perfect synchronization of the lovers’ dance, her body shifted to fit against his. She focused on every nuance of the moment, skin touching skin, hard unyielding muscles pressing against soft flesh.
His hand rested on her hip, unmoving, light, yet his touch sent heat spiraling to her core. Her hand found a natural perch on his broad shoulder.
It felt right. Perfect.
It felt like forever.
But all it could ever be was now.
For the passion blazing between them would be doused the moment he learned she was Edouard Bellamy’s daughter.
KIRA shifted to make more room for him, her muscles clenching deep inside her as he slid a hair-roughened thigh between hers. She trailed a hand up his muscular arm and over his shoulder, savoring the bunch of strength beneath his hot, smooth skin.
“Make love with me,” she said, her hand trekking down his chest to rub a palm over his hardened nipples, feeling his body quicken.
His eyes flared with lust, his hand shifting to caress her with slow, agonizing strokes. “But of course.”
Yet he made no move to hurry things along. Desperation sizzled in her. She wanted all he had to give now, to sink into him before she had time to analyze this driving need building and building within her. But he was clearly in no hurry.
His big hand glided down the back of her thigh and she squirmed, begging for him to touch her intimately. Instead, his hand meandered back up to her waist, and she dug her fingers into his shoulders as need rocked through her again, her body quivering like jelly.
His fingers splayed over her stomach and a different emotion gripped her, so sharp and new that it shrank her world to what mattered most: him, her and their child.
The tense expression on his face made her wonder if he felt the same. If he felt anything at all except lust and the need to maintain control.
Their child. Could he love their baby?
She closed her eyes, wishing she knew, wishing her emotions weren’t so intense and raw with André, wishing what they’d shared was based on love instead of passion.
A child didn’t have to be conceived in love to be loved. She would adore her baby—she already did. For once in her life, she’d have someone to love her in return.
But how would André fit into this tidy family?
Kira bit her lip, fearing he’d regard their child much like her father had treated her. She’d been a responsibility he hadn’t wanted, yet he’d assumed her care at a young age and placed her in boarding school.
Strangers had raised her, praised her, nourished her as best they could. When the other students had gone home on holiday, she’d been shuffled off to a posh hotel in London and watched by a nanny. She’d never shared a birthday or Christmas with family. Never had anyone who cared about her.
That was why her child would know that he or she was loved. Her child would have a home. Security. A mother. A father?
“What is going on in that pretty head of yours?” he asked.
Us, she wanted to say, but knew that would spoil the moment. So she tucked that truth away with her other secret, that made this dream a challenge to attain.
“I was thinking how good this felt,” she said, and it did.
“It gets better.”
His hand swept up her ribs, leaving a trail of shivers in its wake. He palmed one breast, his thumb rubbing over the nipple until it throbbed.
She arched against him, craving his touch, craving him. Their future was as substantial as the tropical haze that hung in the dense valleys, but she ached to get lost in the sultry mist with him once more.
His head lowered a fraction. She met him halfway, their mouths brushing once, twice, before melding—a teasing glide of lips and tongues that sent a hum of need vibrating through her. She squirmed, desperate to get closer, to rub against the heat of his sex.
He obliged, grinding against her and making the hammock swing erratically. Her stomach did an odd quiver—and not a pleasant one.
She pulled back, gulping. “This might not be a good idea.”
He went still, his intense eyes narrowing to convey his patience would not tolerate any of her machinations now. “You no longer wish to make love?”
She shook her head and let her own hands drift around his torso to trace the tense muscles on his back and the deep indentation of his spine. “Not here. This hammock is a rather unstable bed.” And her stomach tended to get queasy.
More so since the jaunt to Noir Creux. She was also a bit light-headed, though looking up into André’s magnetic eyes chased both symptoms away.
A slow smile curved his sensuous lips, and raw desire flared in his dark eyes, the combination leaving her breathless for what was to come. “But I thought you enjoyed taking risks.”
“Never.” Though she was taking a monstrous one now. “I’m a very proper Englishwoman. Brisk walks along well-trod paths and the like.”
“How boring.”
And so very lonely. But she wouldn’t admit that. She’d never revealed this awful emptiness that dwelled within her to another soul. She held close the fact that with him she’d felt a connection and purpose she’d never felt before. She knew no matter how good it seemed now, their affair was tenuous at best.
“Kiss me again,” she said, tangling her fingers in his hair and pulling him to her.
“With pleasure.”
His mouth was sheer heaven, his kiss so deep and drugging that she couldn’t think anymore. Just feel. His taste, his power, his passion were more potent than any drug.
His tongue parried with hers while his hands pillaged her body, molding her breasts, teasing the nipples until she was reeling from want. She arched against him, finding small relief as she rubbed against the hard wall of his chest like a cat in heat.
Sensations crashed within her, her heart swelling with love, her body crying for release. She was drunk on him, torturing herself with a need that the world couldn’t contain.
She spread her legs wider and he settled fully against her, his engorged sex hot and hard on her belly. A whimper tore from her, for she needed him in her, filling her. She needed the connection of another soul dancing with hers.
Arching against him only intensified her frustrations, so she wrapped her legs around his hips and ground against him. She was done with the torment—done with the waiting.
His mouth left hers with a gasp, the eyes staring into hers near black. He whispered in French, his voice low, pausing to nuzzle her ear, lap at the lobe, then tug it with his teeth, sending liquid heat rushing through her.
I
