‘Well, I promise you I won’t.’
She could feel the tension in his body as his hands cupped her breast. Despite herself she shivered slightly. He was looking at her, forcing her to meet his gaze, and then he bent his head and gently kissed each coral nipple with warm lips.
A shuddering sigh was wrenched from deep within her, the fear flooding out of her, pushed by the slow tide of desire coming in its wake. The sensation of Jon’s mouth against her breast had been both reassuring and tormenting. She wanted more than the light brush of his lips against her skin, she realised achingly. Much, much more—but Jon was already moving away from her.
Reacting instinctively, she reached towards him curling her fingers into his hair, feeling the unmistakable hardening of her nipples beneath the heat of the sharp breath he expelled.
‘Sophy.’ He said her name roughly, warningly, but she was past heeding him, her own voice taut with longing as she moaned softly. ‘Jon, please...’
‘Please what?’ His voice was thick and slurred as though the words were unfamiliar to him, one hand cupping her breast, the other drawing her down against his mouth as he muttered against her skin, ‘Please this?’ and his mouth moved back to her breast.
For long, long moments, the only noise in the room was the tortured sound of her breathing and the moist movement of his mouth caressing her breast, his tongue moving roughly over the aroused peak of it until she was moaning in wild pleasure.
She ached when he released her but not because he had hurt her.
‘Don’t be afraid, I’m not going to do anything you don’t want.’
She closed her eyes as she felt him move. Couldn’t he see that what she was afraid of now was that she would want it...that in wanting him she would be vulnerable to him and that, like Chris, he would find her lacking and reject her? And that was something she could not endure.
She moved away from him and knew he had registered her withdrawal as he said her name sharply.
‘It’s late, Jon,’ she told him huskily. ‘I must go back to my own room.’
For a moment she thought he was going to stop her, and then she heard him sigh.
‘Sophy, you know I want you,’ he told her tiredly. ‘I want you to want me in return, not to be frightened of me. Is it me you’re frightened of, or sex in general?’
‘A little of both,’ she admitted huskily. ‘I don’t want you to look at me the way Chris looked at me, Jon,’ she told him tormentedly. ‘Believe me, it’s better if I go now. If I stayed I promise you you’d only be disappointed.’
‘Is that what he told you?’ he asked her roughly. ‘That all men would find you disappointing because he did?’
She managed a wry smile. ‘I’m not a complete fool, Jon. There have been other men...oh, none of them were ever physically intimate with me because sooner or later our relationship always reached the point where it became obvious that I was disappointing them.’
‘Are you sure you’re not just saying all this because you find me a turn-off?’
‘No!’ Her denial rang with truth. She reached out and touched his face hesitantly, trying to smile at him. ‘Believe it or not, Jon, I find you extremely desirable. But can’t you see that just makes it so much harder? Because of that, I’m frightened of disappointing you.’
She got off the bed before he could say anything and picked up her dress, hurrying out into the corridor and into her own room.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHE WOKE UP during the night, not knowing what had disturbed her, conscious only of some sound alien to those she normally heard.
Her bedroom door opened inwards and she sat up in bed, her eyes widening as she saw Jon walk into her room.
He was wearing pyjama bottoms, dark silk ones, and she tensed as he came over to the bed, wanting him and yet afraid of what that wanting might lead to when he too discovered how useless she was as a woman.
As he reached for the bedclothes, she wriggled away, smothering a tiny gasp of surprise as he slid into bed beside her.
‘Jon!’
Her protest was silenced by the warm brush of his fingers against her mouth. ‘I can’t sleep without you, Sophy,’ she heard him saying huskily, as his arms went round her. ‘I only want to sleep with you in my arms, that’s all.’