by Annie West
She shifted her legs, sliding her thighs up and around his, encircling him. She reached up, linking her arms round his neck, tugging him down. And of course he went, leaning into her, kissing her feverishly, knowing he could never get enough of her.
The more he got the more he wanted. He was a doomed man.
He drew back slightly, brushing his hand lightly across the juncture of her thighs, slowing to explore the delicate folds there.
Sophie moaned into his mouth and the blood rushed faster in his arteries. The tension in him so immense he trembled with it.
There. His questing fingers struck gold and her whole body jolted. And again.
And then she was urging him nearer. Her legs tight round him, her hands clutching him, her lips fretful against his.
No man could withstand the temptation.
He pressed forward, found her slick and welcoming, pulling him closer, deeper, further. Then with a single uncontrollable thrust he joined them so completely that there was no ending and no beginning.
The shocked, shattering silence held for just a second and then he felt Sophie tremble in his arms. From the inside out it started, until the trembling became her shuddering, rocking climax. And the inevitable, answering motion began in him, so that he withdrew then pushed even further, tighter, faster into her. Till the world shattered in a blur of roaring flames and dazzling light.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ECSTASY.
That was what this was, Costas thought dazedly as he wrapped Sophie against him. Starlight silvered her lithe curves as she sprawled across him—a living, breathing, sensuous blanket.
He knew he should take time to assess the situation, engage his brain. Something nagged at him, some hint of trouble.
His conscience? He should be appalled that he hadn’t found the strength to push her away.
The litany of reasons he shouldn’t get involved with her: her strained emotional state, her status as a guest and as Eleni’s relative and benefactress…the taboos had crumbled to dust when he’d found her waiting for him on the shore.
She’d been pure seduction. Inviting him. Enticing him. Wanting him—as much, it seemed, as he wanted her.
He should have resisted, should have been strong for both of them, but it had been impossible.
And there was no turning back now. No help for her, or him, once that first barrier had been breached. One touch and his control had vanished.
And, the good lord help him, he could think of nothing but how miraculous it had been. How miraculous Sophie was. His instinct had been right. They were explosive together. Sex had never been so earth-shattering.
He dropped a leaden hand to the soft spread of her hair across her shoulder.
Mine. All mine.
At least for tonight, he hastily reminded himself. That was all he wanted, all he needed—a night of bliss to counteract the burden of his days.
But was that enough?
He frowned and his hold on her tightened a fraction. She murmured, her warm breath hazing the hollow of his neck and he froze, stunned to discover his body wasn’t quite as sated as he’d thought.
He smoothed his hand over her bare skin, savouring the delicious sensation, and his mouth curved into a smile so wide it felt as if it might split his cheeks. Anticipation hummed in his blood.
The night was still young.
He had her now—exactly as he’d imagined so many times. She’d come to him at last, of her own volition, made it clear she understood and accepted his terms. Sex, physical release, comfort—exactly what they both needed.
And it had been worth the wait.
He felt alive again. More alive than he’d felt in years. Than he’d ever felt.
No wonder lightning crackled in the air whenever they were together. The sensual charge between them was unbelievable. Unique. And that made for mind-blowing sex.
His grin grew impossibly wider.
He felt as if he’d been through cataclysm and fire. Death and rebirth. His very bones had dissolved in the intensity of their passion.
But now he was looking forward to the next time. He stroked a hand over her back. She was exhausted. Sleeping. It wouldn’t be right to disturb her. Not yet.
But she was getting cold, he realised as he felt goose-pimples on her shoulder. He had no idea how long they’d been lying here in each other’s arms, but the night was cooling.
Time to get his lover inside.
This time he knew his grin was smug. The thought of Sophie in his bed, where the lamplight would illuminate each glowing centimetre of her body and reveal every nuance of her response to him…
It was the work of a moment to wrap her in the towel and hoist her into his arms. He strode towards the track up to the house, grateful for the starlight to guide him.
‘Costas?’ The word feathered across his bare chest, low and tentative.
‘Just relax,’ he murmured. ‘I’ve got you.’
And I’m not going to let you go.
Even carrying her in his arms came naturally, as if she were designed precisely for him.
‘Our clothes—’
‘Are safe where they are.’
She was silent a moment and then he felt her palm against his chest, hot like a brand.
‘No. I need to get my clothes. I—’
‘They’re unimportant, glikia mou. You won’t need them again tonight.’ The words heightened the anticipation already humming through his taut frame. He lengthened his stride.
‘No!’
His pace faltered at her vehement denial.
‘No,’ she repeated. ‘Someone might see.’
He laughed, relief lightening the sudden tension in his chest. For an instant he’d thought she meant to deny him. ‘No need to worry, Sophie. I have my own private entrance. The servants know not to intrude on my privacy unless told to.’
Her hair teased his flesh as she shook her head. Her hand pushed harder against him.
‘No! I don’t want…’ She paused. ‘Put me down.’
‘No need for that.’ He hugged her tight. Revelling in the smooth softness of her body against his where the towel had slipped. ‘I know this path like the back of my hand. You don’t.’
