LITMIR.BIZ

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      Was she going to set him straight on that count? Was she going to tell him the series of events that had led to her sexless union? The depth of feeling she had carried for him, Javier? Was she going to risk him knowing how madly in love with him she had been and then finding the link and working out just how madly in love she still was with him?

      ‘Roger, gay...’ He might as well have been for the amount of notice he had paid her.

      ‘Key thing here is this, Soph—it was nothing you did.’

      ‘Really?’ She very much doubted that but Javier nodded briskly.

      ‘I went out with a functioning alcoholic a couple of years ago,’ he confided, drawing her closer to him and liking her lack of resistance. ‘You would never have guessed that she drank her daily intake of calories. She was a model with an erratic, hectic lifestyle and she was very careful.’

      ‘Didn’t you suspect anything?’ Sophie stared at him, round-eyed. It was a relief to have the conversation off her for a moment.

      ‘We were both busy, meeting in various foreign locations either where she was modelling or where I happened to be. I only twigged when she started having more ambitious plans for our...relationship.’

      ‘What does that mean?’

      ‘It means she decided that meeting in various foreign locations wasn’t enough. She wanted something of a more permanent arrangement.’

      ‘Poor woman,’ Sophie said with heartfelt sympathy.

      ‘Misplaced sympathies,’ Javier said wryly. ‘She knew the game before it started. Not my fault if somewhere along the line she forgot the rules.’

      She knew the game the way I know the game, Sophie thought, and I’d better make sure I don’t forget the rules or else...

      And with a finger in the family company—frankly more than just a finger—parting company might be a little more difficult than he would want. Not just a simple case of ignoring calls and text messages after signing off with a bunch of flowers and a thanks-but-no-thanks farewell note...

      ‘So how did you, er, find out that there was a problem?’

      ‘She surprised me by inviting me over to her place in London for dinner.’

      ‘And it was the first time you’d been there?’

      ‘Like I said, the rules of the game...they don’t include cosy domestic scenes.’

      ‘You eat out all the time?’

      Javier shrugged. ‘It works. I’m only interested in the bedroom when it comes to any woman’s house.’

      Sophie thought that he’d seen more than just the bedroom of this particular house, but then, she knew, circumstances weren’t exactly typical even though the ground rules would be exactly the same.

      ‘But I went along and it didn’t take me long to see just how many bottles of alcohol there were in places where food should have been stored. And it took even less time to unearth the mother lode because there had been no reason for her to hide any of it as she didn’t share the flat with anyone. When I confronted her, she tried to make me believe that it was somehow my fault that she drank as much as she did, because I wouldn’t commit to her. She clung and cried and said that her drinking had gone through the roof because she was depressed that our relationship wasn’t going anywhere. Of course, I left her immediately and then got in touch with a private counsellor specialising in people with alcohol-related addictions. But the point I’m making is that there are just some people who won’t face up to their own shortcomings and will take every opportunity to shift the blame onto other people.’

      ‘And you think that, er, that Roger...’

      ‘I think nothing.’ Javier gestured in a way that was exotically foreign and then leant in closer to her. ‘It would be a tough call for a man to find the courage to face up to his own sexual inclinations when those sexual inclinations risk putting him outside his comfort zone and alienating him from the people he has grown up with.’

      ‘Roger was certainly a coward,’ Sophie said bitterly.

      ‘But all that is in the past.’ He waved his hand elegantly. ‘We find ourselves here and I’m glad you felt comfortable enough to bare all to me.’

      ‘You would have found out anyway,’ she said vaguely.

      ‘You shouldn’t have put your clothes back on. Now I’m going to have to strip them off you all over again. No, scrap that—what I’d really like is for you to take them off for me, bit by slow bit, a piece at a time, so that I can appreciate every delectable bit of your glorious body...’

      ‘I...I can’t do that.’

      ‘You’re shy...’ Had she ever undressed in front of her husband? he wondered. Was all of this completely new to her? He confessed to himself that he was tickled pink and turned on like hell by the thought of that, the thought of him being the absolute first on so many counts.

      Shy but unbelievably turned on...

      She liked the way his dark, appreciative eyes roved over her like a physical caress. She liked the way he made her feel. She had never done any kind of striptease for a man before but now she began undressing as he had asked, very slowly, eyes never leaving his as she removed her clothing.

      He made her feel safe and she knew why. It was because she loved him. She knew that he could hurt her beyond repair—knew that her love would never be returned and, after tonight, she would be left with only the memory of making love and the knowledge that what she wanted would never happen—but none of that seemed to matter. She’d thought that her heart could never again be made to beat but she’d been wrong. Her love overrode common sense and she couldn’t fight it.

      And what was the point of fighting anyway? She lived with enough regret on her shoulders without adding to the tally. If she had this one opportunity to grasp a bit of happiness, then why shouldn’t she take it? She would deal with the aftermath later.

      She unhooked her bra, stepped out of her undies and then walked slowly towards him, sashaying provocatively and seeing for herself the effect she was having on him.

      Javier held his erection through his boxers, controlling the wayward effects of his surging libido. He breathed deeply and tried to think pleasant, pedestrian thoughts so that he could gather himself sufficiently to do justice to the situation.

      No rushing.

      ‘You look tense,’ Sophie murmured. She was amazed at how at ease she was with her nakedness. Indeed, she was positively basking in it. She delicately stroked the side of his face with one finger and Javier grabbed it and sucked it, watching her with smouldering passion so that every bone in her body seemed to go into meltdown.

      ‘Tense isn’t quite the word I would use...’ He drew her close to him so that their bodies were lightly pressed together and, eyes still locked to hers, he eased his hand over her hip, along her thigh and then between them.

      Her wetness on his finger elicited a moan of pure satisfaction from him.

      Sophie couldn’t breathe. Her eyelids fluttered. There was something so erotic about them both standing, looking at one another while he rubbed his finger against the small, tight bud of her clitoris, rousing sensations like little explosions and fireworks inside her. She shifted and moaned softly.

      ‘This is just the appetiser,’ Javier murmured, kissing her on her mouth, small, darting kisses that left her breathless. ‘And there will be lots of those to enjoy before the main course.’

      ‘I want to pleasure you too...’

      ‘You already are. Trust me—just touching you is giving me more pleasure than you could even begin to understand.’

      In one fluid movement, he swept her off her feet and carried her to the bed as easily as if she weighed nothing. He deposited her as gently as if she were

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