by Julia James
She felt her muscles clench spasmodically, unable to control them. She could feel how close he was behind her now, his body almost encircling hers. How had he got so close suddenly?
She had no time to think of an answer. 'Oh,' he murmured, 'then it must be this ne?’ His thumb pressed on her lower lip and slid into the moistness within, gliding along the tender inner surface.
Sensation shimmered at his velvet touch, vibrating through her like a siren call she could not resist—could not.
She moaned, and softly bit the fleshy pad, drawing it into her mouth to do so.
She could not help herself. She simply could not help herself.
She heard herself moan again, a little whimper in her throat, and now his hand was cupping her jaw, and his thumbpad was grazing the edge of her teeth.
She bit again, laving it with her tongue longingly, helplessly. He turned her in his arms and kissed her properly. She yielded without a word, her eyelids fluttering shut as she gave herself to the bliss of having Nikos kiss her.
It was a deep, sensual kiss. A kiss filled with all the hunger he had suppressed. A kiss for himself as well as her.
His arms slid around her, holding her tight against him, his hand spearing her hair, holding her head steady for him as he plundered the sweetness of her mouth, tongues mating and writhing.
Hunger flooded through her. Her body leapt in recognition of what was happening. This was no seduction. It was rediscovery. Glorious, potent rediscovery. Her hands wound around his neck, holding him to her, unable to let go—not while the hunger that suddenly seared within her was feeding on him, mouth to mouth, shaping and touching, wanting and needing...
Needing so much more... Wanting so much more...
Wanting everything. Wanting possession.
His possession. Nikos Vassilis. Only his.
Now—oh, right now...now...
Reality douched through her. She yanked away from him, breathless, horrified.
'Nikos! No!'
Her rejection was a gasp of disbelief that she had actually got to this point. She twisted free, backing away.
'No?' The tone was quizzically ironic. She did not see the control he had to use to maintain so light a voice.
'No,' she said again, more firmly now, swallowing, trying to still the frantic beating of her racing heart. Trying to find reason, logic, hard sense. 'You don't have to do this. I...I said we had to talk about...about last night, and we do—but it's just to say I understand. I know why you...why you did what you did. I accept that. You felt sorry for me. You felt sorry for me because you saw me as an object of pity. But it's OK—' she held her hand up '—it's OK. I understand.' She swallowed again. 'You don't have to feel you must give a repeat performance. I understand.'
As she spoke Nikos had leant back against the rails, resting his elbows on the guard rail.
'I'm glad you understand,' he said lightly. 'It was certainly the worst night of my life, I can tell you!'
He looked at her, watching her face change as she took in what he had just said. There was a stricken look on it, but he ignored it.
'Yes,' he said again, 'certainly the worst night of my life.' Andrea could feel her nails digging into her palms. Did he have to be so brutal about it? Did he have to ram home just how repugnant he had found the ordeal of making love to a freak? Her throat had tightened, wire pulling on it. Agonising. He was talking again. She could hardly bear to hear what he was saying. But the words penetrated all the same.
'I've never done what I had to do last night,' he told her. 'It was excruciating.'
The expression on her face was devastated, but he ploughed on. 'And I never, ever want to go through it again. I tell you—' he eyed her straight, and said what he had to say '—having to hold myself back like that was absolute agony. I was aching for you—totally bloody aching for you.' A long, shuddering sigh escaped him. 'Theos, you've no idea what it was like, Andrea mou - having your fantastic, gorgeous body stripped naked and pulsing for me and not being able to possess you totally. God, it was hell—sheer hell!' He shook his head. 'Never again, I promise you—never again!'
He straightened suddenly, and rested his hand on either shoulder. 'But you needed your space, and I knew I owed you that. So...' He looked down at her, starlight in his eyes. 'Last night was your night, Andrea mou. But tonight—oh, tonight—' his voice had changed, husky suddenly '—tonight is mine.,.'' He pulled her into him, jerking her, and closed his mouth over hers. Then, with-a rough, urgent motion, he swept her up into his arms and strode off with her, to make her bis wife.
It was, she realised some eternity later, the rawness of his hunger, the voracity of his appetite that convinced her. As he tumbled her down upon their vast bed, coming down beside her and pinioning her hands either side of her head as he lowered his mouth to hers again to feed and feed upon her, she felt rush up from the depths of her being such a gladness, such a glory, she was breathless with it.
His mouth ravished hers, allowing her no quarter, no defence, and he overpowered her effortlessly, easily. She was a willing traitor, oh, so willing! His body arched over hers and her hands ran over the smoothness of his shirt, fumbling with buttons as, overcome with a desperate urge she had never felt before, never known existed, she longed frantically to feel his skin, his flesh, his muscle and sinew beneath her seeking hands.
He helped her—shucking off his shut, peeling off her T-shirt while he did so, slipping the clasp on the back of her bra in one unseen skilful movement. Her breasts spilled free and she heard his throat rasp with pleasure at the sight before he buried his face in their ripeness, his questing mouth homing in on what he sought.
