The last of her clothing was trailed away; she was vaguely aware of him ridding himself of his own. When his hands were busy elsewhere his mouth took up the burning seduction of her breasts, her navel, brushing hot moist kisses along the inner surface of her golden thighs.
Flesh burned against flesh; long restless limbs tangled in a love-knot caress. They rolled. He came above her, her hands locked around his neck. It was then that she felt the probing force of his masculinity and as her insides curled in anticipation she uttered his name on a sensual breath.
He liked it; she felt his response in the small shudder that ripped through his body. She liked that, and responded with a lithe flexing of her hips that made her exquisitely aware of the power he was still keeping in check.
‘Eve, give me your mouth.’
She gave him her mouth, willingly, hungrily. She gave him every little bit of herself that she could possibly give. He took it all. Like a man leaping into a fiery furnace knowing he was about to get severely burned, he made a single strangled sound in his throat then, swift and sure, he claimed the passage he had prepared for himself.
It was wild, it was shocking, it was shamelessly exhilarating. Barriers broke; she winced on a soft little gasp. He paused, touched her cheek with unsteady fingers, gently combed her hair away from her face.
‘Eve,’ he breathed.
She opened her eyes and made contact with the burning black density of his. He looked different, darker, masculine, more her man than ever.
‘Yes,’ she breathed, closed her eyes again, then made a single stretching movement that fastened her to him as a whole new hot probing journey held her in its spectacular thrall. He took her to places she hadn’t known existed; he taught her things about her that held her trapped on the pin-piercing pinnacle of discovery for long agonising seconds before he tipped her over the edge with the sudden increased rush of masculine thrust. She learned what it was like to lose touch with everything but a swelling pulsing pleasure of the senses.
When it was over it was all she could do to hang onto him while he lay heavily on top of her with their pounding heartbeats throbbing all around.
He went to move. She stopped him. ‘Wait,’ she whispered. She didn’t want to miss a single sense-soaring moment in this act of momentous importance to her. She had waited so very long for this to happen, had never been slightly tempted to experiment because she had been so determined to wait for the right man to come along—the one she would know instinctively was the one man for her. Marriage, wedding gowns, playing the shy virgin bride had never come into her perfect dream. It had just had to be the right man. She’d found that man, and nothing—no moment in time—was ever going to feel as special as this.
CHAPTER TWELVE
EVE’S sigh was soft against his shoulder; it whispered the pleasure still permeating her blood. Ethan knew the feeling; it was with him also. But that didn’t mean he was feeling good about this.
What had he done—?
What the hell had he done? He didn’t deserve this, he did not deserve one half second of what she had just given to him. Now he was desperate to move, to separate from this incredible creature so that he could take stock—come to terms with what this was going to mean to the both of them.
He felt her begin to stir beneath him. It became the most sensually evocative stretch of the female body that began at her shoulders and arched her slender spine and flexed the cradle of her hips where he received the full kick of the movement because they were still joined.
At least with that stirring she also gave him permission to move by slackening the grip her arms had around him. Using his forearms as braces to take his weight, he levered himself away from her, and shuddered at her soft quivering gasp as he withdrew other parts. The gasp didn’t surprise him. He might be wishing himself a million miles away at this precise moment, but his body certainly wasn’t agreeing.
It wanted more—already. It wanted him to begin the whole wildly exciting process all over again.
‘Say something,’ she murmured.
The soft sound of her voice brought his head round to look at her. She was lying there beside him with her cheek resting on her forearm and gazing at him through shy, dark, vulnerable eyes. His heart pitched and rolled. She looked gloriously, stunningly, achingly lovely with her hair spreading out across the pillow and her face wearing that satiated bloom.
‘I was your first lover.’ It was the only thing rattling around his head that was fit to be said.
