hips of a natural athlete. He removed his shorts and she almost stopped breathing altogether. She was shocked by her first glimpse of a fully grown male in a state of rampant arousal.
‘If I had waited another few minutes I wouldn’t have needed to ask whether or not you were a virgin,’ Nik murmured with unholy amusement lighting his eyes to pure golden enticement. ‘Your face says it all.’
Dropping down on the bed beside her, he ravished her reddened mouth with passionate thoroughness. A wave of heat consumed her. The tender flesh between her legs was shamefully moist. With a husky sound of male appreciation he let his teeth graze the achingly stiff bud of a swollen pink nipple and slowly and surely he rediscovered the slick dampness that betrayed her need. Her lips parted on a long-drawn-out moan and she clenched her teeth on a pleasure that came close to pain. Her excitement built up in layer on layer until she could hardly get air into her lungs.
‘I didn’t know I could feel like this…’
His scorching gaze welded to hers. ‘Not everyone can. Your passion matches mine.’
She drowned in the hot, sweet pleasure of his caresses. She could not stay still. Beyond all thought, she surrendered to sensation until it seemed that the torment of such craving would tear her in two. ‘Please…’ she gasped then.
Nik arranged her under him, sliding fluidly between her thighs. ‘I may hurt you,’ he warned her unevenly, his lithe, bronzed length ferociously tense over hers.
‘S’OK,’ she mumbled, dry-mouthed, her entire body thrumming with the intolerable hunger.
‘I want it to be perfect…’ he swore raggedly, stunning golden eyes locked to hers with passionate resolve.
He tipped her back and eased degree by degree into her slick, tight depths. Her eyes widened at the fullness of him. He breached the barrier that would have repelled him with a single thrust. The stab of pain was an unwelcome surprise. ‘Oh, my goodness…Nik-’
‘Shush…it’ll get better. I promise,’ he husked raggedly, sinking his hands beneath her to cup her hips and steadily deepen his penetration.
‘Don’t move…’ she begged, waiting for the discomfort to recede.
‘I hurt you,’ Nik groaned, rigid with the tension of exerting such fierce control over his overeager body. ‘But you’re very small.’
Prudence allowed herself a minor exploratory wriggle and then another. A cat-that-got-the-cream expression crept over her absorbed face as sensation returned in abundance. He felt incredible inside her. The erotic pulse of desire controlled her again and she angled up to him in encouragement until he lifted her to meet his primal thrust. Her heart started to pound, her voice to catch in her throat. His every fluid movement engulfed her in sensual pleasure. He moved in slow provocation at first and then skilfully increased his rhythm. Wild excitement seized her. When she reached a fever pitch of unbearable sensation, he took her higher still into a shattering crescendo of ecstasy. Crying out his name in a frenzy of delight, she lost herself entirely in the blissful aftershocks of sweet pleasure.
In a daze, Nik rolled back against the pillows and held her close. He was trembling, in shock after the longest, hottest release of his life. She shifted in his arms and he tightened his grip on her. Well, she wasn’t going any place now…except home with him. Home where? The apartment really wasn’t suitable. It was a playboy’s pad, not the place for Prudence. They could live in a hotel for a while. He would have to buy a house. What about all the animals? A house in the country within easy reach of London. He pressed a kiss like a benediction to her smooth brow. ‘That was awesome,
Prudence breathed in the hot, damp, wonderfully familiar scent of his skin. Her head was still swimming, her body languorous from the glorious surfeit of pleasure. In quiet, appreciative silence she revelled in a rare moment of pure, unvarnished happiness. Try as she might, though, she could not shut out her thoughts and just as fast the clouds rolled in. In going to bed with Nik she had been living out a fantasy, she reminded herself. In time-honoured style, he had been fantastic and he had fully justified his wild reputation, she reflected with a pain she refused to acknowledge. But wasn’t it a bit sad of her to be still clinging and pretending he was a real, loving, caring husband
Nik let long brown fingers slide through the tumbling mass of chestnut hair spilling across his chest. ‘You’re very quiet.’
