Page 42 of Her Diamond Deal with the CEO

Their first time together had been an explosive solar flare of hunger, a white heat of mutual need consuming them both. But this was slower, sharper, pulling everything into focus, unlocking something inside her so unashamedly sexual that she didn’t know herself. Every touch, every caress, every lick seemed to shape a new understanding of who she was, who she could be, who she wanted to be.

Lying here now, with his fever-hot skin pressing into hers, everything felt so intense, so vivid. It was as if she were newly born, and seeing colour, objects, for the first time. She could hear Jack’s heart beating inside her and her body felt smooth and soft, and so sensitive, and it was because of Jack. He had done this. This man who was a stranger when she married him had changed her for ever in all the ways she had assumed marriage and sex would change a person, but had never happened with either of her first two husbands.

‘Are you sure?’

Suddenly close to tears, she jolted back to him, back to the shimmering golden haze of his eyes and the streaks of colour touching his hard cheekbones.

As she met his gaze, she felt a kick of panic. Was he regretting it? She stared at him, trying to take in each curve and line of his astonishing face, her heart shuddering as if he had reached inside her chest and started squeezing it in his fist.

Please, don’t let him regret it—

‘Yes, I’m sure. You didn’t hurt me.’

He was on his side, still watching her. ‘It’s just so different with you. I don’t...’ He hesitated, his mouth twisting into a shape she didn’t recognise. Not anger or confusion but something in between. ‘I couldn’t hold back—’

The tears that seemed to be clogging her throat pushed up and as she gazed up into his flushed, shocked face her vision blurred—

Swearing softly, he pulled her against the hard muscles of his chest, his hand soft in her hair. She held onto him, not moving, hardly breathing.

‘Don’t cry. I don’t ever want to make you cry—’

There was an ache in his voice, and now he spoke quickly, the words spilling from his beautiful mouth. She reached up and pressed her finger to his lips.

‘It’s not you...it’s not you...’

Notjustyou, she should have said. Jack was there at the top of the list. How could he not be? From the moment he’d jumped off that yacht, her life had not been her own. It was as if she were a kite and he were pulling the strings, making her twist and tumble in a sky as blue and endless as the sea.

But there was losing her mum and dad too and wanting but struggling to be any kind of substitute parent for Oli. And all the months of trying and failing to get pregnant ending in Garrett’s betrayal, and then the stupidity of her second marriage to Vince.

And all of it had begun so quickly and in such a disconnected, haphazard way; there was never any time to think properly about what she wanted to happen, what she should do, and she had made so many mistakes, thrown away so many opportunities—

‘It’s just so much has happened—’ So much he didn’t even know about, and now it was her turn to hesitate.

He let out a long breath. ‘I know.’

‘And now there’s you and—’

She was about to sayand the baby, but the coward in her knew that she would have to get up and leave if he rejected their child in this most intimate of moments, and she couldn’t bear to do that. ‘There’s this—’

She felt his heartbeat accelerate against her ribs, felt his hand tighten in her hair. ‘Are you saying you regret it?’

‘No. I’m not. I don’t regret it, at all. Do you?’ She knew she should be trying to hide the note of panic, but her voice wouldn’t co-operate.

His gold eyes were the darkest she’d ever seen them.

‘No.’ Shaking his head, he lowered his mouth and kissed her fiercely, not just her lips but her cheeks and her forehead, the curve of her jaw and the hollow of her throat. ‘I’ve never wanted any woman more than I want you. You make me feel things I’ve never felt, never wanted to feel.’

He frowned then as if he’d said too much and, reaching up, she touched his face lightly, marvelling at its smoothness and symmetry. ‘I feel the same way,’ she whispered.

For a moment they stared at one another and then she was leaning in and kissing him and his hands were cupping her breasts, grazing the nipples and the sensation was so sharp and intense that she squirmed against him, her body rippling to life all over again.

Ondine woke, slowly, reluctantly, blinking into the soft yellow sunlight that was spilling in through the window between the half-open curtains. At some point in the night she and Jack had left the pool house and made their way through the silent, watchful house upstairs to the bedroom,to the bedthey were supposed to share, but never had.

There had been no awkward moment as they’d reached the bedroom door. She had simply opened it and led him inside and he had pushed it shut, reaching for her as he did so. And they had kept reaching for one another as the darkness around them deepened to the colour of spilt ink, again and again, until finally the sky started to lighten through all the shades of grey.

Now, though, she was alone, and even though she knew it was stupid to mind, Jack’s absence seemed to have opened up some hollow in her chest.

Rolling onto her side, she reached over and pressed the flat of her hand against the mattress. She’d known he was gone the moment she woke up. Known it even before she’d opened her eyes. But maybe that was just what he did after he spent the night with a woman.

---