by Lucy Monroe
And she went under just as he’d predicted she would. Without a whimper of protest. Without so much as a token attempt to push him away. And she couldn’t even claim it was because her hands were trapped between them because he immediately uncrossed her arms for her so that he could get closer with his big, hard body.
She might have been embarrassed if she wasn’t enjoying the kiss so much. But nothing had ever felt so right. Well, nothing except his kisses. It had been this way since the very first one. She’d acknowledged then what she knew now. She belonged here, in his arms. Whether he felt a corresponding need, she did not know, but she craved his touch.
Did he sense it? Was that why he was so sure of himself? Of course he did…he was too world savvy not to. But none of that explained whyhe wanted to marryher .
CHAPTER FOUR
EVEN THOSE THOUGHTSsplintered as his tongue demanded and received entrance into her mouth. His taste intoxicated her and she let him pull her firmly into his body, reveling in the electric charge of contact when her breasts pressed against his chest.
She pulled at his shirt and then scrabbled for buttons, hungry for the feel of his hot skin. They came undone despite the clumsiness of her fumbling fingers and she luxuriated in the silky dark curls that swirled over his chest. He was such a masculine man…everything about him screamingprime specimen of the male of their species.
His muscles were granite hard against her exploring fingertips. His sheer size both intimidated and aroused her feminine sensuality.
He made a growling sound in his throat and dragged her into his lap. Planned or not, his desire for her pulsed between them as he had promised it would. She could not deny the harsh reality of his erection pressed against her thigh or the way the hands holding her trembled against her own flesh shimmering with sensation.
But it was so much more than mere physical feeling. She loved this man and her heart craved this intimate connection as fervently as her body.
His hands slid over the silk of her dress, caressing her curves and inciting feelings that never ceased to shock her. This was what passion was supposed to feel like—not forced, not muted, but so full, so real that every atom in her body shimmered with delight. His hand skimmed up her calf, taking the dress with it and baring her legs to him. He stopped when his fingertips brushed the apex of her thighs through the sheer lace of her panties.
He groaned and pulled his lips from hers. So he could see what he had touched. “Very sexy.”
She couldn’t form a word to respond. She looked down at herself, sprawled in abandon across his thighs, her legs spread slightly, her thighs quivering with need. She could smell her own musk and rather than embarrass her, it excited her further to think she could respond so totally to this man’s kiss.
His bronzed chest gleamed under the muted light cast by the single torchère lamp she’d left on for her return home. His dark body was such a contrast to hers that she was lost in the visual pleasure for long moments.
“I’d like to see you in front of a fireplace, lying naked on a thick rug. Aroused,” she said, shocking herself as she admitted one of her favorite nighttime fantasies out loud.
He didn’t look taken aback, though; he looked interested. “There is a fireplace in my bedroom. After we are married, I will be very pleased to see that you get your wish.”
“I haven’t said I’ll marry you.” Where the wit to say so came from, she didn’t know, but she suspected that self-preservation was as instinctual as sexual intimacy.
“You will.”
“Maybe.”
He chose that moment to slide his finger up and down along the edge of the scrap of fabric that covered her feminine center. She moaned and arched toward his touch, wanting him to move his finger just a fraction of an inch to the left.
He repeated the caress, his expression feral. “I will convince you.”
“You can try,” she invited, one hand diving to cup the hardness that proved his desire was every bit as real as hers.
She was not a bold lover, but it was imperative for her newly discovered feelings to make him acknowledge, if only tacitly, that this was far from one-sided.
He gasped and then cursed and it was her turn to smile.
Pleasure zinged through her at his response. Perhaps her lack of boldness in the past was because her single sexual liaison had occurred when she was barely nineteen. Her previous lover had been older and a whole lot more experienced than she.
As Sandor’s touch ignited raging fires of need inside her, Ellie realized her former lover might have known more, but he had not been particularly good at lovemaking. And that knowledge took away some of the lingering sting the memories had on her emotions. If that man had been as good at evoking a response as Sandor, she would never have escaped the relationship relatively unscathed. She might not have escaped at all, despite what she’d learned back then.
At the time, she’d thought her heart was decimated by his calculation and betrayal, but five years on, she had to admit that it could have been so much worse. That truth served as a chilling reminder for the present, bringing her back to reality with a vicious jerk to her emotions. Because thiswas Sandor. Shedid love him and his potential to hurt her was beyond anything she’d ever known.
Terror coursed through her, cooling blood heated by wanton desire.
