by Penny Jordan
He let out a small sigh as he walked down towards the ocean. The water was refreshing after the heat of the day and he struck out vigorously, hoping to exercise some of his tension away.
* * *
Amelia sat on the sand hugging her bent knees, watching as Alex swam further than most people could walk. He was a picture of health and vitality, his tanned, muscular body carving through the water like a streamlined torpedo.
She couldn’t help a little sigh of envy. She had never learned to swim with any proficiency. Her family circumstances had ruled out swimming lessons during her childhood and as she’d grown older she’d become too embarrassed to admit to her inability.
Her mother’s bathing costume felt scratchy and uncomfortable and she longed to remove it. This end of the beach was deserted, but the thought of sitting next to Alex with nothing on but her thin shift was too disturbing.
She saw him make his way towards her, his strong legs slicing through the shallows, the crystal droplets of salt-water making his whole body glisten in the evening sunlight.
‘Come on in,’ he said, offering her a hand.
‘No…I’m fine here.’
‘Come on, Amelia. It’s not the least bit cold.’
‘Please…I’d rather not.’ She hugged her knees even tighter.
He frowned as he joined her on the sand. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘Nothing.’
He grazed her cheek with the back of his fingers. ‘Look at me, Amelia.’
She met his dark gaze and suddenly found herself confessing, ‘I…I can’t swim.’
His eyes softened like melted chocolate. ‘That’s nothing to be ashamed of. It can take a long time to learn to swim properly.’
She chewed at her lip. ‘I’ve never had lessons.’
‘Well, then, now’s a perfect time to start. I can teach you. It’s like riding a bike—once you learn, you learn for life.’
He got to his feet and hauled her upright before she could protest. ‘Take off your dress and let’s go in to our knees.’
Amelia self-consciously wriggled out of her cotton dress and followed him to the water’s edge, stepping into the water tentatively, her toes looking for stability in the shifting sand. After a moment or two she felt more secure and went in a little farther, this time up to her thighs as she held tightly to Alex’s hand.
‘That’s great. Now let’s go to your waist,’ he said.
She took a deep breath and walked in a little farther, wincing as the water swirled around her middle and almost made her lose her balance.
‘Easy does it,’ he said, holding her waist with his hands from behind.
Amelia could feel his body behind her like a strong wall of muscle, his legs braced against the frothing surf. It was the most erotic sensation having his hard body so close to hers. She could even feel the beginnings of his arousal, the gradual thickening of his body, a heady reminder of all that set them apart as man and woman. Her breasts felt tight and heavy, her legs felt insecure and weak and her heart began to race.
They were totally alone on the beach.
They were practically skin on skin.
All she had to do was turn around and his mouth would find hers….
She turned around and met his glittering gaze, her throat locking up at the desire she could see reflected there. He brought her closer so there was no room, not even for water to separate them.
His head came down, his mouth capturing hers in a searing kiss that swept her away on a rushing tide of rapture. It felt so good to be crushed against him, his tongue swooping and meeting hers, his body pressing urgently against her.
She felt his hands leave her hips to explore the curves of her breasts, his thumbs rolling over each tight nipple until she was mindless with sensation. Without taking his mouth off hers, he pushed the straps of her bathing costume aside to access her naked breasts with the warmth of his palms. The feel of his hands caressing her stole her breath and made her legs wobble beneath her.
The pulse of the ocean around them only added to the swirl of sensual feelings swamping her; no part of her was unaffected by his touch. With her bathers practically around her waist she knew she should be calling some sort of halt to this onslaught of sensuality, but there was nothing she could do to pull away.
His mouth left hers and began to kiss its way down the side of her neck on a slow but steady passage towards her aching, swollen breasts. She could feel her skin tightening all over in tiny goose-bumps at the erotic press of his lips as they made their way down…down.
