Chapter 15
Costa's face was set in an inscrutable mask as he carried her up the stairs. Tallia wondered if he was regretting his hasty words. She was wondering if she regretted her own, as he shouldered the door to his bedroom open and she saw his massive, king size bed. He set her down lightly by the bed and bent to snap on the light on the bedside table, but nothing happened. Apparently the power had gone out and neither of them noticed while they were downstairs.
Grateful for the semi-darkness, since the open drapes allowed just enough muted, eerie light from the storm for them to see one another, Tallia stood passive while Costa peeled off her clothes and stripped down to his boxers. Now that the time to lose her virginity was at hand she felt terrified. Costa loomed big and dark in front of her, and it did nothing for her peace of mind to know just how big he was all over. Tallia would much rather have remained ignorant until after the fact.
She jerked, as if struck, when he lifted his hands, but all he did was cup her face between his warm palms and kiss her gently. Some of her fear abated as his mouth moved with familiar passion over hers. When he slid an arm around her, she smiled with pleasure as he lifted her up and lay her down in the middle of the mattress and stretched out beside her.
He bent over her and resumed kissing her with unhurried sweetness, splaying one hand across her lower belly and sliding the other under the nape of her neck to tilt her head back, giving him better access to her mouth. She felt his tongue slip between her parted lips to play with hers and Tallia began to relax and grow warm and pliant beneath his tender care.
Rolling towards him, she slid a hand around his lean waist to stroke the smooth, taut skin of his back, loving the way he groaned and moved under her hand like a cat stretching into a caress. Costa pushed a heavy knee between her thighs and lay half on top of her, pressing her back down into the mattress. Tallia lifted her hips curiously, seeking the length of his erection, but he pinned her to the sheet with his leg and withheld the forbidden from her with a low, knowing chuckle.
"So impatient," he purred against her mouth, his hand drifting up to brush her nipples until they stood at attention, straining to meet the stroke of his rough palm.
He pinched the tight buds languidly, softly at first and then hard enough to make her breath catch. When he lowered his head to sooth her aching flesh with his mouth, Tallia sank her fingers into his thick hair and pulled him close, moaning as he suckled her hungrily. She pressed her thighs together around his knee. Her sex was throbbing in reaction to the feel of his mouth at her breast and a warm, wet flood of moisture came pouring from her body.
Thick, calloused fingers were there to catch the slick honey, and Costa groaned against her breast, biting into the satiny mounds of flesh with exquisite restraint. His teeth raked across her skin and paused to nibble on her nipples. Tallia sighed voluptuously, drowning in sweet sensations as his fingers began to tease the wet folds at the opening of her body ever so slowly.
Costa played her like an instrument, strumming her most sensitive points like a master. Each fingertip would pause just long enough to tweak the swollen button of her clitoris, before drifting away to allow another knowing fingertip to caress her, over, and over again. She opened herself up, offering herself to him as she spread her legs and urged him close, slipping her arms around his shoulders and trying to pull him over her. He obliged and settled his narrow hips between her thighs, yet only continued to leisurely suckle her breasts, ignoring the press of her hot, urgent hands on his back.
"Please Costa, please," Tallia panted as the throbbing deep inside her body built to a maddening intensity. She curved her legs over his and rubbed his rock hard calves with her feet, squeezing him between her thighs to the rhythmic pulsing of her greedy sex. Never had she wanted so badly, burned so hot, or felt so mindless with need.
He pushed her legs away, stripped off his boxers and rose above her on his knees. Tallia's mouth ran dry, and she was glad for the dark that hid his penis from her eyes when he spread her thighs wide with his big, hot hands and mounted her. Costa was a huge black shadow as he leaned forward, blotting out everything else in the world. Bracing a hand next to her face, he took her mouth in a kiss bold with possession, his tongue circling her mouth to slick her lips with moisture and then delving inside, as if to show her what he was about to do.
Tallia's breath shuddered out, and she clutched the sheets as anticipation played havoc with her nerves. She was so excited and afraid she could hardly draw breath. She felt something smooth and hard between her legs and then Costa's hips flexed and he entered her. The head of his cock was shockingly wide and Tallia tensed, immediately knowing it was going to hurt.
