but found it hard to think of anything else. Especially when she was so acutely aware of every tiny rustle of sheets or shift in his breathing.
Twenty-four hours. How could so much have happened in that time? How could so much change?
Outside the breeze stirred the leaves in the trees, set the palm fronds rustling, and if she listened hard, she could just hear a faint swoosh as the tiny swell rushed up the shore. But it was so hard to hear anything, so very hard, over the tremulous beating of her heart…
It was happening again. He buried his head under the blanket and put his hands over his ears but it didn’t stop the shouting, or the sound of the blows, or the screams that followed. He cowered under the covers, whimpering, trying not to make too much noise in case he was heard and dragged out too, already dreading what he’d find in the morning at breakfast. If they all made it to breakfast.
There was a crash of furniture, a scream and something smashed, and the blows continued unabated, his mother’s cries and pleas going unheard, until finally, eventually, he heard the familiar mantra, the mantra he knew by heart, even as his mother continued to sob. Over and over he heard his father utter the words telling her he was sorry, telling her he loved her. ‘Signome! Se agapo. Se agapo poli. Signome.’
Sam! Eve woke with a mother’s certainty that something was wrong, bolting from the bed and momentarily disoriented with her new surroundings, only to realise it wasn’t Sam who was in trouble. For in the bed she’d so recently left, Leo was thrashing from side to side, making gravel-voiced mutterings against the mattress, rantings that made no sense in any language she knew, his body glossy with sweat under the moonlight.
He cried out in his sleep, a howl of desperation and helplessness, anguish clear in his tortured limbs and fevered brow as he twisted and writhed. Eve did the only thing she could think of, the only thing she knew helped Sam when he had night terrors. She went to Leo’s side of the bed and sat down softly. ‘It’s okay, Leo,’ she said, sweeping a calming hand over his brow, finding it burning hot. He flnched at her touch, resisting it at first, so she tried to soothe him with her words. ‘It’s okay. It’s all right. You’re safe now. Leo, you’re safe.’
He seemed to slump under her hands, his body slick with sweat, his breathing still hard but slowing, and Eve suspected that whatever demons had invaded his midnight hours had now departed. She went to leave then, to return to her side of the bed, but when she made a move to leave, a hand locked around her wrist and she realised that maybe there were still some demons hanging on.
And just as she would do and had done with Sam when he needed comfort, she slid under the covers alongside the hot body of Leo, putting her arm around him, soothing him back to sleep with the gentle reassurance of another’s touch and trying not to think of the heated presence lying so close to her or the thud of his heart under her hands.
Five minutes should be enough, she figured, until he had settled back into sleep. Five minutes and she’d escape back to her edge of the mattress. Five minutes would be more than enough…
Something was different. She woke to the soft light of the coming dawn, filtering grey through the shutters, and to the sound of birdsong coming from the palms outside. And she woke to the certain knowledge that she had stayed far, far too long. Fingers trailed over her back, making lazy circles on her skin through her thin cotton nightie and setting her skin to tingling, and warm lips nuzzled at her brow as the hand between them somehow managed to brush past her nipples and send spears of electricity to her core.
And she was very, very aroused.
She was also trapped, his heavy arm over her, one leg casually thrown over hers. She tried to wiggle her way out but the movement brought her into contact with a part of him that told her he was also very much aroused. He growled his appreciation, shifted closer, and she tried not to think about how good that part of him had felt inside her.
‘Leo…’ she said, conflicted, her mind in panic, her body in revolt, turning her face up to his, only to be met by his mouth as he dragged her into his long, lazy kiss, a kiss she had no power or intention to cut short even though she knew it was utter madness.
Utter pleasure.
Her senses soared, her flesh tingled and breasts ached for the caress of his clever hands and hot mouth, and arguments that things were complicated enough, that there was no point, that this must end and end badly made little impression against this slow, sensual onslaught.
‘I see you changed your mind,’ he murmured, a brush of velvet against her skin.
‘You had a nightmare.’
‘This,’ he said, sliding one long-fingered hand up the back of her leg, kneading her bottom in his hand, ‘is no nightmare.’
‘Don’t you—’ His mouth cut her off again as his hand captured her breast, working at her nipple, plucking at her nerve endings, making her groan into his mouth with the exquisite pleasure of his caress, emerging breathless and dizzy when it ended so that she almost forgot what she wanted to say. ‘Don’t you remember?’
‘Maybe…’ he said, rolling her under him, pinning her arms to the bed above her head as his head dipped to her throat, ‘maybe right now I’d rather forget.’
She moaned with the wicked pleasure of it all, his hot mouth like a brand against her skin. But this wasn’t supposed to happen. She hadn’t wanted this to happen. But as he lowered his head to her breast and drew in one achingly hard nipple to his mouth, laving it with his hot tongue, blowing on the damp fabric and sending exquisite chills coursing through her, she couldn’t, for the life of her, remember why. Her body was alive with wanting him, alive with the power that came from him and that she craved, and there was no way she could stop.
He let her wrists go, his hands busy at her nightie. She felt the soft fabric lifting as he skimmed his hands up her sides, before skimming down again, taking her underwear with them. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he growled, his voice like a brush of velvet over her bare skin as he pulled it over her head. And yet he was the magnificent one, broad and dark, his erection swaying and bucking over her, a pearl of liquid glistening at its head. Transfixed, unable to stop herself, she reached out her hand and touched it with the pad of her thumb. He uttered something urgent, his dark eyes flared, wild and filled with the same dark need that consumed her as he swiped up his wallet, found what he needed and tossed the wallet away in his rush to be inside her.
He dragged in air, forced himself to slow. ‘You do this to me,’ he accused her softly as he parted her thighs with his hand and found her slick and wet and wanting. ‘You make me rock hard and aching,’ he continued, his fingers circling that tiny nub of nerve endings, a touch so delicious she mewled with pleasure, writhing as sensation built on the back of his words, fuelling her need, fuelling her desperation.
Until at last she felt him nudge her there, hot and hard and pulsing with life as he tensed above her for one tantalising moment of anticipation.
And then joyfully, blissfully, he entered her in one magical thrust and she held him there, at her very core, welcoming him home, tears squeezing from her eyes at the sheer ecstasy of it all.
So much to feel. So much to experience and hold precious. And still the best was to come. The dance, the friction, the delicious moment of tension when he would sit poised at her entrance, before slamming back inside.
She went with him, matched him measure for measure, gasp for gasp as the pace increased, their bodies slick and hot as the rhythm increased, faster, more
