by Julia James
No—this was utterly different.
A lioness—that’s what he called me last night!
And that was what she felt like—with her lithe body toned and honed, not an ounce of excess fat on it, yet rounded and womanly. She was supremely conscious of the way her hip was indenting the cushions of the sofa, the way the soft jersey of her dress was stretched over her breasts. Breasts that seemed fuller, somehow...heavier.
She felt the alcohol creaming in her bloodstream, heating it. Making her feel different...oh, so different. Free...bold...daring.
Daring enough to sit there with the devastating homage to manhood that was Max Vasilikos, whose lidded eyes were resting on her, whose sensual smile was playing around his mouth. His long lashes were veiling but not concealing the expression in his deep, dark eyes. That thrill came again in her...electricity crackled along her nerve fibres. She was no longer the person she had been—she was someone else now. Someone new.
Someone a man like Max could desire?
Because why else was he sitting there so close, so intimately, his eyes holding hers as if by a silken thread that was drawing her towards him, closer and closer yet? Why else—unless he desired her?
Wonder and hope welled up in her. Was this truly happening? All those long, lost years when she’d been trapped in despising her body, her face...were they really over? Was it possible that she could now reach out and take what was surely every woman’s right—could taste and enjoy the sensual pleasures of the flesh?
A memory pressed at her of her time at university, studying sports science, when all about her everyone had been pairing off, partying...and she had not dared. She’d felt excluded, forbidden from trying to join in. Had drawn back and hidden away, feeling herself unworthy—for who could want a woman like her? Men could only possibly want women like Chloe...who was the total opposite of herself.
I banished myself—did not dare to try and claim the place that every other woman was claiming.
But now—oh, now she did dare! She did dare to lean back into her end of the sofa, to relax and take a deep, easing breath.
And the absolute proof of her right to dare was the expression in Max Vasilikos’s eyes now, as he twined his gaze with hers. The dim light cast shadows, created an atmosphere that was as heady as the liqueur she was sipping. She felt relaxed, languorous. And yet that low electric current was humming all the time, fuelling the charge that was building up in her, circuit by circuit.
Desire quickened in her veins. Desire made her eyelids heavy. Her breathing was shallow, her awareness of the sheer, raw physicality of Max becoming heightened...super-aware, ultra-aware.
I want this! I want what is to happen. I want it with all my being. To taste what I have denied myself so long...what I have never dared to take...
Yearning filled her, fusing throughout her being.
He moved first.
Wordlessly he placed his cognac glass on the table. Wordlessly he reached to remove her glass from her hand and do likewise. Wordlessly he curved his hand around the nape of her neck. Silently, his heavy-lidded eyes lambent upon her he drew her lithe, pliant body towards him.
And as his mouth closed over hers in the sweet heat of his kiss there was only one conscious thought left in her head.
If Max Vasilikos desires me, then I am desirable indeed!
And then all conscious thought fell from her.
Now there was only sensation—sensation so strong, so overpowering, so arousing, so incredible, so blissful, so pleasurable, so fantastic that there was room for nothing else at all in her entire existence. His kiss was as skilled as it was consuming, unhurried—leisurely, even—as touch by touch, graze by graze, his mouth explored hers, slowly at first, skimming her lips, then deepening moment by expert moment, deepening until she was lost, yielding to what he was arousing in her, igniting in her, as each touch of his lips set new fires within her. Fires that he stoked, and stroked as his fingertips explored the nape of her neck, grazed the tender lobes of her ears, as his mouth moved to nuzzle at them softly, sweetly, arousingly.
She felt her breasts engorge and strain, and then a hand was cupping one, and a whole explosion of sensation ignited within her. A soft gasp sounded in her throat as he coaxed her cresting nipple to exquisite arousal. Her hand pressed against the hard-muscled wall of his chest, fingers splaying out, finding as if by instinct the shirt buttons, reaching between, within, slipping one and then another undone as if this were a skill that had been innate inside her all her life.
