His eyes came back to mesh with hers. ‘Sex is all about the destination.’ He began to move, deep and slow, each movement triggering another wave of thrilling pleasure through her body. ‘Making love is about the journey, as well.’ He kissed her mouth lightly, once, twice, but the third time was deep and lingering.
Aiesha lifted her hips, rolled her pelvis, teasing him with the slippery friction of her body. He increased his pace but he was still in control. She stroked his buttocks, and then dipped her fingers between them to the supersensitive skin of his perineum. He stifled a groan against her mouth and drove harder. She rode with him, urging him on with little gasps and whimpers as the need rose to a crescendo in her body. She could feel the tension in his muscles as he poised in that pivotal moment before the primal force took over. He gave another raw groan, his skin peppering with goose bumps beneath her fingertips like fine gravel as he shuddered and then flowed.
Aiesha held him in the quiet aftermath, which was another new thing for her. She was normally the first to disengage, to disentangle, to gather her clothes and move on.
But she didn’t want to sever the connection between them. Couldn’t sever it. Not yet. Her body felt...at peace. Satiated. Floating in a sea of contentment, she had never felt quite like this before. Something about his lovemaking spoke to her deep inside her soul. Touched her. Moved her. His respect, his consideration and concern for her pleasure made her feel valued, treasured. Safe. His breath was warm against the side of her neck, his chest rising and falling with hers, his legs in a sexy tangle with hers. She absently moved her hands over his back and shoulders, exploring each contour of muscle and bone, each knob of his vertebrae, the dish in his lower spine, and back up again to play with the closely cropped hair on his head.
‘How’s that carpet burn?’ he said.
Aiesha smiled as she met his teasing gaze. ‘Either the carpet is too good a quality or you weren’t going hard enough.’
The glint in his eyes intensified. ‘I can fix that,’ he said, and swooped down and covered her mouth with his.
CHAPTER NINE
IN THE EARLY hours of the morning, James rolled over sleepily to reach for Aiesha beside him in his bed but instead his hand found a cool, empty space. He looked for a long moment at the indentation on her pillow where her head had lain beside his. The faint trace of her perfume lingered in the air, the same delicate but deliciously intoxicating fragrance he could smell on his skin.
He sat upright, listening for sounds of her moving about in the en-suite bathroom, but there was nothing but silence.
Empty silence.
He frowned as he pushed back the covers. He hadn’t heard her leave. He hadn’t expected her to leave. It made him feel like a gigolo who had served his purpose—a cheap hook-up that meant nothing to her. He didn’t like the sense of being used. He had brought her upstairs because—all jokes aside—carpet burn wasn’t his style, and he had a feeling it wasn’t hers, either.
But then he remembered she’d told him she never spent the whole night with anyone. But surely he was different? He wasn’t some nameless one-night stand she would never see again. He had taken the time to listen to her, to try and get to know her, to understand what put those shadows in her eyes.
He had made love to her.
He had taken the time to get to know her body as intimately as he could. She had responded to him with captivating fervour. Surely what they had shared meant more to her than a quick satiation of physical need?
He glanced at the bedside-table clock. It was 4:00 a.m. He shrugged on his bathrobe, telling himself he was only checking on her to see if she was all right.
Her bedroom was empty.
The bed had been slept in, or at least she had been in there because the sheets were all tangled and thrown back, the feather pillows crushed and misshapen. But whether she had slept or not was open to question.
How long had this restless bed-hopping been going on? When had it started? Why wouldn’t she talk to him about it? If only he had realised at the outset how complex and traumatised she was he might have been able to get her to confide in him without all the game playing she went on with all the time. He still cringed at the way he had confronted her in the kitchen, accusing her of stealing. He had pushed her into a meltdown and in doing so he had lost his chance to earn her trust. How long would it take to win it back? Or was he fighting an unwinnable battle?
When he turned on the light in the kitchen Bonnie raised her head and blinked at him but didn’t move from her cushioned bed near the cooker. She put her head back down on her paws and closed her eyes as she gave a deep doggy sigh.