‘Oh…’ She let out a hoarse gasp as his hot mouth closed over her engorged nipple, the rasp of his tongue turning her insides to liquid. She clutched at his head to hold herself upright, her breath coming in stunted little bursts as he suckled on each of her breasts in turn.
He brought his mouth back to hers and her loose bathers slipped even farther so that she could feel his erection on the bare skin of her quivering stomach. It was shockingly intimate, but she couldn’t stop herself from reaching down and tracing his rigid contours with the tips of her fingers, tentatively at first and then with increasing boldness as his throaty groans filled her mouth.
His kiss became more urgent, the mastery of his tongue leaving her in no doubt of his expertise as a lover. She could almost feel him inside her again as she stood there in the rocking ocean with him, his body burning into hers with unmistakable purpose. She had never felt anything like the passion filling her; it consumed her totally, leaving no room for common sense.
Alex tore his mouth off hers and looked down at her with passion-glazed eyes, his chest rising and falling as he struggled to regain control. ‘I guess I’m not the world’s best swimming teacher, huh?’
She gave him a shy smile and covered her naked breasts with her hands. ‘I don’t know about that—I certainly felt like I was floating there for a while.’
He smiled. ‘Me too, especially when you did that little thing with your fingers.’
She felt her colour rise and bit her bottom lip in embarrassment. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’
‘Hey, do you hear me complaining?’ He removed her hands from her breasts, running his dark gaze over her hungrily.
‘Alex…’
‘Mmm?’ He pressed a burning kiss to the top of her right breast, so close to her aching nipple she could barely think.
She squirmed and tried again. ‘My…er…bathers are slipping.’
She felt his smile on the side of her other breast. ‘Want a hand to take them off?’ he asked.
She clutched at his head again, her voice totally breathless as his tongue rasped over her puckered nipple. ‘N-no…no…someone might see us.’
He lifted his head and glanced around them. ‘There’s no one around for miles. Come on, if you take yours off, I’ll take off mine.’
She stared at him in alarm. ‘You’re surely not serious?’
He gave her a stomach-flipping smile. ‘As your very own personal swimming coach I insist you get a feel for the water. Believe me, it makes the world of difference. Besides, that costume of yours is like a diving weight belt. You’d sink to the bottom in two strokes.’
Amelia hesitated for a moment. What harm would it do? she wondered. Wasn’t it about time she learned to put the past aside and enjoy life for once? Lucia was right: Alex was a man and she was a woman. This was the twenty-first century; women were entitled to have temporary lovers. It didn’t mean they were promiscuous or bad people. It was natural to feel desire; it was even healthy.
She took an unsteady breath and pushed the bathers down with her hands and stepped out of them. She felt Alex’s gaze sweeping over her and her heart kicked in response to the almost palpable desire she could feel coming off him.
‘Now it’s your turn,’ she said huskily.
His gaze locked down on hers challengingly. ‘You do it.’
She swallowed and squeaked, ‘Me?’
He nodded.
She moiste
ned her mouth and reached blindly with unsteady hands for the waist of his black bathers, her fingers curling into the fabric for purchase as she pulled them down past his lean hips. She felt him spring against her nakedness, the length and strength of him sending shock waves of delight between her legs. She could feel her womb pulsing with need, her whole body coming alive with escalating desire.
The wild sea air crawled with tension as he brought his hands to her hips, gently pulling her against him, his hardened length slipping between her legs in an erotically teasing embrace that sent her senses into uncontrollable mayhem.
She raised herself on tiptoe to accommodate him, her breath rushing out of her when he probed her intimately. She felt the separation of her tender flesh as he surged forwards, his deep, rumbling groan of pleasure as he filled her drowning out the breathless gasp of her own.
