by Mandy Baggot
* * *
All that remained were her cream-coloured panties. Yan swallowed, looking at the triangle of cotton, beneath it the most intimate part of her. He reached out, his fingers slipping beneath the band of elastic. Before there was time to think or hesitate, he pulled them away from her body, edging them downwards.
He heard the intake of breath she gave as he rolled them down further until she had no choice but to step free. Bending back up he locked eyes with her, excruciatingly aware that she was completely naked in front of him, a neat tangle of brown curls tantalisingly near. He swallowed and put one hand on the balcony door. With a swift pull he wrenched it open, the balmy night overpowering the air-conditioned air in the room.
‘Yan.’ Her voice was tinged with apprehension as he’d expected. Quickly he caught her hand up in his and led the way.
* * *
What was she doing? Her heart was pumping like an engine about to overheat and she was naked, more open than she’d ever been with anyone and now he was taking her outside, onto the balcony, where just about anyone could see.
She took back her hand, loitering in the doorway, unsure, unsteady.
‘Yan, I don’t know if I can,’ she whispered. She crossed an arm over her chest to hide her breasts. Adrenalin wasn’t pushing her on, fear about giving in to what she wanted was winning out.
Yan faced her then, all six foot of him, there for her to drink in. She swallowed, her eyes roaming his sculpted torso again, the lean, muscular limbs and everything in between.
‘You are scared?’ he asked her.
She recognised so many sentiments in his deep baritone, concern, longing … something more? What was frightening her the most? Being naked on the balcony with the chance of being seen? Or making love with Yan? Her chest contracted at the last thought. She did want this. Not just bodily but wholly.
She didn’t answer him but took a step forward, her bare feet meeting the rougher tiles of the balcony. She watched his expression, then shifted her eyes to his chest, saw the rise and fall increase in pace as she neared.
* * *
Lithe limbs, womanly curves, female perfection stepped closer and it was his turn to hold his breath. Ellen stopped a few inches from him as he braced himself against the balcony wall.
‘I’m not scared,’ she whispered.
A tight coil inside him began to unfurl as the meaning of her words catapulted his heart.
He reached out, smoothing the flat of his palm down her hair, then across her shoulder, over the swell of one breast and down lower, across her stomach towards her vagina. He paused then, his fingers teasing the very outline of her most sensitive part.
‘I do not want this to be about other people. The ones that hurt us.’ He whispered the words as his fingers traced a gentle pattern.
He needed to say this. He needed to let her know the way he was feeling wasn’t a rebound reaction or about anyone else.
‘This is for us.’ He paused, taking a breath, the heat from her spreading to the tips of his hands. ‘Just for us.’
He slipped one finger lower, touching her. He felt her shift, her hand reaching for his shoulder and squeezing hard.
* * *
Ellen was lost already, on a completely different plain. As his finger swirled, so deliciously, each tiny latent sense of pleasure seemed to come alive. She braced herself against him, her hands on his shoulders, her breath on his neck as he took control of her.
She’d never wanted anything more, the sexual tension was writhing a path through her, sparks of conscious awareness tingling in her head as Yan brought her nearer and nearer to the brink of letting go. She was in danger of slipping down from the top of that tall slide, riding hard and fast, out of control. And suddenly she didn’t want that.
‘Yan,’ she breathed, her voice wrapped up in lust. ‘Yan, stop.’
If he touched her for a second longer, if he made her any wetter or moved further down it would be too late.
‘Yan,’ Ellen said again.
This time he met her eyes, the rhythmic motion of his hand stopping. He looked like he thought he’d done something wrong.
‘I want you with me,’ she told him.
Yan blinked, his dark eyelashes refreshing those beautiful azure eyes. Had he understood? She shivered, a slight breeze waving over her nakedness. Whether he’d understood the first time or not, she wanted to be frank. She didn’t want anything to be lost in translation.
‘I want you inside me.’
Her voice was so insistent, so need-ridden she barely recognised it as her own.
* * *
His finger was still inside her, still hot and moist from her, his eyes locked on hers. He hadn’t thought it would happen this fast. He hadn’t really thought it would happen at all. He was just relishing every second he had this close to her.
He stroked a neat circle and she cried out.
‘No, I won’t.’ She panted. ‘Not without you.’
It was a determined statement and the more she talked that way, the closer he came to buckling under the intensity himself.
‘I want you, Yan,’ she repeated. Her hand felt for him then and he clenched his stomach. He couldn’t hold off, not now she had begged and he was teetering on the precipice.
He gently edged her back until her shoulders met the outside wall of his room. She let out a tiny sound, something between a gasp and a moan and it fuelled his passion even further. He wanted to feel her rocking against him, he wanted to fill her body with his.
He lifted her then, shifting her hips higher, bearing her weight. She was staring at him now, wide-eyed, her pert mouth open. He’d never seen a more beautiful image. His eyes fixed on her, he watched her expression as he made their connection.
* * *
The first contact took the breath from her. Her weight between the wall and Yan, she tilted her hips further, wrapped her legs around him, demanding more.
