With each thrust he seemed to take pride in taking even deeper possession of her, drawing out each movement to maximise every drop of pleasure and to send the sweetness surging to the tips of her extremities.
With every thought that she was capable of, which wasn’t much, Serena thought it couldn’t get any better, only it did. As he hitched her leg up to lock around his waist and claimed her lips, he drove into her with a surge of such desire that her hands clawed down his back, needing to remain anchored to something because she could feel everything—her sense of self and life—shattering around her. And then she was gone, soaring past pleasure, past sanity, past all she’d believed was possible and landing in the abyss. Only it wasn’t dark and lonely; it was a bright, sparkling land where pleasure followed pleasure and for the longest time she drifted, floating amongst those beautiful, starry sensations.
But then those quakes of delight began to ebb away and the stars started to fade and everything that had been shunted aside by the needy impulses that had flowered so powerfully, so violently, inside of her, rushed back.
Slowly, so slowly it felt a hundred times worse, it dawned on her the risks she had taken, the jeopardy she had put herself in, her body and her heart. It settled over her like a chill. Horror bottlenecked her throat, and the thuds of her heart echoed like crashes of doom.
There was only one thing she could do, and it was what she should have done long before now—get out of there as fast as she could.
Caleb was still riding the wave, his breath burning his lungs and his body feeling as though it had been struck by a supercharged bolt of lightning. He’d always enjoyed sex but nothing before had ever come close to that. He wanted to savour it, bask in each and every sensation rippling through his body, but he was also greedy to start all over again. The night was long, but nowhere near long enough for him to enjoy and explore Serena in all the ways he was already vividly—very vividly—imagining before they had to go their separate ways.
Feeling the mattress shift, he turned his head to the side, frowning when he saw that she was sitting up and covering her lovely body with her dress.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes,’ she replied, too fast and in an octave too high for her voice, so that he was instantly alert. ‘I just need to leave.’
‘Is something wrong?’ Concern launched him into a sitting position so he could see her better.
‘No. I just… I should get back to my hotel. I shouldn’t be here.’ Those words sounded all wrong, especially as it was his view that she was exactly where she should be and where he wanted her to spend the rest of the night. He was on the verge of reaching out to her when she bolted off the bed, practically running to the door of his bedroom without looking at him once, and he was sure he heard her sayI shouldn’t have done this.
‘Serena?’ he called after her, his chest thumping hard with emotion he couldn’t fully comprehend.
His brain whirring with confusion, Caleb searched the floor. Locating his trousers where they’d been hastily discarded, he pulled them on and followed her into the suites living space, where she located her bag and then turned so hastily for the elevator that she nearly knocked into an end table. Caleb hurried to intercept her, catching her arm. ‘Serena, stop.’
He spun her around to face him, and as her face lifted to his, he saw the panic darting through her eyes, but it was the unshed tears that triggered his own awareness and it hit him like a punch to the gut.
He only had one rule and he had just broken it.
He released her arm, scalded as much by the force of his own feelings as he was by the look on her face. The horror surging through his bloodstream thickened until it felt as if it would clog his veins and his lungs, even his throat. His heart pounded in his ears, a torrid drumbeat of sound before he ordered himself to take a breath, and then another, so that his voice would be somewhat steady when he spoke. Because he had to speak. He had to ask the question. As much as he didn’t want to breathe any more life into this nightmare, he needed to know. ‘You don’t normally do anything like this, do you?’ he demanded, his voice not without sympathy because he could see that she was as out of her depth as him. Just for a very different reason.
Her throat quivered. ‘Anything like what?’ she asked, bravely lifting her head to meet his eyes.
The answering look he sent her was piercing, but she didn’t flinch. ‘Going back to a hotel room with a man you just met and having sex with him?’ He snapped the words out, as with each second his patience was fraying too much to keep his tone measured, and her skin turned an even paler shade of white.
She swallowed, making him wait before she answered. ‘No.’
‘Never?’ he demanded, hoping that maybe she wasn’t as innocent as his worst thoughts were telling him.
‘Never,’ she clarified, spitting out the word as though it had refused to come willingly, the last thing she wanted to admit.
Her face faded from his view. All he could see was bright red flashing lights of alarm, feel panic surrounding him like cement walls closing in. He had his rules for a reason, and he abided by them for a reason. Because he didn’t ever want to hurt a woman the way he had hurt Charlotte.
She hadn’t been one of his usual carefree, sophisticated lovers either, but he hadn’t cared about that when he’d brought her into his life. He’d wanted her and had pursued her with no thought for those differences, never thinking that perhaps their affair had greater meaning to her than it did to him. Never caring enough to find out. And he had devastated her in ways that were carved into his mind—the memories a stain that would never fade.
That was why he only engaged with women like him now, women who understood how he operated. Women who he couldn’t devastate, because the only thing they wanted from him was something he was more than willing to give. Pleasure. Distraction. He had thought Serena was, or had he just wanted to believe that because of how urgently he’d wanted her from that first moment? Had the signs been there and he just hadn’t wanted to acknowledge them? He feared so. He had wanted her too much. And that was unforgivable.
‘You weren’t…’ His voice deserted him, the thought that had just occurred to him out of nowhere ripping the breath from his lungs. ‘Please tell me this wasn’t your first time,’ he pleaded, because taking an innocent would be too much.
‘What does that have to do with anything?’ she demanded on a breath that managed to be both anguished and furious.
‘Answer the question.’
Their gazes warred. His desperate. Hers blistering with reproach. ‘No,’ she finally snapped. ‘I wasn’t a virgin.’
‘That’s something at least,’ he breathed, a fraction of the two-tonne weight lifting from his chest. ‘But, regardless, you are right—this shouldn’t have happened. You should not be here right now.’ Her gaze reflected pain and anger at receiving those words, but he didn’t allow himself to feel bad. She needed to understand so that she didn’t walk away with any hope that this meant more than what it had been. Or that he was someone he wasn’t. ‘It’s my fault, not yours. I should have…’Been more careful. Stopped. Heeded my thoughts. He should have done all of the above, but what was the use of going backwards? Nothing he said or did now could change what had happened. He had learned that lesson the hard way a long time ago. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll have a car pick you up downstairs and drive you back to your hotel.’ Whatyou should have done an hour ago.
Serena barely managed a nod, her mouth tight, her eyes focused on the floor rather than him and her arms wound tightly across her chest as she walked to the elevator. It was a desolate sight, and one that nipped at his insides for reasons that he had no interest in unravelling. ‘I’m not trying to be cruel, Serena. But I don’t…the women I usually take to bed are more experienced, more like me. They are as uninterested in a relationship as I am. They understand…’
