CHAPTER TEN
MICHAEL DREW IN a harshly ragged breath at hearing Eva answer him with her usual straightforwardness. He should have expected it of her, of course, but he had hardly dared to hope that might be her answer...
‘My bedroom or yours?’ he prompted gruffly as his arms moved possessively about her waist, the headache that had been plaguing him all evening having miraculously disappeared.
‘Does it matter?’ Her hands slid slowly up his waistcoat and shirt-covered chest to his shoulders, before her fingers moved to become entangled in the hair at his nape.
No, it didn’t matter where, Michael accepted, all that mattered at this moment was making love with Eva, a need that he was only too well aware had consumed his every waking moment since last night.
‘Whichever bedroom it is I think you’re a little overdressed for what we have in mind!’ Eva teased huskily.
The two of them must look slightly ludicrous, Michael accepted ruefully; Eva was dressed in her nightclothes, and he was still wearing the white silk shirt, waistcoat and trousers of the formal three-piece suit he had worn to work that morning, his jacket draped over the back of one of the kitchen chairs.
‘Shower first,’ he announced firmly. ‘Some of us have been working all day and all evening!’ He swung Eva easily up into his arms.
‘Whoa!’ She laughed, her arms moving about his neck so that she could hold on tightly as Michael walked out of the kitchen with her in his arms and then down the hallway to his bedroom.
He didn’t so much as hesitate outside the door but instead just kicked it open and strode inside the darkened room and straight through to the adjoining bathroom.
Eva’s eyes widened. ‘I get to watch you shower?’
‘You get to join me in the shower,’ Michael corrected gruffly.
‘I’ve already taken a shower this evening,’ Eva protested laughingly as Michael sat her down on top of the vanity unit before moving to switch on the light and turn on the water, the smoky glass-sided shower so large it took up almost half of the spacious and opulently appointed bathroom. The tiles on the walls and floor were terracotta and cream, with gold fittings in the shower and double sink, with half a dozen fluffy gold-coloured towels on the warmer.
‘Not with me you haven’t,’ Michael said with satisfaction as he turned, his dark gaze holding hers captive as he took off his tie before unbuttoning his waistcoat and taking that off too. He threw both items onto the narrow marble bench running along one of the walls.
Eva was fascinated, watching Michael as he slowly unfastened his shirt before slipping that off his shoulders and down his arms. Muscles rippled in his tanned chest and back as the shirt joined the rapidly growing pile of his clothes. She couldn’t think as far ahead as the shower he was obviously suggesting they take together.
His torso was...magnificent. Olive skinned, silky dark hair down the centre of his chest, lean and muscled, with not an ounce of superfluous flesh anywhere, and—
Eva’s breath caught in her throat as Michael’s hands moved to the fastening on his trousers before lowering the zip, the colour burning her cheeks as her gaze moved quickly back up to his face.
‘Doesn’t this seem fair to you after last night...?’ he prompted gruffly.
When Eva had been completely naked and Michael had remained fully dressed...
‘Yes,’ she confirmed huskily, grateful for what he was doing, and determined not to avert her gaze as Michael first dispensed with his shoes and socks before removing his trousers too Now he wore only a pair of black boxers that hugged his sculpted hips and thighs above long and muscled legs.
Black hip-hugging boxers that also did very little to hide the lengthy bulge of his arousal!
And then it wasn’t hidden any more as Michael stood completely naked in front of her, his arousal surging up towards his taut abdomen.
Michael was gorgeous in his nakedness.
Unashamedly, blatantly, beautifully gorgeous!
Eva was completely unaware that she was running her tongue slowly over her lips as the heat of her gaze feasted on all that blatant olive-skinned maleness. His thick and pulsing shaft seeming to lengthen and thicken even more as she gazed her fill.
‘God, Eva...!’
Her gaze flickered up to Michael’s face as she heard the husky longing in his voice at his reaction to having the heat of her gaze on him. He breathed shallowly, his whole body tense, hands clenched into fists at his sides, as if he was waiting to see what she would do next.
Eva knew what she wanted to do—
What she was going to do!
Last night she had longed to touch and taste Michael in the same intimate way he had touched and tasted her. In the way his aroused nakedness now invited her to touch and taste him...
Eva’s gaze held Michael’s as she slowly slid down from her seat on top of the vanity unit before walking barefoot across the heated tiles towards him. Her gaze lowered as she came to a halt just inches away from him and she ran the fingertips of both hands lightly across his chest and stomach, before curling them about the long and silken length of his shaft.
