Smoldering Hunger (6 page)

Sophie blinked and found herself staring at her reflection through the small mirror in her locker. Her eyes were dilated, her lips parted, and her chest heaved.

Her sex ached to feel Darius’s length slide inside her once more, to have him thrust hard and fast. Her breasts swelled and moisture soaked her panties.

My God. What was wrong with her?

He rode you good.

Sophie slammed her locker shut and turned on her heel. It was past midnight, and she wanted a few hours of sleep before she was back at the hospital for her next shift.

On her way out, she stopped by to check on the woman whose husband had beaten her. The woman refused to press charges or to realize that if she didn’t take some kind of action, she could end up dead.

Sophie paused by the door when she heard voices within. She peered around the corner to see a man with her. He was crying, swearing he would never do it again.

How many times had he said those same words? By the woman’s medical records and all her broken bones, it had been many, many times.

Sophie had done her part. She’d given the woman the same advice they gave every victim of domestic violence. The ball was in the woman’s court. Sophie could only pray that she took a stand and got her life back.

As she walked out of the hospital, Sophie felt the wind hit her face with a blast of cold air. A light snow had fallen two days ago, and more was on the way. Even after seven years, she still wasn’t accustomed to the harsh Scotland winters.

Still flushed from thinking of Darius, she didn’t bother to button her coat. Her heels clicked on the cobblestones as she made her way to the street.

Unable to help herself, she glanced to the spot where she and Darius had given in to their passion. The shadows hid the location, but she didn’t need lights to know where it was.

For a short time, Sophie had forgotten her past and the betrayals that shaped her into who she was. For a brief space she had just been Sophie—a woman who craved Darius’s touch like she needed air.

And it had felt so good to give in to that.

She looked at the ground and swallowed. Damn Darius for showing up again. And damn her own mind for not being able to forget about him.

When she raised her head, her eyes clashed with chocolate ones. Sophie halted inches from running into Darius. She gripped her purse in one hand and her black medical bag in the other while she wondered what to do.

“Walk around me,” Darius said.

She frowned, anger cutting through her. Hadn’t he been the one to come to the hospital, her place of work? Wasn’t he the one in front of her now?

“Keep walking, Sophie. I’ll find you later and explain,” he said in a low voice.

She rolled her eyes and walked past him, making sure she ran her shoulder into him hard enough to throw him off balance.

Why had she romanticized their dalliance? Why had she once more found herself making a man into something he wasn’t?

Darius had told her he wasn’t a good man. Yet she went and made him out that way. All those nights dreaming of him, of their passion and desire, created a man in her head that couldn’t possibly exist.

After this run-in, she was sure Darius would be well and truly out of her mind for good. She didn’t have the time or inclination for men like him.

But still, the idea that her life might’ve been changing was a heady one. As had the thought that Darius could be the kind of man she didn’t think existed.

She opted to walk home instead of taking her usual cab. The air was brisk, and with the snow coming, it might be her last chance for a while. The stroll felt good despite her feet hurting from two back-to-back shifts.

Sophie was exhausted by the time she entered her flat. She tossed down her keys, purse, and bag at the entryway table. Then she hung up her coat and kicked off her shoes on the way to the bathroom.

She was unbuttoning her shirt when she paused to turn on the water for the bathtub. After her clothes were in the hamper, she walked naked to the tub and poured a large portion of bubble bath in before lighting the candles set all around the claw-foot tub.

While the water filled, she turned on some music and shut off the lights. Her newest favorite was the soundtrack to
Outlander.
She climbed into the tub with the haunting melody playing in the background.

Sophie sighed as she leaned back and let the water and bubbles surround her. When the water was high enough, she turned it off with her foot.

Her eyes were closed as she relaxed. Slowly the tension and stress began to ease from her muscles. Her head lolled to the side. Her fatigue was so great she could fall asleep right there if she wasn’t careful. The only thing that would’ve made everything perfect was wine.

