by Kim Lawrence
Zach smiled, making Kat think of a large sleek predator. She suspected that every woman present would have jumped straight into his mouth if the occasion arose—she had. The thought made her blush.
‘So where is your lovely lady tonight?’
The reference to the woman that they had both slept with increased the tempo of the throb behind Kat’s eyes. If she was going to get a migraine every time anyone mentioned a woman Zach had bedded she could spend her life with a headache!
‘She couldn’t make it.’
‘Such a shame,’ Zach murmured. ‘Well, gentlemen, I hope you’ll forgive me for stealing away our lovely hostess.’ He planted a hand lightly in the small of Kat’s back. ‘But there is someone who is dying to meet her.’
Not happy that she liked the supportive feel of his hand as much as she did, she frowned and asked, ‘Who?’ without enthusiasm as they wove their way across the room.
‘Do you have a headache?’ Zach asked without looking at her.
Kat’s jaw dropped and her eyes flew to his face, which sent a fresh spasm of agony along her nerve endings. ‘How...?’
His hand went to her elbow as she caught her heel in the hem of her dress and lurched. ‘I thought as much,’ he said grimly.
‘What are we...?’
She stopped as he paused as they reached Selene and explained in an undertone, ‘Kat has a headache. I’m taking her outside for some fresh air.’
‘But you can’t—This is—I have to stay. Some aspirin, Selene, and I’ll be fine.’
‘That too, please, Selene. You nearly passed out,’ he condemned.
‘For heaven’s sake, I tripped, is all! It’s the damned heels and don’t blame me—you bought them for me! Not bought as such,’ she tacked on hastily in case anyone had heard and got the wrong impression.
Zach stood over her as she swallowed the painkillers and, ignoring his frowning disapproval, washed them down with a mouthful of wine.
‘I thought you didn’t drink.’
‘A mouthful and, anyway, what did you think I was going to do—spit them out?’ She took a deep breath and massaged her temples. ‘OK, back to it.’
‘You need some fresh air.’
She looked up at him, exasperated by his insistence. ‘I need to get back in there.’
‘They can wait.’
‘Make up your mind. I thought this party was ultra-important...first impressions, burying bad news with my stunning personality, and all that stuff?’
‘The pain is making you cranky. You need some fresh air to clear your head.’
She sighed. It was easier to give up, and the idea of escaping for a few moments had distinct appeal. The lively music the live band struck up made up her mind.
* * *
He didn’t say anything until they got outside. ‘So, you met Spiro.’
She inhaled as they stepped out into the scented night and she let her head fall back. ‘Uh-huh, a real charmer, isn’t he? If you go for snakes, that is.’
‘Not a man to be underestimated, though.’
She lifted her head and walked alongside him onto the sloping lawns that ran down to the beach. The breeze tugged at her hair, dislodging several strands from her updo. She stuck them back in haphazardly.
‘He is a poor loser. He takes pleasure from revenge...’
She flashed a look at his profile in the moonlight. ‘What did he do?’
‘He tried to sabotage something that is...important to me.’
It had taken a while to work out there was actually a pattern to the seemingly arbitrary flurry of false, damaging stories circulating online. The near career-ending false stories about abuse, about a dedicated and vital staff member at the charity for street kids that few knew had anything to do with Zach, and simultaneously the exposé about bullying in the mentoring scheme set up for teens emerging from care.
A firm specialising in forensic investigation had taken about five minutes to reveal that the older man’s grubby hands were all over the mess.
The threat of litigation had made the problem vanish. For good measure Zach had explained that he didn’t need to resort to lies to bring Spiro down, and that he had in his possession several verifiable documents that would ensure the older man did jail time. As bluffs went it was a no-brainer. A man like Spiro always had dirty secrets.
‘Your mentoring scheme for street kids, you mean.’
He stopped dead and looked at her in astonishment. ‘How the hell do you know that?’
‘What?’ she said, dancing ahead and turning around to face him as she continued to skip backwards on her crazy high heels. ‘That you are a bleeding heart do-gooder...?’ she taunted, allowing herself a triumphant little laugh, frustrated that the shadows across his face meant she could only see his mouth, not his eyes. ‘I talk to people. They open up to me. It’s a gift.’
He swore.
‘I don’t know why you act like it’s a dirty secret. I think it’s marvellous!’
‘You know nothing about me—the things I’ve—’
Her smile faded. ‘I know you lived on the streets, and you survived.’ That he’d had to protect himself and he had never learnt how to stop; it wasn’t a matter of didn’t, he couldn’t seem to open up to anyone.
‘Selene?’ he growled as he strode out at a pace that made her skip to keep up with him.
‘Don’t blame her, she assumed I knew already. You ran away from your uncle, the one who died?’
He nodded.
‘And you never went back?’
His face was in shadow and when he finally responded his voice was wiped clean of all emotion as he reacted to the question. ‘I went back looking for what... I suppose some sort of closure. He was gone. Dead, I found out later, and my grandmother...dementia, final stages.’