Already they’d reached the olive grove, a shadowed glade where the darkness was thicker.
‘I said put me down!’ The rapid rise and fall of her breasts told him as much as her words. He stopped, barely preventing an impatient sigh.
Why did women have to get so hung up about inessentials? Hadn’t he already promised no one but he would see her? And she couldn’t be worried about a pair of jeans! No one was going to steal them.
‘Please.’
He could resist her, barely, when she argued with him, when she fought and challenged and defied him. But when she whispered in that low, honey-sweet voice, he had no defence.
He shifted his hold, trying and failing abysmally to ignore the sensation of her bare skin against him. There was minuscule comfort in the sound of her indrawn hiss of breath, telling him she felt the same excitement that held him rigid.
Slowly he lowered her, deliberately letting her slide centimetre by centimetre down his body. The towel dropped away, leaving only the two of them, naked flesh to naked flesh, on fire again with the most primitive of needs.
Blood pulsed loud in his ears, a counterpoint to their ragged breathing. Sweat broke across his skin as he felt her silken body press intimately against him.
Maybe stopping here in the olive grove wasn’t such a bad idea. The grass was long and soft, still scented with the day’s perfume of wild flowers.
He splayed his hands over her back, down, down, to cup her buttocks and draw her close against him. She shuddered, her hands tightening her hold on his shoulders.
He grinned into her hair.
No, stopping here wasn’t a bad idea at all.
Sophie caught her breath on a sigh of abandonment. Of raw pleasure.
Why did Costas’ touch excite her so? The feel
of his gaze on her? The awareness that they were alone, naked and wanting?
She’d felt desire before. Had some limited experience of it before Costas Palamidis had erupted into her life.
She thought she’d known…
Sophie shook her head. She’d known nothing.
She swallowed a moan of pure pleasure as his big hands swiped low over her body, pulling her close to his flagrant, heavy erection. The sensation was exquisite.
It seemed only a few minutes ago that they’d had each other, consumed by a need so long repressed it had been combustible.
Yet already he wanted her again. As she did him.
Surely now he recognised it too—the remarkable rightness of them together. It was physical desire but it was so much more too. She felt it deep in her very soul.
Something wonderful had happened between them.
Despite the tension drawing heavily at every muscle, her mouth curved up in a smile that grazed the damp skin of his chest. She tasted the salty tang of him on her lips.
There was something heady, something exciting, about having all that raw male power, all that potent energy focused on her. She could get used to—
‘Sophie.’ His voice was a throaty rumble in her ear as he bent to press his lips to her neck, feather-light kisses up past her jawbone. The tug of his teeth against her ear lobe had her knees buckling and it was only his arms wrapped round her, the strength of him supporting her, that stopped her from falling.
And then she was falling. Gently tugged off balance, to tumble forward and land sprawled against him as he lay back on the grass. Her heart raced as she recognised the scent of desire in the air. Her breasts were crushed against his massive chest so she felt the rapid thump of his heart beating time with hers. His hands slid over her, fast, restless, hungry.
And Sophie knew the hunger that had woken in her at the sight of him emerging from the sea hadn’t been assuaged at all. The yearning for completion, for fulfilment was far stronger now than before.
Then she hadn’t known how it could be. Now she did and she craved it with every cell in her body. That sense of sharing, of bonding, had been so complete it was pure ecstasy.
‘Kiss me,’ he demanded, dragging her up the length of him. His glorious, hard, aroused body lay beneath her. The friction of flesh against flesh, of teasing body hair against smooth skin, made her gasp. And when he pulled her head down to his, it was for an erotic kiss, tongue laving tongue.
He tasted like every dream come true. Potent and strong and sensuously, darkly sweet. Sophie cupped his face in her hands, loving the slightly abrasive temptation of his jaw, the hint of a tremor in his hard hands as she kissed him back.
‘Yes!’ The single sibilant word hissed in her ear as she moved to kiss his chin, his cheek, nuzzle his neck, nip at the sensitive flesh of his ear.
Costas’ hands slid down, shaping the indent of her waist, slowing at the curve of her hips, grasping her bottom and pulling her against him, hard and blatant in his need for her. Against her ear he whispered a stream of Greek, of words she barely registered. But she understood enough to know he was describing her power over him, his need for her, and exactly what he wanted to do with her.
His voice was the most exciting thing she’d ever heard, urging her on as his hands tightened on her hips, his thighs nudged hers wider, till she felt soft meadow grass beneath her knees. And at the centre of her was him.
He waited. Let her choose her own pace. Only his deep voice, throbbing low and sensuous in her ear, his hands clamped possessively on her hips, told her of the urgency of his need. And the feel of him, hot and hard beneath her.
She levered herself up with her hands on the ground near his shoulders. She gasped as he took her breasts in his hands, petting them gently, then not gently at all, till she cried out at the exquisite delight that shuddered through her, so close to yet so different to pain.
And then he was suckling her. He made her squirm against him, her head thrown back so she could gulp down shuddering breaths of meadow-scented air.
‘I can’t get enough of you, Sophie,’ he murmured against her breast. ‘Never enough. You make me burn like I’ve never burned before.’
