by Lucy Monroe
“You are looking at me as if I am a snake ready to bite.”
She bit her lip. “More like a tree trunk ready to impale.”
He laughed out loud, his head going back as amusement shook his tall frame. “You are priceless, Ellie.”
Her heart squeezed. To see him like this was so rare andshe had made it happen. It increased her sense of being special to him.
He was still grinning, looking at her. “You know we fit. Perfectly.”
“Yes.”
“But you still look nervous.”
“I am, a little.”
“Let me see what I can do about that.” He moved toward the bed and the closer he got the faster her heart sped.
He stopped when his knees pressed against the end of the mattress and reached down to take one of her feet in his hand. He slid the sandal off. “Did you know that there are numerous pleasure points in your feet?”
She shook her head, her throat suddenly too dry to speak.
He cupped her heel in his big palm and used his other hand to massage her arch, sending pleasure arcing through her.
She gasped and moaned, her head falling back against the bed. “I do now.”
He chuckled. “You like it?”
Her only answer was a moan as he found one of the pleasure points he’d mentioned. He massaged both feet thoroughly, pressing between her toes and making her squirm with feelings that did not resemble ticklishness in the least. It was both strange and wonderful to have a gorgeous naked Greek caressing her feet while the rest of her body was still fully covered. It was also highly erotic.
Slowly his touch moved up her legs, finding sensitive dips and hollows on her ankles and behind her knees. One spot had her keening his name and arching off the bed.
“You are so beautiful in your passion, Ellie.”
“I’ve never felt like this before,” she gasped.
“I am glad.”
She was, too. Once again the word special came to her mind, but she still had no idea if what they felt was out of the ordinary for him.
But his fingers had just the slightest tremor as they made their way under her skirt. “Your skin is like satin, so smooth and soft. So perfect, Elliemou .”
He massaged her, working his way to her inner thighs and touching flesh that felt as private as her feminine center. In a way it was. No other person touched her thighs like this. She’d never thought about it before, but many parts of her body were actually pretty private and Sandor would touch them all.
He caressed her there, not even slipping a fingertip under the elastic band of her panties and her pleasure grew until she was making little mewling sounds and had spread her legs in silent, begging invitation for more. But he slid his hands back down her legs.
She made a sound of distress and he smiled. “It is time to remove your skirt, I think.”
She was more than willing and cooperated by arching off the bed so he could undo the zip and slide it down her hips inch by excruciating inch. It wasn’t tight and the lining was smooth so it slid easily, but he was drawing out the unveiling. That’s what it felt like. An unveiling.
“You make me feel like you’re unwrapping a present, but it’s the only one you’ve got on Christmas morning, so you’re taking a long time with it.” She could barely speak above a whisper…she could barely speak at all.
“You are a precious gift to me.”
The words warmed something deep inside her that had always been cold. That place that needed to be treasured by someone, to know that she held a unique place in someone’s heart and life. She’d always thought that if she disappeared from her father’s life, he wouldn’t even notice. Not really.
But while she might not have a special place in Sandor’s heart, he was showing her that he intended her to have a special place in his life. That was better than what she’d had for so long, she almost blurted out her agreement to marry him right there. But some tiny lingering sense of self-preservation stopped her.
Making a decision like this during lovemaking would be stupid. She’d done that once before and she wasn’t making that mistake again.
She was panting and ready to rip the rest of her clothes off herself by the time he was done with her skirt, though.
He stayed her hands when she tried. “Not yet. You promised,pethi mou .”
Had she promised, or simply acquiesced? It didn’t matter. She would let him continue because the pleasure was so intense and so was he.
He ran one fingertip along the top edge of her lacy bikini briefs that matched her cream lace bra. “Very nice.”
“I don’t wear thongs,” she said almost apologetically. But she’d worn this particular set with the thought in the back of her mind that as much as she’d known it might not be smart to invite him to her bed a second night in a row, he might end up there anyway.
And here he was.
“These are quite sexy enough.” He dipped one fingertip under the elastic of the waistband. “But I am eager to see you naked.”
“Then take them off.”
“Not yet.”
She pouted for the second time in remembrance.
He pounced, blanketing her body and taking her mouth with a storm of passion that had her arching under him and rubbing the silk clad apex of her thighs against his heated manhood.
He broke the kiss, panting. “You are dangerous, you know that?”
“I like that.”
“You are so far from prim, my little Boston princess.”
“My wild side only comes out with you.”
“As it should be.”
