by Anne Stuart
His hand slid down her neck to the base of her throat, to the ornate clasp that held the dress together. His long deft fingers released it even as his eyes held hers, and the gown parted, falling loosely about her.
His other hand came up to push the gown from her shoulders, and it landed in a flow of silk at her bare feet, leaving her naked by the clear blue pool, gilded in moonlight.
He didn’t lower his eyes to look at her body. Instead, he was intent on her face, her eyes, her expression. “You stayed,” he said, and tension ripped the sweetness from his voice. “You could have gone with Palmer. If you’d asked again, Salvatore would have let you go.”
“I didn’t want to go.”
“I live in darkness,” he said, still not touching her, his voice low and urgent. “In the shadows, in the warmth and safety of the night. If you come to me, you’ll live in shadows, too.”
She lifted her head to look around, and her hair rippled down her bare back. “The moonlight is bright enough for me,” she said quietly.
He reached out then, his hands cupping her face, his thumbs caressing her cheeks. “I must be mad,” he whispered. “You’ll destroy me.”
“I’ll love you,” she said, but the words were silent.
“You’ll destroy me,” he said again, closing his eyes in sudden despair. And then he kissed her.
She had one coherent thought after his mouth met hers. That this was the way it was supposed to be. This was what people chased after all their lives. This was why a wedding ended with a kiss. This was something that sealed, that changed her life, that took her soul to a place strange and new and terrifying. This time she wouldn’t run.
She pressed herself against him, needing the feel of his body against her, needing something to hold on to. He was lean and hard and muscular, and his soft black clothes pressed against her skin, arousing her with the very incongruity of cloth against nakedness. Her vulnerability should have added to her fright, but instead, it made her only more determined. Her mouth opened beneath his, accepting whatever he wanted to give her.
His arms slid around her back, arching her against him, and his mouth trailed down the side of her neck, to touch the wildly beating pulse at the base of her throat. And then, with sudden strength, he picked her up in his arms, holding her tight against him, adding to her sense of frailty, she, who’d never felt frail or vulnerable in her life.
She leaned her face against his shoulder, giving up the last ounce of fight. She was his to do whatever he wanted with, and if she felt passive, it was an oddly, intensely erotic passivity. He moved through the billowing curtains into the darkened room with only the white-shrouded furniture marking the way, and then he set her down on the bed, standing over her, watching her as he’d watched her so many nights before.
She looked up at him, silent, questioning, wanting him more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. He was only a shadow in the darkness, a silhouette dressed in black, a phantom lover come to her bedside, and she knew a sudden longing for sunlight. She wanted to see him, to touch him, to know him.
But instinct told her to take him on his terms. So she lay back against the pillows, eyes half closed in the shadowy darkness, and waited.
She could hear the rustle of clothing, and she knew he was stripping off his clothes. She wanted to rise up on her knees, to reach out for him in the darkness, but she couldn’t move, mesmerized but his unspoken command in the inky blackness. She was trembling, not with cold, not with fear, but with her need for him. She wanted him so badly, she thought she might die of it.
And then he was on the bed with her, his hands on her shoulders, pulling her to him, and his skin was hard and hot and damp against her. “Ethan,” she whispered, a small cry of passion, of need, of surrender as his hands moved down her body, dancing across her sensitive skin, arousing her without touching anything but her waist, the outer sides of her thighs, her knees.
He lay back against the mound of pillows, pulling her with him, his mouth against hers, kissing her with a devastating thoroughness that was bringing her perilously close to madness. She couldn’t come with just his mouth on hers, his hands on her waist, and yet she was astonishingly close to it. His hands moved upward, sliding against her midriff, and she felt the slight, arousing roughness of his skin as it danced along her softness, moving closer and closer to her aching breasts. If he didn’t touch her, she’d die. She knew it even as he tore his mouth away from hers, breathing heavily as he trailed kisses down the side of her neck.
Slipping away from her, he pushed her back on the bed, flat against the mattress. She reached for him, wanting to pull him against her, but he caught her wrists, holding them down beside her body. The touch of his mouth against her breast brought a reaction so intense, it was almost painful. She tried to arch off the bed, but he was holding her still with his hands on her wrists as he slowly circled one breast with his tongue, then tugged it gently into his mouth, suckling on it, nipping lightly with his teeth before turning his attention to her other breast.
She moaned, her breath coming in strangled gasps, and she struggled against his imprisoning grip. She wanted to touch him, to pull him over her, into her. Her body was twisting, desperate with longing. She needed him, needed him now. And yet she couldn’t tell him. All she could do was writhe on the bed, trying to reach for him.
His hands released her wrists and for a moment, she was almost too dazed to react as he reached up and cupped her breasts, his thumbs caressing the dampened flesh. And then he moved his mouth downward, across her flat belly to the apex of her thighs, and she couldn’t make a sound of protest. He kissed her in the downy thatch of golden curls, and then lower still, his mouth finding her with devastating effect. This time she struggled for a moment, her hands finding his head and trying to pull him away as his large, strong hands cradled her hips, holding her still. And then she wasn’t tugging at him, she was threading her hands through his thick, long hair, holding him against her, arching against the devastating invasion of his mouth and tongue.
