into his senses.
Everything about this woman was delicate and faultless. Were it not for the warmth of her soft skin and the slight trembles he saw vibrating through her, he could have believed she was made from porcelain.
He traced his fingers across her oval jawline then dragged them down the elegant neck, lingering at the pulse throbbing at the spot before he reached her collarbone and took the one step needed to do what he had spent the entire evening hungering to do.
He brought his face down and captured her heart-shaped lips in his.
Another bolt of electricity rocketed through him, far stronger than the first, crashing hot through his veins and skin with a buzz that must have seeped through him, for Tabitha jolted too.
Pulling back slightly so their lips were barely touching, he opened his eyes and found hers fixed on him, a dazed expression shining at him. The fingers resting on his jaw had frozen.
The walls around him began to spin, heat flowing through him so fast and so thick he wondered if he had drunk more than he’d thought.
He found he didn’t care.
Champagne, desire or a combination of both, at that moment he wanted this woman more than he had ever wanted anyone or anything.
Sliding an arm around her waist, he pulled her to him and moulded his mouth to hers, exploring the plump softness of her lips, then parting them to dart his tongue inside and explore the hot champagne-scented depths.
Tabitha succumbed to her very first kiss feeling like she’d fallen into a dream.
The whole night had been a dream.
But this...
It was mesmerising.
She met the strokes of his tongue tentatively at first but the heat bubbling inside her being fed by his heavenly kisses grew at a ferocious pace and smothered any inhibitions she should have had.
Grabbing at the soft leather of his swallowtail jacket to keep her suddenly boneless legs upright, she arched into the hard contours of his body and moved the hand clutched at his cheek to hook tightly around his neck.
She felt intoxicated, could feel the blood pumping in the veins of her mouth and moving relentlessly through the rest of her, heating wherever his firm hands swept over her.
She only realised he’d unpinned her hair when it spilled down over them.
He broke the kiss to turn his face into her hair and breathed it in deeply before bringing both hands to her face and smoothing the hair back.
His eyes had darkened, his hunger for her so stark that her stomach contracted.
Never had she imagined that this man would look at her with such desire in his eyes.
Before this night she hadn’t imagined Giannis would ever look at her.
When his mouth found hers again, the kiss harder and hungrier, fresh heat assailed her, threading through the very fabric of her being, and she tightened her hold around him, suddenly aching for him to rip the beautiful but constricting dress from her burning, sensitised skin.
As if his mind was aligned with her own, Giannis lifted her effortlessly into his arms, the motion making her belly swoop.
The world’s biggest rollercoaster could not have had a greater effect. Or felt a fraction as heady.
The feelings rippling through her were like nothing she had even suspected could exist. Her world—her universe—had shrunk so it contained only Giannis.
He carried her to the bedroom and set her down gently on her feet beside the bed.
During that short walk he’d turned the bedroom light off so they were illuminated only by the light pouring in from his bathroom and the fireworks lighting the sky outside.
His throat moved as his hooded eyes stared at her so hard, she felt stripped naked beneath it.
‘Eisai omorfi,’ he breathed as he tugged her to him again.
She didn’t have a clue what he’d said but pleasure soaked through her at the way he’d spoken the words.
Their arms wrapped around each other and she sank into another invasion of his hungry tongue assaulting her in the most heavenly way.
Reckless, intoxicating madness had caught Giannis in its grip. He knew this was madness: making love to a woman he knew only by first name. Tabitha could have stepped out of one of the fairy-tale books his sisters had read as children, an enchantress casting her spell over him.
If this was a spell, he did not want to find the cure to it. Not yet. He wanted to stay under her enchantment and let it take him wherever it desired.
He dragged his mouth down the column of her throat to where the pulse at the base of her neck now raged while her fingers snaked into his hair and dug into his scalp.
Too many clothes, he thought dimly, his fingers working furiously at the back of her dress, trying to find the hidden buttons. His thumb ran over the bump of a small clasp. He popped it open and immediately found the hidden zip.
In one fluid motion he pulled it down to the base of her spine.
He ran his hands flat over the length of her back and sucked in a breath when he found no bra.
He brought his mouth back to claim her in another hot, hard kiss and shrugged his jacket off, then stepped back, giving himself just enough room to undo the top three buttons of his shirt, then tugged it up and over his face. He threw it to the floor.
Breathing deeply, he gazed again at the captivating face in front of him before closing the small distance he’d just created to place his hands on her shoulders.
His fingers drifted over the soft skin to the band of her dress, which was defying gravity and staying up.
All it needed was one small tug at the waist to help it on its way.
It fell with a whoosh to her feet.
His throat closed as he drank in the body now naked bar a pair of skimpy white knickers.
Thee mou.
Upturned breasts, plumper than the dress had allowed his mind to imagine, a slim waist and rounded hips...
She was all woman.
She was exquisite.
Unthinkingly, he cupped one of the breasts and ran a thumb over the erect tip.
She swayed. Her lips parted and a small gasp escaped from her.
He gripped her tightly at the hips and lowered himself down to capture the breast his hand cupped with his mouth.
Blood pooled hot and hard in his groin, making his rock-hard arousal throb tightly against the constriction of his leather trousers.
She tasted...incredible.