Kat gave a little gasp, feeling his pain as sharply as if it were her own as she fell into step beside him once more. ‘What happened?’
‘Nothing. I put her in a home and haven’t been back since the first time.’
‘So, she is having the best care?’ It said so much about him that he would do that for someone who had abused him so badly.
‘Oh, I can provide her with the best care, but I can’t...feel...anything.’
She reached out in the dark and curled her small fingers around his. She could feel the raw tension emanating from him in waves. ‘Sorry.’
‘I suppose you think I should forgive her?’ he flung out.
‘No, I think that you should celebrate the day you escaped every year. I’ll help you if you like?’
He looked down just as the moon came out from behind a cloud. It illuminated her beautiful face with breathtaking clarity, toasting her skin with moon gold.
CHAPTER TEN
HE STARED DOWN at her, drinking in each individual feature before gorging himself on the perfect whole. Then slowly, he lifted a hand and framed her face. Kat shivered at the contact and pushed her cheek against his hand, turning her face so that her lips brushed his palm.
His hand dropped.
‘How will you help me?’
Her heart gave a painful jolt; her body was humming, her nerve endings raw as though all the insulation, the protection, had been stripped from them. ‘I’d do anything you need,’ she whispered.
A sound like a groan was torn from deep inside his chest. ‘Don’t say that, Katina.’
She lifted her chin. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I need everything.’
The heat between them scorched the air as he bent his head and kissed her. Kat kissed him back with equal abandon, locking her hands around his neck, arching her back to crush her breast into his chest, the little gasps of shocked pleasure as she felt the hardness of his desire against her belly lost in the warmth of his mouth.
They broke apart as the sound o
f a helicopter overhead cut through the sigh of the water.
Zach swore and took her hand. He studied it for a moment, an expression almost like pain contorting his features before his fingers tightened and he led her onto the moonlit sand.
Kat tripped.
‘You’re going to break your neck on those damned things. They are lethal.’
‘But sexy.’
His eyes glowed hot and hungry. ‘Hell, yes!’
The moonlight lent everything a silvered glow and the night-time silence made the hush of the waves breaking into a white foam hiss seem louder. There was no wind at all, just a warm stillness as, hopping on one foot and then the other, she whipped off the heels to walk beside him, her heart pounding in anticipation as they reached the point where the waves were breaking.
He turned, allowing himself to look at her. The fall had shaken free her hair from its elegant knot and it now spilled down her back and blew across her face in silky tangled strands that she pushed impatiently away with her free hand.
‘I want to touch you.’ He closed his eyes, trying to get some sort of grip on the raw primal instincts that had him in a stranglehold. The muscles in his brown throat worked as he stared at her, but it was the heat in his passion-glazed eyes that made her insides dissolve and made her feet move of their own accord to close the distance between them.
Kat, her heart thudding, forgot what she was about to say, forgot how to speak, how to think; the raw need stamped into his strong, beautiful features thrilled through her and into a secret place nothing had ever penetrated before.
‘This is a bad idea, Kat,’ he slurred, struggling to think past the roar, the tidal wave of emotion rising inside him as he dragged a not quite steady hand through his hair.
‘It’s too late to go back,’ she said, thinking, In more ways than one, as a surge of sheer hopeless longing made her tremble. He really was the epitome of male beauty as he stood there in the moonlight, his shirt open to the waist, his dark hair standing in sexy tufts, the shadow on his jaw and chin highlighting the angles and planes of his face.
‘You’re perfect,’ she whispered, utterly dazzled by his perfection.
‘Agape mou!’ Zach looked into her eyes, saw the heat and hunger and felt his control burn away. It was impossible to tell who moved first but suddenly they were colliding, the impetus of the contact driving the air out of her lungs; not that it mattered—Kat couldn’t breathe anyway.
They sank to the sand together, lay side by side, thigh to thigh, for a moment breathing hard, staring into each other’s eyes.
Zach moved first, reaching out to lay a big hand against her cheek, then, holding her gaze, he moved in with nerve-shreddingly slow deliberation to claim her trembling lips.
Kat’s eyes squeezed closed as she focused on the taste of him, the feel of him, greedily absorbing the musky smell of his hard, male body mingled with the salty tang in the air.
The touch of his hand on one breast drew a soft feral whimper from her aching throat. She felt the air cool on her hot skin as he pushed the fabric away, revealing the turgid pink peak. The air around them crackled with the passion that burned away oxygen, leaving them in a bubble when, as if responding to some silent signal, they both began frantically tearing at each other’s clothing, their mouths connected as they kissed with a wild lack of restraint, a desperate drowning feeling that Kat had never dreamt existed, let alone would ever feel.
Her entire body felt sensitised. She was aware of every touch, every abrasive point of friction between them and most of all the hot ache of arousal between her thighs.
Zach raised himself onto his knees, pulling Kat with him, his lips not releasing hers for a second as his hands moved to the zip at the back of her dress. The need to see her was part of the madness consuming them both.
The dress slithered down to waist level.