‘Eva...!’ He gave a strangulated groan, hands clenching into fists at his sides even as his hips thrust up instinctively forward into those encircling fingers.
She dropped gently to her knees in front of him onto the heated tiles, once again running her tongue across her lips. She brushed the soft pad of her thumb over his moistened tip and, holding his gaze with hers, she brought her thumb to her mouth.
He tasted delicious, slightly salty, with an underlying addictive sweetness that she suspected was uniquely Michael.
Whatever it was she wanted to taste more of him, breathing softly against that sensitive head as she moved closer before parting her lips and taking him completely into her mouth.
‘Eva, I’m not sure I can— Dear sweet heaven!’ Michael groaned in ecstasy as Eva took even more of him inside the heat of her mouth, her tongue an erotic rasp as it flattened over the sensitive head.
She repeated the same caress over and over again, licking, lapping, even as she sucked him deeper and then deeper still, and all the time her fingers clasped tightly about the inches she couldn’t manage, pumping in the same rhythm, taking the fullness of him a little further each time until he felt the back of her throat caressing, stroking that sensitive tip.
‘No more, Eva...!’ Michael’s hands moved out to grasp her shoulders, his eyes burning down into hers as she looked up at him without releasing him, her eyes deep purple between silky dark lashes. ‘I’m not going to last if you don’t stop now.’ He drew in a deep and ragged breath as he once again felt the caressing sweep of her tongue. ‘I want to be inside you when I come,’ he bit out between gritted teeth, his control now balanced on a knife’s edge as he felt himself torn between the longing to allow Eva to continue, to just give in to the pleasure of her caressing mouth and hands until he came, exploding into that welcoming heat, and the desire he also felt to be buried deep inside her when that happened. ‘Please, Eva...!’ he groaned achingly.
Her shoulders relaxed beneath his hands as she sat back slightly on her haunches, lips sliding slowly, reluctantly, back along the length of his shaft until she released him, eyes dark and sultry as she looked up at him, her full lips red and slightly pouting.
Michael chuckled huskily at the reproachful look in Eva’s eyes as his hands moved beneath her elbows and drew her up slowly until she stood in front of him. ‘I assure you, stopping you hurt me a lot more than it did you!’ He tapped her playfully on the end of her nose, groaning softly as he watched her run her tongue slowly over her lips as she enjoyed the lingering taste of him, first the top one, then the lower one, humming softly in her throat as she did so, her eyes half closed in pleasure.
Eva hadn’t wanted to stop, had felt totally aroused just from kissing and tasting Michael, her breasts aching with that arousal, between her thighs hot and moist, the lips there swollen with her need, her hunger to take him deep inside her.
And if she had ever had any doubts about Michael ‘melting’ during lovemaking then she didn’t now—he was as on fire for her as she was for him!
She trembled slightly as Michael now slipped the robe from her shoulders and let it fall to the tiled floor before gazing down at her round breasts as they thrust against the thin material of her camisole. Eva had no need to look down to know that her tingling nipples were aroused to the size of plump berries. Just as her core was also plump and wet. So very wet, and even hotter with need...
Michael didn’t think he’d ever seen anything as sexy as Eva looked right now in the simple white camisole top and those black boxer shorts! More sexy, more desirable, than any female model ever could have done displaying the skimpiest of satin and lace underwear!
There was just something so damned beautiful, so utterly feminine in the way the male boxers sat low on her slim hips, and her thin camisole revealed her peaked nipples.
He held her gaze with his as he reached down and lifted that top up and over her head, dropping it to the tiled floor with her robe as he proceeded to drink his fill of those perfect and naked breasts. Full and sloping globes that he already knew fitted perfectly into his hands, tipped with ripe nipples he couldn’t wait to taste again.
He lowered his head slowly to lingeringly kiss each one as he hooked his fingers into the top of her boxers and slid them down her hips and thighs, able to smell the sweet lure of Eva’s arousal as he dropped to his knees in front of her and buried his face in her ebony curls.
‘No fair!’ Eva protested huskily even as she stepped away from him. ‘If you won’t then neither will I,’ she explained huskily as Michael looked up at her with hot, questioning eyes. ‘Besides, the room is filling up with steam from the shower running, and think of all the water we’re wasting!’
‘This isn’t a time for practicality, Eva!’ Michael chuckled indulgently even as he picked her up in his arms and carried her over to the glass-sided shower.