A sparkling smile fixed like glue to her reddened lips, Prudence lifted her tousled head. ‘I was just thinking how good you are at all this stuff…now I finally know what all the fuss is about-’
Dazzling golden eyes zeroed in on her, bright as hot sunlight in his lean, darkly handsome face. He frowned, wondering if she was trying to make him laugh to cover her awkwardness. ‘I’m not quite sure those are the sentiments I want to hear from my wife…’
Anger tensed Prudence, for that label always hit her like a cruel taunt, a reminder of what their relationship had not been. She had never felt married and sleeping with Nik didn’t change that. Suddenly she was feeling very much like a woman who had made a major mistake. In a sudden movement she scrambled free of him.
‘What is the matter with you?’ Nik demanded, hoisting himself up against the tumbled pillows, bronzed skin startlingly dark against the delicate white and pink bedlinen.
Snatching up her wrap, Prudence dug her arms into it, desperate to cover up her voluptuous curves. ‘Sharing a bed with me doesn’t make me your wife. It just makes me one more in a long line of women!’ she heard herself toss in furious rebuttal. ‘And you’re not exactly exclusive, are you?’
Nik was poleaxed by that response. He vaulted out of bed but she had already stalked out of the room. In the act of following her, he registered that it was still daylight and that there were no curtains drawn. Quietly cursing up a storm, he began to hurriedly pull on his clothes again.
Her face tight with suppressed emotion, Prudence sidled back into the doorway. ‘I’m sorry I was rude like that. There’s never any excuse for bad manners,’ she said stiffly, refusing to meet his lancing dark golden gaze. ‘But I do still want a divorce-’
Nik was insulted beyond belief by that announcement. ‘Why the hell did you let me take you to bed?’
Prudence almost cringed. ‘I’d really rather not discuss that-’
‘No flannel…you owe me the truth!’ Nik raked back at her rawly.
Wild horses could not have forced Prudence to look at him. Her cheeks scarlet, she compressed her ripe mouth and breathed in very deep. ‘I just wanted to know what it would be like with you. I didn’t think it would be any big deal on your terms.’
In such a rage that he could hardly vocalise, Nik studied her. There she was, all five feet two of her and she was confessing to using him like some stud on trial. ‘I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you still want a divorce either. You still care about me. I think that’s why you gave me your virginity.’
That bold, challenging statement sliced like a sharp knife through every layer of her tender skin. That Nik should confront her with her feelings for him was her worst nightmare come true and she knew she would never forgive him for it. Pride brought up her head, blue eyes defiant and bright. ‘Maybe I was just tired of being a virgin. I don’t still care about you in that way, Nik,’ she asserted. ‘I was infatuated with you when we married but it didn’t last the course. I got over you a very long time ago.’
‘Those scrapbooks sing a different song,’ Nik delivered with a cruel edge he had never used around her before.
Shock at that immediate, unhesitating retaliation made Prudence turn white as snow, nausea stirring in her stomach. ‘I want you to leave. You’re not welcome here any more!’ she told him jerkily. ‘I’m going for a divorce and I don’t need your permission for it!’
‘I forgot to give you your birthday present.’ Nik extended a slim jewellery case as if she hadn’t spoken.
Prudence sucked in a sustaining breath. Curiosity warred with the need to keep him at a distance. Curiosity won. She stared down at the incredibly pretty diamond-studded pendant in the shape of a…? He had the neck to give her a heart when he had smashed her own into a thousand pieces? Eyes burning with boiling tears, she snapped the case shut again and forced it back into his hand. ‘Thanks, but I don’t want it or you…Now go away!’
Slamming the door shut on his exit, she leant back against it and listened to the helicopter taking off again. Anger and pain and despair coalesced inside her. She would probably never see him again. She had insulted him. Everything she had valued about their relationship had been destroyed by a reckless bout of sex. The trust, the respect, the affection were gone. How could she even blame Nik for coming on to her? In her opinion he knew no other way to relate to a woman. But what madness had possessed her? The dull, intimate ache between her thighs