The bloom deepened, her eyelashes flickered down in a bid to hide away from that soul-blazing truth. But not for long; not this woman who had so much spirit; she wasn’t going to let a bit of shy self-consciousness beat her. So the lashes rose up again, gave him a view of deep green, slightly mocking, eyes packed full of the new knowledge he had given to her. ‘Thank you for making it such a memorable experience,’ she said softly, and smiled.
That smile…He felt it reach right down inside and grasp hold of certain parts. The urge to roll towards her and recreate the whole magic again was so tantalising he could actually taste it.
Or taste Eve, he amended grimly, and sat up. ‘You should have told me,’ he censured.
There was a moment’s silence, a moment’s total stillness, a moment in which he felt muscles clench all over him because his gruff, curt attitude had just wiped the pleasure right out. He felt it leave like an actual entity, unfolding itself from their flesh and slipping silently through the open terrace window.
Not Eve though. She still lay beside him; he could see her slender bare feet, the sensual curl of her toes and the gold silk length of her slender legs.
‘Why?’ she challenged. ‘Is there some unwritten rule somewhere that says all first-timers must announce that fact before proceeding?’
Put like that, he wanted to laugh. But the bottom line still read like ten vicious swear words. ‘I had a right to know.’
‘You believe you had a right of say over my virginity? Rubbish,’ she denounced. ‘For what purpose?’ she demanded. ‘So that you could make the decision as to whether you wanted to take it or not?’
‘No.’ This, Ethan realised, was not going to be easy.
‘Then, what?’
The silky gold legs disappeared from his vision, the slender feet, the sensually curling toes. His eyes followed them as they slid across smooth white sheeting to snake out of his sight as she pulled herself up—not to sit but to kneel somewhere behind him. He felt her rise upwards, smelt the sweetly seductive scent of her skin, felt her sigh brush his nape, just before her arms appeared over his shoulders and long delicate fingers with nails painted hot-pink came to rest in the hair matting his chest. Her lips caught his ear lobe, her teeth gently bit, and sensation sprinkled through him like a thousand pinpricks, the tips of her breasts pressing like two hard buttons against his back.
‘It wasn’t your special moment, it was mine,’ she told him. ‘Go all Neanderthal on me and I might not let you teach me how good it can be the second time…the third…’ She bit his lobe again. ‘To infinity and beyond,’ she whispered sensually.
His short huff of amused laughter found voice this time. Eve the flirt, Eve the temptress, Eve the serpent in paradise, whom he seemed to have transported with him across half the world. Now it was Eve the dangerous seductress. Though she might have just enjoyed her first experience in making love, even now he knew he could teach her nothing. She was a natural, born to it. Special and rare.
What had that small burst of laughter been for? Eve wondered anxiously. Was he thinking she was incorrigible? Was he thinking she must be a real little hussy to make so light of what they’d just done?
But Eve didn’t feel light about anything. She was worried. She was scared in case he took the honourable path and decided her virginity came with a price tag he might be forced to pay, when all he’d really been doing had been giving in to the temptation she’d so blatantly thrown his way.
She loved him, she wanted him, bu
t not without him loving and wanting her above anything else.
Anything? she then questioned. One woman, she amended. One unavailable woman, who had no right to keep the heart she could never cherish. Well, move over, Leona, she thought possessively. Because you’ve just lost out and this beautiful man’s heart is going to belong to me!
‘I need a shower,’ she murmured huskily against that tasty ear lobe. ‘And so do you.’
Invitation—demand. Ethan stared down at the place against his chest where his ring winked defiantly up at him. She’s all yours, mate, it seemed to be telling him. For now at any rate.
Well, to hell with it—why not? he decided. He was a big boy, he could take it when it was over and it was time to get out! So he turned to look at her, dislodging her arms in the process so she sat back on her haunches looking at him through wide green wary eyes. She wasn’t sure what was coming but he knew.
He looked her over, his eyes stripping off a layer of skin with their silver-bright possessive blast. Then he swung himself off the bed, turned, and pressed Eve up against his chest so that her eyes were level with his and her thighs were clinging to his narrow waist. ‘Your grandfather,’ he said, ‘should have locked you away years ago.’
