He was holding his breath, waiting for her reply, for some reason he knew his future depended on her answer.
Julia was silent.
His hand tightened on her ass.
“Do you want me?” he growled against her mouth.
“Yes, Douglas, I want you,” Julia breathed.
And then, abruptly, he bent double, picked her up and, just like a bloody, f**king caveman, Douglas threw her over his shoulder and carried her to his bed.
* * * * *
Julia woke up sometime in the night, her na**d limbs tangled with Douglas’s.
She wouldn’t be able to move without disturbing him and, for the time being, she wanted to relish in the delicious moment of closeness. She wanted to take this precious time to savour what they had shared only hours, or maybe it had only been just moments, before.
He had carried her up to the bedroom, not in his arms like a doting lover, but in a fireman’s hold like a marauding Viking.
Not until he had her through his personal sitting room and in his bedroom did he put her down or more to the point throw her down, right in the middle of the bed. He didn’t utter a sound, not even a grunt of effort.
Some sanity had returned at that point and her hands flew up to adjust the fallen neckline of her dress while he turned on the light at the bedside table.
“Don’t,” he barked when he saw her movements and, at the sound of his rough voice, her hands stilled, holding the bodice in place over her br**sts as she struggled into a semi-reclining position.
He was staring at her and she was immobile in the face of his blazing eyes. She watched him in fascinated silence as he shrugged off his jacket and threw it on the floor. His hands moved and he yanked at his tie viciously. In one tug, it came loose and he threw it to join his jacket. Then he went to work on the buttons on his shirt.
“Douglas…” Julia was trying for a conciliatory tone, she was half-mad with wanting him, half-sane enough to realise her own fear. She sought control of the situation, time to think. He was furious, she knew, even though she wasn’t entirely certain why, and a fury the strength of his was a frightening thing.
But it was also something else.
It was magnetic.
She wanted this, she was forced to admit. She was no fool and she tried never to fool herself.
At the same time she was terrified of it.
He wasn’t helping her, looking at her as if he would be hanged in the morning and she was his last meal.
He had the last button undone on his shirt then his arm reached out abruptly, grabbed her by the waist and jerked her to her feet in front of him.
“Who chose this dress?” he asked, his hands sliding down her sides slowly.
“Charlie,” she answered nervously.
“Remind me to thank her,” he remarked right before he bunched the material at her h*ps and savagely pulled it up over her head, forcing her arms up with it. In a split second it, too, fell on the pile with his tie and his jacket.
His hands settled on her waist, the heat of them searing her bare skin and making her shiver as he roughly pushed her a couple of inches away from his body, holding her suspended, for she would surely never have been able to stand on her own at that angle.
Rather than cover herself, her arms fluttered down to her sides and she watched helplessly as his eyes drifted over her hungrily. She was wearing nothing but her black gloves, a pair of black, lace edged, garter-less stockings, black lace underwear, her pumps and his emerald.
“Jesus,” he murmured, looked in her eyes again and she could have drowned in the depths of his, they had turned to ink.
He pulled her in his arms, her bare skin crushed against the edges of his partially opened shirt and she barely had time to savour that sensation before she was falling backwards, one of his arms around her waist, the other one thrown out to control their fall. Her back no sooner hit the bed when he was gone, pulling away from her, his hand reaching for her panties.
“Douglas, we need to slow down.” This was going too quickly for her, she needed to think, she needed her clothes, she needed…
“Slow is not an option,” he declared as he pulled the lace expertly down her legs and it too joined the pile of clothing.