Page 41 of Bedding his Innocent Mistress

“Really?” He lay back into the chair, his eyes lodging with hers. “If that’s what you want.”

Her mouth dropped and outrage was quickly usurped by self-doubt. He wanted her to go?

She blinked away, looking up towards the stars as a sickening sense of not being wanted deluged the power and glorious rightness of the moment.

“I’d prefer you to stay,” he murmured, as if simply understanding what she needed, and her gaze slid back to his. “But I’m not a man to beg and I’ve already done a hell of a lot of that with you.”

She shook her head, and stood. Her legs were like dough. She could hardly control them. Shaking, weak, heavy and aching from exertion.

He watched her beautiful, stubborn face, her chin tilted defiantly even as her eyes were so heavy she could hardly keep them open and he made a throaty noise of impatience.

“For God’s sake, Ivy. Just stay the damned night. I’m not asking you to marry me. It’s a bed. A place to sleep.”

Her eyes flexed open to their fullest diameter and he stood, the knot of frustration in his gut thickening. It was as he lifted her and held her against his chest, her body limp and her eyes finally sweeping closed, that he realised he’d never spent this much time with any one woman in his life.

His longest relationship tended to be a couple of nights. Sure, he returned to the same grounds – he had slept with the same women several times, over several years. But they were all brief, singular events.

This was the closest he’d had to an actual relationship, and it was with a woman even less suited to commitment than he was.

That had to be worth a medal – two such determined loners having found one another and realising they were kind of addicted to that need?

Of all the cruel ironies…

He lay her down on the bed, and her breathing was even and soft. He listened for a moment, even the sound of her sleeping a turn on he couldn’t explain, and then he left.

He didn’t trust himself not to touch her, and she needed a rest for now.

He had all night.

And he planned to make the most of it.

*

Ivy was swimming. No. That wasn’t right. She was in the shower?

Wrong again.

She blinked her eyes open, into the darkness of her bedroom.

No, not her bedroom. She was somewhere else. Somewhere different.

Rafe.

Memories of the night were tiny shards of glass drifting back towards her, none of them fitting tightly together, but forming an overall picture that was blinding for its clarity and bright white heat.

More water.

Not water.

She blinked and her eyes came into focus. Rafe was above her, and in his hands, he held a glass of champagne, which he was dipping his finger into and dribbling over her naked chest.

Her smile was slow and languid. Should she object? Because she didn’t.

“Aren’t you that man who drove me out of my mind just now?”

His smile was answering and her heart flipped over. “Not just now. Hours ago,” he corrected, straddling her and bringing the champagne to his mouth. He took a large gulp and then dropped his mouth to hers, pushing the drink into her so that she swallowed it and him.

“Mmm,” she murmured. “Like I’m not already a little bit drunk on sex.”

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