She grinned; her eyes began to shine; she had the audacity to put out her tongue and lick the shape of his mock-stern mouth. ‘Jack Banning said the very same thing,’ she informed him. Then before he could respond, she kissed him—hell, did she kiss him! She kissed him all the way into the adjoining bathroom, then the shower and, as promised, beyond.
Eve was in the kitchen and was humming to herself as she waited for the toast to pop up from the toaster. Sunlight was pouring in through the open door which led onto the terrace and behind her lay the remnants of the meal they’d eaten in here the night before—though for the life of her she couldn’t remember what that meal had consisted of.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, other than for the huggable knowledge that she had spent the night in Ethan’s home, in Ethan’s bed, in Ethan’s arms, making wonderful love. She was now wearing Ethan’s shirt as she prepared his breakfast, while his voice filtered into her from out on the terrace where he was sounding very smooth, very slick, very informed as he spoke in fluent Spanish to some authoritative body. She loved his voice; she loved its rich deep texture and what it did to her tummy muscles as she listened to him. She loved this feeling of complete contentment as she prepared breakfast for him.
He stopped talking as the toast popped up, his footsteps sounding on pale blue tiling as they brought him into the kitchen to look for her. She smiled as his hands came to cup her hips, crushing fine cotton against her cool flesh. ‘Mmm, that smells good,’ he said, then buried his mouth in the side of her throat.
It really was quite sinful the way she responded, turning round in his grasp to demand that mouth for her own. His hands shaped her body and hers stroked the smooth clean surface of his freshly shaved face. Things would have moved onto something else if the telephone hadn’t started ringing.
He was reluctant to let her go, Eve equally so. But she liked the evidence of frustration in his eyes as he dug his mobile out of his pocket and placed it to his ear.
‘Ethan Hayes,’ he announced in that deep smooth drawl that made her toes curl into the floor. He was wearing a light grey suit, white shirt and grey tie and was looking dynamic, again, she noticed with a wry little smile as she turned back to the toast while he discussed local by-laws.
The call ended just as she finished slotting triangles of toast into a toast rack. There was a short sharp silence that alerted her before she even turned round and saw his face.
He was gazing ruefully at the breakfast tray she had prepared ready to take out onto the terrace. ‘You’re going to be angry with me for this,’ he warned her. ‘But I’m afraid I’ll have to miss breakfast. I have a meeting in ten minutes down at the yacht club.’
Disappointment curled inside her tummy but she kept it from showing on her face by hiding it behind an understanding smile. It was what he had rushed back here to Spain for, after all. ‘So much for my display of domesticity,’ she mocked.
‘I shouldn’t be long,’ he assured her. ‘You’ll be all right here on your own until I get back?’
‘I’ll try my best not to go into too deep a decline while you’re gone,’ she promised.
‘What about my decline?’ he countered quizzically.
It was nice of him to say it, but he was in no danger of wasting away from not having her within touching distance. He was already pumped up and eager to go and take on the whole Spanish government.
Folding her arms beneath her breasts, Eve leaned against the worktop and sent him a dry look. ‘Go,’ she said.
‘Right,’ he said, but still didn’t move. Instead he looked at her, really looked at her, with a slight tilt to his head and a slight frown to his brow, as if he was trying to work something out about her but couldn’t quite grasp what that something was. Then he seemed to give up on it and, with a brief smile, he brushed a kiss across her cheek. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ he said.
Then he was gone, striding out of the kitchen and away from her with his car keys jangling in his hand as he made for the rear courtyard, where she’d noticed the set of four garages when they’d arrived the afternoon before.
Left on her own, breakfast lost some of its appeal, though the aroma of fresh coffee was too inviting to ignore. So she carried the tray out onto the terrace and sat at one of the tables there to drink it and watch San Estéban glitter with the early morning crystal-clarity that came with the promise of a perfect summer’s day. After that she spent some time tidying the kitchen, then decided to take a long shower and dress before exploring the rest of the villa, since she hadn’t bothered to notice anything much the day before.
