When she could stand no more of the cold, she turned on the hot tap and adjusted the water to a decent temperature. She washed off the stench of sticky wine and her own sour sweat. At least she felt human again.
Dani stayed in the shower until the water ran cold. Throwing on a pair of faded jeans and a T-shirt, she combed her hair and slicked it up into a ponytail. Hardly chic, but who cared?
The kitchen was her destination. Sexy dreams or not, she was positively ravenous. Too late for breakfast, too early for dinner, she settled on a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll heated in the microwave. Not the healthiest diet, but who the hell cared? She gobbled down the sweet and helped herself to a second cup of pure caffeine. The sugar rush went straight to her head.
Cleaning up the living room, she noticed the batteries in her dildo had gone completely dead. The twinge between her thighs reminded her it had gotten quite a workout last night. Back into the drawer it went. Her negligee went into the hamper. So much for relaxing. All she felt was stiff and sore. Every muscle in her body ached.
No sign of the night’s storm lingered in the early afternoon sky. The day was bright and clear. The sun twinkled in the sky, the promise of a new beginning in its warmth. A careworn world had been washed clean.
A new beginning? Maybe.
She could only take things one day at a time. She’d let her art isolate her. No longer. After twenty years in the business, it was time to seek new avenues. She thought about the two tickets in her desk. Why not grab Jack and take the damn vacation? They could both sunbathe on the beach and ogle sexy Mediterranean men.
Cup in hand, she drifted down into her studio. Flipping on the overhead lights, her gaze settled on Herakles. The statue stood as she’d left it, immobile and unmoving.
Dani sighed. Last night she’d wished him alive. “Well, Herk,” she said, giving his massive figure a nod. “I guess not even a god can break out of stone.”
She didn’t recall becoming aware of the presence. It was suddenly just there. At first, she didn’t see anything. Rather, she felt it. The presence was not in any one spot in the room, but something gradually surrounding her, like the air she breathed. It wasn’t frightening or menacing. She just had the uncanny impression that something was about to happen.
The buzzing of the doorbell shattered her strange feeling.
Her brow wrinkled in annoyance. Who the hell could that be? She wasn’t expecting anyone.
Fumbling with the latch, she pulled the heavy door open. Jack Wilde stood, waiting.
“About time,” he said. “I’ve been ringing you for the last ten minutes.”
Dani sipped lukewarm coffee. “Wasn’t expecting company, Jack. You said Monday. Today’s Saturday.”
Jack waved a hand. “I know,” he said chirpily. “But we’ve got the chance for a full spread in Modern Art magazine, and I just had to grab it. I’ve got one of their photographers with me. Nick just happened to be in town. I ran into him at dinner last night and told him everything about—”
Dani gritted her teeth and cut him off. “Here? Now? Shit! I wasn’t ready to show him…”
Jack cut her off. “No worries. Nick’s just here to get a few shots of Herakles to e-mail off to his editors. It’s close, but we’re thinking we can get a sneak peek into next month’s issue. Later we’ll iron out the interview details.”
“You just couldn’t wait, could you?”
Jack’s smile was disingenuous. “Nope.” He turned, motioning to the man still sitting in his car. “Nick? Over here,” he called.
The stranger got out of the car and joined them. Rays from the midday sun touched his hair, subtly highlighting the golden-brown shade. Worn in a long shaggy style, his hair brushed his shoulders. The closer he got, the better he looked, a model perfect example of the male sex. Almost too handsome to be a living, breathing man. A white Oxford, unbuttoned at the neck, crisp slacks, and tan boots outfitted his masculine frame.
Dani’s breath caught in a hitch and heavy awareness pulsed through her veins. In that moment she would have sworn her Herakles had stepped down from his pedestal, so striking was the resemblance.
She blinked. Impossible.
She looked again. Possible. The resemblance was almost too close to be mere coincidence.
In danger of sensual overload so early in the day, Dani drew a deep breath to still the tremors of awareness flowing through her veins. No man had ever affected her in such a purely physical way.
