‘Why?’
‘Why?’
‘Well, is this a pity thing?’ she asked, accepting the mortification that surged through her because she had to make sure. ‘You know, help the poor orphan virgin with her pathetic self-esteem issues? Are you still trying to prove a point?’
His jaw clenched and he looked as if he wanted to hit something. ‘No,’ he grated, evidently hanging onto his control by a thread. ‘You were right. I am not that altruistic. And believe me, pity is the last thing I am feeling at this precise moment.’
‘I see,’ she said, although really she was too bewildered, too stunned, to see anything.
‘Good,’ he snapped, taking a step back. ‘So, for your own sake, Kate, I suggest you leave. Now.’
It was excellent advice. There was no doubt about that. The evening had taken an unexpectedly dramatic turn. Kate was so out of her depth she was in danger of drowning. With the way her head was spinning and her body was ablaze she ought to be feeling for the handle, yanking open the door and legging it to the lift, to safety, as fast as her trembling legs could carry her.
But she didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want safety. She wanted more of those wild kisses, more of the magnetic darkness and thrilling passion she could sense in him, and she wanted it all with an urgency that was breathtaking.
The strength of her feelings ought to have made her wary. Instead they were electrifying. She’d been hoping to offload her virginity for years. As unbelievable as it was, Theo appeared to be a hair’s breadth from taking it, and she desperately wanted him to have it, because that attraction she’d so blithely dismissed as impossible earlier? Blazing.
So to hell with the consequences. So what if he was who he was and she was significantly less? It wasn’t as if she were going to bump into him again. They quite literally operated on entirely different levels. Besides, recent events had taught her that life was short, and in all honesty she’d rather regret something she had done than something she hadn’t.
She took a deep breath, licked her suddenly dry lips and opened her mouth to speak.
‘Kate,’ Theo cut in tersely, as if he was able to read her mind and found her thoughts deeply ill-advised.
‘Yes?’ she replied, knowing it was far too late for warnings when the decision was already made.
‘Think very carefully.’
‘I have.’
‘Don’t be a fool.’
‘I know what I want.’
‘I make no promises.’
‘I don’t want any.’ Reality had no place here. ‘Once is enough.’
He took a step towards her, his gaze cleaved to hers, and her entire body began to tremble with desire, excitement and anticipation.
‘Last chance, Kate,’ he said, his voice so low and gravelly it scraped along her nerve-endings.
‘I’m going nowhere.’
* * *
And it was at that precise moment that Theo’s patience, already stretched paper thin, snapped. He’d tried to warn Kate off—repeatedly—and he’d given her every opportunity to leave. If she chose to defy him then she was just going to have to face the consequences. She was an adult. As she’d told him earlier, she was perfectly capable of making her own decisions. He was only human, as much at the mercy of scorching desire as the next man, and so, really, there was nothing else to be done.
‘Yes, you are,’ he muttered, grabbing her hand and peeling her off the door as he inexorably caved in to the raging need he’d been holding at bay for the last five minutes.
‘Not here?’ she said with a little gasp of surprise.
Up against a door? Her first time? Not a chance. ‘Not here.’
‘Then where? The sofa? Your desk?’
‘My bed,’ he said, leading her straight past all the furniture and towards the door cleverly built into the wall and disguised as a bookcase.
‘What—?’ she started, pulling back a little, instinctively resisting the idea of walking into a wall, until he pushed the section he’d had constructed, the door opened and he led her through.