* * *
Theo moved so fast, so unexpectedly, that for a nanosecond Kate had no idea what was going on. She was too busy trying to process the seismic shift she’d experienced when he’d demanded she wait and she’d turned to see him striding towards her with the intensity and focus of a heat-seeking missile. The set of his jaw, the hot look in his eye and the gruffness of his voice had made her shiver from head to toe. When he’d stopped just in front of her, the tension emanating from him palpable, something deep inside her had flared to life and rushed through her blood, making her head spin. And then his words. Her? Desirable? Yeah, right.
She didn’t know what had made her demand proof of it and she had no idea what she’d expected, but now he was touching her, holding her, kissing her, seemingly as if his life depended on it, and she reeled first with the shock of it and then with the electrifying notion that maybe she’d been a bit too quick to dismiss his claims about her appeal. There certainly didn’t seem anything half-hearted about the searing pressure of his lips on hers and he really didn’t seem the sort of man who would do anything he didn’t want to do.
Maybe though, just to check that he hadn’t been lying when he said he wasn’t joking, she ought to stop just standing there like a flake and start kissing him back. Then she’d know.
Before her courage could fail her or her hang-ups get the better of her, Kate closed her eyes and leaned into him. She put her hands on his waist and took advantage of his sharp intake of breath to part her lips and then crush them back to his. And in that instant the chemistry that she’d been too ignorant to identify before ignited. The second their tongues touched, Theo groaned and immediately deepened the kiss, pulling her closer, sliding his tongue into her mouth and blowing her mind with his breathtaking skill.
As she kissed him back with equal intensity but significantly less skill, she was sure, liquid heat rocketed through her veins and pooled between her legs. Instinctively, she moved her hands further round his back and he tilted his hips, and when she felt the huge rock-hard length of his erection pressing into her abdomen, she suddenly wanted it inside her with a clenching, gnawing, relentless ache that obliterated what remained of her wits.
All rational thought evaporated, and as her head emptied her senses took over with stunning ferocity. She was aware of nothing but Theo, the solidity of his broad chest hard up against the softness of hers, his heady masculine scent and the intoxicating taste of his mouth. The heat emanating from his body fired the flames in hers, turning her insides to
molten lava and setting off so many tiny fireworks that her knees went weak.
It was as if some sort of devastatingly powerful tropical weather system had taken up residence inside her, she thought dizzily. And incredibly, it seemed as if Theo were caught up in it too because, in response to the sensory onslaught and the increasingly incendiary kiss, Kate gave a helpless little moan and suddenly he was pushing her back against the door and trapping her there with his big hard body.
And she wasn’t complaining. Why would she when she felt so alive, so on fire? When, for the first time ever, it seemed that someone desired her? She was not going to look this gift horse in the mouth, so when Theo removed his hands from her face and clamped them to her waist she granted him better access by arching her back slightly and winding her arms around his neck.
In response, with one hand he shoved her skirt up just enough to jam one hard muscled thigh between hers and with the other he undid the button of her jacket and then tugged her shirt from the waistband of her skirt. And all the while he continued with the drugging, soul-shattering kisses.
As white-hot desire pounded through her, Kate instinctively shifted her hips to grind herself against his thigh and alleviate the burning ache, and then he was sliding his hand beneath her top and up, singeing her sensitised skin, then cupping her breast and rubbing a thumb over her agonisingly tight nipple. The lace of her bra might as well not have been there because she felt the heat of his hand like a brand. The friction was unbearable yet she wanted more. So she pressed herself closer, ground her hips that little bit harder and the hot sparks of electric pleasure jolting through her were so thrilling, so exquisitely powerful that she instinctively tensed and gasped—
And the spell that wild, desperate need had been weaving around them shattered.
As if doused with a bucket of iced water, Theo instantly froze. His hands sprang off her, and with a rough curse he jerked back. He looked stunned. His eyes were black and his breathing was laboured. And as he raked his hands through the hair that only moments ago she’d been threading her fingers through, somewhere in the midst of the hazy desire and intense disappointment that he’d stopped, it occurred to Kate that, yes, he could look dishevelled, he could be thrown off balance, and oddly enough it was something of a relief.
‘That was not meant to happen,’ he said roughly, clearly as poleaxed by the strength of the chemistry that flared between them as she was.
No, well, obviously not, she thought, righting her clothes with shaking hands, hugely glad that the door was behind her for support since she wasn’t sure her legs were up to the job. ‘I’m sorry.’
His gaze shot to hers and his brows snapped together. ‘What?’ he growled, rubbing his hands over his face and shaking his head. ‘No. You have nothing to be sorry about. I do. I overstepped the line. I apologise.’
Oh. Right. ‘I thought there was no line.’
‘There’s a line.’ His dark eyes glittered and she shivered. ‘And you should go.’
‘Or what?’ she challenged rashly, responding to the warning she could hear in his tone before she could reflect on the wisdom of her question.
He let out a quick, humourless laugh. ‘You do not want to know.’
Oh, but she did. ‘I do.’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
‘Fine,’ he bit out. ‘If you don’t go, we cross that line together and your virginity becomes history.’
For a moment his words hovered in the space between them, charging the air with electricity and tension, and then Kate swallowed hard, her heart thundering and the blood drumming her ears. Dear God. What was he saying? Did he want her that much? Or was he merely teasing?
‘Are you serious?’ she said hoarsely.
‘Deadly.’
‘You want to have sex with me?’
His eyes drilled into hers as he thrust his hands in his pockets. ‘Yes.’