Costa made soothing sounds over her, his head bent, his body bowed as he carefully eased himself into her. He had one hand between their bodies, and Tallia realized he was holding his shaft to control his penetration when she felt his fist against her sex. He withdrew after squeezing only a few inches inside and then slid back in almost immediately, slipping in with slick ease and then pushing deeper, forcing her to open wider to take more of him. With remarkable patience he rocked back and forth above her for long minutes, giving her time to adjust to the size and feel of him, coaxing her tense muscles to yield to him.
Tallia could appreciate his care as she felt his big body begin to tremble over hers, but the pain did not lessen. The deeper Costa pushed the more it hurt, until she couldn't hold back her whimpers. Her head thrashed on the pillow, and she bit her already battered lip until she tasted blood again, trying unsuccessfully to hide her distress. She knew he was doing everything he could to be gentle and not hurt her.
"Agapate, I'm sorry," he groaned, too focused on her slightest reaction not to know how much she suffered.
"Don't stop," Tallia gasped, afraid he might. She knew it would be worse to have to go through this all over again with the awareness of how much it hurt, if he didn't finish it now. "Just… come inside," she urged, braced for the worst.
Costa cried out harshly and surged deep, his hand moving from his cock to grip her thigh. Tallia stiffened beneath him and grit her teeth as he tore into her, ripping her asunder. She thought the worst was over once he breached her maidenhead, but Costa kept pushing deeper and still deeper. He was long and thickly engorged, stretching her to a degree that was almost intolerable. She could hardly keep her sobs of misery back as he buried himself inside of her like a burning, hot brand.
"Oh Theos, oh Theos!" Costa called out, his voice exalted. He ground his hips into hers, shoving her up the bed so he settled even more solidly inside of her. "Do you feel it? Oh Theos Agapate, do you feel it?" he moaned, shuddering violently, "You were made for me."
Her hands fisted in the sheet, tears squeezing from the corners of her eyes, Tallia wasn't certain she shared that sentiment at all. It hurt and the invasive sense of being filled beyond the point of comfort did not lessen as Costa continued to hold himself inside her. When he planted his hands on either side of her face and stretched his spine above her like a great, lazy beast preparing to pounce, she tensed. His hips were moving back incrementally and he slid out of her on a long, wet rush, hard and quivering eagerly. Tallia whimpered with dread.
"Shhh, shhh, Agapate," Costa soothed sweetly, and he began thrusting in and out of her in a firm, steady rhythm.
He whispered to her in Greek as he rode her slowly for a long time, letting her catch her breath and grow used to his possession. Tallia swallowed her tears and forced herself to lie pliant beneath him, since it hurt less than when she tensed. The pain didn't go away, each thrust brought a sharp, stinging burn.
After a while though, her exhausted muscles grew lax, and she felt a melting sensation seize her as she yielded completely. Costa must have felt it too and praised her lavishly. His body gleamed with sweat as he moved tirelessly above her, and Tallia knew he wasn't going to stop until she either asked him to or experienced an orgasm. His gentle determination moved her, she felt safe with him- special.
Ripples of sensation washed over her, one after another, in a quickening cascade as he drove into her faster and faster. Suddenly everything inside of her drew tight, focused at the point where his body met hers, and the world exploded into a brilliant supernova.
When she floated back down to earth, Costa was lying sprawled on top of her panting wildly. His big body was limp, and he shook forcefully enough to make the bed rock. Feeling raw, yet deliciously sated, Tallia squirmed out from under him to wrap her arms around him, cradling Costa tenderly against her as his breathing settled and he drifted off into sleep.
He felt big and hot- her man, curled boneless against her, his thick hair falling across his brow as he nuzzled his face into the valley between her breasts and murmured her name in his dreams. Her husband, she reminded herself and giggled against his sweat slick shoulder at the preposterousness of that notion.
Costa woke a few hours later when the light on his bedside table flickered on. A smug smile curved his lips before he even turned his head to see the woman who shared his bed. The only woman who had ever been in this bed, he thought with soul deep satisfaction.
