Chapter Five
‘Am I interrupting you?’ Tore enquired.
Violet sat up, her cheeks flaming, suddenly very aware of how little she was wearing and the sheer nature of the garments. She hadn’t thought that through very well when they were forced to share the same room and bed. She didn’t want him to think that she was being deliberately provocative.
Tore absorbed the pert jiggle of her surprisingly full breasts and went taut, infuriated by the fact that he only had to get within five feet of Violet to start thinking about sex.
In fact, he only had to look at her and his logical brain went illogically blank and then haywire.
His bride might be little in stature but she took up way too much space in his head.
He thought about how she had looked even from a distance in a bikini on the beach, recalled Sandro’s indefensible excuse that his wife was gorgeous and his shapely lips compressed.
He also remembered her saying, I liked it and all of a sudden all he wanted to do was give her more to like.
‘What are you reading?’ he asked, using the query to break out of his paralysis and bend to scoop up the book she had thrown aside.
The cover depicted a half-naked, very muscular male, and his mouth quirked with appreciation. He skimmed the page she had been perusing and his ebony brows lifted in surprised satisfaction.
‘It’s a romance,’ she said lightly.
‘Raunchy stuff,’ he remarked, resting the paperback down again where she had left it.
She went pink, obvious discomfiture gripping her. ‘I-I—’
‘I was teasing,’ Tore qualified. ‘Nothing wrong with a raunchy read.’
‘I know.’
‘I came up for a shower…’ Tore hesitated, glancing back at her when he entrapped the deep blue eyes resting on him. ‘And here you are, sitting in a little pool of light looking absolutely edible in little wisps of fabric.’
‘They’re not little wisps,’ she argued tightly. ‘It’s all full length but maybe I would’ve covered up more if I’d been expecting you to walk in.’
‘Doesn’t matter how covered up you are. I have a great imagination and you shouldn’t have to think like that anyway. This is your room in which you should be able to relax. Forget about me.’
‘That’s kind of a challenge,’ Violet acknowledged uneasily, her breathing coming a little quicker through her lungs as she collided head-on with shimmering emerald green eyes accentuated by lush black lashes.
Tore swung back round. ‘I’m sorry. That’s my fault. No matter how hard I try to ignore it, I’m extremely attracted to you. I’m not telling you that to make you uneasy. I can and will control that side of myself but there’s no escaping the truth when it’s just the two of us.’
‘It’s only curiosity,’ she assured him, confident of the fact. ‘Living like this in such close proximity and pretending to be a normal couple is a strain for both of us. Maybe we should just simply get rid of the curiosity and do what everybody assumes we’re doing anyway.’
Tore struggled to untangle that statement and came up not quite believing that she could’ve meant what she had actually said. ‘Not sure I grasped that.’
Violet laced her trembling fingers together tightly. ‘We’re not kids, Tore. It’s only sex making stuff feel awkward between us, nothing more important. I bet if we get that childish curiosity out of the way, we’ll find out that we can manage fine.’
‘There’s nothing childish about the way I feel about you,’ Tore countered, sliding out of his suit jacket and hooking it on one finger.
She studied his lean, powerful physique and the sheer energy he emanated with fresh understanding and a small pulse of superiority.
She knew she was right and that he was wrong.
Adults living so close to each other questioned and resented boundaries imposed.
It was common sense to her way of thinking.
Once they had established that sex between them was nothing exciting, they would both be cured of the craving that itched in her every skin cell.
Was he the same? she wondered helplessly.
Or was it only because he was a guy that he couldn’t handle the proximity?
‘It’s only curiosity,’ she assured him again as she stood up.
She found him equally attractive and she wasn’t prepared to lie about that when he had been honest. And really, what was the big deal?
She had had sex before and it had been a huge disappointment.
It might be marginally better with Tore because she was much more drawn to him than she had ever been to Damien but even so, it wasn’t as if she was expecting meteor showers raining down from the heavens.
She wasn’t that naive anymore. Nor was she a nervous teenager who had little idea what she could be inviting.