Beaming like a proud papa, Jack Wilde happily made the introductions. “Danicia, meet Nikandros Makricosta. Nick, this is the fabulously talented and beautiful woman I was telling you about.”
Stepping forward, Nikandros Makricosta smiled. Straight white teeth flashed against darkly tanned skin. “Sorry to disturb you, but Jack insisted.” He looked her over her from head to foot, obviously taking in every inch. His gaze, steady on her face, slipped to her breasts, then lower, inching toward her hips. He was confident in his appraisal, his penetrating eyes unblinking in his examination.
Stomach clenching, Dani couldn’t imagine what sparked his interest. She looked like something the cat puked up. He, however, looked perfect in every way. His eyes crinkled at the corners. Strands of pure silver threaded his temples. He was old enough to know better, but young enough to try.
Hmm, later thirties or early forties. Just the right age for her.
Mouth going bone dry, she managed a shaky smile and offered her hand. “It’s still nice to meet you, Mister Makricosta.”
His hand came out. Another devastating smile followed. “The pleasure is all mine. I’ve been an admirer of your work for quite a few years.”
A charge of static electricity buzzed straight to the center of her heart. His skin was warm, his touch possessive and confident. “Thank you.”
Her guest clearly felt the same thing. “Call me Nick, please.” he said in his low sexy voice. “I told Jack we should leave you alone, but he insisted.”
“That’s Jack,” she quipped, feigning nonchalance. “Always wanting things yesterday.
Eyes twinkling with mischief, his gaze raked over her again in an intimate way, a way that said he knew every inch of her. “You must excuse me for being rude, but I have the strangest feeling that I know you.”
As he spoke, an invisible current pulsed between them. Time stood still. The outside world with all its cares and troubles seemed to drop away. Everything morphed into a weird and distant blur. For a moment only the two of them existed.
A familiar voice whispered in her mind: Wishes can come true when you believe.
Dani smiled in total agreement. “I think we’ve met before,” she murmured softly. “In fact I’m sure of it.”
Somehow, her wish had been granted. No other explanation could possibly make sense. It didn’t matter, though.
She had her Herakles.
In living, breathing flesh.
Compelling and extraordinarily sensual…
Don’t miss Dawn Thompson’s LORD OF THE DEEP,
available now from Aprhodisia.
1
The Isle of Mists, in the Eastern Archipelago,
Principalities of Arcus
M eg saw the seals from her window, their silvery coats rippling as they thrashed out of the sea and collected along the shore. She’d seen them sunning themselves on the rocks by day and had watched them frolic in the dusky darkness from that dingy salt-streaked window in her loft chamber many times since her exile to the island. But not like tonight, with their slick coats gleaming in the moonlight. Full and round, the summer moon left a silvery trail in the dark water that pointed like an arrow toward the creatures frolicking along the strand, lighting them as bright as day. Meg’s breath caught in her throat. Behind, the high-curling combers crashing on the shore took on the ghostly shape of prancing white horses—pure illusion that disappeared the instant their churning hooves touched sand. In the foaming surf left behind, the seals began to shed their skins, revealing their perfect m
ale and female nakedness. Meg gasped. It was magical.
Her heartbeat began to quicken. She inched nearer to the window until her hot breath fogged the glass. The nights were still cool beside the sea—too cool for cavorting naked in the moonlight. And where had the seals gone? These were humans, dark-haired, graceful men and women with skin like alabaster, moving with the undulant motion of the sea they’d sprung from in all their unabashed glory. They seemed to be gathering the skins they’d shed, bringing them higher toward the berm and out of the backwash.
Mesmerized, Meg stared as the mating began.
One among the men was clearly their leader. His dark wet hair, crimped like tangled strands of seaweed, waved nearly to his broad shoulders. Meg followed the moonbeam that illuminated him, followed the shadows collecting along the knife-straight indentation of his spine, defining the dimples above his buttocks and the crease that separated those firm round cheeks. The woman in his arms had twined herself around him like a climbing vine, her head bent back beneath his gaze, her long dark hair spread about her like a living veil.