The darkness closed around her, the thick velvet night where no light penetrated, as the sensations swirled around her. It made no sense. Normally, she didn’t even like what he was doing to her, had always found it vastly overrated. And yet now she was being turned into a quivering, mindless mass of female flesh in response to his mouth, his hands, his sheer intensity. She didn’t want it; she wanted to give to him, not take, and yet he was giving her no choice.
He knew how to judge her reactions perfectly, the shift, the restlessness, the ripple of reaction, the strangled breathing. He knew when she was just on the edge of explosion, and he knew how to expand that edge, to draw her over it, willingly, tumbling to her doom with no more than a strangled cry. He knew how to prolong it so that she was clawing at his shoulders, sobbing frantically, certain her body could take no more until he showed her, with inexorable determination, that it could.
And yet it wasn’t enough. She convulsed against his mouth, her body going rigid in reaction, and still she pulled at him, tugged at him, wanting more and more of him, wanting him, not his mouth, not his hands working their fiendish magic, she wanted all of him.
She was scarcely aware that he’d released her. Not until he covered her trembling, shivering body with his, wrapping her in his arms against his own tense, damp body did she realize that despite the contractions still rippling through her, he was no longer touching her.
She put her arms around his neck, burying her tear-damp face against his shoulder. Had she thought there was any chance at all she’d be able to hold some tiny part of her inviolate? It was a false hope. He’d taken her completely, and yet he hadn’t even attempted his own satisfaction yet.
His hands reached to cup her face. The moon had gone behind a cloud and the tiny glow of light had vanished from the room, leaving them plunged into inky darkness. His long fingers brushed the tears from her face, and then his mouth followed, kissing salty damp-ness from her cheeks, her eyelids, her
mouth. She didn’t need to hear the words; he didn’t need to speak them. You’re mine. Forever. She knew it in her heart, in her soul. There was no longer any chance of running.
S he turned her mouth to meet his, and his long thick hair fell around them, closing them within a curtain of it. Once more darkness surrounded them, cocooning them in a world of sensation and midnight glory. He shifted her beneath him, parting her legs so that he rested against her, the heat and hardness and need of him, and she trembled, uncertain that she could take much more.
His slow, inexorable possession of her body was something she couldn’t deny. It seemed endless, overwhelming, consuming, as her body shifted to accommodate him, and she knew from her initial twinge of discomfort that he was far more than what she was used to. Far more of everything. When he finally rested inside her, he pulled her legs up around his hips, settling in even deeper, and she couldn’t contain a little gasp of dismay.
She could feel the iron hard muscles against her, feel the fierce control that tightened his body. “Did I hurt you?” he asked softly, urgently, and she knew if she said one word, he would pull away, leave her. And she would die.
But she wouldn’t lie. Never would she lie to him. Instead, she kissed his mouth, silencing the question, and tightened her legs around him, pulling him in deeper still.
Now it was his turn to shudder, to tremble and shiver in reaction. The control that he’d kept so tightly began to slip, as he slowly pulled away from her, only to fill her again. She winced in the darkness, keeping still, determined not to flinch from the fierce possession of his body.
She wasn’t quite sure when it changed. When the last trace of discomfort vanished and she was reaching for him, clutching at him, sobbing and weeping as he strained against her. He was so strong, so powerful, that her entire body felt invaded, overwhelmed by his possession, a possession she didn’t want to end. She arched up against him, knowing that nothing could possibly reach the heights she had earlier, but reaching anyway when the moon came out from behind the clouds, filling the room with silvery light.
He had his face turned away from her so that all she could see was his unmarked profile, the sheath of long hair between them. His muscles were bunched, slippery with sweat beneath her hands, and she was loath to give up holding him, touching him, but she had to. Reaching up, she caught his face, turning him to look down at her, full face, his bisected beauty mesmerizing her. She kissed his mouth, his nose, she kissed the marked side of his face. Pushing his hair out of the way, she kissed the side of his neck where the mark continued down between their joined bodies.
For a moment, he stilled the hypnotic, powerful rhythm of his body and she was afraid she’d gone too far. She met his gaze fearlessly and she said the words she’d only thought, the words that would be her death knell. “I love you.”
He closed his eyes, an expression of pain and something else she couldn’t read washing over him. And then, flinging his head back, he began to move again, slow, deliberate thrusts that she met with every last ounce of her strength. Until the tempo increased, until he was thrusting into her with a fierceness that should have frightened her. She held on desperately, somehow wanting to absorb him into her very skin. She knew he was on the absolute edge of his climax; she could feel it in the shivering tension of his body and she wondered why he held off, why he waited.
And then she knew, as suddenly, without warning, her own body convulsed again, around him, with a power that seemed to stop the earth in its orbit. She could feel him, rigid against her, she could hear her name, a curse of despair and triumph, as he joined her, spilling into her, giving the last that he’d kept from her in a timeless, endless dance of desire and satisfaction that she was certain would destroy her. And she would have gone willingly.
