mouth was warm, his tongue an erotic instrument as he teased the pulsing cord, savoured it, then used the edge of his teeth to take delicate nips from the sensitive hollows.
She made one last-ditch effort at protest, only to have it die in her throat as he turned her fully into his arms and covered her mouth with his own.
One hand lifted to cup her nape while the other slid down her back and pressed her close against him.
His arousal was a potent force, and she felt her bones begin to melt as liquid fire coursed through her veins. Each sensory nerve-end was heightened to acute awareness, and her body leaned in close to his as he deepened the kiss to an imitation of the sexual act itself.
Anneke wanted to feel his flesh, taste him in a tactile exploration that would drive him wild. Her fingers slid to the opening of his shirt, freed each button, then she trailed butterfly kisses across his chest, tangled her tongue in the whorls of hair, took possession of one male nipple, and suckled.
His body shuddered, then tautened as firm hands clasped hold of her waist, and it was she who cried out as he lifted her onto the servery, then parted her thighs and positioned himself between them.
His eyes were dark and impossibly slumberous as he tugged her top free from her jeans, then pulled it over her head. The bra clip slipped open with ease, and he slid the straps down her arms and dispensed with the scrap of silk and lace.
Then he buried his face in the valley between her breasts and caressed the soft curves, tormented and teased each roseate peak, then trailed a path down to her navel.
Her jeans were a barrier he dispensed with with ease, tugging them free and dropping them onto the floor.
He kissed her, gently at first, then with an increasingly demanding possession, and when he at last lifted his head she could only look at him in shaken silence.
Sebastian didn’t have to ask. The unspoken question was apparent in his stance, the liquid darkness of his eyes, the curve of his mouth.
A slight shudder ran through her body. If she turned away now, she’d never know his touch. And she wanted to, badly.
Not just the physical. She wanted more, much more than that. His heart, his soul. Everything.
Maybe, just maybe, she should take the gamble and run with it. Let emotions take her wherever he led.
A week could be a lifetime. And better to experience a week of heaven than never to experience it at all.
Slowly she reached out and slid her fingers to his nape, where a clip fastened the leather strip that bound his hair. Her eyes never left his as she slipped it free. Then she forked her fingers through the silken river of black, and spread it out so that it flowed onto his shoulders.
It gave him a rakish look that was pure pagan, primitive, and it was a gesture she’d wanted to make ever since she’d first stepped into this kitchen and found him making tea.
His smile was slow and infinitely sensual as he copied her actions, releasing the thin elastic band at the base of her plait, then threading his fingers through the length of her hair.
It was the expression in his eyes that made her catch her breath and caused her pulse to quicken to a much faster beat.
‘I think,’ she said shakily, ‘you’d better take me out of the kitchen and into the bedroom.’
He played the game, teasing her gently. ‘You think so?’
‘Otherwise I may never be able to cook or serve food in here again.’
Sebastian laughed. A deep, husky sound that curled into the recesses of her heart. ‘Put your arms round my neck.’
Anneke did as she was told, and he kissed her long and deep, then he carried her through to the bedroom, switched on the light, and let her slide down to her feet.
In one easy movement he sought the pocket of his jeans, extracted a slim foil square and slipped it beneath one pillow.
Mesmerised, she stood still as he popped the studs on his jeans, then shucked them off. The thin covering of black silk sheathing his manhood followed, and her eyes widened at the sight of him.
His was a savage beauty. Primal, powerful. A man who could show great strength, even cruelty. Yet there was a tenderness apparent, an acute caring for those who were sufficiently fortunate to win his trust, his love.
Sebastian reached for her, pulling her in close as he tumbled them both down onto the bed. He was hungry for her, wanting, needing to sheath himself in the silken sweetness of woman. Not just any woman. This woman.
He needed to show her the difference. Knew, hoped, that she would know.
Anneke let her fingers splay over taut muscles at his shoulders, trailed them to explore his ribcage, then slid down over his flanks to urge him close.
‘Non, mon ange. We are just beginning.’
He took pleasure in the tasting of her skin, every inch of it, with the pads of his fingers, his lips. And felt her pulse quicken, her breath become erratic and fast.
Her body began to feel like the strings of a finely tuned violin, his touch creating magic that reverberated along each nerve fibre until her whole being sang to a tune that had never been played.
The feeling was so intense she could hardly bear it, and her hands became more urgent as she began to plead with him to ease the ache deep within.
He soothed her as she arched against him, caressing the moist heat with a touch that brought her to one explosive climax after another.
It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, and she became a wild wanton in his arms, pliant, bewitching, his.
He entered her slowly, allowing the silken tissues to stretch to accommodate him, then he drove forward with one powerful thrust.
Anneke gasped at the level of penetration, absorbed it, then met and matched his rhythm, unable to prevent the soft guttural cries that escaped her lips as he took her higher and higher to the brink, held her there, then caught her when she fell. And kissed the light tears as they trickled from her eyes.
Sebastian curled her close in the circle of his arms, and she dozed for a while, then stirred at the movement of a hand sliding low over one hip.
He was asleep. His breathing hadn’t changed. She began a slow, tactile exploration of her own, skimming over warm skin, strong muscle and sinew to his pelvis, lightly examining the faint hollow, the keloid puckering of a surgical scar.
She let her fingers trail up over his ribcage to the dark smattering of hair on his chest. Hair that was light and springy, and different in texture from the glossy length he wore bound at his nape.
More than anything she wanted to explore the angles and planes of his sculpted features, the chiselled cheekbones, the hard jaw, the sensitive lines of his mouth.
Most of all she wanted to wake him. To feel again the power of his body as he joined it with hers. The acutely intense spiral of sensation that mixed pleasure with pain, then transcended both to rapturous ecstasy.
He’d