She looked down at his dark sculpted face, strong even in the deep shadows. Saw him take her nipple in his mouth, felt the sweet pang of delight spear through her, and felt the trembling begin in every part of her body.
It was the sight of him. The feel of him. But more, there was something else, some powerful connection that drew her to him, linked her invisibly but inexorably to him. That met his need with answering need, desire with desire. And melted the brittle barrier of icy grief around her heart.
Emotion swelled within her. She wanted to cradle him, hold him, pleasure him.
Love him.
She felt protective, possessive and more turned on than she’d ever been in her life.
‘Costas…’ She needed to tell him, make him understand how she felt. This was so momentous, so extraordinary.
Then he was kissing her, plundering her mouth with a raw hunger that sent fire shimmering through her veins, urgency pounding in her brain.
It took all her strength to break their kiss and draw back. He lay below her, dark eyes fixed on her, his massive chest heaving. As desperate, as wanting as she was.
Sophie reached down to slide her fingers round him. Her eyes widened as she realised just how well-endowed he was. He’d felt stupendous before, but now…
His hiss of indrawn breath was loud in the stillness. ‘Don’t, Sophie!’
The power she felt was exciting. She was heady with it. He throbbed in her hands and something clenched deep inside her. The sight of Costas, obviously at the edge of his control, was intoxicating.
‘Why? Don’t you like it?’
For answer his hands cupped her bottom and he pulled her closer, until all thought of games fled her mind and there was only need. His hands were urgent, his body thrust against her and she sighed at how good he felt.
‘Do it!’ he growled, his voice hoarse. ‘Now!’ He lifted her up, urging her against him.
For a moment she strained, poised above him, delighting in the sensation of him watching her with hooded eyes, knowing he was as excited by the sight and feel of her as she was by him.
And then she couldn’t wait any longer. She sank down slowly. Deep inside she felt him. Tighter, fuller, impossibly more than even the last time.
‘Costas?’ Her voice trembled with doubt.
‘Sh, Sophie mou. It’s all right,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll make it all right.’
And he did. His hands swept over her, came up to cup her breasts, squeezing gently in a way that loosened every tensing muscle in her body. And from beneath her he pushed up steadily, deliberately, creating waves of erotic sensation that swamped her senses.
His rhythm increased and automatically she matched it, rising and falling against him in a quickening pace that pounded relentlessly in her blood. She felt the muscle-packed strength of him beneath her, surging into her. The callus-hard caress of his hands on her. The sound of his breathing, as laboured as her own. And his eyes. She felt their heat on her as she moved above him.
She felt like a queen. Powerful, commanding. She felt…
Her breath snagged as the surge of sensation caught her suddenly, overpoweringly. Each movement was exquisite torture, pushing her higher and closer. She grabbed for Costas, her hands grasping his wrists as he held her breasts. He bucked up harder against her, the heavy weight of his thighs pure power against her legs.
And then she exploded. Reality came apart in one shattering, shuddering moment that rolled on and on, prolonged by the insistent rhythm of his body.
When at last the sensations eased he pulled her down hard against him, expelling her breath with his force.
She lay over him, his heart throbbing beneath her, his hot breath riffling her hair, his body so powerfully alive beneath her, within her. The smoky musk aroma of aroused male filled
her nostrils. His arms wrapped tight round her as if he’d never let her go. Even when she felt his tempo increase to fever pitch, he held her close. He pulsed, warm and throbbing within her, exciting her with a primitive satisfaction.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, the tension spiralled in her again, drawing her with him into a shared experience of fulfilment.
They were so close they were one. His climax was hers. His body belonged to her. He was hers.
She loved him, she realised.
She loved Costas Vassilis Palamidis. The arrogant, caring, tender, proud man who’d taken over her life in every way.
Should she feel shock? Disbelief?
Drowsily Sophie smiled, delighting in the feel of his hot, silky skin against her lips. She didn’t feel anything right now except a sense of rightness.
Bliss.
Sophie half opened her eyes and protested. Costas still held her close, his heart beating steadily beneath her, his arms holding her. She wanted to snuggle in against him, stay like this forever, but something had changed.
She had it now, the steady rhythm that lulled her, kept her in a lazy haze of well-being. It was the feel of him striding, cradling her in his arms.
She fought to lift her eyelids, to check where they were. There was a light somewhere, making her slit her heavy lids against its brightness. He shifted his hold, pressing her face in against his collar-bone, where she caught the salt scent of the sea and man. Drowsily she pressed her open lips against his skin, loving the tangy taste against her tongue.
He shuddered, holding her tighter till she was consumed by the sense of him all around her. He muttered something she couldn’t catch.
Then there was a sudden whooshing sound behind her, making her blink her eyes wide open.
They were in a room, the lights concealed around the rim of the ceiling as she looked over his shoulder.
A bathroom, a massive bathroom, warm with the glow of rosy tinted marble, glittering from the light reflecting off enormous mirrors and gold fittings.
‘Shower with me, Sophie.’ His voice rumbled beneath her ear. He leaned forward and she felt a haze of warm spray sprinkle her shoulder.