When reality returned, it was minutes, hours later. He was lying on top of her, his marked face hidden in the white pillow beside her, and his body was cool and shivery and very tense. She knew he was going to move away, and she couldn’t let him go. Threading her arms around him, she clung tightly, unaware of her tear-streaked face, the desperation in her embrace.
His tense muscles relaxed against her, and his hand came up to gently caress her face. In a moment, he was asleep, pinning her beneath his much larger body, and she found, to her amazement, that she was smiling through her tears.
He was human after all, and just as prone as any other damned man to fall asleep after making love. It was a tiny measure of relief to know that even he wasn’t always astonishing.
She lay beneath him, accommodating herself to his weight, knowing she couldn’t possibly be smothered, even though it felt like it. As the tumult in her heart and body subsided, the tumult in her mind increased. It made no sense. Her experience hadn’t been extensive, but enough to know what she liked and didn’t like, of what her own body was or was not capable. And he’d proven her wrong on every point, taken her on a trip of such mysterious, mesmerizing proportions that she doubted she’d ever be the same again.
Now he slept in her arms, weighing her down, his silken hair around them both. And not for the first time she wondered whether she’d stepped into a fairy tale or a nightmare. Or a bewildering combination of both.
There was no answer to that. Not in the middle of a moon-shadowed night with a man in her arms who not only meant more to her than anything else. He was the only thing that mattered to her. The only thing at all.
She didn’t know how it happened. What strange flaw in her character made her become totally obsessed by a man who’d essentially kidnapped her, terrorized her, seduced and enchanted her. It didn’t do any good to wonder. For the first time in her twenty-seven years, she was in love, irrationally, completely. Eternally. She was just going to have to figure out a way to live with it.
Live with him.
If he’d let her.
Chapter Thirteen
Watching Meg while she slept had become an obsession for Ethan. Lying in the bed beside her didn’t lessen the potency of that pastime. Her eyes were closed, her sunlit hair was a tangle around her face, and he could see the trace of dried tears in the faint glow. The moon had set long ago, but he was accustomed to the dark, welcomed it. The brightness of the full moon had been almost intrusive. He preferred it this way, with the shadows all around them, enclosing them in the bed just as the muslin curtains did.
At some point during the night, they’d shifted. She lay curled up beside him, not touching him, her hands tucked under her chin, her body hunched slightly beneath the sheet that covered them. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to lift a strand of hair and kiss it, follow the peachy texture of her skin with his mouth, he wanted everything, and he wanted it so much, he shook with need. But he held himself distant, remote, a tense occupant of the huge bed, knowing his time was drawing to its damnable, inevitable conclusion.
He hadn’t even let her touch him. She wanted to, he knew that. But he was afraid if she’d touched him, if she’d been more than a recipient of his overwhelming passion, then he might not be able to follow through on his determination.
He shouldn’t have gone this far, he knew. But he couldn’t let her go, not without having her, just once. Not without tasting that silken, peachy flesh of hers. Not without watching the passion, the astonishment, the shimmering delight in her face as he made love to her.
He’d remember that look for the rest of his life, and he had no doubt that even if, God help him, he lived to be ninety years old, his body would still respond to the memory.
It would be all that he had. A few moments more of watching her, of breathing in the flowery perfume of her body, feeling the warmth of her breath against his skin, and that would be the end. This life, this existence he’d been handed was rough enough. If his punishment for unnamed crimes including living another fifty-some years without her, he didn’t think he could stand it.
He couldn’t bear to let her go, but that was exactly what he intended. He’d always known he had to. For the past ten days, he’
d been trying to steel himself to do just that, trying and getting nowhere. Tonight had stiffened his resolution. He’d given in to temptation, to the silent cry for him that he alone could hear. He’d gone to her, called to her, and she’d come without hesitation, without questions, without demands, with only that one, damnable protestation of love.
And it had been perfect. No, not perfect. Life wasn’t perfect. It had been something close to heaven. No wonder the French called it le petit mort, the little death. Making love to Megan had felt like the cataclysm of everything he’d known flaming into nothingness, a death that was its own sort of triumph. Nothing else could ever come close.
She murmured something in her sleep, rubbing her face against the pillow, and then she smiled in her dreams. He wanted to reach out and pull her into his arms, his hands were shaking with the need to touch her, and still he didn’t move, prolonging his torment, prolonging his agony. And then, even his formidable resolve failed and he made himself leave the bed before he gave in.
She made a tiny sound, a small, weak sound of protest, and her arms reached out for the empty space where he had lain. But she slept on, only in her dreams did she know that he’d abandoned her.
His clothes were in a tumbled heap at his feet. He pulled them on slowly, his eyes never leaving her sleeping face. She had a mark beneath her chin, a faint bruise that must have come from him. He found himself wishing that mark would never leave her. That she would look at the small mark and think of the man who’d given it to her. That even when she was back in her safe, controlled world and her sojourn here was nothing more than a distant dream, she’d find something and remember.
The wind had picked up and the muslin curtains surrounding the bed tumbled in the air, flapping against him. He could feel the approach of dawn with its glaring sunlight. It had been so long since he’d felt the sun’s warmth on his face. Maybe Salvatore was right. Maybe he should go back to the island. Maybe then he’d forget about her.
