More than a Convenient Marriage?

by Dani Collins

  Twenty minutes later they were in the pool. His laps were a purposeful crawl with flip turns and patterned breathing, hers a less disciplined breaststroke that made one lap to his four. Tiring, she moved to sit on one of the long tile stairs in the shallow end, half out of the water as she watched him. The pool was fully shaded now, leaving her quite comfortable watching his athletic build cut through the water.

  When he stopped and joined her on the step, he was breathing heavily, probably having swum a mile though she’d lost count ages ago, distracted by the steady thrust of his arms into the water and the tight curve of his buttocks as he kicked. She really couldn’t fathom what a sexy, virile man like him was doing with mousy, boring her.

  And even though he’d pushed himself with thirty minutes of hard swimming, his gaze moved restlessly, as if he was looking for the next challenge.

  “You’re not comfortable with downtime, are you?” she said.

  He glanced questioningly at her while diamond droplets glittered on his face and chest hair.

  “You’re driven,” she expounded. “I keep thinking of all those plans we made, but what does it matter if we have a floating hotel? I know it’s top-notch, but who cares? We don’t need the money and the world doesn’t need another behemoth cruise ship.”

  “It matters to the people we’ve employed and the ones who invested with us. But you’re right, I suppose. Wealth isn’t something either of us really needs. Not anymore. It’s a habit I’ve fallen into, I guess.”

  “You worked hard to get here and now you don’t know how to stop,” she paraphrased.

  He made a noise of agreement.

  “If we don’t have children, what would we fill our lives with? More hotels and boats?” Involuntarily, her ears strained to hear the words each other.

  They didn’t come. After a long moment he said, “Our last five-year plan took months to mold. This one can, too. There’s no rush.”

  “There is,” she insisted. “I feel like if we don’t have everything sorted out before we sleep together again, our marriage will go back to the way it was and I’ll be stuck in it.” There. She’d said it. Her worst fear had blurted out of her.

  He stared at her for a long minute, absorbing her outburst, then he chuckled softly and shook his head. “And I can’t think of anything but making love to you again. New plans?” He shook his head as if she was speaking another language. “We’re at quite an impasse.”

  He wasn’t being dismissive, just blatantly honest. Her heart constricted as she absorbed that this was what he’d meant about trusting him. Somehow she had to dredge up the faith to believe he’d continue working on their marriage along with the courage to surrender herself to him. The potential for pain was enormous.

  While the yearning to feel close to him was unbearable.

  She looked up to where the afternoon sun had bleached the clear sky to nearly white. Not even close to evening or bedtime. She hadn’t brought either her green-light or red-light nightgown. How else could she possibly signal to him that she was receptive to his advances?

  Oh, Adara, quit being such a priss. They were learning to communicate, weren’t they?

  Her internal lecture didn’t stop her heart from beating frantically in her throat as she set tentative fingertips on his wrist where it rested on his thigh. Leaning toward him, she shielded her eyes with a swoop of her lashes and watched his lips part slightly in surprise before she pressed hers to them.

  Heat flooded into her. The very best kind of heat that had nothing to do with Greek sunshine and everything to do with this man’s chemistry interacting with hers. He didn’t move, letting her control the pressure and deepening of their kiss, but he responded with a muted groan of approval and drew on her tongue with gentle suction.

  Runnels of sexual hunger poured through her system, spreading out in delicate fingers that excited her senses and made her want to tip into his lap.

  Shakily she pulled back and licked the taste of him off her lips before she gripped the railing in slippery fingers and forced her weak knees to take her weight as she stood.

  “Will you, um, give me a minute to shower before you come up?” The question was so uncouched and blatant she felt as though she’d stripped herself naked here in public.

  “I’ll use the shower in the cabana and be up in ten,” he replied gruffly, eyes like lasers that peeled her bathing suit from her body.

  Adara wrapped a towel around herself and went to their room.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE PARALLEL TO their first time kept ringing in Gideon’s skull. He was just as keyed up as he’d been then, his masculine need to possess twitching in him like an electric wire, while his ego inched out onto that wire, precarious as a tightrope walker.

  No room for false moves. The message pulsed as a current, back and forth within him.

  He climbed the stairs as though pulled by an invisible force. No matter how many times he told himself it was ridiculous to place so much importance on this—he’d done this before. They had. It didn’t matter. This meant something. The last time he’d felt this sense of magnitude, Adara’s initiation to sexual maturity had been on the line. He’d felt a massive responsibility to make it good for her, especially as he’d been selfishly determined he would be her only lover for the rest of their lives. The pressure to ensure they were both satisfied with that exclusivity had been enormous.

  Without being too egotistical, he believed they had been. He certainly had. Her subtle beauty had flourished into his own private land of enchantment.

  This ought to be a visit to the familiar, he told himself as he turned the handle on the door and pressed into their room. It wasn’t. This was uncharted territory and the initiation this time was happening to both of them, moving them into some kind of emotional maturity he would have rather avoided. The tightrope he was walking didn’t even feel as if it was there anymore. He was walking across thin air, reminding himself not to look down or he’d be tumbling into a bottomless crevasse.