Kat squeezed her eyes closed and felt, rather than heard, the vibration of his deep gasp, a gasp that was drowned out by her louder groan as she felt the touch of his mouth against the tip of one quivering soft breast and then the other. Her fingers speared into his dark hair, holding his head there against her to prolong this nerve-wrenching erotic sensation, giving herself over to the bliss.
By the time his head lifted, she was shaking everywhere and burning up. They faced one another, still kneeling as behind them the waves continued their relentless advance, retreat, hiss.
The pounding in Kat’s blood did not retreat. It kept pushing forward, harder and harder, driving her deeper into the sensual maelstrom.
Zach leaned in to trail kisses down her neck, one hand cupping her breast, before pressing a fierce kiss to her parted lips.
‘You feel like silk—so very soft,’ he husked against her mouth.
‘I want to feel...touch you...’
Their breath mingled, their tongues tangled as they continued to kiss with hungry, bruising intensity. Kat felt him quiver as she pushed aside the fabric of his shirt that hung open to allow her palms to slide down the smooth, slightly hair-roughened skin of his chest. She loved the feel of him, the hardness, the amazing definition of every individual ridge of muscle, every perfect contour. His skin felt fever hot under her exploring hands as he started to kiss down her body.
His tongue had found her nipple again when he felt the moment she encountered the scar, not from the knife but the surgical scar where they had opened his ribcage to save his life and massage his heart.
He lifted his head, the hot colour edging his cheekbones lending them a hard definition in the moonlight. Holding her eyes, he fought his way out of his shirt, allowing her to see the white line that ran midline along his breastbone and the more raised scar just under his ribs.
‘What hap—?’
Her words were lost inside the possessive heat of his mouth as he pressed her back down onto the sand, the weight of his body pressing her deeper. The first skin-to-skin contact sent all questions, all thoughts from her head. She moved her hands over his broad shoulders, excited by his strength. The heat flaring between them as they continued to kiss and touch.
‘Have you any idea how much I want you? Have wanted you from the first...the very first moment I saw you?’ The expression of fierce concentration on his face, the molten hunger in his eyes as he stroked a finger down her cheek as much as his erotic admission drew a throaty whimper from Kat’s throat.
‘I wanted you, too. Inside me. So much.’
The admission burned the remnants of his shredded control away; he gave a grin and levered himself off her.
He watched the protest die on her lips as she realised what he was doing; he was aware of her eyes following him as he unfastened his trousers and slid them down his thighs, kicking them away.
His boxers followed.
‘Oh...!’ She swallowed and felt the blood pool in the juncture between her legs. He really was magnificent, the level of his arousal was shocking, yet she wasn’t embarrassed; his primitive male beauty fed the urgency in her blood.
She lay there, aching for his touch, and perhaps her desperation communicated itself because his hands moved down over the feminine curve of her hips as he freed her from the folds of dress fabric that had bunched across her. Her panties—scraps of lace—followed suit and he knelt back down beside her.
Kat reached out and touched him. He gasped and she felt him quiver as she stroked down the hot, hard length of him, then, emboldened, curved her fingers around him, touching the velvet tip with the pad of her thumb.
Nostrils flared, teeth clenched, he watched her, unable to tear his eyes from the expression of carnal concentration on her beautiful face. He bore it as long as he could before he grabbed her hand and, ignoring her protest, pushed her back, lowering his body onto her.
Hands held at the wrists above her head, all she could do at that first nerve-searingly perfect moment of skin-to-skin was moan. Then mo
an a lot more and squirm against him as she felt his hand slide between their bodies and in between her legs, exposing the heat in her sensitised core to his clever touch.
She tried to breathe, moving against the heel of his hand at the intimate exploration until it got so intense that she couldn’t bear it. The pleasure moving close to the pleasure-pain line.
‘Please,’ she whispered, her teeth closing around the lobe of his ear. ‘I can’t...’ she begged. ‘It’s too... You’re too...’
‘Relax, it’s all right,’ he slurred against her neck as he gave into the primal roar in his blood and parted her legs. ‘Wrap your legs around me, hold me.’
She did, happy to take instruction. She was in uncharted territory, and he really seemed to know what he was doing. Zach was an intuitive, passionate and generous lover. She knew from conversations she had frequently felt excluded from that this was a rather rare combination.
She stopped thinking anything when he slid into her, his powerful thrust slowed by the tightness of her warm female body as it adjusted to him, relaxing and contracting as he began to touch deeper inside her, waking nerve endings that sent rush after rush of mindless bliss through her body.
‘You feel...oh, Zach...you feel—’ Her words were lost in the warm moisture of his mouth.
She felt as if she were on fire as she pushed towards an unseen goal and when she reached it the shock of release jerked her entire body as the pleasure spread from her scalp to her curling toes.
Her muscles had started to relax when she felt the hot rush of his climax; a moment later he rolled off her and they lay side by side, panting.
* * *
It felt like coming back to earth after floating far above it; it wasn’t a thing that happened in a moment.
When she did Kat was smiling.
He watched as with fluid grace she rolled on her side, then he took her hand to kiss her open palm before he drew her warm, pliant body to him.