‘I grabbed it, it smashed.’
‘You took it out of my face. That’s all. The photographer tried to snatch
it back and some security guy punched it out of his hands and into the post behind him. So forget that one, tainted moment, and remember the rest of the evening,’ she whispered. ‘Remember how good it was. And don’t pull away from me now.’
He wanted so much to believe her. To take what she was offering him. But he couldn’t.
If he stood here, enduring the icy waterfall still on his body, then maybe he could withstand the unfamiliar sensations that zipped around his chest. Which made him...feel. And wonder. And yearn.
‘I have to. Because if I don’t, if we start things, I don’t know if I can stop myself around you. And we have to think of the baby.’
‘That’s an excuse. It might be a factor, even though I’ve told you I feel ready, and even though you’ve heard what the doctor has said in every check-up I’ve had, but it isn’t the real reason you push me away.’
‘Then what is?’
‘That’s the part I don’t know.’ She bit her lip. ‘I don’t think even you know for sure.’
He just about managed not to flinch. Her words cut closer to the bone than he ever could have imagined. She knew him so well. Maybe too well.
‘So,’ he bit out, his tongue feeling too big for his mouth, ‘if we’re done here, perhaps you’d care to leave me to have the rest of my shower in peace?’
The pause stretched out between them.
‘Not a chance,’ she eventually muttered thickly.
Before he could move, Archie had untied the satin belt and let the dressing gown slide off her shoulders and down over her bump in one easy movement. Far from detracting from the moment, the fact that she was swollen with their baby—with his baby—only made her all the sexier.
Still, he should stop this, stop her, but she was walking into the shower enclosure with the air of a woman who knew exactly what she was doing and he found it utterly mesmerising.
Worse, though, was that gleam in her eyes. As though she saw a man the rest of the world had missed. As though she saw him the way no one else ever had—a better man. And when she looked at him that way, he so desperately wanted to be that man.
Suddenly, she was there, and Kaspar barely had time to turn the temperature up as she closed the last bit of distance separating them. The tips of her fingers grazed over his torso so feather-light he couldn’t be sure it she’d actually touched him or if it was just the movement of air, and the wickedest of smiles toyed at the corners of her ridiculously carnal mouth.
What the hell was he meant to do with this woman?
And then her lustrous eyes not leaving his for even a second, Archie dropped to her knees, curled her fingers around his sex, and licked the droplet on the tip, which had nothing to do with the water cascading over him.
He was so nearly lost it took him a moment to move. He tried to step backwards but she was still holding onto him and, honestly, he didn’t try very hard.
‘Let go, Kaspar,’ she murmured. ‘Stop trying to control everything and let me take the reins. Just for once.’
And then she took him into her mouth, hot and libidinous. So good it might well have also been immoral. He’d had this done to him before. Many times. A perfect sexual release.
But it had never, ever felt like this. Watching Archie move over him, feeling her hands, her tongue, even the graze of her teeth on him, and also experiencing these complicated emotions swirling around his chest.
Nothing had ever felt so like...this.
He gave up trying to think and finally tried to do what she’d instructed. Leaning back on the tiles, because his legs suddenly felt absurdly weak, he buried his hands into her hair and allowed her to take charge.
He wanted her. Needed her, even. And whatever he tried to tell himself, he knew it wasn’t just the sex. It wasn’t just the way she sucked on his head and then slowly drew his thick, solid length deep into her mouth.
It was her.
He wanted everything with her. No one else could ever possibly have convinced him to give up the reins like Archie had. And yet here he was, completely at her command. And a part of him thrilled in it.
She started slowly. Deliberately. Setting an unhurried pace as though she was intent on savouring every last moment. She licked him, and sucked him, swirling her tongue over him and using her fingers to apply just the right amount of pressure exactly where he needed it.
He heard himself groan, but he was no more in command of his voice than he was of his body. Instead he was completely and utterly at Archie’s mercy and, as though she understood just how much she held the power at this second, she teased him until he thought he was going to die.