articulate the tangled feelings in her breast.
‘And are you glad it’s me?’
Kat knew now that she was in serious trouble, because experiencing this reawakening with him was more profound than she liked to admit. Not that she could tell him that. Not when to him this was just an affair to gain closure.
She shrugged again and said—as nonchalantly as she could when he was at her back, surrounding her in heat and desire, ‘You’re a good lover, Zafir...’
A good lover.
Zafir curbed his tongue. How did she manage to make that sound almost insulting? As for the thought that she would have let some other man see her for the first time as she was now... Zafir didn’t even want to contemplate that scenario.
He concentrated instead on washing Kat’s body with an explorative zeal that would soon make her admit that—what? What did he want her to admit? Zafir suddenly wasn’t sure...
But then he felt Kat start to soften against him, her back arching against his chest, her body moving restlessly under the water, and as he found the slick centre of her body and made her moan he told himself he didn’t care. This was all he cared about. Here and now.
It was enough. It would be enough.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SOME HOURS LATER Kat was dressed and ready to go, but she was delaying her exit from the bedroom to join Zafir in the suite, where he’d gone to make some calls, because the full significance of the previous night and everything that had happened was sinking in fully—and very belatedly. As if she’d been blocking it out until now.