Did he really not consider me a failure? Had he actually meant all those astonishing things he’d said about me? Could we be more alike than I realised and was it at all possible we had hang-ups about similar things? And why, oh, why could I not stop thinking about the nature of the things he’d said he wanted to do to me?
To my despair, my resolve to move on from what had happened on the console table was no match for my imagination. Vivid, erotic snapshots of the two of us together on a bed fogged my vision and muddled my head. The memory of the dark intent in his eyes made me tremble and shiver in a way that I simply couldn’t stop.
In the days and months to come, would I always look at him and wonder, what if? Would I regret my decision to keep him at arm’s length or find relief in it? Despite my concerted efforts to convince myself otherwise, deep down, I suspected I knew the answers to both those questions. Denial was hard to cling onto when the desire flooding my system was so insistent and refused to stay at bay. I wanted to know exactly how wild his wildest dreams had been. I yearned to feel his weight on top of me, pressing me down as he took what he wanted and made me scream as he’d promised.
By the time I switched off the water and stepped out of the shower I’d come to the conclusion that I’d overreacted by declaring fifteen minutes of passion a one-off. There was nothing momentous about what we’d done. People had spectacular sex all the time. I’d simply overanalysed the situation and got a little spooked. It had been so sudden. So unexpected. So unbelievably good.
But that was no reason to panic, I assured myself, rubbing my still tingling skin dry and slipping on my dressing gown as my pulse began to race. Scorchingly hot sex didn’t have to mean anything. ThemoreNick had suggested he might want would never refer to an actual relationship, so, contrary to what I’d told myself earlier, he posed no threat to my defences. However goodthe thingshe’d imagined doing to me were, I certainly wasn’t going to wind up weak, vulnerable and exposed to a whole lot of heartache when our relationship inevitably went wrong because we would never get to the relationship stage.
I’d let the shocking revelation about how he’d always wanted me, the abrupt reversal of everything I thought I’d known and the implications of a missing condom get the better of me. Once again I’d felt cornered and gone on the attack. But ‘sitting out’ the storm with him wouldn’t be dangerous. We had to pass the time somehow, and probing conversation of the kind Nick had already attempted on a number of occasions, which might become increasingly harder to deflect if he kept up the pressure, didn’t appeal in the slightest. Discovering what he wanted to do to me, however, did. A lot.
I was barely aware of picking up the torch and heading out of my room. The thundering of my heart drowned out my reason and my body seemed to have taken over. I felt as if I were floating as I went downstairs and searched the rooms, sweeping the bright beam of light around the spaces. Order had been restored to the inner hall where we’d made such a mess, I noticed, but of Nick there was no sign, so I went back upstairs.
I can’t have knocked on the door when I reached his room. I must have simply walked straight on in. I had no hesitation in following the sound of running water. No qualms about slamming to a halt at the door that was ajar and staring transfixed at the reflection I could see in the full-length mirror that was in my line of sight.
Nick was in the shower, water pouring over his broad shoulders and the strong planes of his back, which was marred only by the square patch of the clearly waterproof dressing. He stood, legs apart, facing the controls. One hand was planted on the tiles high above his head, the other was wrapped around himself, moving up and down with quick, hard strokes.
My pulse hammered. My breath caught. Heat poured through me, charging along my veins and electrifying my nerves before pooling between my legs and throbbing deep inside. I couldn’t move. My feet were glued to the floor. Wild horses couldn’t have dragged me away even though I was invading his privacy in the most intimate way possible. I wanted to push open the shower room door, ditch my dressing gown and join him. I wanted to bat aside his hand, sink to my knees in front of him and drive him to completion myself.
But it was too late. His movements were becoming more frantic, less controlled. His jaw was tight and his muscles were straining. His raised arm was trembling. The hand on the wall clenched into a tight fist and then he let out a tortured groan. Great shudders racked his powerful body. His chest heaved as he fought for breath and shook.
The wave of lust that hit me like a torrent nearly took out my knees. I gasped, or maybe moaned, and it must have been loud and harsh enough for him to hear above the flow of water and the raging storm outside or maybe he suddenly caught a reflected flash of the torch beam, for he froze. He lifted his head and snapped it round. His gaze collided with mine in the mirror and for one agonising second neither of us moved. I was incapable of it. I was transfixed by the wildness of his expression. His eyes were dark and glazed. He looked savagely untamed and I shivered.
He switched off the tap and reached for a towel to wrap around his hips and disappeared from sight. Outside, the wind still howled and rain continued to batter the house. Inside, here, within me, the need to flee his understandable wrath at having such a private moment invaded warred with the urge to stay and achieve what I’d come to achieve, and I dithered, but a second later the decision was taken out of my hands.
Nick opened the door and leaned his uninjured shoulder against the frame, his laser-like gaze pinning me to the spot so fixedly I couldn’t have moved even if I’d wanted to. ‘Does it turn you on to watch?’
His voice was very low and it skittered across my skin, raising goosebumps all over me. I was so aroused, I was wet and aching and my knees were shaking. Five minutes ago I’d have said I didn’t know if voyeurism was my thing. Now I knew differently. ‘It certainly turns me on to watch you.’
‘What are you doing in my room?’
I could hardly remember. Even my own name was a struggle to recall. But my hands itched to touch him. My mouth tingled at the thought of being crushed to his, and what I wanted flooded back on a wave of heat. ‘I’ve changed my mind about our console-table encounter being a one-off.’
He arched one dark eyebrow. ‘What happened to never again?’
‘I panicked. I was in shock. I overreacted. But I was wrong. I must have been mad to think that once was enough after the build-up of all these years. I want more. I’m keen to know your every intention towards me.’
‘Myeveryintention?’
I nodded. ‘I want you beneath me, above me, in every possible position. I need to know what these things you have in mind for me are. I want you to know the things I have in mind for you. And I’d far rather regret something I have done than something I haven’t.’
He tilted his head, the intensity of his focus flipping my stomach. ‘You’d regret it?’
Oops. Probably. But admitting to it might put him off, and that was the last thing I wanted. ‘Only if it turns out to be mediocre, but I can’t see that happening.’
‘You still want me to be your plaything.’
I didn’t know what I wanted him to be, other than naked and all over me. ‘You give as good as you get,’ I said, my heart beating hard and fast. ‘Your “I guess you’ll never know” was a deliberate taunt. You knew my imagination would go into overdrive.’
‘And did it?’
‘Yes.’
‘God, you’re dangerous.’
‘Would you care to elaborate?’
‘Not right now.’ Nick pushed himself off the door frame, the set of his jaw, the intent in his gaze the most blazing I’d ever seen. ‘Do you have anything on beneath that dressing gown?’