‘One I want to forget.’ His hands were on the back of her thighs, hard and demanding as they caressed up to her bottom. He cupped the globes with more roughness than before but there was no pain in the caress. ‘Inez, if you want to help me, do it.’
She drew the shirt over her head and dropped it. His eyes devoured her breasts and his tongue darted out to rest against his bottom lip.
Between her legs, liquid heat dampened her folds and he groaned in dark appreciation as his seeking fingers found her core.
‘So ready. So tight,’ he rasped. With almost effortless ease, he picked her up, pivoted off the bed and sat on the side. Grabbing a condom, he slipped it on and positioned her legs on either side of him.
‘You will make me forget.’ The words were almost a plea but with a promise of things to come. ‘Yes?’
Before she could do so much as nod, he pressed her down on top of him. She cried out as he filled her with his hot, heavy length. His hard grip on her hips controlled the rhythm, which grew more frantic with each thrust.
‘Theo,’ she gasped as pleasure scalded her insides and rushed her towards ecstasy.
‘Shh, no talking,’ he instructed.
Biting her lip, she stared into his face.
Torment, anger, pleasure and more than a dose of anxiety mingled into an oddly fascinating tableau. He was still caught up in the hell of his nightmare and her heart broke over his anguish.
She tried to catch his gaze, to transmit a different sort of comfort from the carnal that he clearly sought but he avoided her eyes. Instead he buried his face between her breasts and mercilessly teased her nipples until she whimpered at the torture.
He increased his thrusts, bouncing her on top of him with almost superhuman strength that had her reeling.
Her orgasm crashed into her, flattening her under its fierce onslaught before proceeding to completely drown her.
Through the thunderous rush in her ears, she heard his guttural roar as he achieved his own ruthless release.
Sweat slicked their skin and their breaths rushed in and out in frantic pants. This time, though, there were no pleasurable caresses and giggling was the last thing she felt like doing.
With lithe grace, he twisted around and deposited her on the bed. Without speaking, he strode into the bathroom.
Inez lay on the bed, grappling with what had just happened. In the last twenty-four hours she’d glimpsed the man tortured by his nightmares, had seen a side to Theo she was certain very few people saw. Instead of guarding her own heart, she wanted to open herself up even more to him, find a way of taking away his pain and torment.
Had she not learnt her lesson with Constantine?
No, Theo was nothing like that man who’d taken delight in humiliating her. The retraction Theo had promised had appeared in the online evening edition of the newspaper and she was sure she’d seen a look of contrition in his eyes when he’d watched her read it.
Darkness and light.
She was deeply, almost irreversibly attracted to both. Again her heart twisted and she looked towards the bathroom.
A crash came a second later, followed by a pithy curse. She was off the bed and running into the bathroom before she could think twice.
‘I’m fine!’ he ground out.
She hesitated in the doorway and watched him. His fingers were curled around the marble sink and his head was bent forward. ‘What’s wrong, Theo?’
‘Dammit, woman, I’m not made of glass. And I’ve been grappling with my nightmares long before you came along, so leave me alone!’
Hurt shredded her inside. ‘Don’t push me away.’
He locked eyes with her in the mirror and sighed. ‘You’re too stubborn for your own good, you know that?’
‘Maybe, but before you throw me out I need the bathroom,’ she lied.
‘Fine; it’s all yours.’
He started to turn. That was when she saw his scars. ‘Meu deus, what happened to you?’ she whispered raggedly.
His glance ripped from her face to where she pointed to his left hip. The marks were puckered and too evenly spaced and shaped to be an accident. But still her mind couldn’t grasp the idea that someone had deliberately inflicted pain on him.
‘You mean you haven’t guessed already, querida? Your father happened.’