And Darius.

With the music playing, Sophie couldn’t help but think of him. She’d come across a few Highlanders while in Edinburgh, but none compared to Darius. She didn’t even have to ask if he was a Highlander.

It was in the way he held himself, the way he spoke. It was a look that couldn’t be faked or copied. Whatever made a man a Highlander was in his blood, in his very soul.

Movies and romance books loved to have Highlanders as heroes. Truth be told, Sophie had always found herself drawn to such men. Highlanders valued loyalty, honesty, and family. The alphas who would give their very lives for those they loved.

At one time she’d dreamed of finding such a man for herself. She hadn’t actually thought it would be a Highlander, however. She’d been content to find her man closer to home.

But all that changed so quickly. Her world was shattered in a dizzying display as the layers were pulled back and the lies were revealed.

Sophie didn’t ever think she would forget that feeling of drowning when she realized everything had been a lie and she’d been made into the biggest fool of them all with her fiancé’s affair.

That’s what she got for thinking men were like those portrayed in films and books. Those were characters written by those who crafted them.

They weren’t real people.

No matter how much she wished they were.

Darius was the closest she’d ever come to finding those heroes she used to read about. Then he proved he was as flawed as she was. Which was a good thing. She needed that so she didn’t find herself wanting him more than she already did.

She didn’t need anyone. Hadn’t needed anyone in years. She lived her life the way she wanted without having to answer to anyone or take their bullshit.

It was just the way she wanted it.

Liar.

Sophie silenced her subconscious with a vicious kick. So what if Darius made her realize just how lonely she was? Or that he made her think—for just a heartbeat—how it might be not to be alone anymore.

She knew exactly what she wanted, and though a quick tumble with Darius did wonders for her mentally and physically, she knew better than to think of more.

She shifted in the tub and saw the candles flicker through her eyelids. Sophie opened her eyes, her mouth falling open when she saw Darius leaning against her sink watching her.

Had her thoughts conjured him?

“What…? How…? There’s no…” she began, only to find her brain shut off.

His gaze blazed with unreserved longing while his hands gripped the sink tightly. Despite his lounging, his body was strung as tight as a bow.

How long had he been in her bathroom? How had she not heard him? And what did he want?

Regardless of the questions running through her head, none made it past her lips. Sophie fought against the tide of desire that swept over her like a surge. It didn’t help that Darius looked at her as if he were about to toss her over his shoulder and take her to bed to make love to her.

Sophie’s sex throbbed just thinking about it. There was no way she’d be able to carry on a conversation if she didn’t get her body under control. And there had to be a conversation followed by Darius quickly leaving.

There would be no sex.

Umm. Did you say something?

Shit. She was in trouble. The kind that would have her waking up in the morning groaning from—

Soreness?

—bad decisions. And Darius was definitely a bad decision.

His gaze dropped from her face to the water. A harsh breath left him. Her eyes traveled down his chest to his waist and lower where she watched the outline of his cock lengthen and harden right before her eyes.

Her nipples tightened in response. When Darius murmured something beneath his breath in a gravelly tone, she jerked her gaze back to his face.

That’s when she realized her nipples had broken the water’s surface, and the bubbles now drifted around her breasts. Sophie sank farther beneath the water.

Darius closed his eyes briefly and drew in a ragged breath. When he looked back at her, he was once more in control.

Too bad she wasn’t.

For long minutes, they simply stared at each other. Sophie mentally undressed him, thinking how she’d run her hands over his body and feel his heat and hardness.

“What are you doing here?” she finally managed to ask.

As if her words were a punch, he turned his head away for a moment and said, “You’re in danger. If you ever see me, pretend you doona care. Make sure that anyone who is around thinks you’d rather see anyone else but me.”

“I can do that.”

Had he winced? She was sure he’d winced. Now that was a shock. Since when did her words ever hurt anyone?