She heard him groan as her palm slid across the bare skin of his chest, slid down to where his belt snaked around his hips, eased along the rim of it. And he groaned again, his hand tightening on her breast, his mouth devouring hers now.
Excitement ripped through her, raw and intense. She pulled her mouth away, gazed at him, lips parted, eyes flaring, spearing her free hand into the hair that feathered at the base of his skull, shaping it with her fingers. There was an urgency in her now. A sense of power. She felt ripped, pumped, with adrenaline flowing in her, strong and purposeful. She knew what she wanted. Who she wanted.
A lioness seeking her mate...
His mouth curved into a smile. A smile of triumph. She knew it, gloried in it.
Their eyes twined together as they half lay upon the sofa that was suddenly much too small.
With a single fluid movement he got to his feet, scooping her up with him. She gave a cry that was half a gasp, for she knew just how much she weighed, even though it was muscled mass, not fat, but it didn’t faze him in the slightest. As if she were a feather he carried her through to his bedroom, lowered her down on the bed. But he didn’t come down beside her, remaining on his feet.
He wasn’t idle, though. He was shrugging off his unbuttoned shirt, ripping the tie from him, ripping everything from him. Her eyes widened—how could they not?—and then, belatedly, she started to work off her own dress.
A hand stayed her.
‘Oh, no,’ growled Max. ‘That’s for me to do.’
He drew her back to her feet, utterly shameless in his own nakedness, his own rampant arousal. And she, because of that, was shameless too, standing there in front of him, fully clothed, her hands reaching up to her head, pulling off the hairclip so that her tousled locks fell with a single sensuous shake of her head, rippling down her back.
She heard him growl in satisfaction, saw his eyes flaring in the near darkness, for the only light came from the dim lamp in the lounge beyond. It was all the light they needed, and now he was stepping towards her, his hands catching at the hem of her dress, drawing up the soft jersey material in a slow, unstoppable movement until he’d eased it clear off her shoulders and freed her from it, casting it unwanted to a nearby chair. Now it was just her, with her hair rippling down her back, and the underwear she stood in.
But not for long.
Her own hands reached behind her back and she unhooked her bra deliberately, displaying herself, her eyes holding his all the time, her chin lifted, lips parted, knowing exactly what she was doing. Her breasts were freed, the bra discarded to the floor, and she stood there, showing her body to him as he was showing his to her.
His expression changed. ‘My beautiful lioness...’ he said, and his voice was low, deep, husky. His hand reached forward and the tips of his fingers simply grazed across her peaked nipples, so that they flowered even more, and a whisper of delight, of pleasure so exquisite, rippled through her so that she gasped and her head fell back, her long tousled hair brushing across the lower reaches of her arching spine.
He cupped her full, engorged breasts, heavy in his hands, and then his mouth found hers again, slowly, sensuously, with an intensity of arousal that she knew, with a kind of glory inside her, was the beginning of ultimate consummation.
She let him press her down upon the bed, let his body come over her, felt the crushing, arousing weight of him. He was kissing her still, one hand still enclosing a breast, the other now despatching the last remai
ning obstacle to his imminent possession. She lifted her hips as he discarded her panties and then she let his hand slide between her thighs, parting them for him. Whirls of pleasure rose within her, each one more intense than the last. A mist descended over her consciousness. She was no longer a thinking being—only a feeling one. Giving herself to the ultimate sensation.
He nestled himself within the apex of her body, and she felt with a mix of shock and exultation just how ready he was for this. How ready she was...
He took her hands, lifted them above her head so that the peaks of her breasts lifted too, and she gazed up at him. He smiled. Slow, intimate—possessive.
With an instinct older than time she felt her hips lift a little, straining towards him, yearning for his possession. His name was on her lips. An invitation—a plea. His smile deepened. And then, in a sudden fluid movement, he pulled away from her—only a fraction, but it was enough to cause alarm to flare in her eyes. Until she realised what he was doing—reaching into the drawer beside his bed...finding protection. Her protection.
