Modern Romance Books September Books 5-8. Annie West

and destined to part company before the ink on the marriage certificate has time to dry?

      Meaningful or meaningless...did either matter when the physical need he aroused was so explosive?

      She turned him on and that thought was as powerful as a rush of pure adrenaline...

      She moved sinuously against the sheet and felt a rush of feminine empowerment as his nostrils flared and his eyes darkened in the grip of lust.

      When he straightened to sling his legs over the side of the bed, he left behind a cool void that made her want to touch herself.

      Should she tell him that she was not going to be able to live up to all those racy model types he dated? She’d known from the minute she’d begun developing what it felt like to have boys drool over her. Her first girlish crush had been a mistake, and her experiences after that had rammed home to her that the only reason men looked twice at her was because of her appearance. She hadn’t asked to be born sexy, but she had been, and she had grown wary over the years. So wary that the touching and experimentation that should have been part and parcel of entering adulthood had passed her by.

      The constant travel hadn’t helped matters either.

      Now, here she was, and he was in for a shock if he expected high jinks between the sheets.

      Caught up in her thoughts, she gasped when she realised the T-shirt had been removed and the jeans were being dispatched to join it on the ground.

      The bulge of his erection distorting the shape of his boxers brought hectic colour to her cheeks and she went as stiff as a board as he joined her on the bed under the duvet, pulling it up so that it covered both of them, drawing her close so that her breasts were squashed against his chest.

      He slipped his hand between her thighs and stroked her softly, then he inserted his fingers underneath the damp underwear so that he could play with her.

      The casual intimacy shocked her and her breathing was fast and hard as she stilled his hand.

      ‘What is it?’ Rafael drew back to stare at her, his expression only just discernible in the shadows. ‘I know this is maybe a little unexpected for the both of us...something we hadn’t catered for...’

      ‘That’s not it,’ she whispered.

      ‘Then what is?’ His voice gentled but there was bemusement there as well. ‘Talk to me, Sofia. Tell me.’

      She gently touched his arm he cupped her face in one hand, looking right back at her with a deep, unwavering look.

      ‘One minute you’re hot and ready for me, and the next minute you’re playing the shrinking virgin and pushing me away. What’s that about? You don’t play games...but is that what you’re doing now, cara?’

      He sounded genuinely bewildered and the reaction was so much the reaction of a decent guy that she felt something melt inside her.

      ‘No games. But the shrinking virgin?’ She breathed in deeply and went for it in a rush. ‘What if I were to tell you that you’re spot-on with that?’

      ‘I’m not following you.’ He drew back, frowning, and she could see that he was trying to join the dots and not getting there, because he just couldn’t comprehend that a woman in her mid-twenties could still be a virgin.

      In his world, racy models probably lost their virginity before their teens were up.

      ‘I haven’t...done this before, Rafael.’

      ‘You...you must have.’

      ‘Because I look the way I do? Do you judge all women by the way they look?’

      Rafael flushed darkly but remained silent.

      ‘You’re a contradiction,’ he mused slowly. ‘I sensed that from the very first. You’re fiery and outspoken but there’s something strangely tentative about you. How? How is it that you never slept with a man?’

      Sofia shrugged. She suddenly felt vulnerable, on the verge of giving something of herself away, yet he was only asking her a question and expressing very understandable curiosity.

      ‘You said that everyone has a learning curve,’ she reminded him. ‘I lost my heart when I was young to a good-looking guy. Turned out he and his mates had made a bet—to see whether he could get me into bed, because they all thought I was frigid.’ She laughed mirthlessly. ‘I guess I became vigilant when it came to the opposite sex, careful not to let anyone in, because the last thing I needed was to get hurt all over again. Time moved on... We kept changing post codes because my mother was all over the place when it came to guys, so the opportunity never arose...and there you have it.’

      ‘Parents have a lot to answer for,’ Rafael thought aloud, his tone so low and sincere that she stopped worrying about closely held confidences.

      ‘I just wanted you to know,’ she said helplessly.

      ‘And now I do.’

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      A VIRGIN. IT beggared belief that the sexiest woman he had ever laid eyes on was a virgin. And yet, thinking about it, it certainly explained all those intangible contradictions he had subliminally observed in her.

      He stared at her and the glass-green eyes staring back at him conveyed a mixture of challenge and hesitation that cut right to the core of him. He had never slept with a virgin and had never actually thought about what it might be like to sleep with one. Some men fantasised about that kind of thing. He wasn’t one of them. He had lost his own virginity at a young age to an experienced older woman and he’d never looked back.

      But now...

      Something weirdly gentle and protective twisted inside him, a softness that he couldn’t remember having experienced before.

      ‘I would understand if you decided that a virgin wasn’t what you had banked on.’

      ‘Don’t say that, cara.’ He stroked her face, touching her as gently as someone would touch a piece of priceless china. So tough, so strong and yet so damned fragile. ‘Sofia, I should be the one asking you whether you want to go ahead with this. I’m not Mr Right. I don’t do love. I...’ Rafael hesitated. ‘I’ve seen where love goes and it’s...what can I say?...never to a good place. David is a case in point. Two ridiculous marriages to women who bled him dry...and of course his relationship with your mother that came to nothing.’

      Not to mention his own parents, Sofia thought, sinking into the tenderness that had sprung up between them, of which he was probably unaware. Tenderness wouldn’t be an emotion factored into his psyche and he was oh, so entrenched in the notion that he could control every aspect of his life, including every single emotion. He’d said that parents had a lot to answer for and she knew, whether he was capable of voicing it himself or not, that he had lived through the dark side of love, the all-consuming love of two people who had had no time for the son they had created because they’d been too selfish, too self-indulgent. All round, his experiences would have left a bitter taste in his mouth and soured his vision of what could be a wonderful thing.

      Had he any idea how...human...those very things made him?

      ‘No,’ she whispered, pulling him towards her, breathing in the clean scent of whatever aftershave he was wearing. ‘You’re not Mr Right, but you’re the only guy I want just at this moment in time and I don’t want to look beyond that. I just want to...enjoy myself and go with the flow and not think about what’s right or what’s wrong...’

      * * *

      His nakedness stilled her. Undressed, he was everything she had imagined him to be and much, much more. She stared at his impressive size and wondered at the technicalities of what happened next.

      But he knew she was a virgin and he hadn’t backed