And once they had experienced that intimacy together, perhaps they would both feel more relaxed with each other.
Tore dropped his jacket and stalked forward to reach for her and that fast she was in his arms, shaken and stirred by a sudden burst of anticipation.
He lifted her up into his arms and crushed her parted lips under his, his tongue dipping and delving and setting off a riotous reaction through her quivering body.
‘I like the way you kiss,’ she muttered unevenly as he lifted his head.
Tore slanted her a frankly irrepressible grin that made his lean, dark, serious features shed years. ‘I know,’ he said with pleasure.
‘I don’t like big egos,’ she warned him, forefinger poking his shirtfront in warning.
And he brought her down on the bed with a simmering smile that fired up every nerve cell she possessed.
‘Not one of those…although, I can’t say that Sandro emerged from our chat feeling as good about himself.
Since he got that TV show, he’s had an army of fans and their adoration has made him believe that his charm is universally appealing. ’
‘He was getting on my nerves,’ she confided. ‘I mean, he’s family but no offence intended, he’s definitely a bit of a perv.’
‘My grandfather, Aldo, would revel in that description,’ Tore laughed and he went back to kissing her while she worked, somewhat absentmindedly on his shirt buttons, loosening them, sliding them free, spreading her fingers across warm male flesh.
He dug something out of his jacket and tossed it down beside the bed and she squinted, recognising that it was contraceptives and relieved that he was prepared.
Tore dragged the sleeves of her wrap down her arms with an imprecation. ‘You might as well be wearing a shroud,’ he complained, impervious to the fluttering attractions of the garment.
‘You’re impatient,’ she complained.
‘I feel like I’ve been wanting you for a lifetime,’ he breathed rawly, an uncertain note in that admission as he made it without consciously thinking it out.
And then he immediately thought that he shouldn’t have said that because it made it sound like what they had was special and obviously being the kind of cold-hearted bastard he was, there was no such thing as any woman who was more special than the previous.
Yet, the bite of craving her naked in his arms had persisted day and night. Acknowledging that made him feel antsy.
‘Sounds good. Nobody has ever wanted me that much,’ Violet confided, thinking wryly of her first and only lover, Damien.
Damien had needed a lot of encouragement to get that intimate with her and only the idea of going off to college still being a virgin had motivated him.
Of course he hadn’t wanted her enough, she reasoned, and she hadn’t wanted him that way, either.
They’d been best friends but a bad mix as sexual partners, she conceded because the sex that had followed had been a major disappointment to them both.
And only months later, in his first weeks away from home, Damien had informed her that he was gay, which had explained a lot from her point of view.
In truth, Violet had never before been able to luxuriate in the conviction that a man truly wanted her.
Tore ripped off his shirt and cast it aside, dealing with her robe in a similar fashion.
He covered her breasts through the lace of her nightgown with big, gentle hands.
‘Just a glimpse of these drives me crazy,’ he growled.
‘If I was to see them in a bikini on the beach, I could be uncontrollable.’
‘How?’ Violet asked in honest wonderment. ‘It’s only flesh—’
‘Heavenly flesh,’ Tore contradicted, tugging down the slip straps to bare his bounty and nuzzle against the firm mounds with his unshaven chin.
His mouth landed on a pouting pink nipple and conversation ceased as that tugging turned into an incendiary burn between her thighs and gave Violet something else entirely to think about.
‘I love your breasts,’ he groaned.
‘Yes, got that message,’ she whispered in disconcertion, not at all certain what to do with such admiration when it had never come her way before. ‘And your bottom,’ he confessed, moulding the rounded generous globes with appreciative hands while he tugged her down the bed.
At that point, he shocked her, roaming to a place that wasn’t on her mental map of sex. She shifted, awkward, embarrassed, trying to close her thighs again.
Tore lifted his tousled silvery head and murmured. ‘I want this… I need to taste you… You won’t regret it.’
And in receipt of that sincerity, Violet’s objections were quelled because what did she really know after one less than successful experience? Insecurity made her loosen her hold on her trembling body.