“You’re so goddamn beautiful.” His low voice still held that thread of desperation. “I missed you,” he breathed out as he went back to pressing his body and lips against mine.
“You did?” I asked when we finally came up for air. Barclay was not exactly an open person. Telling me he missed me was revealing a lot.
“I think about you all the time,” he said against my lips before moving them down my neck. I pushed both my hands into his jacket to feel him through his shirt. The muscles of his chest and upper arms were tense. All my other boyfriends had been . . . well, a little bit spongy if I was honest. This guy was properly ripped.
“You do?” I breathed as his hand reached behind me to arch my back away from the wall so he could unfasten my bra.
“Yes.” His hand was now moving to cup my breast, his thumb swiping across my nipple. I let out a small moan and moved my hips against his, and he pressed me further into the wall. “You’re in my blood, under my skin. I can’t get you out of my head. It’s driving me insane.You’redriving me insane.”
“Holy badgers breath,” I whispered and I felt him smile against my neck, his still-strung-tight-with-tension body shook with a small chuckle.
“Good God, you’resoweird. Why is that a turn on?”
“I don’t know, but let’s just go with it.”
I put my hands either side of his head, pulled his lips to mine, opened my mouth and let his tongue in again. We were both so caught up in our haze of need that everything became almost frenzied. He ground against me and I let out a type of feral moan I’d never heard from myself before in my life. My blood felt like it was on fire. I couldn’t get close enough to him. It felt like I was coming out of my skin.
“I have to really see you,” he rumbled, lowering me to my feet and pulling my shirt down my arms. Once they were free, I managed to get his suit jacket halfway down his arms and he shrugged the rest off before grabbing my knickers either side and yanking them down my legs. I stepped out of them but didn’t have time to take off my sandals before he’d lifted me up against the wall again. Then the heel of his hand was right where I needed him to be and I let out a sharp hiss at the feeling. After what felt like hours of balancing on a cliff edge of sensation and when I was almost desperate to feel him, I heard his belt buckle fall onto the ground.
“I want that one,” I murmured nonsensically like a kid making a selection in a sweet shop as I looked down, then made a grab for my bag on the kitchen counter to retrieve a condom (I had so many condoms and so little chance to use them I could probably open my own family planning clinic). His rumbly chuckle cut through the thick atmosphere again.
“Hurry,” I whispered, and then he was there, right there. Finally, we were connected. I made that feral noise again and he groaned in response, his movements going from deliberate and measured to wild and uncontrolled.
“Oh. My. God.” I whispered. I threw my head back to arch my pelvis into him and the back of it slammed against the wall with some force. I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel anything but what he was doing to me. But I did feel his hand coming up to cradle the back of my head and provide a barrier between the hard surface and me. The sweetness of that gesture, combined with the absolute brutal beauty of what we were doing, for some reason made my eyes sting with tears.
I felt it building, a tingling from the top of my head down through my body until I was suddenly soaring, pleasure so intense it was like a flash of bright white light, before spots appeared to cloud my vision. As I came down, I felt his body tense even further until it was rock solid under my hands.
We stayed locked together, our foreheads touching and our heavy breaths mingling between us. Then he let me down from the wall gently to set me on my feet as I lost him. I blinked up at his handsome face and he cupped my jaw, his thumb sweeping over my cheek to brush away a tear as he scanned my features. Then he stepped back and moved away into the kitchen. I teetered for a moment without his large body holding me up, then bit my lip as reality started to invade my bliss-addled mind.
I was a free spirit in every sense of the word. Okay, I’d never had multiple partners and I didn’t exactly sleep around, but I didnothave any hang-ups about sex. I thought sex was great (although until just now I hadn’t realised sex could be life-altering) and so long as people did it safely (I was a sexual health doctor after all), I was all about freedom. But now, as I stood next to the wall I’d just been epically and life-alteringly shagged against, mostly naked other than my skirt bunched around my waist, for the first time maybe ever I felt . . . shame.
Another tear fell, but this one wasn’t for the same reasons as the last. This one was a tear of humiliation.
‘That was a mistake. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.’
His words from a week ago flew into my mind along with an image of his shocked face after we’d kissed. He’d looked ready to jump out of my flat window after just a kiss. What was his reaction going to be now? I blinked away the rest of my tears and swiped my face furiously with the backs of my hands before I grabbed my skirt and shimmied it down over my hips again. My movements were jerky as I squatted to make a grab for my shirt, pulling it on without bothering with the bra. I straightened and tried to do up the buttons at top speed, but my fingers were shaking. Before I could even get one of the damn things secured, his expensive shoes appear in my line of vision and large hands closed around mine.
“Kira?” he asked, his voice gentle, and that made the backs of my eyes sting even more. “Are . . . are you okay?”
No, no I was not okay. Why, I had no idea. The Kira of old would have quite happily slept with her celebrity crush and then crowed about it to her mates.ThisKira was feeling anything but triumphant at the turn of events. She was feeling ridiculous and humiliated.
I shook off his hands and continued to struggle with the buttons, refusing to look up at his face and see the rejection that I knew would be written all over it.
“I . . .” my voice cracked and I swallowed, forcing a smile that I was sure was more of a grimace. “I’ve got to get home. I’m a busy badger tomorrow, so–”
“You’re not going anywhere,” he told me as he took over the buttoning.
“Um . . .” I looked to the side and bit my lip. Was he angry? I mean, I could understand him regretting what happened but why would he be angry about it? It wasn’tmewho’d bonkedhimagainst the wall.
“I really just want to go home,” I whispered and then, goddamn it, I sniffed. Once he was finished with my shirt, he bent to the floor to pick up my pants and my bra only to shove them in his suit pocket, which, despite my distress, I still managed to find insanely hot. Then his hands came up to my face again to cup my jaw on both sides. He swept away another tear that had fallen and his next words were soft with concern.
“Did–did I hurt you?”
The shock of Barclay’s unsure tone made me look up. His blue eyes, stark with worry, searched mine and a deep frown marred his forehead.
“You’re so small and I was rough. I should have been gentler. If I’ve hurt you, I . . .”
I shook my head in his hands, reaching up to hold his forearms.
