Page 226

She’d fallen asleep that night with his arms around her, and a deep, vulnerable part of her had relaxed for the first time in her life, because she’d felt safe.

This morning though, she was alone in the bed, which made her stomach dip. Perhaps he’d finished with her. Perhaps a night was all he wanted, and now he’d had that, he was done.

You really think that? After last night?

Well, he’d said he’d enjoyed himself yesterday in the bath, and she’d decided to trust that he’d meant it, but how would she know for sure? After all, she’d never known why any prospective adoptive parents hadn’t wanted her, yet it was clear something about her hadn’t appealed. Perhaps Kai felt the same?

Libby tried to ignore the questions in her head, and the creeping cold sensation she remembered all too well from when she was a child. It was ridiculous to feel that way, and she was over that now, years over it. Besides, this was about sex, not adoption, and plenty of people had brief sexual encounters like the one she’d just had and were fine afterwards, and so would she.

Pushing the cold feeling away, she got out of bed and slipped on one of the robes, then crept out into the hallway. She could hear the clatter of dishes downstairs, and the cold sensation inside her eased. Well, he hadn’t gone gone, so that was something.

She went downstairs and into the kitchen, and there he was, already preparing breakfast the way he’d been doing for a few days now. All he wore were jeans, the lines of his powerful body making her mouth water. He’d let her explore every one of those lines last night, and she’d thought that would be enough, but it wasn’t. Her fingers itched to touch him.

He turned and looked at her, his gaze flaring in a way that made her hot all over. ‘You should go back to bed,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring breakfast up to you.’

So, he did still want her. There was no mistaking the look in his eyes. It made her want to do exactly what he said, let him bring breakfast up to her, let him do whatever he wanted to do to her after that, too. And why not? No one needed her, for a change. No one was asking her to do something or complaining to her about something else. No one was getting angry and wanting support, and no one was weeping and wanting comfort.

There was nothing she needed to do except what she was doing right now, so why not indulge herself while she could?

So, she grinned at him, then turned around and went right back upstairs, lounging on the bed and watching through the windows the snow falling softly outside, until he arrived with a tray of coffee and pastries and fruit.

‘This is wonderful,’ she said as he put the tray down on the mattress. ‘You’re spoiling me.’

He bent and poured some coffee into a mug for her, eyes glinting. ‘You deserve spoiling. Especially after last night.’

She flushed at the note of heat and obvious satisfaction in his voice, a curious warmth glowing behind her breastbone. A warmth that had nothing to do with sex. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for making last night so special.’

Kai poured a cup for himself. ‘Your first time should be special.’

‘Was yours?’ she asked impulsively. ‘I mean, it should be special for men, too, shouldn’t it?’

His expression twisted oddly, and he glanced away. ‘It was.’

Libby frowned at the flatness of his tone, gripping her coffee mug. ‘It doesn’t sound as if it was.’

‘Leave it, Libby.’ A warning glinted in his eyes, all the heat that had been there gone, leaving behind it nothing but ice.

It was as if the temperature of the room had plunged, the atmosphere turning from warm and teasing, to icy anger in seconds.

She stared at him in surprise, a defensive anger flickering to life inside her. But as he turned to the windows, holding his coffee mug, his whole posture tense, her anger died as quickly as it had come.

Her question had hurt him in some way, that was obvious, and now she felt awful for upsetting him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have asked that question.’

Kai was silent for a long time, looking out through the window at the snow falling over the pines and the rocky crags of the fjord outside. Then he said unexpectedly, ‘My first time was with Neve, and I thought it was special. I thought I was in love with her. A couple of years later, I even asked her to marry me, but she refused. She was not in love with me, you see.’

Libby went cold, a kind of shock winding through her. She, of course, had heard the more salacious rumours about Kai and Neve, but she’d dismissed them as just gossip. She’d never imagined they might be true.

‘But didn’t Neve adopt you?’ she asked blankly.

‘Yes.’ He kept his attention on the view. ‘We weren’t blood related, though.’

‘But she was older than you.’

‘By about twenty-five years, yes.’

A terrible suspicion began to creep through her. ‘And how old were you?’

‘Eighteen.’ He raised his coffee mug and took a sip. ‘It was a long time ago, and I was very young, and very naive. I got over it.’