Tallia lay like a mussed angel, her cheeks delicately flushed with sleep, her mouth swollen and red, pin straight hair a bristly cloud of silver with bits sticking up in every direction. She looked as if she had taken a hard landing when she fell from heaven. He grinned at the thought, sitting up in bed with energy to burn, the sight of her revitalizing him.
Reaching out, he tugged a strand of hair free from the corner of her mouth, where it had become trapped between her wide, bruised lips. Recalling everything that passed between them earlier, he couldn't regret a moment of it since she was now here in his bed, the future Mrs. Eustakhios. He grinned with delight at the thought, silently congratulating himself for performing probably his greatest feat of negotiating, down in his breakfast room of all places, by getting this lovely creature to agree to be his wife.
After beating himself up all day for being an unworthy bastard, he set out to have a perfectly normal, civilized meal with Tallia. He was determined to be polite, perhaps even charming, but to keep his distance at all cost. Of course that plan went straight to hell the moment he laid eyes on her, standing so adorably uncertain in the door to the breakfast room with a fresh coat of pale, glossy plum colored polish on her gorgeous toenails. It was a miracle he hadn't had her for dinner, right there on the damn table, she got him so hot with just one shy glance from beneath that uneven fringe of silver blond hair.
She continued to drive him wild during dinner with her flirting – Brigitte indeed! No man could resist a woman with such a mix of tart humor and total honesty. Though she might be shy, Tallia was remarkably self-possessed. She knew her mind and what she wanted and was stubborn enough not to back down.
What she wanted tonight was him, Costa thought, and how the hell was a man supposed to say no to a fairy-angel who watched him with hungry, lavender colored eyes through long, flirty lashes. Certainly not when the woman kissed like Tallia did. She tied his guts in a knot as easily as she had that cherry stem.
He had been so addled by lust and guilt that it didn't occur to him, until he was rubbing himself against her like a horny kid with the hottest girl in school behind the bleachers, that he wanted Tallia. He had wanted her from the moment he saw her. Whereas he had only felt lust before, now that he knew her, Costa wanted her for a lot more than just sex. He wanted to care for her, treasure her, cherish her, all those things he knew she deserved.
It struck him as he told her he wouldn't deflower her, that he was leaving the door open from some other man to do the deed. Costa knew he was not the selfless type. It wasn't in his nature to deny himself what he wanted. He was unabashedly egotistic and possessive.
Why shouldn't it be me worshipping Tallia? He had asked himself. Why can’t I enjoy her dreamy smiles and steamy glances? Why can’t it be me kissing those gorgeous lips and sharing my life with her?
The thought of some other man taking her to bed and making her his settled the matter. Right then and there, with her shoved up against the breakfast room wall, his mind was made up- he was keeping her. She would be his little English faerie, his wife. He would spend every night staring at her across the dinner table, exchanging silly banter, and sharing their lives. He wanted it, that intimacy with her, the right to call her his and know what was on her mind, the privilege of having her near and turning to her when he needed her.
Costa was fairly shocked by the ferocity with which he needed her and the strange conviction that this was what he had wanted all along. It felt as if his instinctive attraction to her, his recognition that she was his mate, had been driving his actions and making him behave totally out of character, like a over-possessive lunatic, since she came to Seleni.
He was Greek enough to believe in fate, and it seemed to him that Tallia was meant to be his all along. Now all that remained was getting his ring on her finger and spending the rest of his life making sure she never regretted marrying him.
Brushing his fingertips lightly over her cheek, he realized he really didn't care why he felt the way he did. She was here, and that she remained here with him was all that really mattered.
Tallia's eyes drifted slowly open as he dragged his fingers down across her lips, tracing the shape of her wide, elegantly formed mouth. Costa gave her a brilliant smile, putting everything he was feeling into his expression. He kissed her then, long and slow, and made love to her once more with infinite care. Using all the skill he possessed, he made certain she experienced as much pleasure as he could possibly give her, until she lay sleeping in his arms again, a dainty hand resting over his heart.
For Your Love Only Page 17