“I only came to tell you that,” he said.

Sophie was suddenly wretched that he might be leaving. After all her erotic dreams—and daydreams—of him, he couldn’t just leave. But what did she say? “Thank you.”

He released the sink and pushed away from it. Darius walked to the tub and leaned down. “Be safe, doc.”

His lips briefly touched hers. A moan left him the same time her hand snaked out of the water to wrap around his neck.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

Darius was on fire, smoldering from the inside out with an inferno of need that threatened to devour him if he didn’t have one more taste of her.

In truth, he’d been burning for Sophie’s touch before he ever followed Ulrik to the hospital and saw her again. But it was discovering her in the tub that did him in.

He’d known as soon as he walked in that he was a goner. Yet he hadn’t left. His feet refused to move, and his body … well, his body demanded he climb into the tub with her and remind her just how loudly he could make her scream.

When she opened her eyes, Darius had been transfixed. The way tendrils of her flame-colored hair clung to the sides of her face and neck was one of the sexiest things he’d ever seen—or ever would see. Then there was the flicker of the candlelight moving seductively over her skin.

The knockout punch came when Sophie shifted ever so slightly in the bath. Her breasts rose from the water, parting the thick bubbles. Darius’s mouth had watered at the sight of her puckered pink nipples. Every bit of blood rushed to his cock as he fought to remain where he stood.

What possessed him to walk to her to say farewell? And to tempt himself with another taste of her lips, no matter how light? He must be daft to put himself in such a position.

All it took was one sample, one small press of their mouths to push him over the edge. All the yearning, all the hunger he felt for her that he told himself wasn’t real, came rushing back like a tsunami.

It consumed him, devoured him. Leaving was no longer an option. He had to have her again.

Darius moaned when her lips moved beneath his. He braced his hands on either side of the tub, even as her arm wrapped around his neck.

Water slid down his neck and along his back. Bubbles that clung to her fingers tickled his ear. Water lapped loudly against the side of the tub when she brought her other arm up to his neck.

Darius was supposed to have been in and out of the flat. All he wanted to know was that she was safe. And he needed one last look at her.

He wasn’t supposed to be kissing her, and he sure as hell wasn’t supposed to be thinking of sliding his aching rod between her legs.

The sound of bubbles squishing was nearly as loud as their harsh breathing as he dipped one arm in the water and pressed her against his chest.

With the music still playing in the background, Darius kissed her with all the pent-up need and longing he’d been discounting for days.

He stood straight, bringing her with him. Water trickled down her body into the sloshing tub. Darius stopped kissing her long enough to see thick handfuls of bubbles sliding down her back, shapely ass, and legs, returning to the water.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered with her olive eyes heavy-lidded.

As if he could. Darius bent and scooped her into his arms. He pivoted and carried her dripping wet to the bedroom. Just as he was about to lay her on the bed, she pulled his head down for a kiss.

Darius was powerless to pull away. Her kisses had a way of making his brain stop functioning properly. With just a coax of her lips, he was putty in her hands.

He put his knee on the bed and leaned forward, catching them with his free hand. Darius couldn’t contain a growl of pleasure when he found himself nestled between her legs.

If only his clothes weren’t in the way of feeling her sleek, damp skin against his.

As if Sophie was thinking the same thing, she yanked his shirt up to his shoulders. Darius jerked off the offending garment.

His breath locked in his lungs when he felt her breasts against his chest. How could he have even dared to think their first time together would be the best? Especially when he hadn’t seen or felt all of her?

With her hand traveling over his shoulders and down his back, Darius gazed into her eyes that were a beautiful mixture of green and silver.

He hissed in a breath when she wrapped one long, lean leg around his waist, bringing him closer to her sex. Through his jeans he felt the heat of her core.

Her hand paused at his backside, pressing just enough as she ground against him. Darius gritted his teeth as he rocked into her. His cock jumped, aching for more.