CHAPTER
ONE
Edinburgh
Mid-November
His hands were large and rough as he jerked up her skirt. Her fingers delved into his long blond hair, feeling the silkiness of the thick strands.
She couldn’t draw enough breath into her lungs. The way he pressed her against the building and pinned her with his body was … exhilarating.
No man had ever shown such passion, such need for her before. It spurred her own desires until she burned.
For him.
His kisses stirred her soul, leaving her gasping and hungry for more. They pulled her from the wasteland of her life, viciously and ruthlessly. With just one kiss she was clinging to him, silently begging him to show her all that one brush of his lips promised.
The feel of his arousal pressed against her stomach made her dizzy with need. It swirled low in her belly and began to consume her with each beat of her heart.
She closed her eyes against the night, against the world that was falling apart around them. And she did the one thing she swore she would never do again …
She opened her body.
His palm scraped against her thigh. She felt the calluses against her skin and the warmth of his hand against the chill of the night.
Each kiss was like a wrecking ball, smashing through the walls erected around her heart without any difficulty. He had wanted her and sensed her own attraction to him, and he had acted.
When was the last time a man had done that?
Never.
She didn’t have to think or act. All she had to do was feel. And he was like a riot of sensations swarming her, consuming her. Yet it didn’t frighten her.
No, it excited her, delighted her.
Invigorated her.
She gasped when he cupped her sex. It soon turned into a moan as his fingers delved into her slickness and teased her clit before sliding within her.
Her head fell back against the building while his mouth left a hot, wet trail down her neck to her breasts. His lips fastened around a nipple and sucked.
She bit her lip and briefly wondered when her coat had been opened and her shirt unbuttoned. Then she forgot how to think as he began to flick his tongue over the rigid peak.
He suddenly lifted his head, and the next thing she knew, his hands moved around to her bottom where he lifted her so that she could wrap her legs around him.
Her eyes opened and she looked into his dark eyes. The shadows hid his face, but she didn’t need the light. His image was branded into her mind from their first meeting.
He was dangerous, serious, alarming, and a bit threatening. He was everything she should stay away from. Despite her best efforts, she was pulled to him like a bee to honey.
There were no words between them. There wasn’t a need for any. The passion and yearning said it all.
It frightened her how much she ached to have him within her. She knew very little about him, but her body didn’t care. And frankly, at that moment, neither did she.
She ran her hands over his wide shoulders and his arms that were solid muscle. She felt the sinew move beneath her palms as he lifted her just enough so when he lowered her, she felt the head of his cock at her entrance.
Her lips parted and her nails dug into his shirt as she waited with anticipation for him to fill her. He leisurely lowered her, letting his rod stretch her with agonizing slowness.
She wasn’t able to draw in a breath until she had taken his full length. All the while, he held her gaze, daring her to look away.
In his eyes, she saw his desire, his blatant hunger. In that moment, that very second, he allowed her to see the real him. And it caused her heart to catch, because she liked what she saw. Too much.
He groaned loudly before he took her lips in a savage kiss that was both tender and relentless. Then he began to slide in and out of her.
She could do nothing but wrap her arms around his neck and hold on. With his thick cock filling her faster and faster and his shirt scraping along her bare nipples, the orgasm came quickly.
As if he knew she was about to peak, he began to thrust harder and deeper, taking her to places she hadn’t known she could go.
His kisses swallowed her loud cries as her body shuddered around him. Then he began to fade, turning to smoke. She tried to touch his face, but all she met was air.
Then she was alone. Just like before.
Sophie opened her eyes, hating when reality intruded upon her dreams. She sat up while trying to ignore how her body still pulsed from the climax.
How could a dream make her find pleasure as eloquently and vividly as she had in Darius’s arms? She put her hand on her stomach and closed her eyes while she waited for her breathing to return to normal and her body to calm once more.
She didn’t move when the alarm went off. Only when she had herself back under control did she reach over and shut off the alarm.
Sophie opened her eyes and threw off the covers before she stood. It had been two weeks since she and Darius had sex against a building, just steps from the hospital where anyone could have seen her.
She hadn’t much cared who might have stumbled across them that night. She’d been too caught up in his raw masculinity, the consuming desire that swept through her.
Now, however, she wondered at her sanity. She didn’t do such foolish, rash, or reckless things.
But it had felt good!
Sophie would only admit that to herself, and even that tiny concession threatened to turn her world on its axis. The blame lay squarely with Darius.
No matter how hard she tried, she still found herself looking for him when she left the hospital—day or night. With each day that passed and he wasn’t there, a little more sanity returned.
She was almost to the point where she was pretty confident that she could turn him away.
Right, her subconscious said with a laugh. That’s why you dream about him every night, climaxing each time you remember what he felt like inside you, sliding in and out. Stretching you.
She sighed, her stomach clenching at the memory. If only that wasn’t the truth. Sophie stood in front of her closet staring at her clothes, but that wasn’t what she saw. She saw Darius and the way he looked at her.
His dark eyes the color of chocolate had ensnared her. His gaze had promised passion, pleasure, and a multitude of other things she hadn’t dared to think about then. And especially now.
Recalling it two weeks later still made her breath catch. It was a look she’d seen others get, but it was never directed at her.
It evoked memories, dreams, and desires long buried. Those were dangerous, because they were a part of her life where she hadn’t been in control, where she had followed her heart.
“Never again,” she whispered.
It was a vow she spoke so many years ago and repeated often. It was her mantra, her motto. It was the only way she had gotten through those first horrible months. Those words built the concrete walls around her.
She had to stop dreaming of that night and how Darius made her feel. Sophie held onto those amazing feelings because she hadn’t thought anything would come of it.
Now, fourteen days later, she recognized how wrong she had been. Wasn’t she? She’d expected to live her life alone, and she was comfortable with that. Or she had been.
Until Darius walked out of the shadows and into her life one night.
There was a way to end the dreams and any thoughts she had of Darius. And that was to think of that inauspicious day, seven years before.
Sophie had pushed that memory deep, but never too deep. It was always there, a reminder of her gullibility, her stupidity. But she pulled the thought forward and let all the hurt, the anger, the betrayal, the confusion, and the sorrow take her again.
For just a few seconds, she gave herself to the memory. It was a reminder of why she vowed to live alone, why she pushed away anyone that tried to get close to her. Then she forcefully shoved the abhorrent memory back into a dark corner of her mind.
“Never again,” she repeated.
She was strong now. She was her own woman. She knew the truth of the world. It was dark, lonely, and merciless. She’d learned that the hard way, but she wouldn’t be caught in that position again.
Sophie grabbed a shirt and pants from her closet and headed to the bathroom. Her thoughts were centered on her patients waiting at the hospital. No longer did Darius occupy any part of her mind.
Just the way it should be.
Copyright © 2016 by Donna Grant