It was her turn to laugh. “Your arrogance is showing again.”
He shrugged and moved to straddle her thighs so he could start unbuttoning her top. He watched intently as her torso was revealed. She warmed under his gaze, but her own was snagged by the body straddling her. She reached out to touch him, wrapping her fingers around his erection.
The feel of his heated flesh against her hand was so incredible. “It’s like satin over steel.”
“It feels like steel,” he growled.
She smiled and caressed him from top to bottom.
He moaned and she echoed the sound. There was something ferociously arousing about having the freedom to touch him like this. His velvet length jumped in her hand, throbbing against her fingers. But he didn’t stop what he was doing.
He made her sit up to remove her suit top and undo the catch on her bra before pulling it off, too. She couldn’t help noticing this unveiling had gone much faster than her skirt. Touching him was having its effect.
Naked skin pressed against naked skin and their heat mingled while frissons of sensation sparkled along every point of contact. She squeezed his hardness in reflexive action.
He groaned low and long. “You are dangerous.”
“You said that.”
“It is true.”
“I think we are dangerous together.”
He pushed her back onto the bed.
She met his gaze, her own determined. “I want you now, Sandor. No more games.”
“This is no game,pethi mou .”
And it felt all too serious when one hand cupped her breast, the thumb brushing over her nipple while his other hand clasped her shoulder, holding her body in place as she tried to arch off the bed at the contact.
She moaned, unbearably aroused by his refusal to let her move. She didn’t understand why it should be so, or why he felt the need to keep her still. But it didn’t matter. Because it was the way it was and it was so intense she could barely stand it.
Her eyelashes fluttered shut and all she could do was feel. Feel his hard thighs straddling her hips. Feel his hands both cupping her breasts now, teasing the rigid tips with his thumbs. She didn’t try to move as if they had made a silent agreement for her not to do so. Gently he pinched, then pulled the hard nubs until she wanted to scream.
“Please don’t stop,” she whispered into the dark void behind her eyelids.
She cont
inued to feel. Feel the pleasure-tension spiraling inside her. Feel her body suffuse with heat and need that grew so big she felt like it would explode out of her before he ever made her his. The scent of their arousal surrounded her as did his personal fragrance.
She could hear her own panting exhalations and his harsh breathing, both sounds like an internal caress that added to the desire coiling tighter and tighter within her. He shifted and the darkness behind her eyelids grew more acute as if she was in his shadow. Then his mouth was on hers—first devouring, then tenderly teasing and then devouring again.
He played on all of her senses, building her to a fever pitch and then drawing her back again. Repeating the process over and over again, but he was right. It was all much too intense to be called a game.
This man was determined to show her that they fit. That their bodies were perfect complements for each other, or maybe simply that his body could give her more pleasure than any other man would ever be able to.
She had no doubts as she writhed under him.
“Sandor! Please…” But she didn’t know what she was pleading for. Completion? Or more of this maddening pleasure?
Sandor’s heart contracted at the sound of his name whispered so desperately on Ellie’s lips. She was so passionate. So responsive. In every way she fit him. Soon she would understand that truth as well.
He laved the sweet hollow in her throat. “You are so perfect for me,pethi mou ,” he said gutturally.
Her head was twisting on the pillow, but he knew she was not denying him. She was simply beyond the ability to respond verbally. And he had brought her to this state.
Pride surged through him. She had not been a virgin, as she had said she wasn’t, but her responses were too overwhelming for her to have ever known what she felt with him with another man. She had said it was different for her, that she had not known this and he believed her.
In this way, he knew he was her first and for no reason he could logically explain, that was very important to him. He had never considered himself a possessive man when it came to his female companions, but then he had never made love to a woman with the intention of claiming her for a lifetime, either.
He moved back off her thighs and removed the last scrap of cloth standing between her and total nudity. No time to draw it out. No will to do so. It was time to claim her. He made quick work of donning protection.
He was pushing her thighs apart, preparing to enter her when he realized he wished to be claimed as well. He did not want mere compliance about this marriage thing. He wanted Ellie to be sure of him. To want more than his body.
For a moment in that bed, the small boy who had withstood the taunts of other children in his small Greek village because he had no father broke through Sandor’s adult armor. He needed to know he belonged.
He looked down at Ellie. “Do you want me inside you?” He stopped moving…stopped touching…and waited.
Her eyes fluttered open. The deep-blue green of the Mediterranean stared at him, shiny and damp with emotion. “Yes, Sandor, only you…inside me.”
