Luke braced his hands on the sofa cushions to stop himself crushing her. He eased out of her tight sheath, grunting as her muscles gripped him, massaging him through the last vicious throes of his orgasm. And hers.
He let out a ragged breath and touched his forehead to hers. ‘That was intense,’ he said, in what had to be the understatement of the century.
‘Hmmm...’ she said, her eyes closed, her voice barely a murmur.
He forced himself to lift off her and sit up, suddenly raw and confused. For a moment he’d thought she’d been about to say she had been a virgin after all, and something brutally possessive and protective had surged through him—was still surging through him. Which made no damn sense.
He perched on the edge of the sofa, then glanced over his shoulder to watch her. She rolled away from him, tucked her hands under her cheek and settled into the couch cushions, her naked body given a golden sheen by the light from the firepit.
A few moments later he detected the steady rise and fall of her ribs.
She’d crashed out on him.
A part of him figured he should probably be annoyed she’d dismissed him so easily, but as he studied her—the delectable curve of her bare butt, the elegant line of her spine, the tangle of hair down her back—he couldn’t muster much indignation.
If the orgasm had shattered him, it had destroyed her.
Standing, he dragged his boxers back on, far too aware of the renewed pulsing in his groin. But no way were they doing that again tonight, or it would probably kill them both.
A wry smile tugged at his lips, despite the unsettling direction of his thoughts. After three days of hard physical activity and very little sleep, was it any surprise that he was ready to face-plant after finally addressing the sexual tension that had tormented him? Why should she be any different? That was all this was. Nothing to see here.
He tugged on his sweater, then found a throw rug on the opposite couch to cover her.
But after tucking the soft blanket around her naked body he heard the distant rumble of thunder from the retreating storm. He couldn’t leave her alone down here. What if the lights went out again and she woke in the dark?
The tension in his groin moved up to constrict around his heart.
‘Ah, to hell with it...’ he murmured, then hunkered down and scooped her into his arms, wrapped in the throw.
‘Mmm...’ she said, groggy and dazed, but then she shifted to snuggle against his chest, as trusting and defenceless as a child.
His heart bobbed as he toted her towards the staircase. ‘Come on, Cassandra, let’s go to bed.’
He reached the mezzanine, but instead of heading down the hallway towards the guest bedroom she’d been using for the last two days, he walked into the master bedroom.
She wasn’t his responsibility... But he didn’t ever want to see her fall apart that way again.
He laid her gently on his bed, still covered in the throw rug. One of her feet peeked out of her cocoon and hung over the edge of the mattress. She was wearing one hiking sock.
He frowned, mesmerised and stupidly touched by the sight.
&nb
sp; Just a sock, man, get real.
He tugged the dangling sock off, then tucked her slender foot back under the blanket and headed to the bathroom for a cold shower.
When he returned to the bedroom she hadn’t moved a single muscle, so deeply asleep he would guess she wasn’t going to move till morning.
He climbed into bed behind her and placed a hand on her hip, needing that connection and not even knowing why.
Being mad at her hadn’t worked—maybe losing themselves in the electrical connection they shared was the answer? Perhaps they could get it out of their systems while they were stuck here together. But then what did he do with her?
He sighed, his brain knotting around the unsolvable problem of Cassandra.
Whatever.
Tomorrow would be soon enough to figure out what the heck was going on here. And what the heck he was supposed to do about her.