All around them others had paired off, coupling, engaging in a ritualistic orgy of the senses beneath the rising moon, but Meg’s eyes were riveted to their leader. Who could they be? Certainly not locals. No one on the island looked like these, like him, much less behaved in such a fashion. She would have noticed.
Meg wiped the condensation away from the windowpane with a trembling hand. What she was seeing sent white-hot fingers of liquid fire racing through her belly and thighs, and riveting chills loose along her spine. It was well past midnight, and the peat fire in the kitchen hearth below had dwindled to embers. Oddly, it wasn’t the physical cold that griped her then, hardening her nipples beneath the thin lawn night smock and undermining her balance so severely she gripped the window ledge. Her skin was on fire beneath the gown. It was her finest. She’d worked the delicate blackwork embroidery on it herself. It would have seen her to the marriage bed if circumstances had been different—if she hadn’t been openly accused of being a witch on the mainland and been banished to the Isle of Mists for protection, for honing her inherent skills, and for mentoring by the shamans. But none of that mattered now while the raging heat was building at the epicenter of her sex—calling her hand there to soothe and calm engorged flesh through the butter-soft lawn…at least that is how it started.
She inched the gown up along her leg and thigh and walked her fingertips through the silky golden hair curling between, gliding them along the barrier of her virgin skin, slick and wet with arousal. She glanced below. But for her termagant aunt, who had long since retired, she was alone in the thatched roof cottage. It would be a sennight before her uncle returned from the mainland, where he’d gone to buy new nets and eel pots, and to collect the herbs her aunt needed for her simples and tisanes. Nothing but beach grass grew on the Isle of Mists.
Meg glanced about. Who was there to see? No one, and she loosened the drawstring that closed the smock and freed her aching breasts to the cool dampness that clung stubbornly to the upper regions of the dreary little cottage, foul weather and fair.
Eyes riveted to the strand, Meg watched the leader of the strange congregation roll his woman’s nipples between his fingers. They were turned sideways, and she could see his thick, curved sex reaching toward her middle. Still wet from the sea they’d come from, their skin shone in the moonlight, gleaming as the skins they’d shed had gleamed. They were standing ankle deep in the crashing surf that spun yards of gossamer spindrift into the night. Meg stifled a moan as she watched the woman’s hand grip the leader’s sex, gliding back and forth along the rigid shaft from thick base to hooded tip. Something pinged deep inside her watching him respond…something urgent and unstoppable.
Her breath had fogged the pane again, and she wiped it away in a wider swath this time. Her breasts were nearly touching it. Only the narrow windowsill kept them from pressing up against the glass, but who could see her in the darkened loft? No one, and she began rolling one tall hardened nipple between her thumb and forefinger, then sweeping the pebbled areola in slow concentric circles, teasing but not touching the aching bud, just as the creature on the beach had done to the woman in his arms.
Excruciating ecstasy.
While the others were mating fiercely all along the strand, the leader had driven his woman to her knees in the lacy surf. The tide was rising, and the water surged around him at mid-calf, breaking over the woman, creaming over her naked skin, over the seaweed and sand she knelt on as she took his turgid member into her mouth to the root.
Meg licked her lips expectantly in anticipation of such magnificence entering her mouth, responding to the caress of her tongue. She closed her eyes, imagining the feel and smell and taste of him, like sea salt bursting over her palate. This was one of the gifts that had branded her a witch.
When Meg opened her eyes again, her posture clenched. Had he turned? Yes! He seemed to be looking straight at her. It was almost as if he’d read her thoughts, as if he knew she was there all the while and had staged the torrid exhibition for her eyes alone to view. She couldn’t see his face—it was steeped in shadow—but yes, there was triumph in his stance and victory in the posturing that took back his sex from the woman’s mouth. His eyes were riveting as he dropped to his knees, spread the woman’s legs wide to the rushing surf, and entered her in one slow, tantalizing thrust, like a sword being sheathed to the hilt, as the waves surged and crashed and swirled around them.