She took the terrace route to her bedroom, noticed she hadn’t even got around to unpacking her suitcase, and wondered if Ethan had unpacked his? A quick shower and she was just slipping into a short blue skirt and a white sun top, her next intention to explore the villa, when a telephone began ringing somewhere, it was the land-line kind that announced itself as such by its distinctive tone.
Ethan? she wondered, and felt her heart leap. He had only been gone a couple of hours yet he was missing her so much he had to give her a call? Hurrying out of the bedroom, she began to follow the sound down the wide arched hallway. The villa suddenly felt big and empty, and she wasn’t sure she liked Ethan’s taste in décor. It surprised her to think that because she liked just about every other thing about Ethan, she mused with a smile as she walked between pale sand walls on the same pale blue tiling that seemed to cover the floors throughout. It was all very cool, very Lawrence-of-Arabia, nothing shouted, nothing scarred the eyes. Yet…
She found the telephone in one of the reception rooms. As she moved towards it, it suddenly stopped ringing and the answering machine kicked in. As she waited to hear if it was indeed Ethan trying to contact her before she decided to pick up the receiver, she began to look around the room.
A stranger’s voice suddenly filled the air space. Deep and smooth, it possessed the same rich English tones as Ethan’s voice, only it lacked his toe-curling attraction.
‘Ethan,’ the voice said. ‘It’s Victor. When you get a spare minute, give me a call. I’m at the London office and that cantankerous devil, Theron Herakleides, has decided to go silent about the Greek project.’
Grandpa. Eve smiled at the cantankerous description, frowned at the part about the Greek project because she’d forgotten about her grandfather’s threats. She remained standing there waiting for Victor Frayne to finish his message so that she could call up her grandfather and try and convince him he would be cutting off his nose to spite his own face if he pulled Hayes-Frayne’s submission.
Maybe she shouldn’t have come here. For the first time she began to have doubts about her own motives. Selfish, she was being selfish, and maybe she should let Ethan off the hook and te
ll her grandfather the truth about what had happened. It wasn’t right; it wasn’t fair that Ethan should be forced to make sacrifices just because she’d managed to wriggle her way beneath his tough façade and basically run rings around him.
Is that what she’d done? Yes, it was exactly what she’d done, she admitted. She’d wept, she’d fought, she’d begged and had seduced and had turned him upside down and inside out—and all in twenty-four wild and dizzying hours, too!
‘Oh, by the way…’ Victor Frayne’s voice cut through her train of thinking at about the same moment Eve’s eyes settled on a row of framed photographs sitting on a long low cedarwood sideboard. ‘…the door to Leona’s bedroom is sticking. Can you get someone up there to take a look at it?’
The call to her grandfather was forgotten. A cold chill of dismay was settling on her skin. Ethan couldn’t—surely—have brought her to stay at the home of Victor Frayne and Leona Al-Qadim?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE meeting had taken longer than Ethan had expected but by the end of it Ethan was satisfied that the new yacht club building was no longer under threat. As he shook hands with the local planning officials, he was aware that his site managers were standing to one side waiting to do the usual post-mortem on the meeting, but he was eager to get away.
He kept thinking of Eve and how she’d looked when he’d left her, wearing nothing but his cast-off shirt and a becoming flush to her lovely face.
As soon as the officials departed, one of his managers stepped up. ‘Victor has been trying to contact you,’ the man informed him. ‘Something to do with Theron Herakleides and the Greek project?’
Theron, Ethan began to frown. He had forgotten all about Eve’s grandfather and his threats. ‘I’ll deal with it.’ He nodded. He glanced at his watch, realised he’d been away from Eve for over two hours, and wished he knew at what point it had been that he had become so obsessed with her that she was virtually wrapped around his every thought. ‘If everything is back on track here, can we rain check the post-mortem? I need to be somewhere else.’
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