‘You like doing that, don’t you—? Michael!’ Eva gasped in protest as he stepped beneath the hot spray of the shower with her still in his arms, soaking them both in seconds.
Michael looked down at her, rivulets of water cascading over his dark, silky hair and down his body. ‘I like doing this even more,’ he assured huskily, kissing her hungrily as he allowed her body to slide down the length of his.
Eva felt completely dazed with pleasure by the time Michael broke the kiss and reached for the shower gel, his gaze holding hers as he began to wash and caress every inch of her, not a single part of her left untouched by the sureness of those arousing hands. ‘My turn,’ she murmured softly as she proceeded to wash him in the same intimate way.
Michael withstood those deliberately arousing caresses for as long as he could before finally wresting the shower gel from Eva’s hands and placing it back on the shelf, turning off the cascading water before picking Eva up in his arms once again and striding out of the shower unit, across the heated tiles, and into his adjoining bedroom, all without collecting any of the fluffy gold towels on the warmer.
‘We’ll make the bed all wet!’ Eva’s protest was only half-hearted as Michael placed her down on top of the bedcovers before quickly joining her.
‘Who cares?’ Michael grated as he kissed the long column of her silky throat before turning his attention to those full and tempting breasts, the slope of her abdomen, and then lower still.
‘I need you inside me now, Michael,’ Eva groaned achingly just minutes later, her face flushed with arousal, those purple eyes dark with longing. ‘Please!’ She looked down at him pleadingly.
Michael could still taste Eva as he slowly moved to lie between her parted thighs before positioning himself at her entrance, his hands on her hips, his gaze holding her fevered one as he forced himself to enter her slowly, inch by silken inch.
He gritted his teeth in an effort to maintain control as the heat of her channel surrounded him, claimed him, drawing him in deeper, and then deeper still as her legs moved up about his thighs, her feet touching his lower back as she arched up and into him, taking him deeper, deeper and deeper until Michael knew he touched the very heart of her.
Eva groaned with pleasure as Michael’s mouth claimed hers even as his shaft filled her completely, stretching her as he began to slowly thrust in and out. Her hands clung to his shoulders as her thighs lifted to meet each of those thrusts, even as Eva lost herself in the wonder of the possession of his tongue thrusting into the heat of her mouth in the same erotic rhythm, taking her pleasure higher, wilder, as she met and matched each of those firm thrusts.
Her groans grew more fevered as Michael broke the kiss to claim one of her nipples, suckling deeply, his tongue an arousing rasp against that sensitive flesh, teeth biting as Eva’s groans grew throatily breathier.
‘Michael...!’ she finally cried out, pleading, as the pleasure grew to an almost unbearable intensity as his thrusts grew fiercer, wilder still, faster, her nails digging into his flesh as the pleasure took her higher, and then higher, until it seemed that Michael held her suspended on that plateau of wild pleasure.
Her head thrashed from side to side on the pillows, her breath a broken sob before she cried out, screamed, as the dam broke inside her and the pleasure coursed hotly into and through every inch of her at the same time as Michael cried out, back arching, head thrown back, and she felt the heat of his hot release pumping into her again and again as she continued to climax.
Minutes, hours later, the last of the pleasure finally spent, only the lingering sensitivity and warmth of feeling remained. The sound of their ragged breathing filled the still, heavy air that now surrounded them.
Eva had never known anything—had never experienced anything so—had never realised that anything could be so—
‘Dear God, what have I done...?’ Michael suddenly groaned, taking his full weight on his elbows as he raised his head from her throat to look down at her. ‘I’m so sorry, Eva. I didn’t—I never meant things to go as far as this!’
Eva looked up at him blankly, too befuddled still, too satiated, from the intensity of their lovemaking, to be able to make sense of what he was saying.
Michael’s expression was grim, a bleakness in the darkness of his eyes as he looked down at her searchingly for several long seconds before shaking his head. ‘I’m really sorry, Eva,’ he bit out gruffly. ‘That was—’
‘Another mistake?’ Eva had recovered enough now to see how grim he looked. And the bleakness in his face wasn’t the expression of the replete and happy lover she so wished for him to be!
His mouth thinned. ‘I didn’t say that—’
‘You didn’t have to!’ Tears of humiliation and hurt burned and blurred Eva’s vision as she turned away. ‘I think you need to get off me,’ she instructed flatly as she kept her face averted from looking directly at Michael, unable to believe that just minutes ago, seconds ago, the two of them had been— That they had been—
Whatever Eva had thought was happening between the two of them she had been wrong. She might know herself to be in love with Michael, but his behaviour now, the things he had just said, showed that he had only desired her, and that he now considered even that as having been a mistake.