She’d learned to expect less from her dad, but would she ever be able to affect the emotional distance necessary to accept that kind of relationship with Sandor? She didn’t want to, even if she could. She didn’t want a half-life in her marriage. She wanted something fully vibrant between them. But was that a fool’s dream?
“What is the matter?” He was looking at her face now, his expression marred by a slight frown.
She blinked and stared at him realizing he’d stopped touching her completely. “Nothing.”
But it was a lie. Worries were pounding inside her mind with painful frequency and power. He could hurt her. So much. Was letting him make love to her the smartest thing she could do? Did she want to give him a bigger hold on her heart than he already had?
He wanted to marry her, the side of her brain that housed her libido reminded her with strident urgency. He wasn’t going to leave her in the dust. But her first lover had wanted to marry her, too. Only his reasons hadn’t been what he’d said they were, or what she needed them to be. Love had not even been a minor variable in the equation.
“You were thinking of something else,” Sandor said, not willing to let it drop.
“And that bothers you?”
“Considering what we are doing. Yes.”
“Ah, male ego. No need for yours to get dented. I was thinking about you.” The words this time weremore sarcastic than she intended, but she felt powerless to change her tone.
His dark brows drew together, but he did not pull away. “Right now, I want you beingwith me…thinking only ofthis. ”
She wasn’t expecting another assault to her senses so quickly. Probably because her thoughts and feelings were so divergent, she expected his to be impacted as well. But Sandor knew what he wanted and he went for it.
This was a kiss so carnal, it shattered her fears and her ability to think, leaving her reeling in a maelstrom of need she could not navigate. This was touching and caressing that left her mindless with need and so incoherent she didn’t even realize she had been undressed until she was naked and being carried to her bedroom in Sandor’s strong arms. She must have done some clothing removal herself because his torso was fully exposed and his bare feet slapped against the hardwood floors of her apartment.
Her body burned with the need to fuse with his and she pressed against him as if she could achieve it in that position.
“Yes, go wild for me, Eleanor. You are everything a man could wish for.”
“Ellie,” she gasped, needing him to call her by the name she preferred, the one that in her mind fit the true woman she was. This was too intimate for the formal name no one but her father used anymore.
Dark eyes glittered into hers. “Ellie.” Then he said a short Greek word that carried a wealth of meaning.Mine .
He was claiming her and right that second she could not gainsay him. She needed him more than the air she breathed…she did belong to him. At least for tonight.
Pressing feverish kisses along his collarbone, up his neck and along his jaw, she refused to think. She could only feel. Emotions deep inside, physical pleasure along every nerve ending, joy and purpose radiating off of Sandor. It all mixed together in a combustible package that rocked her to her very soul. She had been born for this moment and she would revel in its splendor.
“Sandor…” She licked under his jaw.
He growled and fell on the bed with her. She landed in a sprawl on top of him, but he quickly flipped her over and took her mouth. She opened her lips, inviting his tongue and deepening the kiss. He rubbed his lower body against hers and she went rigid with shock at the pleasure.
He’d gotten rid of his pants with the rest of his clothes and his erection was touching a place no one else had gotten near in five years. It felt amazing. He was rock-hard and yet the skin was soft and felt totally delicious pressing against her most feminine place.
He yanked his head back. “You are ready for me.”
“Yes!” She tried to wriggle to invite him in.
He wouldn’t let her move. “Protection?” he gritted.
For a brain totally fuzzed by sexual desire, hers worked quickly to figure out what he needed and the answer to that need. “Drawer by the bed.”
She’d bought the condoms when they started dating, assuming he would press for intimacy. There was enough of her brain functioning to appreciate his remembering to ask.
He wanted her to marry him, but he wasn’t going to try to trap her with pregnancy. Warmth unfurled inside her at the knowledge. Her other lover had not been so noble. She thanked God that his ignoble intentions had born no fruit, but she’d never forget the sense of betrayal when she realized what he’d tried to do.
Sandor reared off of her and rushed to the nightstand, ripped open the drawer and then grabbed a condom from the box with flattering speed. He rolled it on and then climbed back on the bed and stalked toward her on his knees. It felt just like a predator was preparing to leap at his prey. A surprisingly pleasurable atavistic shiver shook her frame at the knowledge she was that prey.
He cupped her small breast and kneaded it, sending delirious enjoyment arcing through her. She moaned.
He whispered in her ear, “Your desire for me is real, as is mine for you.”
“Yes.”
“The passion, it is here between us,” he said in a thick Greek accent. “It is real.”
“Yes,” she repeated.
“Believe,” he said and then kissed her again.
She wasn’t sure what he meant, but she accepted his mouth and his touch, freely returning both. When he moved on top of her, she spread her thighs in blatant instinctive invitation. He maneuvered his shaft so it pressed against her silky, wet opening.