  As he leaned on the door until it clicked, she opened the bathroom door and emerged wearing one of his T-shirts. The soft white cotton clung to her damp curves and naked breasts before falling to the tops of her thighs. He couldn’t tell if she wore underpants and couldn’t wait to find out.

  “I didn’t bring anything sexy,” she murmured apologetically, her eyes bigger than the black plums in the basket. Her apprehension was unmistakable.

  “You look edible,” he said, voice originating somewhere deep in his chest. He moved across to her. “I didn’t shave.” He took her hand and rubbed the heel across his jaw where a hint of stubble was coming in.

  “It’s okay,” she murmured and pulled her hand back then wrung it with her other one. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m so terrified. This is silly.”

  A swell of tenderness rose in him. He took her hands and kissed each palm. “It’s okay. I’ll take it slow. As slow as the first time. I want to savor every second.”

  Her smile trembled. “I know it will be good, but my body seems to think we’re strangers. I keep reminding myself I know everything about you. The important things, anyway.”

  His blood stopped in his arteries as he thought about what she didn’t know about him. Important things, but so was this. He needed to cement their connection before he could even contemplate stressing it with a full exposure of who he was. And wasn’t.

  Adara cupped the sides of his head, trembling with nerves and anticipation, wanting the kiss that would erase all her angst and drown her in the sea of erotic sensations he always delivered.

  Gideon wasn’t moving, seeming to have slipped behind a veil of some kind.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked as doubts began to intrude.

  “Nothing,” he said gruffly and set his mouth on hers.

  The first contact
was just that, contact. Like finding the edge of the pool when your eyes were closed and head submerged and your lungs ready to give up. Relief poured through her as the familiar shape and give of his full lips compressed her own.

  And then he opened his mouth in a familiar signal that she do the same and she nearly melted into a puddle of homecoming joy. His arms slid around her and pulled her into a hard embrace against his shirtless chest, muscles bulging with such strength it was almost uncomfortably hard against her tender breasts, but so welcome.

  Adara curled her arms around the back of his neck and clung, kissing him unreservedly as her senses absorbed every delicious thing about him. His shoulders and back were gloriously smooth and naked, scented with body wash and rippling hotly as he moved his hands on her, awakening every nerve in her body.

  The wide plant of his strong legs let her feel the brush of his hairy legs against the smoothness of her thighs. She wriggled closer, wanting to feel the hard muscle that told her he liked the feel of her against him. Her body craved contact with that gorgeous erection and she arched herself into firm pressure against the ridge she could feel behind the fly of his shorts.

  “This isn’t slow,” he growled, straightening and grasping a handful of T-shirt between her shoulder blades.

  The soft fabric stretched across the round thrust of her breasts. Her nipples stood out prominently. Eagerly. He leaned to take one in his mouth, suckling her through the fabric until she let out a keening moan of distress at the pleasure-pain. He pulled back to examine the wet stain that turned the cotton invisible, clearly revealing the sharp pink tip and shaded areola of her breast.

  Adara gasped at how flagrantly erotic this was, but couldn’t help arching a little in pride when she could see how excited he was by the sight. He smiled tightly before bending to do the same to her other nipple, bringing her up on her toes the sensation was so ferociously strong. A ripple of near ecstasy quavered in her abdomen, making her weak and mindless. She clung to him as if he was a life raft.

  “I’ve always liked that, too,” he said with satisfaction.

  “What?” she asked breathily.

  “The way you dig your kitten claws into me when you’re about to come.”

  The heat that suffused her nearly burned her alive. “I’m not,” she said in a near strangle.

  “No?” A light of determination flared behind the liquid heat that had turned his dark eyes black.

  Her heart skipped in alarm, but his superior strength easily backed her to the bed and levered her into the poofy cloud of the duvet. He took a moment to admire the purple undies she was wearing, the prettiest pair she’d brought, before he drew them down her legs in a deliberately slow tease of satin against skin.

  The unfettered daylight and proprietary touch of his strong hands on her legs made her thighs quiver.

  “Gideon,” she protested.

  “You’re so close, matia mou,” he cajoled, thumb stroking into her wet folds to search out the knot of sensation that was undeniably eager for his touch. She instinctively lifted her hips off the bed at the first contact. He bent and chuckled softly against her inner thigh, kissing his way to where her entire world was centered.

  Latent modesty curled her fingers into his hair and she moaned indecisively, wanting badly to give in to what he offered, but she felt like such a wanton. She tossed her head back and forth, tugged on his hair, then felt the hot lick of his tongue and nearly screamed with delight. Need ravaged through her and she encouraged him, nearly begged him with the rock of her hips and clench of her fist in his hair and then—

  Release seared through her like a white-hot blade, blinding in its intensity. Sensations racked her on waves of unadulterated pleasure that gripped her for an eternity, exquisite and joyous.

  She came back on a sobbing pant of gratification. Aftershocks trembled through her as she became aware of Gideon kissing his way up her torso, pushing aside the T-shirt. He lifted onto an elbow to admire the quivering breasts he’d bared, then slowly lifted his gaze to her face.