She shut her eyes—there were things that even as a lioness she could not cope with! She heard him laugh, as if he realised that. A kiss nuzzled at the tip of her nose.
‘Safe to peek now,’ he said.
Amusement was in his voice, but it was only on the surface. Below was something deeper, and far more primal. She opened her eyes, looked deep into his, and even in the semi-darkness the naked desire there, the raw arousal, shocked her like electricity jolting through her body— her inflamed, aroused body.
For one long moment he gazed down at her. ‘My lioness,’ he murmured. ‘My strong, beautiful lioness!’
And then, with a slow, deliberate tensing, he lowered himself to her as her thighs parted for him, as her hips lifted to his, as her body opened to his. Taking possession of her.
As she did of him.
There was tightness, but no resistance. She drew him into her, her body welcoming his, glorying in it, her delicate silken tissues gliding him in, sending a million nerve endings firing, shooting volley after volley of pleasure through her.
How could it be so good—so good to feel like this? How could this fullness be so incredible? This fusion, this melding of their flesh?
She dimly realised that for a moment he did not move, with supreme self-control, letting her body accommodate itself around him, letting her revel in the fullness of their fusion, letting her body reach the same level as his, poised at the brink.
Her hands were on his shoulders, braced against him, and his hands were bearing his weight, for he did not want to crush her. He wanted to see her face—a face that was raised to him in wonder, in beauty—in the moment before the ecstasy took her...took him...
And then, with the slightest shift in muscle, he moved, letting himself release.
He saw it happen in her face, saw her eyes distend, and then he was beyond everything but his own conflagration which swept up through him like a firestorm, burning him to ashes. Burning her with him.
She cried out in wonder, in amazement, in pleasure, and the sound of her cry shook him to his core. Her spine arched, her hips straining at him, nails clutching at his shoulders, head thrown back so that he could see the ecstasy that was in her face, the wonder and the joy. He felt her body thrash around him, pulsing with consummation, felt her thighs straining taut against his, and then his arms were around her, holding her, cradling her, keeping her safe within his embrace as her body burned.
And then slowly, oh-so-slowly, she slackened in his arms—slowly, oh-so-slowly, she stilled, her eyelids fluttering, her breath ragged, her skin dampened with a silken sheen. He held her tight against him, still half possessing her, then slackened away from her. He smoothed her hair, so fine and soft, and spoke to her in his native tongue. He knew not what he said. And she was like one who had gone beyond—gone far beyond, to a place she had never been before.
He held her while her taut muscles relaxed, released their tension, became soft and lax. She was letting him rock her gently, oh-so-gently, and he held her, still murmuring to her, as he brought her back slowly, carefully...oh-so-carefully.
He kissed her forehead, with scarcely any energy left in him to do so, and then a great lassitude swept through him. An exhaustion of the senses, of the passions. He turned her in his arms, her body still damp, her eyes still glazed, and kissed her bare shoulder, nestling her into him, holding her close and safe and warm against him.
‘Sleep,’ he said, his voice a murmur. ‘Sleep now...’
He saw the ghost of a smile cross her mouth. It was all that she could manage and he asked for no more—not now. She had given all and taken all, and now they would rest, exhausted and complete, embraced by each other.
Sleep took them both.
CHAPTER NINE
ELLEN STIRRED. SHE was cradled against hard, warm muscle, and an arm lay heavily around her. She could feel Max’s breathing, low and steady, feel his breath on the nape of her neck. As she came to wakefulness her own limbs felt heavy, tired, and there was an ache between her legs. Yet it was not pain. Oh, no, not pain...
A sense of wonder suffused her. Was it real to be lying here in the dim morning light, with Max’s arms around her, holding her so closely? Could it possibly be real? But it was—oh, it was. That was the wonder of it—the miracle. That after all those long, miserable years of thinking herself repulsive, repellent, all the misery, the dreary self-torment, was over.
