‘If you don’t want to talk, Birdie,’ he managed wryly, ‘perhaps you’d consider stopping.’
And then, before she could object any more, he set about reacquainting himself with each long line of her and every delicious curve. Relearning her, as though it had been a lifetime since she’d last been in his bed. In many ways, it felt as though it had been.
He dropped his mouth, intent on kissing every inch of her satiny skin, all the while knowing that he couldn’t get enough of her. He kissed, he licked, he grazed, revelling as she arched into him, seeking more. Demanding more. She began to move her hands over him on an exploration of their own. She let them glide up his arms and to his shoulders, before slipping down his back, using the leverage to arch up into him let her hard nipples rake over his chest and set him alight all over again.
And then she slid her hands lower, cupping his backside, and she opened her legs to him until he was nudging against her wet heat before he could stop himself. The heat outside was making the room that much hotter, and it was that much easier to slide against each other.
He heard a moan and wasn’t sure if it had come from him or her. Possibly both. A dark, urgent need moved within him. A madness that he didn’t think could ever be controlled.
‘Please, Hayd,’ she whispered. ‘Now...’
And he was lost.
He’d told her that she’d come here to run away from something. But it had never occurred to him that he’d done the same with the army. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to see it, or maybe it had taken these events to bring him to it, but the simple truth was that he’d been lost, and he’d only realised it when Bridget had found him.
Holding himself above her, Hayden slid inside her. Only a little way at first, then out. Then repeating it again. Slowly. Lazily. As if it wasn’t killing him to do so.
‘Deeper,’ she gasped on a ragged breath, tearing down the last vestiges of his self-control.
This time, when he tried to slide into her slowly, Bridget gripped his backside and lifted her hips.
He drove home with a groan and all his ease and skill disappeared in an instant and the rhythm became harder and faster. He ran one hand up her silken thigh as she wrapped it around his back, letting his head drop until his mouth was pressed in the flawless valley between her breasts. And still the rhythm didn’t let up.
The entirety of his long length was buried so deep inside her that neither of them knew where one of the ended and the other began.
As though it was meant to be that way.
Always.
When he felt her shif
t around him, he reached down between them and found the centre of her need, his fingers playing with her until she was gasping with every stroke. She clenched around him, arching right up off the bed and muffling her voice against his shoulder as she cried out his name, shaking deliciously around him.
And Hayden finally let himself go. Throwing them both into the fire and taking him higher than he’d ever been before. Higher, he feared, than he ever would again.
* * *
Bridget had no idea how long it took to come back to herself. She only knew that when she did, her body was still pressed up against Hayden’s. Fitting to him as though they’d been hand-crafted to go together—as ridiculous as she knew that notion was.
A thousand questions hovered on her lips at that moment, but she didn’t dare utter a single one of them lest it break whatever spell had wound its way around the tiny room.
She suspected that she wasn’t alone because Hayden didn’t speak either, he just held her close as if he never wanted to let her go.
Or perhaps she was just being fanciful. Perhaps that was why the confession slipped out of her.
‘You were right when you told me that I used this place to run away. I didn’t want to acknowledge it before, I don’t think I was ready to do so, but now it seems far clearer.’
His pulled her closer, his hand drawing circles on her skin. Encouraging her to keep talking in her own time.
‘I had a relatively privileged childhood. A nice house, a good school, lots of money, and we moved in quite elite social circles. Then, when I thirteen, my father was arrested for fraud. Every single thing we had was off the backs of other people, some of whom were meant to have been our friends.’
She loved that low rumble of objection from him, making her feel as though, had he been able to, he would have protected her. It helped her to continue.
‘Overnight our whole lives were torn apart. Mine and Mum’s. We were thrown out of our home, understandably, and all our assets were frozen. We had only the couple of bags we’d been allowed to pack, under the watchful eye of the police, of course, but nowhere to go. No one wanted to help us, or even be associated with us, since the media couldn’t accept that my mother hadn’t known about it.’
‘Had she?’ he asked gently, his arms still around her making her feel safe. Secure.
‘No.’ Bridget shook her head. ‘I really don’t believe she ever did. My mother was very beautiful but not very worldly. At all. I truly believe she was foolish enough to fall for all the lies my father fed her, but the media didn’t believe that. Or else they didn’t want to. It was a national scandal.’