Ellen leaned back, feeling the brickwork digging into her bare skin and not caring that it hurt. She pushed her hips toward him, inviting him in further, wanting his every inch inside her.
‘Ellen,’ he whispered. The sound of her name on his lips sent delightful shivers through her. She braced herself against him, one hand around the back of his neck, the other on his chest as he moved inside her.
Then every atom was fizzing with an electric heat like she’d never experienced before. As they pulsed together, in a perfect fusion, she felt her body arch in response to a building ache, fanning out, wilder and stronger with every motion.
She didn’t want him to stop. She wanted to gather up this feeling and never let it go.
* * *
Ellen’s hair in his hand, every sinew of him glided backwards and forwards, slowly, teasing, then faster with a desperate need to fulfil a physical and emotional void. She felt so good, so right, tight, hot, intense. It was a union on so many levels it was destroying him. Nothing else was important now, their being together was everything.
‘Yan, I’m …’ The end of her sentence died in a sound he’d never heard from a woman before. It was a mew, then a cry of pure pleasure and he felt every single contraction. She clung on to him, damp, coming apart and his resolve began to crack. He was falling, second by second, towards his own release.
‘Yan,’ she breathed his name again and this time it was just too much. White hot heat surged through his body and he was forced to let it go.
* * *
Yan shuddered in her arms, his body tightening then slowly shaking to a stop, his breathing laboured, his skin dewy with moisture.
She was still quaking, her thighs wrapped tight around him, her insides spinning. But much more than their physical union, emotionally she was floored.
She opened her mouth to speak before the moment passed, but his voice, thick with feeling, beat her to it.
‘I am in love with you, Ellen.’ He took a moment and another breath. ‘I am in love with you.’
39
Ellen heard his voice, like a far-away whisper in her ear. Just the light lull of the words was enough to make her mouth spread into a smile and she became aware of holding onto the bed sheet around her. But she didn’t want to open her eyes. She wanted to stay there, semi-conscious, remembering their night together, reliving the best bits like a movie trailer in her mind. And as she let herself drift into those moments she fell back into a contented sleep with nothing crashing about her brain, just perfect snapshots of the love they’d shared.
Her eyes snapped open at the sound of a cockerel. It was the sound they used on the PA system to start the day’s animation. Just before ten o’clock. She checked her watch. Nine forty-five. It was nine forty-five. She couldn’t be in bed, in someone else’s bed at nine forty-five. Her heart was racing with panic when the door opened.
Worried it was a maid, she pulled the bed clothes up over her naked form and waited. A familiar figure dressed in his polo shirt and shorts uniform backed into the room. He turned around, kicking the door shut and revealing the tray he was carrying.
‘Good morning,’ Yan greeted her.
She swallowed, watching him place the tray onto the table, then focus his attention on her.
‘It’s almost ten o’ clock.’ It was all she could think to say.
‘I know this. I try to wake you before nine but you do not want this.’
His velvet voice, so close yet so far away. She’d heard him but chosen not to wake, still revelling in the glow of the night before.
‘I have breakfast,’ he announced, indicating the tray.
Her stomach reacted to the word, swishing and bubbling and reminding her it had been a long time since yesterday’s evening meal, even if she had eaten a mountain of all inclusive treats.
She tried to move in the bed but was so twirled up in the covers it was almost impossible. She stayed put.
* * *
‘I did not know what you would like. I have fruit salad with bacon and sausage. And coffee.’
Yan sensed her lack of enthusiasm from across the room. It was too much. He shouldn’t have brought her breakfast. Like perhaps he should not have told her he loved her last night. She’d kissed him hard, driven him back into the room where they’d made love again and held each other until they’d fallen asleep. But she hadn’t answered, hadn’t acknowledged what he’d said to her. Had he expected her to? He hadn’t thought he would ever say the words again but the depth of his feeling for her had overridden thinking twice.
She was twirling her hair around her finger and looking directly at him. Her brown eyes were without their usual sparkle, because of lack of sleep, he guessed. He didn’t know what to do.
‘Thank you,’ she finally said, still unmoving.
He nodded. ‘I have water exercise at ten.’
‘I know. That’s OK. I should head back and find out how Lacey is.’
He nodded again. He didn’t know how to continue where they had left off. Why, in the morning light, did things seem so much more complicated?
‘I will see you later?’ he asked. He knew there was a tentative edge to his voice because he was just that, tentative, concerned. She was leaving in two days.
He watched her pull at the bed sheets, loosening them so she could move. And then she stood up, winding the covers around her body and walking towards him.
Just seeing her slow, rhythmic stride sent an erotic message and he took in a silent breath, straightening his form, waiting for her.
Ellen reached him, stood just millimetres from touching, one hand clasping the white cotton around her, the other reaching up to his face. Her fingers caressed the faint covering of stubble on his cheek setting off shards of electricity right the way through him.
‘I love you.’
Her voice was soft but clear and the sentiment was right there, echoed in her eyes. He put a kiss on her thumb.
