Married to a Stranger (Danger and Desire 3)

Sophia stifled a moan. ‘I’ll take it off if you’ll just …’ Move … Stop that … She must open her eyes and sit up.

Callum rolled off and lay there on his side watching her, his head propped on one hand, while she wriggled and finally emerged, the nightgown clutched to her front. They stared at each other for a while. Sophia felt herself grow pinker and the curve of Callum’s lips grew more pronounced. ‘You are laughing at me,’ she accused.

&nbs

p; ‘I am enjoying you,’ he said. ‘You are enchanting.’ With a little gasp, like a bather jumping into cold water, she let go of the fabric and closed her eyes tight.

The sound he made as he took her in his arms again and settled himself was a very satisfactory growl. I please him, at least so far. He won’t expect me to know what to do next … His body was strange and exciting under her hands, sleek with muscle, rough with hair. She could smell his skin, spicy and hot and faintly musky, and then he found her mouth again and after that Sophia gave up on thought and simply clung to the lean body over hers and surrendered to the feelings that were so much more than she had ever imagined.

The pressure of his mouth over hers, open, hot, demanding, created an ache, low down, and the urge to mould herself tightly against him there as though that would ease it. She realised that his body was hard against her belly and that was frightening, but exciting too. It made the ache worse and so did pressing against him. Then Callum’s hand cupped her breast and he began to play with the nipple and the ache turned into a stab of sensation that had her whimpering into his mouth.

Then the kiss deepened, became more demanding, and Sophia lost awareness of everything except the sensation that was singing through her, the strength of Callum’s hold, the urgency of their bodies. But Callum’s mouth never left hers and his hands were stroking and exploring and she was so dizzy that it was impossible to think about where she was, what was happening beyond the silken slide of his mouth over hers, the torture of his hand on her breast, the demanding throbbing ache so low down.

Then his hand slid between them and he touched her, intimately, parting the folds that felt wet and swollen and the delicious shock had her arching up against him, her gasps swallowed by his kiss. He shifted, lifted away a little and she whimpered in protest until his weight came back.

‘Best to be fast, I think,’ he murmured. Then something hard was pressing into the hot, wet core of her and she gasped, tried to shift, but it was too late. There was pressure, a yielding, a sensation of exquisite fullness and then a stab of pain that had her recoiling, struggling, shocked out of delight and into reality. She had cried out, she realised as she emerged out of the sensual delirium he had plunged her into, back to alarming reality.

‘Shh,’ he murmured, lodged impossibly deep inside her. ‘Shh. That’s the worst over, I promise. Trust me, Sophia.’

And, after a shuddering moment while her body fought to accept his, she found she could, after all, accommodate him. But the magic had gone. This man, intimately joined to her, moving within her, was a virtual stranger. She did not love him, she hardly knew him any more. And she was no longer herself.

Sophia opened her eyes and saw that Callum’s were closed, his face stark as though he was in pain, his breath coming in deep, effortful inhalations as he thrust into her. A stranger. Her body tightened as though responding to her frantic thoughts. She felt him within her as muscles she had not known she possessed clenched around him and the pleasure flooded back, and with it a feeling of tenderness for her husband who had rescued her.

Callum gasped, thrust and then hung, shuddering, over her as she felt his heat gush and spill into her. Sophia tightened her arms around him and felt a confusion of emotions, a sense that there was still something her body needed, the thrill of intimacy, shyness. And guilt.

Chapter Ten

Callum rolled onto his back and lay staring up at the ceiling while his breathing got back into some sort of order. That had been good. Sophia had been so responsive—way beyond his hopes. Not perfect, of course, for either of them, but that would come.

She was naturally sensual and she would learn fast how to pleasure him. His body felt heavy and utterly relaxed. Sated, he thought, hauling his eyelids open as they threatened to descend. Not quite sated, perhaps. It would be good to do that again in a little while. He had never felt that close to a woman while he was making love to her. Perhaps there was more than the usual sense of responsibility to make it good when the woman was one’s wife and that was all it was. Yet somehow he had sensed her desire and her nervousness, her pain and her yielding almost as if they had been his own.

He found he was smiling and turned his head to look at Sophia. He had given her some pleasure, of that he was certain. As he moved, so did she, to turn her head away, but not before he saw the fat tear running down her cheek.

‘Sophia!’ He sat bolt upright and she curled away from him defensively. ‘What is it?’

She said something in a low mumble. He bent over her, but all he could make out was ‘… Daniel.’

‘What?’ he snapped. For several seconds he thought she was not going to answer him, then Sophia sat up and rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes. They were wide, almost bemused.

‘I …’

‘What is wrong?’ he asked again, trying to keep his voice down. ‘Did I hurt you?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Well, yes, but I expected it. It did not matter.’

‘You enjoyed it? I gave you pleasure?’ It was the first time in his life that he had needed to ask that question and it was not doing his temper much good to have to ask it now, of his wife.

Sophia ducked her head so he could not see her face. ‘Yes. Yes, you did. Of course.’

‘You said Daniel’s name.’

She took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘I have a confession to make,’ she said, her face still stubbornly hidden from him.

‘What?’ He made his voice gentle with an effort. To be jerked out of that post-coital, sensual happiness was a shock. But what secrets could she possibly have that could provoke this reaction?

‘I did not love Daniel,’ Sophia blurted out.

Callum found he was staring at her hands, twisted together in distress. ‘Of all the things I might have expected you to say, that one would never have occurred to me,’ he said after a moment.