His movements quickened, carrying her with him on a roller coaster of feeling as her sensitive nerves responded with increasing fervour to each of his determined thrusts. She felt her body tingling as it steadily climbed towards the summit of release, the inner muscles clamping on his thick ness made slippery with the dew of her desire. His mouth crushed hers once more, his hot breath filling her as he plunged again and again until she was hovering in the balance—the pleasure she craved was close, but not quite close enough. She whimpered against his lips, unable to express her need, but in the end she didn’t need to; he felt it for himself. She quivered against his searching fingers, the engorged pearl of her womanhood responding with a heady rush, triggering a volley of panting cries from her throat as the waves of delight crashed in and over her. Her body rocked and shuddered against his until she felt him, too, tumble into the abyss of pleasure with deep, pumping thrusts that nudged her womb and made her skin prickle all over with sensation.
Alex gradually eased himself away, his hands still holding her to counteract the swell of the ocean. ‘I guess you’re not going to believe me when I tell you I didn’t really intend for that to happen,’ he said with a wry grimace, ‘or at least not without protection.’
Her eyes clouded and her cheeks went a delicate shade of pink as she bent down to retrieve her bathers. ‘It was just as much my fault as yours,’ she said as she wriggled back into them.
‘It was no one’s fault,’ he said, holding on to her arm to steady her. ‘I guess sooner or later I knew it was going to be like this.’
She looked up at him. ‘Y-you did?’
‘Sure I did. It’s called chemistry.’ He smiled at her as he took her hand and led her to the picnic blanket on the sand.
Amelia curled up beside him with a sigh of contentment, his arms holding her loosely as they watched the waves rolling to the shore. She pressed a kiss to his neck, the salt of his skin and the sea making her lips tingle.
‘You must be getting hungry,’ Alex said, dropping a swift, hard kiss to her mouth.
‘What makes you say that?’ she asked with a twinkling smile.‘You’re starting to gnaw on me.’
‘You don’t like the feel of my mouth on you?’
He pushed her back down and covered her with his body, a teasing smile playing at the corners of his mouth. ‘Do you hear me complaining?’
‘I guess not,’ she breathed as his lips claimed hers in a searing kiss.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE first stars were in the sky when Amelia surfaced from the sensual haven of Alex’s arms.
‘Are you cold?’ he asked as he handed her a glass of wine.
‘No, I’m fine.’ She toyed with the glass for a moment before looking up at him. ‘Alex…this thing between us…this chemistry you spoke of…don’t you mean lust?’
‘Lust sounds a bit shallow and transient to me,’ he said.
‘But this is transient….’
‘That subject is off limits, remember? This is for now, Amelia. We’ll take it one day at a time and enjoy what happens.’
‘It’s so easy for men to cast aside the practicalities,’ she said. ‘Sex is just sex for men—it’s much more emotionally complicated for women.’
‘That’s a sweeping generalisation that does a lot of men a disservice,’ he said. ‘I know you’ve had a bad case of lover let-down, but not all men are after a one night stand or brief fling. I haven’t had a one-night stand in my life and my shortest relationship lasted two years. It broke up about this time last year.’
‘Were you in love with her?’ she asked.
His eyes moved away from hers as he picked up his glass again. ‘Yes, I loved her in my own way. I guess if I was honest with myself there had always been something missing in our relationship, but I chose to ignore it until it was too late. She’d been having an affair with a guy behind my back.’ His brows came together slightly. ‘She’s married to him now and expecting his baby.’
Amelia wondered if that was why he had charged headlong into his relationship with her, out of a sense of loss. It made sense in a way, the holiday romance to dull the pain of rejection, especially since the woman he had loved had moved on with her life without him. She couldn’t help wondering if his easygoing attitude covered much deeper hurt.
‘I don’t suppose a good convent girl like you would happen to be on the pill?’ he asked after a moment or two of silence.
She almost choked on her mouthful of wine. ‘I…um…I…’
His mouth tilted. ‘That appears to be a straight-out no.’
She gnawed her bottom lip as she thought of their unprotected coupling. ‘I didn’t think…’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got anything other than rampant fertility to threaten you with.’
Her eyes flew to his, her mouth dropping open. ‘Isn’t that bad enough?’