‘I should have told you last night.’ She stroked his face again. ‘Because I felt it just as much then as I do now.’
Yan didn’t say anything, just carried on planting delicate kisses on each of her fingers.
‘I think maybe it’s because it’s happened so fast and so unexpectedly and …’
‘You do not have plan,’ he interrupted.
* * *
She smiled. This man knew her so well already. They had only been acquainted six days and he could read her better than any man she’d ever known. It just went to prove that, in their case, time, language and status meant nothing when it came to matters of the heart. Somehow they matched and, as bizarre as that scenario was to her, she couldn’t deny it was true.
‘I’m not even going to use that word anymore,’ she told him.
Yan nodded, the sides of his mouth upturning.
‘You don’t believe me,’ Ellen stated. She couldn’t help furrowing her brow. She could throw caution to the wind. She’d done it most of this week with Yan, and the mobile phone she usually glanced at every second was still switched off. She could turn over a new leaf.
‘I think you find this hard,’ he told her.
She snorted in response and folded her arms across her chest. The sheet fell sideways at the movement, revealing one half of her naked body, but she held fast, matching his gaze.
He laughed then. That deep laugh resonating from his belly and filling the room. ‘You are beautiful.’
‘That doesn’t mean funny. You do know that, don’t you?’
‘I know what this means,’ Yan stated, inching himself forward, looking deep into her eyes.
Mesmerising. There was no other word to accurately describe his perfect eyes.
Yan grabbed the sheet in two fistfuls and whipped it from her body.
‘I have plan,’ he breathed. ‘I plan to be a little late for water exercise.’
* * *
Ellen could hear his voice, counting in English then German from the pool as she made her way back to her suite. She’d mentioned the phrase ‘walk of shame’ before he’d left her high and quivering from another soul-stealing orgasm. He hadn’t understood and it wasn’t really appropriate anyway. She wasn’t ashamed of anything they’d done together. She was excited, happy, for the very first time in a long time.
Everything was heightened. The sky had never seemed so blue, the sun was scorching the skin on her arms in an exhilarating way and the piped music coming from the plants along the path was putting a spring in her step. She felt wonderful. Like she could achieve anything. As if the fact that a huge disaster was waiting for her when she got home just didn’t figure.
She bounced up the steps to her room and as she reached the door, she slotted the key into the lock. She turned the handle and pushed, but it stuck. The chain was across.
‘Lacey?’ she called.
‘Hang on! In the middle of a hair rescue pack!’
Her sister sounded better. She was talking and it was understandable. However, she knew how incapacitated Lacey was when she was hair rescuing. Not that she really had a clue what it was actually being rescued from.
Ellen folded her arms across her chest, trying to duck down into a spot of shade. As the seconds ticked past, the sun beating down turned from exhilarating to burning and the piped music went from sexy Enrique to irritating Los Lobos.
Finally the door whipped open and there was Lacey, hair embalmed in something white and foamy, face still looking like ripe rhubarb.
‘Sorry about that.’ She looked Ellen up and down. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? Come in and tell me everything!’
The phrase ‘tell me everything’ was concerning. The last time she’d seen her sister, Lacey had barely known her own name. Now she was grinning like someone high on drugs as she led the way back into the suite.
Ellen watched her sit on her bed and pat the counterpane.
‘Sooo, tell me everything!’ Lacey squealed.
‘Which bits can’t you remember? You know Mark and Dad are here, don’t you?’
She knew sunstroke was bad, could give
you blinding headaches and sickness but she wasn’t sure it affected memory. Unless …
‘Don’t be daft! Of course I know they’re here. As soon as I was able to stand I left. Mark wiping my brow every ten minutes was doing my head in.’ Lacey paused and tried to shake her hair. It didn’t move. ‘Your bed hasn’t been slept in.’
Ellen swallowed, the heat rising in her face as though a radiator had just been turned up to maximum. Her sister, the sex detector.
She opened her mouth to speak but stopped herself. Her first instinct was to lie, to make something up about being at a nightclub or being at Bo’s Bar all night. But in reality, those scenarios were just as ludicrous as the truth.
‘Oh my days, you did it, didn’t you? You slept with Yan!’
Somehow Lacey had made it sound like she’d sold British government secrets to the Russians. Her sister’s hand was clamped to her mouth, her eyes out on stalks.
You slept with Yan. Yes, she had and she was glad and it was nothing to feel bad about. She nodded at Lacey with conviction, sitting down next to her on the bed.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Oh my God, I can’t believe it. After everything you said about me and Sergei,’ Lacey began.
What? What was she saying? This was nothing like what had happened with Sergei. Lacey was … had been … engaged to be married. She was single, completely single and hadn’t been looking for anything from any man. She hadn’t flirted with him from the moment she’d arrived or made a beeline towards him when the Conga line started up. She had felt attracted, tried to keep her distance but things had just happened. Real things, feelings grounded in more than all inclusive ouzo.
‘Good on you,’ Lacey finished with a girlish giggle.