He stopped. Stopped moving. Stopped kissing her. Even stopped making those sexy male noises of pleasure that had been emitting from his throat.
Her eyes fluttered open and met a dark gaze intent on her.
“Do you accept me into your body?” he asked.
He had to know she wanted him, so this question meant something more, but she wasn’t sure what. Only it didn’t matter. Her answer was, “Yes.”
He nodded as if sealing a pact and then pushed inside her.
Silken tissues stretched and her body absorbed him as if they had been created to fit together perfectly. She felt filled to capacity, yet instead of hurting…it felt good. Really, really good.
Feminine fear that had nothing to do with wanting to stop fluttered through her, but it did not decrease her arousal. It increased it, making her crave movement and total possession. “I want all of you.”
“Can you take all of me?”
“I was made to.” She wasn’t sure what she was saying, but it felt right.
He rocked his pelvis forward, sliding further into her humid depths. Continuing the motion, he took her body slow inch by slow inch until his pelvic bone pressed against hers. Both sensations made her gasp.
He said something in Greek she didn’t get.
She luxuriated in the feeling of oneness for a timeless moment. “I told you we would fit.”
He husked a laugh. “Usually it is the man comforting the woman with that line.”
“Is it?” she asked, not knowing and caring very little what the norm was between other men and women.
She knew only what was right between them and this was right. She tried to arch against him. “I need you to move.”
And he did. So perfectly that tears washed into her eyes and leaked down her temples. He seemed to understand because he sipped at them and continued to make love to her as her body built toward a cataclysm of pleasure that was unlike anything she’d ever known.
Then something happened that was surely a miracle because his body went tense above hers at the same moment that she felt the explosion inside. He shouted. She cried out. And their bodies shuddered together in mutual abandon. He continued to move in small, caressing motions that drew the pleasure out for both of them.
Her body jerked with spasms of release while he groaned and bucked against her a few more times before collapsing on top of her in a heavy, but welcome heap.
His breath bellowed in her ear and her chest labored to draw air in. “That was amazing,” she whispered, afraid of ruining the perfect moment with too much sound.
“Yes, it was,” he rumbled against her neck, sending shivers along her oversensitive skin.
She turned her head and kissed the side of his face. “Thank you.”
“The pleasure was as much or more mine.”
“I’m glad you didn’t say all yours.”
“It would not be true.”
She laughed softly at his arrogance, but fell silent quickly. He was so right. It would not be true. She’d never felt anything so wonderful. And she wanted to feel this again. And again. And again.
Which was why he had made love to her, wasn’t it? To convince her that they were meant for each other. If not in love, in lust and in like.
“I am going to adore having you as my wife in my bed,” he said, confirming his thoughts ran parallel in content if not intent to hers.
“That is not a done deal, yet, Sandor.”
He leaned back to fix her with his “get serious” look. She’d seen it a few times before, but it was funny in their current situation and she couldn’t help laughing again.
“I do not find this funny. You will marry me, Ellie.”
At least he got the name right. She stifled her laughter and cupped his cheek. “Making love with you was incredible, but I still need time to think.”
“After what we have just experienced together, how can you need time to think?”
“Because we won’t spend our entire life in bed, Sandor.”
“It is worth considering.”
She shook her head. “You’re such a man.”
“I am that.” He carefully rolled off of her and padded naked to the bathroom. “I would be little use to you in this situation if I wasn’t,” he called back over his shoulder.
She couldn’t argue that logic and did not even try.
He stayed the night and made love to her again in the wee hours of the morning and then again when they awoke to her alarm. Both times left her a boneless, quivering mass of satisfaction. But he did not push again for a definitive answer from her. It was as if he was so sure of her, he was simply biding his time.
She didn’t really care why he refrained from pressing her, but was merely glad that he did. He left her house after a brief shower to go home and change for work, while she rushed through her morning routine in order not to be late herself.
There was no time to think or try to decide what
the night before had meant.
He called her later that morning, but she was with a client and didn’t get a chance to call him back until midway through what should have been her lunch hour.
“I had hoped we could share lunch,pethi mou , but I see that idea is a washout.”
She looked at the case files dumped on her desk that morning by another counselor before going home ill and sighed. “Unfortunately, yes it is.”
“Dinner tonight? Mama hopes to see you.”
If he hadn’t phrased it like that, she might have said no. She needed some time to get her head together and it wasn’t going to happen during work hours filled with the overbooked caseloads of both herself and her absent coworker. But she liked Hera Christofides. A lot.