Secret Seduction

Another coaxing tug on her wrist was accompanied by a persuasive whisper of pain. ‘Please, I don’t know what’s happening to me, but I can’t bear to be alone right now.’

The ache in his voice resonated in her empty heart, and without allowing herself to think any more about the wisdom of what she was doing, Nina sank onto the bed, sliding her strangely weighted legs down under the covers and resting her weary head on the cool pillow.

She lay on her side facing the room, as close to the edge of the bed as possible, but the dip in the soft mattress caused by the weight of the body behind her inevitably caused her to tip back towards the middle of the bed.

‘Thank you…’ he sighed, his warm breath tickling the back of her ear. His arm closed around her waist, drawing her back against his chest, the hot-water bottle trapped between them preserving the illusion of distance, its healing warmth melting the stiffness in Nina’s lower back.

His knees butted into the back of her thighs, pushing them up into a relaxed curl, one bare foot tucking casually between her ankles. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest against her curved spine, the thud of his heart kicking into her shoulder-blade. Already his shivers were dying away as his face nuzzled into the thick waves tumbling down her back.

‘Your hair is different,’ he muttered.

He had only seen her looking like a frizzy drowned rat; Nina wished that was something that he would forget.

‘I brushed it dry in front of the fire.’ She had deliberately spun out the soothing task as a way of distracting herself from nature’s destructive claws raking relentlessly at the house.

Now the raw fury of the storm didn’t sound quite so frightening. Although she was the one supposedly offering comfort, she had discovered an unrecognised need in herself. How long had it been since she had lingered in the security of a warm human embrace? Karl was too self-absorbed to offer much in the way of comforting hugs and Nina had been so busy proving her independence that she had forgotten what it felt like to share the burden of a fear. She even found that she could now admit it out loud.

‘I hate storms like this…especially when there’s thunder and lightning, as well—they just terrify me.’ She shuddered, the image of those death bolts slamming out of the boiling sky burned into her retina.

His arm tightened, his palm sliding farther under the curve of her ribs. ‘I know, but you came out to help me anyway. That was brave.’

It had been fear, not bravery, that had driven her out into the storm—fear for him. ‘How did you know I hate storms?’

There was no answer, and for a moment she wondered whether he had drifted back to sleep, but the quickening of his heartbeat suggested otherwise.

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