Tangled Up In You (Rogue #1)

Chapter 89

89

SOPHIE

A s only the second lover she had ever had, Conor did not disappoint. He was confident and clearly knew how to touch a woman. After all their years of restraint, this could have been a feverish and quick initial experience, but he was deliberate in slowing it down, making sure he read her cues as he caressed every part of her body. She surrendered herself to the moment, thinking only of him: the way he smelled with the trace of cologne she suspected he wore so women would lean close to him; the strength and definition of his muscles; the mixture of heated desire and satisfaction on his face when she touched him with her hands and tongue. Their closely aligned orgasms had them dissolving into subdued laughter at the sweet pleasure of it.

Wrapping her arms around him and pressing her naked body to his, she kissed his temple. “Don’t think I’m done with you,” she whispered into his ear. “We are going to make this last.”

“Christ, I hope so,” he replied with a sigh.

She trailed her fingers over his chest and downward to the sculpted oblique muscles above his hips, and he flinched.

He was fighting off a smile when she looked at him.

“How did I not know you were ticklish?” she asked with wide eyes.

Taking her hand, he kissed her fingertips and smiled, relaxed and content. She pulled away and quickly straddled him, pushing his arms up above his head.

“What’s this?” he asked, unable to hide his delight at her unexpected move.

“I want to see how much of me you can handle.”

He raised his eyebrows. “A lifetime’s worth, honey.”

That response made her chest burn with a mixture of emotions she didn’t want to confront. Instead, she leaned over him and began to kiss, bite, and lick the sensitive skin on the inside of his bicep, moving slowly upward. Besides a few twitches, he held his own. She should have known he could control himself if he wanted. The rest of his body responded to her positioning, however, and she soon took advantage of that. There was no fumbling with each other or second-guessing on rhythms and pressure, just pure chemistry.

It was beginning to get dark out when they finally settled into each other’s arms again. He held her as he had in New York, facing her and with her head pulled against his neck and shoulder. Having enjoyed more than one orgasm in their uninhibited love making, she was now perfectly content to hold him and be held in return.

“This is everything,” he told her quietly.

She smiled into his shoulder and he stroked her back lazily in return, and they were quiet. The crushing guilt and regret she knew she should feel wouldn’t come. This was a connection years in the making that had finally culminated in one of the most exciting, intense, and satisfying experiences she had ever had. She had wanted to know this part of him, even though it was incredibly selfish. Selfish because this didn’t change the fact that Gavin was who she wanted. He would always be the one she wanted, even if she was capable of loving someone else. Her guilt, therefore, was in having given Conor hope for them being something more.

“Will you stay the night?” she asked. She knew she shouldn’t draw this out longer, but couldn’t stop herself.

There was a long silence before he responded with, “I can’t.”

“No?” The idea of him getting up and walking out left her feeling empty.

He pulled away from her so that he could look into her eyes. “Sophie, I would love to stay. I would love it. But if I don’t let you go now … I won’t ever be able to let you go.”

So he had known where her heart was all along. It was just another way in which it was clear that he was attuned to who she was and what she needed, and that realization was so bittersweet that she physically ached.

“And I do have to let you go, don’t I?” he asked, stroking her cheek.

Tears filled her eyes and she managed the slightest nod. “It hurts,” she whispered.

“It does,” he agreed.

“I’m sorry, Conor.”

“Don’t be. I’m not.”

She searched his eyes and found he meant what he said. She kissed him anxiously, wanting him all over again, for the last time.