She gasped with pleasure as he suckled her, thrusting her breasts up, bearing down upon the bed with her hips, her shoulders. He fed voraciously, licking and sucking until her nipples were as solid as steel, radiating fiery points of pleasure fiercely through her body. Her hands roamed over the smooth steel of his back, glorying in the power of his perfect musculature, revelling in the feel of his body over hers.
He swept on, mouth racing down the flat, taut plane of her belly, tongue whirling within the secret of her navel even as he was urgently undoing the fastening of her jeans, sliding her zip open and then in the same movement sliding his hand inside. She gasped and roiled as a thousand fires lit where he touched.
Her heart was racing, thundering. There was no light in the room and she could not see its garish, tasteless opulence. She could feel only the satin of the bedclothes beneath her naked back, her naked bottom and thighs, for her jeans were gone and her panties too were tossed aside. Now Nikos was moving over her, and she realised that somehow, somehow, he was as naked as she.
She gloried in the feel of him, revelled in it, racing her hands ail over his body. Flesh to flesh, skin to skin, mouth to mouth, pip to hip. She felt him straining at her, felt his engorged length against the softness of her belly, and the realisation, searing through her, sent a Shockwave of exultation through her. He wanted her! Nikos wanted her! She knew it—knew it absolutely. Men could not fake it. Their desire, their lust, surged in their bodies, signalling the urgency of their passions.
Like an outgrown cloak her fears fell away from her, cast aside in the revelation, and in their place, released like a tiger' from its cage, she was filled suddenly, desperately, with a longing so intense, a hunger so searing that her hand slid from gripping his shoulder as his mouth consumed hers down between their bodies to grasp him.
She wanted to feel him, strong and potent in her hand, his surging masculinity inflaming her with a hunger that only he could fulfill. She clasped him greedily, feeling the strength of him.
She heard him gasp with pleasure, sending a power-pulse of desire through her. She wanted to please him, wanted to give him pleasure now, right now, just as he was filling her with feelings, sensations that stormed within her, roiled and rocked her. She wanted him—wanted him to pierce and fill and stretch her, flood her with his seed,
his very being,
'Nikos!' Her voice was a cry, a plea, an exultation.
He reared over her. 'Theos, but I must have you!' His voice was a rasp of hunger, intensity. His hand caressed her belly, her thighs, then parted her legs for him. She guided him to her, heart pounding, blood surging in her veins, her body afire. She was flooding for him, her body straining to his, hips twisting and lifting to him, reaching for him, and then she felt, with a thrill that went through her whole body, that he was poised above her, ready to thrust and pierce her to the very core, her very heart.
'I must have you—' The words grated from him and he took each of her hands, lifting and placing them each side of her head, pinioning there with his, holding her body still for him, spread for him, hips rifting to receive him.
She could feel the urgency of his need for her. Power surged through her. The power of her sex, flowering in a glorious, heady welling of sensation that fused her body to her mind, rosed her aroused, throbbing flesh to the incandescence lighting her whole being.
She raised her mouth to his and bit softly, deliberately at his.
'Then take me,' she answered. 'Take me.'
He waited no longer. With slow descent he lowered his body into hers.
His control, his purpose was absolute. Her dew-drenched readied body parted for him, accepting him within her as a needed, hungered-for presence. She stretched around him, and as pain fluttered briefly, fleetingly, it was swept away by the drowning tide of exultation that consumed her as he made her his.
He filled her absolutely, and she gasped with the realisation that their bodies had fused, become one, pulsing, beating to the same single heartbeat that throbbed between them, sex to sex, thigh to thigh, palm to palm, pressing and joining.
Her mouth opened In a wondrous, wordless cry, neck arching back, hips lifting higher to meld their flesh together.
He was reared over her, fused within her, and she gloried in it. Around his manhood's strength her muscles clenched, holding him tightly, dearly, and the pressure of his body in hers thickened him in answer to her. It was all she needed. Like a long, slow wave her body detonated around his, sending a tidal pulse through all her flesh.
She buckled around him, every muscle straining, and the detonation came again, surging out like a Shockwave.
She cried out, gasping, spine arching like a bow.
It was liquid pressure, liquid pleasure, so intense, so absolute that it shocked her even as it convulsed her. It flooded through her, reaching through every vein, every overloaded nerve-fibre, rushing out to fill her fingertips, her toes, flushing her body with its tide.
And behind it surged another tide, and yet another, and with one, wondering, stunned part of her mind she realised her body was resonating with another's. Nikos was gasping, surging, pulsing into her, and she was drawing him in, the tide convulsing her sucking him into her, possessing him utterly.
She heard him gasp, cry out in triumph, and the triumph was hers too, and his, and theirs, and still their bodies surged to the tidal wave carrying them on its endless bounty.
Her fingers clutched his, squeezing so tightly she could feel the slick between their joined palms seal them unbreakably, just as their bodies were joined—unbreakably.