Gratitude flooded her. She knew why Max had done this, knew what his reasons were—to wean her away from clinging to the home she loved so much, that he could only see as her hiding place—but she didn’t care. How could she care when his strong arms were warm around her? When her body had discovered the bliss he could arouse in her? No, whatever his motives, she could only be grateful for this wondrous, incredible gift that he had given her—the gift of knowing herself to be desirable.
It was gratitude that she gave voice to when Max awoke and made love to her again, bringing her once more to a peak of ecstasy that left her breathless with wonder. Then another appetite struck, and they wrapped themselves in voluminous bathrobes, padded through to the suite’s dining area to partake of a large and filling breakfast.
She caught his hand, staying him. Her eyes huge. ‘Thank you...’ she breathed.
He turned her hand in his, winding his fingers through hers, turning them towards him. Amusement danced in his eyes, but there was another expression there too.
‘Oh, the pleasure was all mine—be very, very sure of that!’
He kissed her nose, lightly and humorously, squeezing her hand, his free hand brushing the loosened locks of her hair caressingly. She was gazing up at him wide-eyed, with that wonder in her expression that did strange things to him. There was wonder in him, too. He’d awakened her senses—but she had awakened in him senses he had not known he possessed.
Satisfaction—deep, consuming and very...well, very satisfying—creamed through him. Whatever his original motives for setting Ellen free from the chains she was bound with, he knew with absolute certainty that what had happened between them—what was still happening—was for quite different reasons. For reasons that had only to do with him being a man and Ellen being a woman, desiring him and being desired.
That is all we need. All I want.
He sat himself down opposite her, reaching for her glass and filling it with fresh orange juice from the jug on the table. His eyes rested on her, appreciating what he was seeing—her loose, tousled hair, the deep vee of her robe exposing the swell of her breasts, the softness in her face, in her eyes, the deep, sensuous glow of a woman who’d spent a night of passion in his arms.
He poured his own orange juice and drank it in one draught, setting down the glass. She was sipping hers in a more genteel fashion, and her gaze was flickering to his, as if she wanted to feast on him but felt a touch of shyness yet. Hunger rattled in him—and not just for the croissants nestling in their napery. He helped himself
to one, tearing it open with strong fingers. Then his eyes went back to hers, holding them.
‘We need,’ he announced, ‘to get hold of your passport.’
Ellen started. She’d been in a daze, wanting only to let her eyes gaze across the table at him, to drink him in—the way his jaw was roughened right now, and how enticingly piratical the dark shadow of regrowth made him look, and how there was that glint in his eyes again that could melt her bones like water, and how the towelling robe he wore with such casual ease was so incredibly white against the gold tan of his smooth, half bared chest, and how his strong, lean forearms were reaching for that croissant with fingers that had stroked her body to shuddering ecstasy.
‘What?’ Her eyes widened in confusion.
‘Your passport,’ Max repeated. His expression changed, become amused. ‘So we can visit my eco-resort in the Caribbean. I told you over dinner last night that I needed to go out there.’ Long lashes dipped over his dark eyes. ‘Surely,’ he said softly, ‘you did not think that a single night with you would be enough—did you?’
He watched his words sink in. Words that he had already formed in his own head as soon as he’d awoken. A single night with this woman? No, not enough! Not anywhere near enough!
Across from him he saw her reaction—saw for the fraction of a second indecision hover in her eyes and then vanish.
Her face lit, and inside her head words were singing suddenly.
Go with him! Go with him while he wants you—because he does want you. Because this time is the most wonderful of your life so far. So seize it—seize it all. Take what you’ve never had before and wring from it every last drop. After all, why not?
Max Vasilikos had given her a gift she had never, never thought to possess—the gift of her own beauty. The gift of himself desiring her.