‘I said get off me, Michael!’ she repeated forcefully at the same time as she pushed against his chest above her.
‘You don’t understand—’
‘Oh, I understand perfectly, Michael,’ she assured him as she stared up at him, using scorn to hide the depth of the hurt she was feeling. ‘Now, get off me—’
‘I didn’t use contraception, Eva!’ Michael interrupted harshly as he slowly eased out of her before rolling onto the bed to lie beside her, disgusted with himself for having been so lost in the pleasure of making love with Eva that he hadn’t thought to protect her. ‘I didn’t use contraception...’
This hadn’t happened to him since the situation with Emma fourteen years ago, and it shouldn’t have happened now either. The last thing— The very last thing that Eva needed in her life right now was an unexpected pregnancy of her own, when she was already exhausted, completely tied, by having to care for her sister’s six-month-old twins. It was too soon—would be utterly disastrous if Eva were to have a baby of her own now.
‘Eva—’
‘Don’t!’ she warned as she moved sharply away from the hand he had reached out to touch her, her face deathly pale as she sat up on the side of the bed before turning to look back at him scathingly. ‘You’re in luck, Michael,’ she continued scornfully. ‘Because, not only am I disease free, but I’m also, for health reasons, currently on the pill.’
Eva could see the relief her assurances had given Michael as he closed his eyes briefly at the same time as he released his breath in a long, satisfied sigh.
She turned away sharply in order to hide the stinging tears that once again blurred her vision. Tears of pain this time. She loved this man, and he— Michael— This was— ‘This is even more humiliating than last night.’ Eva flatly spoke her thoughts out loud.
‘What “health reasons”...?’ Michael questioned slowly.
‘Nothing serious, just erratic and painful periods,’ Eva dismissed unconcernedly. Discussing the intimate workings of her body seemed to be the least of her worries after the intimacies she and Michael had just shared. ‘Lucky for you, huh?’ she derided dismissively.
‘Lucky for both of us,’ he corrected softly. ‘Eva—’
‘I don’t intend having a post-mortem about tonight either, Michael!’ Eva stood up abruptly before going into the adjoining bathroom, pulling on and fastening her robe over her nakedness before collecting up the rest of her clothes, determined that she wouldn’t cry—couldn’t allow herself to cry, until she was back in the privacy of her own bedroom.
Thank goodness they hadn’t gone to her bedroom in the first place, otherwise she would have the further humiliation of having to sleep in the bed she had briefly shared with Michael, surrounded by the sheets that bore the signs and the intimacy of the scents of their lovemaking.
As it was, no doubt Michael would strip those damp sheets from his own bed, and so eliminate all evidence of this night. Eliminating all evidence that Eva had been in his bed at all...
‘Eva—’
‘Will you just leave it, Michael?’ Eva turned on him fiercely as he tried to talk to her when she re-entered his bedroom, sitting up on the side of the bed now looking across at her with unreadable obsidian eyes. Eva turned away again. ‘This was a mistake. My being here at all is a mistake,’ she added bleakly. ‘And whether you like it or not, I’m booking a flight tomorrow for myself and the twins to return to England.’
He frowned darkly. ‘You’re right, I don’t like it—’
‘Tough!’ Eva came back unsympathetically. ‘Because I assure you that’s exactly what’s going to happen.’
‘You—’
‘The subject isn’t up for discussion, Michael.’ Her eyes flashed briefly in warning before she strode determinedly out of his bedroom and down the hallway to her own room, Michael able to hear the door closing softly behind her just seconds later.
He groaned as he fell back on the bed, knowing he had handled this badly.
That he had handled this whole situation with Eva badly, from start to finish.
And he didn’t even try to kid himself that this wasn’t the finish for them...
Maybe if he tried to explain about Emma, told Eva what had happened to him in the past, she might understand his distrust of women, this obsession he had for contraception—
No, he answered his own question flatly. If he had tried to talk to Eva about that now she would only have misunderstood him even further, and the gulf stretching between them would only have widened. If he was going to explain about Emma, and his sordid past, the reason he was always so careful to use contraception—a caution that simply hadn’t existed tonight with Eva!—and that his concern tonight had been for her and not him, then he would have to wait until Eva had calmed down.
If she ever did...