Slowly, oh, so slowly, the tidal pulse began to ebb, draining deep away, back into the core, the heart of her body, where it had come from. Slowly, oh, so slowly, he lowered himself to her, to rest his exhausted, sated weight upon her, crush the slackening tissues of her breasts.
They were both panting, breathless with exertion, hearts thundering in their chests. His body covered hers, slick with sweat. Her hands slid free and came around his back, wrapping him to her. She could feel, against her own, his heartbeat slamming, then slowly, slowly, as the torpor of inertia took them over, it began to ease and lessen.
How long they lay like that, their bodies fast entwined, motionless with satiation and exhaustion, she did not know, could not tell. Time had no meaning any more. She had discovered eternity.
After a while, a long, endless while, he stirred. The sweat had dried on his back, and where her arms did not enfold him his skin was cold.
Heavily, he lifted his head from her shoulder.
She felt the movement of muscles in his back and instinctively tightened her grip around him.
He gave a laugh. A low, brief laugh.
'No, I, too, do not wish to move, Andrea mou, but yet must.'
He managed to lever himself up to his elbows, making he: slacken her grip on him so that only her hands could touch either side his spine.
'Come—I must tend to you.'
Carefully, he eased from her.
She felt bereft, empty, desolate. He slipped away from her in the dark and she heard him cross the carpeted floor. Then a door opened, and a light flooded briefly, before closing to dimness. She shut her eyes. Her heart was in tumult. But she could not think, could not reason. Could only lie and let the dimness close her round.
Exhaustion claimed her.
His footsteps crossing towards the bed roused her from the slumber she had sunk into. As she surfaced she could hear, she realised, the sound of water running. Before she realised what he was intending he scooped his hands underneath her and folded her up into his arms.
'I don't want you to feel sore, pethi mou,'' he murmured, and took her through into the bathroom, lowering her gently into the swirling water in the huge, circular bath, foaming high with bubbles.
It was bliss of a different kind. She gave a sigh, and gave herself up to the warmth, pausing only to reach and twist her hair into a precarious self-fastened knot on top of her head. She closed her eyes and let the water swirl around her.
There seemed to be fine jets of water shushing out at her from all around, and she realised the huge bath must be some kind of Jacuzzi. As the tumult in her heart subsided, washed away by the warm, relaxing water, she felt for the first time die physical effects of what had happened to her. She eased her thighs, letting the water swirl gently, soothingly, around her ravished body.
'Are you in pain?'
Nikos's voice was concerned. She opened her eyes. He had not put on the central light in the bathroom, only the light above the mirror, so the brightness was mellow, not glaring. He had put on a bathrobe and was looking down at her, his hands plunged into its pockets.
She could not quite meet his eyes. Not yet.
'No, not pain, but...I feel...exercised.'
She caught his eye then, and suddenly there was an answering gleam in his.
'Oh, yes,' he answered softly. 'As do I, I assure you...'
He held her gaze, and the knowledge in his eyes flooded her. For a moment the mutual acknowledgement of what had happened flowed between them.
'Nikos, I—' she began—because she had to say something, she must.
He shook his head, silencing her. 'No. Say nothing. We will take this slowly, Andrea mou. As slowly as we need. Now-he held up a hand '—I shall leave you in privacy a while. Relax and recover. Don't move until I come and get you.'
He left her in peace, the silence broken only by the occasional popping of a bubble. She felt—-fulfilled, she realised, and a quiet wonder went through her to lie like a fine, rare sheen over her heart.
The warmth and the water, the silence and the solitude eased] her, lapping her spent body. With a light tap to the door Nikos returned after a little while and helped her out of the bath, enveloping her in a huge fleecy bathtowel. She was almost asleep, and he could see that all she would do now was rest for the remainder of the night.
He gave a private rueful smile. He could have kept going all night, but for now he must let her set the pace. She had entered a new kingdom—he must give her time to take possession of it, to know its ways and passions.
So he simply lifted her off her feet, carrying her back to the bed like a swaddled baby, and set her down between smooth satin sheets, gently drawing the towel off her. The satin felt cold to her skin, and when
he returned from the bathroom a moment later, and turned off the night, she welcomed the warmth of his encircling embrace.
'Nikos,' she breathed, as his arms wrapped around her from behind and her spine warmed itself against his hair-roughened chest.
'Hush,' he said. 'Go to sleep.'
He soothed his hand over her rough thigh and for a moment she went rigid in his arms, and then, with a little sigh, she relaxed again.
Slowly, soothingly, he smoothed the scarred and runnelled skin, as if it were lustrous marble.
CHAPTER TEN
His hand was still covering her thigh when she awoke. Sunlight pressed against the heavy drapes, dimly illuminating the oppressively decorated bedroom. She felt the bed swaying slightly, she thought, and remembered that this was no ground-based dwelling, but that they were afloat upon the bosom of the sea.
