Diamonds are for Deception: The Carlotta Diamond / The Texan's Diamond Bride / From Dirt to Diamonds. Julia James
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softly.
Though her eyes were closed, she was aware that he was standing looking down at her.
She felt the bedclothes being moved gently aside and then the warmth as the hot-water bottle was slid in beside her feet.
After a second or two she heard the brush of his bare soles on the floorboards as he walked away, and released the breath she’d been unconsciously holding.
Peeping through her lashes, she watched him douse the oil lamps, then take off the towel and stretch. With the fireglow gilding his naked limbs, he looked like Apollo, and she caught her breath audibly.
She saw his teeth gleam in a smile, before he said conversationally, ‘Next time you’re pretending to be asleep, remember to breathe.’
When she said nothing, he pursued, ‘Why aren’t you asleep? Is there some problem?’
‘My feet were cold,’ she said in a small voice.
‘Hopefully that’s been taken care of.’
‘And I felt mean about you sleeping on the couch,’ she added in a rush.
A moment later he was sitting on the edge of the bed looking down at her.
Her hair, a riot of dark, silky curls, was spread over the white pillow. The fireglow touched her face, casting shadows, gleaming in her eyes, hollowing her cheeks.
‘That could be remedied, if it’s bothering you. Though it has to be your decision.’
She swallowed hard. He was much too close, much too naked, much too male.
‘W-well I—I…’ She stammered to a halt, averting her eyes.
‘It’s quite simple,’ he said patiently. ‘Do you want me to share your bed or not?’
When, hot all over, she continued to hesitate, he went on, ‘As you could see if you were incautious enough to look, you have a powerful effect on me, so if the answer’s yes, I’m afraid I can’t promise to treat you like a sister.’
Common sense spoke for her. ‘Then the answer’s no!’
‘Very well,’ he said equably, ‘I’ll settle for the couch and a goodnight kiss.’
Her normally soft, husky voice high and shrill, she cried, ‘No! No, I don’t want to kiss you.’
‘Then I’ll kiss you.’
He placed his hands one each side of her head, palms down, trapping her hair beneath them, and bent to touch his lips to hers.
That lightest of caresses had the same effect as a lit match dropped into a keg of gunpowder.
As, without conscious volition, her mouth opened beneath his, he began to kiss her with a fierce, burning hunger that swept her up and carried her along willy-nilly.
In the past, on the few occasions she had been seriously tempted to sleep with a man, she had thought and considered and weighed up any possible consequences, and invariably caution had won the day.
But now, caution didn’t get a look-in. Conscious only of an overwhelming desire, a need to belong to this man, she wound her arms round his neck and returned his kiss, responding to his passion with complete abandonment.
He slid in beside her, his fingers urgent as he unbuttoned her shirt and found the soft curves of her breasts, teasing the firm nipples, making her stomach clench, sending shock waves running through her.
When his mouth took the place of his fingers, her whole body convulsed in a grinding ache of longing.
She felt the hard maleness of him against the electric sensitivity of her skin, and, her throat dry and burning, she pulled him down, opening to him, welcoming his weight.
There was an explosion of ecstasy at his first strong thrust, then their bodies bucked in unison, and behind her closed eyelids the world splintered into a million fragments of black and gold.
He groaned once, softly, just as the first joyous waves of release began to shudder through her.
Both of them were breathing as if they’d run a race as, blind and deaf, she lay beneath him, his fair head heavy on her breast.
When he finally lifted himself away and gathered her close, exhausted by the day and the emotional storm she had just lived through, she was asleep within seconds.
She surfaced slowly, luxuriously, her body sleek and satisfied, her mind drifting, no thoughts of past, present or future disturbing its tranquillity.
Gradually emerging from the dreamlike trance, she realised that last night’s storm had died away and sunlight was filtering round the curtains. The fire in the old black range had settled into whitish ash, and, despite the brightness, the air was cool.
But she was glowingly warm, lying cradled in the crook of an arm, her head pillowed comfortably at the juncture between chest and shoulder.
Simon’s arm… Simon’s chest… She could hear his quiet, even breathing, feel the beat of his heart beneath her cheek.
A cautious peep upward showed her his face intriguingly inverted, the firm chin covered in morning stubble, the thick, dark gold lashes fanning onto his hard cheeks.
Memories came flooding in, memories of his hands and mouth touching her breasts, his weight pinning her down, memories of hunger and need, of surrender, and undreamtof delight.
But it had been more than mere surrender. A great deal more. She had met and matched his passion with a passion of her own.
Recalling how recklessly, how wantonly, she had behaved, she waited to feel both shame and regret.
She felt neither, only a sense of amazement that she had lived for so many years without knowing such ecstasy existed.
Giving herself so completely to a man she scarcely knew, a man who cared not a jot for her, had been foolish in the extreme. But it had also been a new and wonderful, life-enriching experience, and she couldn’t regret it.
Perhaps in the following days she would come to regret it, especially when Simon treated her like any other casual one-night stand.
But possibly he wouldn’t just brush her off? She knew now that he could be kind and caring, so maybe he would let her down lightly? Pretend she had been just a little bit special?
But did she want that sort of pretence?
No, of course she didn’t. She had always preferred honesty, even if it hurt.
And it would hurt. She knew that without a shadow of a doubt. But it wasn’t as if she had fallen in love with him, she told herself hastily. It was simply that he was the only man she had ever wanted enough to make her throw caution to the wind.
She had never got into the modern way of regarding sex as merely sex, divorced from love, or sometimes even liking, just a natural appetite that could be indulged with as little soul-searching as possible.
If she could start thinking that way…
But she couldn’t, any more than she could alter the nature she had been born with. The most she could do was refuse to flay herself for what had happened, to accept with gratitude the new dimension it had given her life.
Simon had promised her nothing. She had expected nothing from him. It should be relatively easy to regard last night as a one-off and walk away.
So why did it feel like the end of the world?
Perhaps because it had come and gone so quickly. She hadn’t had time to grasp that moment of delight and fulfilment, to hug it to her, to savour it.
So what did she want? she asked herself crossly. The kind of affair that would drag on for a few weeks while Simon decided how to end it?
No, she didn’t want that. It would be less painful in the long run to keep her chin high and pretend she