“Okay.” Her voice was a broken mess. “Just give me a second. The condoms are in the zipped pocket.”
While he found one and suited up, she inhaled. Exhaled. Repeated, until her lungs no longer felt like collapsing bagpipes.
“Right.” Swiftly, she sat up and went straight into his waiting arms, onto his lap. And onto his cock. She hadn’t actually intended that movement to be quite so fluid.
They both grunted; there was no other word for it. Dominic swore under his breath, his hands tightening on her. Lengthwise, he was perfectly, beautifully average in size, but he was thick, hard and pulsing, and almost uncomfortably full inside her.
“That was . . . impressive.” He sounded a little strangled.
“That was the single most athletic achievement of my life.” Sylvie couldn’t help wriggling. At the slightest movement, her nerve endings exploded happily, and Dominic groaned again. “Four years on the school netball team and I never shot a single goal.”
She gripped his shoulders as his hands went to her hips, pulling her into him as his hips gave an involuntary first thrust. “Score,” she murmured, shakily teasing against his lips, and his half laugh was cut off as the kiss immediately deepened.
If her life and business depended on it, she couldn’t have said how much time passed as they moved together. His mouth was on her neck, his hands stroking up her waist, cupping her breasts as his thrusts grew harder, faster. She wrapped her arms around his head.
When they stared into each other’s eyes, it was so intense, so intimate—too intimate. She had to look away, burying her head in his shoulder as he lifted her, lowering her to her back. His weight was heavy on her as he pulled one of her thighs around his hips, and she felt the beads of sweat rolling down the backs of her knees. She was caught between sensation and awareness and the sudden shockingness of clarity that this was Dominic moving inside her, bringing her more pleasure than she’d ever had—and that was a judgment formed with the authority of an entire catalogue of toys. It shook her enough that she tensed up at the end, and the building third orgasm slipped out of her grasp.
When he came, his face against her neck, she cupped his head and breathed in the scent of his skin. She couldn’t stop shivering, and his arms tightened around her.
His hand slipped down her belly when he regained his brain cells and motor skills, but she caught his fingers, gave them a little squeeze as she shook her head. “Too sensitive. And too exhausted.” She turned her head, smiling into his eyes. His irises were very, very dark. “And trust me, I did good.”
His mouth tipped up. “I’ll say.”
They were stroking each other’s skin, apparently mutually unable to stop. Dominic tugged her into his chest and they just lay there for some time, sprawled half-dead on the rug.
But a growing, nagging feeling was becoming impossible to ignore. At last, she had to say it. “Dominic.”
A slight rustle as his head turned on the rug. His fingers played with hers. “Hmm?”
“I’m starving.”
He pushed up on one elbow and looked down at her. That expression in his eyes was back, the one she couldn’t quite get a read on. She was distracted from her speculation, however, when he opened his mouth and uttered the sexiest words a man had ever spouted in the history of orgasms. “We have cheesecake in the fridge.”
“I was already ranking you a solid nine and a half, De Vere, but that’s straight up to ten.”
“It is Midnight Elixir cheesecake.”
“And we’re back down to nine and a half.”
Chapter Thirteen
The Flat of Humphrey the Cat
(Some big, grouchy dude also sleeps here. No idea who he is, but at least he knows how to work the can opener.)
They took the cheesecake back to Dominic’s flat for what remained of the night. When he unlocked the door and held it open, Sylvie slipped past him with a small, very private smile. Her cheeks were flushed. He’d wondered if stiffness would creep back into his reactions, that instinctual need to withdraw and recalibrate.
Yet his body and his mind were at ease. Relaxed.
Cautiously, tentatively . . . happy.
Endorphins played havoc on the brain, but that wasn’t why he was constantly drawn close, why he reached out and cupped her cheek, rubbing his thumb over the heated skin.
And he didn’t think it was why her fingers closed over his wrist, holding him.
“We had sex,” she said, that smile deepening in her eyes.
“Yes, we did.”
“We had sex.” Sylvie moved her head, the slight shake of a person adjusting to a game changer. “And it was really good.”
His mouth curved. “Yes, it was.”
She released his wrist to take a gentle hold of his shirt, pulling him toward her. When her soft lips brushed his, a renewed skittering of arousal clenched his abdomen.
Sylvie’s hand brushed down his chest as she turned, looking around his lounge with avid interest. She had been making a quiet humming sound. It stopped. Her gaze moved over the exposed beams, the open fireplace, the built-in bookcases, the piano, brick walls and spiral staircase. Her fingers rose to cover her mouth. “Oh my God,” she said behind her hand.
He put the boxes of cheesecake on the table and went to turn on the kettle. The kitchen was attached and open plan. The previous occupant of the flat had modernized it, but installed electrics that mimicked the appearance of antiques.
He’d put in an offer on this place within an hour of the first viewing.
“Weep.” Sylvie dropped her handbag on the couch. “I was feeling all smug because my bakery is so much cooler than yours, and then you pull out my dream house. I currently live in a concrete box with an authoritarian rental agreement, and you have a living room straight out of the posh, antique-y villages in Midsomer Murders.”
“Hopefully with a lower body count.” Dominic heard a telltale thudding on the stairs. “Although at the first opportunity, Humphrey would like to begin that tally.”
Sylvie swung around as the enormous cat thumped onto the last step. With an audible groan, Humphrey rolled sideways to the floor. As evidenced by the noise he made every time he went up and down the stairs, he had perfectly adequate paws, so why he couldn’t just walk down the remaining step instead of collapsing like a Victorian heroine on her fainting couch remained a mystery.
“Oh.” Sylvie started forward with totally misplaced concern. “Dom, I think your cat’s sick.”
That shortened version of his name slipped out again. Even as a kid, nobody had ever called him Dom. Evidently, his demeanor didn’t encourage a friendly nickname. Like more and more things right now, it was unique to Sylvie.
He liked it.
He took down two mugs. “Just give him a minute.”
As she ignored him and went to crouch by Humphrey’s side, the tabby menace flipped over, with admittedly impressive agility for his age and stature, and stared beadily up at her.
Dominic could already see she was about to repeat Pet’s error of judgment on meeting his cat. And as he hadn’t managed to intercept his sister’s urge to grab and cuddle, the scratch down her arm had been inflamed for a week.
Pet had since nicknamed his pet Humphrey “Boggart.” In normal circumstances, he might protest at a member of his household being compared to a malevolent spirit. In this case, it was not only accurate but bordering on generous. Pet sarcastically inquired after Boggart’s welfare on a semiregular basis. Maimed anyone else lately?