Page 44 of Bedding his Innocent Mistress

She nodded. “I have never been so hungry in my life.”

“Sex’ll do that for you.”

She nodded, but it hadn’t been that way for Ivy before.

Then again, she’d already decided her former sex life didn’t bear examining, and comparisons were certainly unreasonable.

“Take your time,” he murmured. “I’ll get breakfast ordered.”

“You’re ordering in?” She asked in disbelief. “Don’t do that. I’ll cook something.”

He grinned. “Sure. I’ve got olive oil and apples.”

“Bread? Eggs? Bacon?”

“No. No. And no.”

She looked aghast and he grinned.

“What can I say? Domesticity isn’t my strong suit.”

“Mmm,” she nodded thoughtfully, a mock sombre expression on her face. “Just as well you have other ways to prove your worth.”

“Oh, really, Miss Hennesy?”

She grinned, her nod just a small movement of her head. “Fine. You order and I’ll be out soon.”

He disappeared, and she leaned against the wall, a smile locked to her lips, her head tilted as she re-lived each delicious moment of the night before. Maybe actually staying at his apartment did have some advantages. It wasn’t as though that made them a couple. It just made sex more accessible.

Then again, she stifled a yawn with the back of her hand, she wouldn’t be able to function at work if they kept this up.

And they couldn’t.

How long would this go on for?

It was the sharp edge to the blade. The pointy end of the conundrum.

She didn’t want to go through another ‘break up’. Ivy wasn’t sure her heart would cope. So what if Rafe decided, one day, that he didn’t want her in this way? This kind of sex and passion faded, didn’t it? So? Would she keep letting her own addiction to him grow even as there was a risk his would wane? Would she turn up to his apartment one day only to have him prepare her for ‘the talk’? Worse, might he just simply disappear one day, back to his home in Spain with the vines and the sea, leaving her bereft all over again? Experience had taught her she wasn’t good at reading the signs. So how would she know?

She made a sound of disbelief.

She wanted, so badly, not to over-think it. To be more like Lisette and just go with the flow, enjoying the relationship, not worrying about the inevitable end.

But the scars were too deep. Steve had wielded his scalpel with great impact. Not only their break up, but the complete dissolution of the life she’d known. So much of who she was revolved around who she’d been with him. The weekend trips to the markets in Barnes. The runs around the river. The dim sum feasts at Wagamamas, and the way they’d read the Guardian, pulling it apart section by section then swapping pages like a well-oiled machine.

Her throat was hoarse now with unshed tears and she blinked them away angrily.

Steve hadn’t just ruined life as she’d known it, he’d taken away hope.

Trust.

Belief, both in herself and others.

She flicked the water off and stepped out, reaching for a towel and w

rapping it around her body. As it grazed her nipples fresh desire pooled in her gut.

She tied the towel beneath her arms and then walked out into the lounge, in search of Rafe. He was out on the balcony. Another pang of awareness trickled through her as she remembered the way they’d spent the night, her back against the wall and then her body wrapped around his.

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