every sensible thought from his brain. So what if she was a liar and a cheat? At that moment he did not give a damn, and he brought his lips to hers again.
Slowly, warmth coursed through her veins again, until her whole body was on fire for him. Somewhere in the darkest reaches of her brain she remembered she should be wary, but instead she marvelled at her own response as his mouth moved gently against hers in several nibbling little kisses that threatened to draw the breath from her body.
‘You are so beautiful,’ he murmured, burying his face in her hair. ‘You’re the most perfect woman I have ever seen.’
‘No,’ Eloise murmured but her voice was shaky, and when Marcus brushed the hair away from her neck, and began kissing his way down her neck, lingering on the pulse that beat madly beneath her pale skin, she moaned.
‘Yes,’ Marcus whispered, and kissed her again.
Involuntarily her lips parted to accept the persuasive invasion of his tongue. She trembled, both hands clutching desperately at his broad shoulders, her feminine form reaching out, reacting to the lure of his potent sensuality.
Her breasts were swollen, her nipples tight aching buds, and she writhed against the hard male body, painfully aware of the restriction of the two fine layers of fabric preventing the flesh-on-flesh contact she craved.
His tongue delved deeper in her mouth, and he kissed with a fierce sexual passion that made every cell in her body pulsate in one tumultuous flood of feeling. If he had not been holding her, she would have collapsed.
A sharp whimper of need escaped her as he lifted his dark head; his eyes, black as jet, stared down into hers, and then he deliberately moved against her, letting her feel the hard evidence of his arousal. ‘The bedroom, Eloise.’ One hand slipped round to cup her breast. ‘Say yes,’ he husked, as his thumb stoked the rigid tip through the soft silk covering.
She heard the words and she knew what he was asking; and in a flash of blinding clarity she knew this was her one chance for love. Her one chance to know a man—and not just any man, but Marcus. The only man she had ever loved.
She leant into the hard heat of him, and twined her arms around his neck. ‘Yes,’ she breathed unsteadily, as he swept her off her feet and carried her into the bedroom.
The room was in semi-darkness; only a bedside lamp shed a small pool of light over a large king-sized bed. The bed penetrated her haze of passion and fear flickered in her eyes but, before she could mouth the words of protest that trembled on her tongue, Marcus laid her down on the bed, stripping her skirt and top from her heated body in between kisses with a deftness that left her breathless.
She started to get up and stopped as, with stunning speed, Marcus shed his clothes. Half fascinated, half fearful, she could not tear her gaze away from his naked form. Shaking, she rested on her elbows. He was so perfect, so magnificently male, a tanned, hard, muscular chest with a light dusting of black hair that tapered down over a flat stomach, and lower… She gulped and swallowed hard, her green eyes flying back to his face as he joined her on the bed.
He loomed over her, his handsome face above hers taut, his dark eyes black and gleaming with a passion, a fire that reminded her of the past.
She was nineteen again and reached up for him, and then his mouth was hot, demanding everything with such hungry intensity she knew she should be frightened. But she did not have time to be afraid as caressing fingers curved around her breasts, and then hot hard kisses trailed down her throat, and a hungry male mouth fastened over the peak of one perfectly formed breast. Her back arched and she groaned out loud as he rendered the same treatment to her other breast.
‘You like that,’ Marcus rasped.
Eloise whispered his name as she wound her arms tightly around his neck. Her hands stroked his silken hair, and down over his powerful shoulders. Then he captured her mouth again in a long drugging kiss. When he broke the kiss and reared back, her slender arms fell from his shoulders and she felt bereft. Instinctively, she reached out to rest her hands on his chest. Her need to touch him was uncontrollable.
Breathing heavily, Marcus quickly removed the last barrier of delicate lacy briefs and stared down at her. She was so exquisite, so beautiful, her high round breasts with perfect deep rose peaks that begged for a man’s mouth, the smooth curve of her waist, the feminine flare of her hips, and the red curling crest that he had ached for so long to discover. He wanted her, he wanted to touch, to taste every inch of her, to bury himself deep in the hot moist centre of her, until she cried out his name in ecstasy and she was truly his.
He closed his hands over hers and lifted them above her head, as he slowly lowered his head and kissed her mouth until it opened to his. He rubbed his chest against her breasts, glorying in the friction, and triumphant at her shuddering response. He cupped her breasts in his hands and rolled each taut nipple between his fingers. His black eyes sought hers, and he murmured, ‘Perfect.’
Eloise had never imagined such pleasure existed, and she moved blindly against him. His hand slipped down to her belly and lower to her thighs, and she tensed.
Marcus sensed some resistance beneath Eloise’s headlong response, and he vowed he would wait even if it killed him. He had once promised her it would be perfect and he intended to fulfil the promise. He bent his head towards her and tongued each rigid-tipped breast, and then drew her flesh in his mouth.
Eloise gasped his name, ‘Marcus,’ as his fingers gently stroked between her thighs, slowly, lightly. She felt electric shock-waves of sensation jolting through her body; she wanted him, and she wanted to cry out, but instead she pressed her mouth to his throat and bit down in a fever of frustration.
Marcus stifled a groan and the swift kiss he pressed on her love-swollen lips turned into a savage duelling of tongues, as his long fingers parted the petals of her womanhood and found the hot, damp, velvet flesh throbbing, waiting for him…
He touched her gently, softly, fast then slow, until her hips arched towards him, and her hands dug into his shoulders and she was calling out his name.
Eloise shook violently, a fierce tension she had never experienced before jerking her every nerve and muscle tight, driving every single thought from her head, and leaving only a fiery need that was almost pain. ‘Please,’ she moaned, her head thrashing from side to side. His hands slipped under her hips and lifted her clear of the bed. She felt the velvet tip of his hard male flesh stroke and then with one thrust he was there, where she wanted him to be.
Eloise felt the briefest of pains, and then it happened. Marcus’s great body stilled for a second in disbelief.
She moaned his name and he moved deep and hard, filling her, stretching her, and taking her on a wild journey of almost mystical proportion. She felt the mighty strength of him thrusting, driving her on, until she cried out as her slender body convulsed in a paroxysm of sensation, and he joined with her until she had lost all sense of self, and the two of them became one perfect whole.
Afterwards she lay in his arms and felt the light caress of his fingertips against her sweat-damped flesh, soothing and caressing; he was murmuring husky words in Greek she did not understand. She sighed her delight, then tensed as his fingers found the ridge of flesh forming a scar on her inner thigh.
‘What is this?’ Marcus asked lazily, leaning over her and, by the dim light, let his slumberous eyes sweep over her beautiful naked body to where his fingers had found a small ridge of flesh. One long shapely leg had a scar about four inches long almost at the top.
‘Nothing.’