Still his shadowy gaze relentlessly held Meg’s. For all her extraordinary powers of perception, she could not plumb the depths of that look as he took the woman to the rhythm of the waves lapping at them, laving them to the meter of his thrusts, like some giant beast with a thousand tongues. She watched the mystical surf horses trample them, watched the woman beneath him shudder to a rigid climax as the rising tide washed over her—watched the sand ebb away beneath the beautiful creature’s buttocks as the sea sucked it back from the shore. All the while he watched her. It was as if she were the woman beneath him, writhing with pleasure in the frothy sea.
Captivated, Meg met the leader’s silver-eyed gaze. She could almost feel the undulations as he hammered his thick, hard shaft into the woman, reaching his own climax. Meg groaned in spite of herself as he threw back his head and cried out when he came.
She should move away from the window…But why? He couldn’t see what she was doing to herself in the deep darkness of the cottage loft…Could he? All at once it didn’t matter. A hot lava flow of sweet sensation riddled her sex with pinpricks of exquisite agony. It was almost as if he were stroking her nipples and palpating the swollen nub at the top of her weeping vulva as she rubbed herself, slowly at first, then fiercely, until the thickening bud hardened like stone. She probed herself deeper. She could almost stretch the barrier skin and slip her finger inside, riding the silk of her wetness—as wet as the surging combers lapping relentlessly at the lovers on the beach. A firestorm of spasmodic contractions took her then, freeing the moan in her throat. It felt as if her bones were melting. Shutting her eyes, she shed the last remnants of modest restraint and leaned into her release.
The voyeuristic element of the experience heightened the orgasm, and it was some time before her hands gripped the windowsill again instead of tender flesh, and her gaze fell upon the strand below once more. But the silvery expanse of rock-bound shoreline edged in seaweed stretching north and south as far as the eye could see was vacant. The strange revelers were gone!
Meg tugged the night shift back over her flushed breasts, though they ached for more stroking, and let the hem of the gown slide down her legs, hiding the palpitating flesh of her sex. Her whole body throbbed like a pulse beat, and she seized the thrumming mound between her thighs savagely through the gown in a vain attempt to quiet its tremors and made a clean sweep through the condensation on the window again. Nothing moved outside but the combers crashing on the strand. But for the echo of the surf sighing into the night, reve
rberating through her sex to the rhythm of fresh longing, all else was still.
No. She hadn’t imagined it. The naked revelers mating on the beach had been real—as real as the seals that frequented the coast. Selkies? Could the shape-shifter legends be true? She’d heard little else since she came to the island.
Meg didn’t stop to collect her mantle. Maybe the cool night air would cure the fever in her flesh. Hoisting up the hem of her night smock, she climbed down the loft ladder, tiptoed through the kitchen without making a sound, and stepped out onto the damp drifted sand that always seemed to collect about the door-sill. Nothing moved but the prancing white horses in the surf that drove it landward. Waterhorses? She’d heard that legend, too: innocent-looking creatures that lured any who would mount them to a watery death. Real or imaginary, it didn’t matter. The people she’d just seen there having sex were real enough, and she meant to prove it.
The hard, damp sand was cold beneath her bare feet as she padded over the shallow dune toward the shoreline. The phantom horses had disappeared from the waves crashing on the strand, as had every trace that anyone had walked that way recently. There wasn’t a footprint in sight, and the sealskins Meg had watched them drag to higher ground were nowhere to be seen, either.
Having reached the ragged edge of the surf, Meg turned and looked back at the cottage beyond, paying particular attention to her loft window. Yes, it was close, but there was no way anyone could have seen her watching from her darkened chamber. Then why was she so uneasy? It wasn’t the first time she’d touched herself in the dark, and it wouldn’t be the last, but it had been the best, and there was something very intimate about it. The man who had aroused her seemed somehow familiar, and yet she knew they’d never met. Still, he had turned toward that window and flaunted himself as if he knew she had been watching, exhibiting his magnificent erection in what appeared to be a sex act staged solely for her benefit. Moist heat rushed at her loins, ripping through her belly and thighs with the memory.
Eros Island Page 22
