‘I thought you wanted to make up for lost time?’ she said softly.
Her hand slid lower down over his belly, trembling slightly, and she wrapped her fingers around his hard, straining length, her breathing losing its rhythm as his pupils flared.
‘Oh, I do,’ he said hoarsely as he reached out and cupped her breast, his thumb brushing lightly, maddeningly, across her rigid nipple.
Somewhere low down and deep inside she could feel herself melting, and she squirmed against his hand, moaning softly. She felt his breathing change as he pulled her close and rolled onto his back, taking her with him, anchoring her aching, hollowed-out body to his with not quite steady hands.
Shivering, she arched, pressing down against him as his fingers caressed her breasts, their teasing touch sending ripples through her body so that she could think of nothing but him, nothing but her need to feel his heat and power again, to feel him inside her.
She shifted against him, parting her legs further, chasing the fluttering beat of heat that was just out of reach. Groaning, he leaned sideways, fumbling on the floor for his discarded wallet, his other hand gripping her against him.
‘Here.’
He handed her the condom packet and she tore it open.
‘Pinch the end.’
His jaw was clenched, the muscles bunching in his arms as she rolled it onto his hard length. She felt a wet heat flood between her thighs at the barely checked hunger in his eyes, and then she lowered herself onto the blunt head of his erection.
His fingers grazed her stomach, strangling the breath in her throat.
‘Don’t be scared,’ he whispered, sliding his hands under her bottom and lifting her up. ‘Just take it slow. I won’t move until you’re—’
He breathed in sharply as she reached down and took him in her hand, guiding him slowly. A moan climbed up her throat as she pushed down, her body stretching, filling with what she wanted. His fingers reached for her breasts and then, raising himself up, he took first one and then the other nipple into his mouth, tonguing and licking them in turn, his breathing ragged as she started to rock against him.
Her body was contracting, tightening and pulsing around him, and then he started to move beneath her. She was moving in time with him, torn between the soft press of his mouth and the hard push of his body.
He made a rough sound and fell back against the pillow, his dark eyes resting on her face. His hands moved over her thighs, and then between them, his fingers oscillating in time to her heartbeat until she was shaking with need and pleasure.
‘Look at me, Mimi,’ he whispered.
She stared down into his face, her breath jerking from her throat as he eased himself in and out of her body with ever-increasing urgency. His hands gripped her waist and she cried out, her body splintering apart, gripping him tightly as he groaned and thrust up inside her.
Her heartbeat was filling her head and she shuddered against him as he breathed out unevenly, his chest rising and falling. Heart pounding, she stared down at him, trying to imprint the moment into her memory, wanting to remember the shape of his mouth, the pull of his gaze, the feel of his body inside hers.
‘Come here.’ Pulling her forward, he kissed her, and then, cupping her face, pressed his forehead against hers. ‘You’re smiling,’ he said softly.
Mimi tilted her head back. ‘I’m happy.’
Happier than she could ever remember being. Except she couldn’t help but feel a flicker of apprehension—because in her world happiness came with an inbuilt risk that at some unspecified point in the future all of it could be taken away.
His eyes were dark and unwavering. ‘What a coincidence. So am I.’
Pulling her closer, he smiled, and instantly she forgot her fears and was lost in his smile, lost in him, so that nothing mattered except the press of his lips against hers...
* * *
Basa shifted forward in his chair. As he scrolled down his laptop screen he tried to concentrate on what his PA had written. Rebecca was an excellent PA, and normally he enjoyed her concise and meticulous reports, but today he was struggling to focus on anything other than the woman standing on the deck outside his window.
Mimi was staring across the lake. She was holding up some kind of video camera, so he couldn’t see her face. She was wearing nothing that could be described as even vaguely attention-seeking, and yet his gaze kept returning to her approximately every ten seconds.
Sighing, he closed his laptop and leaned back, frowning at his uncharacteristic lack of focus. On an average day he would have worked through a report like this one in a couple of hours, and his recommendations would already be winging their way back to Rebecca.
Only this wasn’t an average day. It was the day he and Mimi had become lovers and he was still coming to terms with that new and incredible reality.
His pulse jumped. He was Mimi’s first lover, and he was a little confused—ashamed, even—by how much that mattered to him. He’d always thought of himself as modern and urbane, but against his will—against that image of himself—he could feel himself liking the fact that he was her first.
He breathed out slowly. It felt weird not to recognise his feelings—but why should his feelings be immune to change? Over the last forty-eight hours he and Mimi had more or less rewritten their shared history, and it appeared that he’d spent the last two years spectacularly misjudging her in about as many ways as it was possible to misjudge a person.