CHAPTER FOUR
KATIE’SFINGERSSLIDOFF the broad shoulder pressing her into the mattress, Jack Wolfe’s erection still solid inside her.
But, as the halo of afterglow faded, the shattering truth settled on her chest. And felt even heavier than Wolfe’s muscular body.
What had she done?
She’d never made love before with such urgency, and passion and ferocity—he’d stoked it for sure, but she’d been a willing and eager participant in her own destruction.
He groaned as he rolled off her.
She flinched, aware of the tenderness from their brutal joining and the sticky residue he had left behind.
This man had been engaged to her sister only a month ago. And, even if he and Bea had never slept together, Katie had just crossed a line—an ethical, moral line. She didn’t even like the man. And she certainly didn’t trust him.
Perhaps she should be grateful they’d got the hunger out of their system that had been building since that night. But her panic only increased when he shifted beside her and laid a possessive hand on her stomach. The heat didn’t feel anywhere near as satisfying as it should have, but worse was that sense of connection which couldn’t be real.
She shifted, attempting to scoot off the bed, but his hand curled around her hip, holding her in place.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked.
She was forced to look at him.
His tanned skin glowed in the turbulent light as the storm continued to batter the window. His strong features, marred by that jagged scar, looked saturnine, the unreadable expression doing nothing to contain the storm raging inside her.
‘I need to wash up,’ she said, horrified at the thought she hadn’t asked him to use protection. She’d been blindsided by him, enough to lose not just her control but every one of her scruples and priorities. And that had never happened to her before. Not ever.
And they weren’t even dating.
She grasped his wrist to lift his arm off her. He didn’t protest as she sat up and scooped her discarded T-shirt off the floor. She tugged it on, feeling brutally exposed.
Bit late for that, Katie.
Thank goodness the T-shirt was long enough to cover her bare bum because her panties had vanished.
As she stood, intending to lock herself in the bathroom until she could figure out how on earth to play this situation, he said softly behind her, ‘I’m sorry. I should have used a condom and I didn’t. I’ve never done that before.’
She glanced round, surprised by the apology and by the frown on his face that suggested he was telling the truth. The heat that shot through her already overused body at the sight of him naked and still partially aroused was not at all welcome.
He threw the quilt over his lap, but the lazy movement suggested he was doing it to protect her modesty, not his own.
Not that she had any. Not any more. Not after the way she’d thrown herself at him. And gone completely to pieces at the first touch of his lips, the first intimate caress.
‘Are there likely to be consequences we need to address?’ he asked, gathering his faculties a lot quicker than she could.
She shook her head. ‘Not unless you have any unpleasant diseases,’ she managed, so humiliated now she couldn’t even look at him. She turned to stare out of the window, the sun finally putting in an appearance and making the raindrops on the forest leaves sparkle.
The cottage was in a small glade with a mountain stream at the back. One of the few memories she had of her mother was from here, smiling when Carys had brought her and Beatrice to Snowdonia to visit their nain. Before her mother had died and her father had forbidden them both to visit ‘the old crone’, as he liked to call Angharad Evans.
When Katie had arrived to clear the place out a month ago, she’d felt instantly as if she belonged here. But she felt lost now, disorientated, as if she’d become someone other than who she had strived to be—smart, independent and accountable to no one but herself. Had she also betrayed Angharad Evans’ memory in the process by welcoming a man as ruthless as her father into her grandmother’s old bed?
‘I’m on the pill to help with my periods,’ she murmured, grateful at least that by a stroke of luck an unplanned pregnancy wouldn’t be a consequence. But then she wondered why she had explained the information. Jack Wolfe hardly needed to know she wasn’t dating.
Perhaps that was why she’d succumbed so easily to the erotic charge which had flared without warning as soon as he’d declared an interest. It had been four years since she’d been intimate with anyone.
But, even as she tried to persuade herself her insane behaviour had been purely physical, she knew it wasn’t. After all, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t had an orgasm in four years. She was perfectly capable of taking care of her own needs in that department. Although not even her vibrator had ever given her an orgasm—two orgasms—so intense she could still feel the dying embers threatening to reignite any minute just at the sight of Jack lounging on her bed like a well-satisfied tiger... Or rather, a well-satisfied wolf.
Wow, pathetic much?
‘I’m clean,’ he said, interrupting her pity party. ‘I have a rigorous medical every year for my company’s insurance,’ he added, surprising her with his candour. ‘And, as I said, I’ve never had sex before without a condom.’
‘Good to know,’ she said, trying to find the information reassuring.
‘How about you?’
She swung round at the probing question. Outraged, despite the rational part of her brain telling her he had just as much right to ask her about her sexual history. ‘I’m clean too,’ she snapped. ‘As luck would have it, I’m nowhere near as promiscuous as you are.’
He barked out a half-laugh, completely unperturbed by the bitchy response. ‘Don’t believe everything you read about me,’ he said. ‘I’ve become surprisingly discerning in my old age.’
The frank response made her wish she could take back the revealing reply as she recalled he had never slept with her sister. He’d been engaged to Bea for a week and had dated her for over a month. Why hadn’t he seduced her sister with the same fierce focus he’d just seduced her with after meeting her exactly twice? And why should it matter when she’d stopped comparing herself to Bea years ago?
His scarred eyebrow arched and a speculative gleam lit his eyes, accentuating the dark rim around his irises. She had the hideous feeling he could see what she was thinking.
‘Just out of interest, when was the last time you dated?’ he asked, the forthright question slicing through her confused thoughts.
Heat scalded her cheeks.