  Adara felt utterly defenseless and he made it worse when he said, “Now imagine how you would feel if I left you right now.”

  The way she had been leaving him in exactly this state for weeks.

  He began to roll away and her world crashed in. “Don’t!” she cried.

  He showed her the condom he’d reached for. “I can’t,” he said with a near-bitter fatalism. He opened his shorts and pushed them down, kicking his shorts free.

  The thrust of his erection was as powerfully intimidating as ever, but she positively melted with anticipation. “Can I—” She tried to help him with the condom.

  “Next time, Adara. For God’s sake, just let me get inside you.”

  He lifted to cover her, his weight a sweet dominance as he pushed into her, filling her with the heat of his length and rocking his hips so he was seated as deeply as possible. Then he weaved his fingers into her hair and nuzzled light kisses on her brow and cheekbones, giving her time to adjust to his penetration.

  “You don’t know what it’s been like,” he grumbled.

  She had an idea. Her body was barely hers, responding to the feel of him so strongly that just the thick stretch of him inside her and the faint friction of their tiniest movement was setting off another detonation. It would have been humiliating if it wasn’t so amazingly, sweetly incredible.

  “Oh, God, Gideon. I’m sorry,” she moaned and scratched at his rib cage as she tilted her hips for more pressure and shuddered into ecstasy beneath his weight.

  “Oh, babe,” he said consolingly against her lips, rocking lightly to increase the sensations, forcing and prolonging her climax. “You missed this, too.”

  She shattered, unable to stop herself gasping in joy

  “Don’t be arrogant,” she warned a minute later, turning her face to the side in discomfiture as she tried to catch her breath.

  “I’m not, I swear I’m not.” His breath was hot on her ear before his tongue painted wet patterns on her nape.

  “You don’t seem quite as swept away as I am,” she said pointedly, pressing against the wall of his chest.

  “I’m barely hanging on. Can’t you feel me shaking? If I was naked, I’d have been lost on the first thrust. Being inside you is so good, babe. I never want to leave. It’s always like this, like I’m in heaven.”

  Her heart seemed to flower open to him and her hands moved on him of their own volition, absorbing that he was, indeed, trembling with strain.

  “I thought I was the one shivering,” she confessed softly.

  “I live for this, Adara. The feel of you under me, the way you smell, the heat and the insane pleasure of feeling you around me.” He pressed deep as he spoke, sparking a flare of need in her for another and another of those fiercely possessive thrusts.

  “Don’t stop,” she begged. “It feels too good.”

  With an avid groan, he took her mouth in a deep soul kiss and thrust in a purposeful, primal rhythm. The sensations were nearly too much for her, but she couldn’t let him go, couldn’t give it up. Her legs locked around him and her heels urged him to heavier, harder slams of his hips into hers. This wasn’t a man initiating a virgin; it was too halves trying to meld into a whole. The sensations were acute and glorious and feral.

  And when the culmination arrived, it was a simultaneous crescendo that burst from the energy between them, surrounding and sealing them in a halo of shimmering joy as they clung tightly to the only thing left in the universe. Each other.

  * * *

  Gideon left Adara at a complete and utter loss. She always left the bed first, hitting the shower so she could recover her defenses after letting them fall away during sex. Lovemaking always made her feel vulnerable, and after acting so greedily and helpless to her desire for him, she needed alone time more than ever. Sh
e’d never felt so peeled down to the core in her life

  But Gideon disappeared into the bathroom, stealing her favorite line of escape. She sat up, thinking to dress, but then go where?

  The toilet flushed and she flicked the corner of the duvet over her nudity, not sure where to look when he came out of the bathroom. He struck a pose in the doorway with elbows braced and a near belligerence in his naked stance.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, unnerved by his intense stare.

  “Nothing. You?” He seemed almost confrontational and it got her back up.

  “No. Of course not.” Except that she’d pretty much exploded in his arms and didn’t know how to handle facing down this tough guy who didn’t seem to have a shred of tenderness in him anymore. She slid a foot to the edge of the bed. “I’ll, um, just have a quick shower—”

  “Why?” he challenged. “You just had one.”

  True, but where else did one ever have complete privacy except the bathroom? She’d figured that one out in grade school. It was one of her coping strategies to this day. She set her chin, trying to think up a suitable way to insist.

  “I hate it when you run away after sex,” he said, coming toward the bed in a stealthy, pantherlike stride. “Unless you’re inviting me to join you in the shower, stay exactly where you are.”

  Her heart skipped, reacting to both his looming presence and the shock of his words.

  “You’re the one who started it, running out like you had a train to catch the first night of our honeymoon. I thought that’s how we did this,” she defended, going hot with indignation. “When we’re done, we’re done.”

  “Our first night was your first time. If I hadn’t left you, I’d have made love to you all night and I didn’t want to hurt you any more than I already had.” He leaned over her as he spoke, forcing her onto her back.

  She pressed a hand to his chest, warding him off. “Well, I didn’t know that, did I? You walked out on me and I didn’t like it, so I made it a habit to be the first to leave every other time.”