How did she know those were the words he needed? How had she known to clarify…to use thatonly? That small child inside him, the one who had determined at an age so young he could no longer remember it to be everything others thought he was not—important, powerful, strong—that child knew that Sandor needed that wordonly . His being important to this woman was key to healing wounds he had refused to acknowledge were even there since before they ever left Greece for America.
“You belong to me, Ellie.”
“Yes.” Her gazed locked with his. “Only you.”
He surged inside her, feeling as if for the first time, he had come home. Her body jolted, clenched around him and then she climaxed with a scream as primal as any mating cry. He let her body soak all the joy from that moment it could before he began to move, building the momentum again with thrusts that sealed her as his own.
“Sandor…I can’t…it’s too much.”
He didn’t stop, but rotated his pelvis with each thrust. “You can, Ellie. Give me the gift of your pleasure. Come for me, my own.”
Her head went back, her heels dug into the mattress and she exploded as he found his own release. His arms barely had the strength to hold his weight off of her and when she tugged him down, he had no reserves to protect her.
She did not seem to mind, but mumbled sweet nothings against his neck, telling him how amazing he was, what an incredible lover, how strong, how perfect. She even told him he was beautiful and while he would never admit it out loud, he liked hearing all the praise from her sweet mouth. Even those words.
“I have to take care of the condom,” he muttered at some point.
She smiled, letting her arms slip to the bed and nodded. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“You know.”
“No, I do not.”
“For not trying to trap me.”
Did she really think him so weak he would resort to trickery to win his case? He had no need for tricks like that and with his background, even if he feared she would not come around otherwise, he would never use them.
Besides, she’d admitted she belonged to him.
When he came back into the bedroom after washing up, she was snuggled under the covers, barely conscious. She made no demur when he climbed into bed beside her.
He pulled her into his arms. “You belong to me, Ellie.”
“Sandor…”
“Do not deny it.” He rolled her onto her back and looked down at her. “You acknowledged my place in your life when we made love.”
Her blue-green gaze slid away from him, then she sighed and met his eyes. “I don’t deny that my body belongs to you, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to wear your ring, Sandor.”
So much for being barely conscious. She looked ready to fall asleep any second, but she was thinking clearly enough to argue.
Frustration roared through him at her words. “What does it mean then?”
“That I doubt I’ll ever let another man into my bed, but I don’t know if I can spend the rest of my life with you.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? He sat up and glared down at her, the small light given off by the bedside lamp illuminating an unfathomable feminine expression. “If you will not give yourself to another man, how can you deny my place beside you?”
“I’m notdenying anything. Please believe me. I’m just not…just not confirming it.”
“Semantics.”
“No…Sandor…truth. I told you I needed time.”
“But after what we have just done—”
Her finger pressed against his lips to silence him. “It was wonderful, Sandor. The most special experience of my life. Please don’t ruin it by starting an argument.” Her eyes shone with a vulnerability he could not fight.
He nipped her finger gently in retaliation and she pulled it away, but not before he’d laved it with a healing tongue kiss. Still, he growled, “I am not the one arguing here.”
Were all women this confusing, or just her? He’d never spent much time trying to understand the workings of the female mind. The only one who had ever mattered enough to him was his mother and that relationship was in no way similar.
Her aqua-blue eyes were filled with feelings he could not identify. “I’m not arguing. I’m scared, Sandor. I don’t want to be hurt.”
“I will not hurt you.”
“But you will. You can’t help it.” Her eyes drooped as exhaustion overtook her, but the words kept coming as if the thought behind them was so ingrained she did not need to be fully alert to express it. “You don’t love me. That is going to cause me pain. I have to decide if it’s going to be worse than the pain of letting you go.”
He could not believe what he was hearing. “Damn it, I will not hurt you.”
“You won’t be able to help it.” She sounded so sad.
And it made him furious. There was no need. “You tell me what yo
u need and I will make sure you have it.” To him, it was that simple. Why could she not see it?
“You can’t.”
“I can do anything.”
Her lips curled in a small, melancholy smile. “I know you believe that, but it’s not true. You can’t give me the most important thing of all.”
“What is so important?”
“Your love.”
He felt like he’d been kicked in the chest, but didn’t know why. “I can give you everything you need.” He knew it was true. “If you want affection, I will give it to you. If you want gifts, I will buy them for you. If you want companionship, it will be yours. There is nothing I will withhold from you.”