He gave a casual shrug and reached for his wine. ‘Contrary to what people think, a woman is only fertile for about two days of every monthly cycle.’
She looked at him closely, trying to read his expression. ‘Today could be one of the days,’ she pointed out. ‘What then?’
He held her gaze for several pulsing seconds. ‘Would it be a problem for you?’ he asked.
She gaped at him. ‘Of course it would be a problem for me!’
‘You’re thirty years old,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you hearing any ticking yet?’
She frowned at him. ‘I suppose by that you’re referring to my biological clock?’
‘Every woman’s got one even if she says she hasn’t.’ He turned to look out to sea and added, ‘My ex-girlfriend always strenuously denied it because she sensed I wasn’t ready for kids, but within no time after replacing me she was waving a blue dipstick in the air.’
Amelia felt her jaw tightening. ‘I suppose that’s why you’ve singled me out? Who better to knock up than a naïve left-on-the-shelf thirty-year-old woman whom you no doubt assumed would be far too grateful to notice the insincerity of your stupid proposal.’ She tossed the contents of her glass to the sand and got to her feet and glared down at him furiously. ‘How dare you toy with me in such a way?’
He stood up and frowned back at her. ‘I was doing no such thing.’
Her eyes flashed at him. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘That’s your choice,’ he said in a hardened tone.
‘I can see why your girlfriend left you,’ she said. ‘No woman wants to have a child with a man who refuses to grow up.’
‘And I suppose you’ve got maturity down to an art form, have you?’ he retorted with a touch of spite. ‘You’ve spent the last eleven years running away from life. Don’t tell me I haven’t grown up when you’ve hidden away from everything that’s adult.’
‘I suppose it’s adult to pretend things you don’t feel to achieve your ends, is it?’ she shot back.
His eyes blazed with growing anger. ‘I haven’t pretended anything. I’ve made my motives more than clear.’
She gave a mocking laugh. ‘Oh, yes, indeed you have. From the first moment I met you your motives were blatantly obvious.’
‘Wo
uld you care to explain that comment?’
She sent him a paint-stripping look. ‘You don’t need me to spell it out. Besides, you’ve already achieved your goal, haven’t you? The little seduction routine worked, didn’t it? I fell for it as you intended me to.’
‘I don’t deny I wanted to make love with you, and if you’re honest with yourself you’ll admit the same. You wanted me too, Amelia, so don’t do that outraged little virginal routine with me. It just won’t work.’
She stamped her foot on the sand. ‘Take me home this instant.’
His lip curled insolently. ‘I will when I’m good and ready.’
She let out a furious breath and, scooping up her things off the sand, turned for the twinkling lights of Santa Fiera in the distance.
‘I would advise against walking all that way in the dark,’ Alex called out after her.
‘I’ll take a chance on it,’ she flung back at him.
He let out a frustrated sigh and followed her, his long legs swiftly closing the distance. He snagged one of her arms and turned her round to face him, deftly dodging her hand as it swung up for his face. ‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ he warned as he captured her hand on its second attempt.
‘If you don’t let me go I’ll scream,’ she threatened, her chest heaving with rage.
‘If you scream I’ll kiss you until you shut up.’
Her eyes narrowed into slits. ‘If you kiss me I’ll bite you!’
He suddenly laughed and tugged her closer. ‘I can hardly wait,’ he said and covered her mouth with his.
Amelia opened her teeth to bite him but his tongue slipped through and found hers, taking her breath away as well as her urge to fight. She felt herself go weak in his arms, her legs softening until she was only remaining upright because he was holding her so tightly. Her head spun with every bold flick of his tongue against hers, the movement so deliciously evocative of what they had experienced earlier she could feel her lower body turning to liquid all over again. She leaned into him unashamedly, her pelvis on fire where his body pressed against her.
He lifted his mouth from hers and looked down at her with a teasing glint in his eyes. ‘Are you still angry with me?’
