way down your legs!
Dear heavens! What was he doing to her?
Martha tried to memorize the technique, but within moments she was lost in the slippery pressure of his fingers working their magic. She was enchanted by the brush of his hair against her thighs as he knelt in front of her, carefully washing each foot in turn.
“Theeeeeo.” His name hissed through her teeth.
“Shh. Just feel,” he murmured. Then slowly and sensuously, his fingers began to work their way back up her legs, stopping to swirl against the sensitive skin at the back of her knees, then moving higher, stroking the insides of her thighs. She trembled as they inched their way up and still farther up.
If she bent her head, she could look down on the top of his, could watch as he moved closer, could feel the heat of his lips against her abdomen—and lower.
Oh, help, yes, lower. Even as his fingers moved higher.
“Oh!” Martha couldn’t stop the exclamation escaping the moment Theo’s fingers found her, touched her at last. She jerked. Her legs wobbled, not even jelly now. More like water. Desperately she reached out for something to hang on to, some way to stay upright—and found herself clutching his shoulders.
He tipped his head back to look up at her, a slight smile on his face, but his heavy-lidded gaze still intent, watching her.
Once more his fingers moved, caressed, teased and tested.
Martha trembled and shifted her feet, gave him greater access. Couldn’t help it. Couldn’t get enough of his touch. She bit her lip, tried to stay still, but her body had other ideas. It responded to Theo’s ministrations. And even when she did manage to get two or three brain cells and a bit of resolve in working order long enough to protest, “But you—” he cut her off.
“Mind-blowing,” he muttered, rising to his feet and covering her mouth with his. He made it sound like a challenge he was determined to meet, a standard he was obliged to reach.
He reached it. With room to spare.
Mind-blowing didn’t begin to cover the sensations he was evoking in her with his hands and his mouth. The word was too tame, too narrow. Too—
Suddenly Martha had no words at all.
The sensations were too strong, the pleasure too great, the need too intense. Martha’s fingernails bit into his hips as she shattered—and shuddered—and sagged against him, spent.
She should have felt self-conscious, irritated at her loss of control, at having, almost literally, been putty in Theo Savas’s hands. But she didn’t.
She felt warm, cosseted, safe. Well loved.
Loved? No, she knew there wasn’t any of that. And she didn’t expect any.
She would have expected it with Julian, had she ever shared such intimacy with him. But she had learned her lesson. Sex was sex. And it could be mind-blowing. She smiled a little and shifted in Theo’s arms.
He didn’t let her go but held her gently in the circle of his embrace. His hands stroked over her whole body, smoothing down her back, tangling in her hair. Slowly he eased back so he could look into her face.
One black brow arched. “So? Mind-blowing?” A self-satisfied grin touched his lips.
Oh, yes. But Martha knew instinctively that Theo Savas didn’t need any more arrogance than he already possessed. “Not bad.”
Both black brows went up, then down. “Not bad?” He was clearly indignant.
Martha grinned. “All things considered,” she said. “Yes, it was quite good.”
“Right,” he growled. “Let’s see you in action then. Come on.”
And he reached around her and shut off the water, then pulled back the shower curtain and stepped out onto the bath mat. Somehow the less-confined space made Martha even more aware of his lean athletic body, of flat planes and sharp angles and very obvious arousal. She tried not to notice. It was like trying to pretend it wasn’t snowing in the middle of a blizzard.
She was still gaping—and trying to look as if she weren’t—when he wrapped a towel around her and began to dry her off.
“I can do that,” she said quickly.
“No doubt,” Theo brushed her off. “But I intend to. And then you can return the favor.”
“I can? I mean—” she tried to sound both blasé and sultry “—of course.”
Theo slanted her a grin, as if he knew she was anything but. Then as he continued his task, his grin faded and the intent, absorbed look reappeared in his gaze.
She thought she felt a fine tremor in his fingers through the soft terry of the towel. He stroked gently and thoroughly, though her body was dry almost before he touched her. The heat generated from within could have evaporated every bit of moisture in a matter of seconds. And the thought that she was soon going to be drying him only added wood to the blaze.
“My turn,” she said abruptly before she ignited from spontaneous combustion. And she grabbed the other towel from the rack, then began to stroke his shoulders and upper arms. The towel was a vibrant sea blue and against his skin it seemed to deepen his already dark tan. It was soft and rough where his shoulders seemed hard and smooth. He stood still under her ministrations, his chest rising and falling shallowly as she moved the towel lower. Soft yet slightly wiry hair spread across his chest and arrowed down his abdomen. She followed it.
He swallowed. His muscles tensed.
Something heady and powerful coursed through her as she watched his reactions to her merest gentle touch. She had never done this with Julian. Had, oddly, never even thought about it.
Now slowly and deliberately she dried Theo’s sides and turned him around so she could dry his back.
“I can do that.” His voice was ragged.
“Huh-uh.” She clutched the towel and pushed his arm so he would comply. “You dried me. Now it’s my turn.” She wasn’t giving this up for anything on earth.
The look Theo gave her promised something she wasn’t quite sure she understood, but it made her both hot and determined at the same time. She gave him an expectant look, tapped her foot and waited.
A corner of Theo’s mouth twitched, but at last he turned. His back was broad and deeply tanned. He had no tan line at all which was intriguing. There was a lot about Theo Savas that was very intriguing indeed.
Martha rubbed the towel across his back, down his spine, over the hard curve of his buttocks and down his legs. They were as strong and hard-muscled as his arms.
She could understand now why any magazine reporter just looking at the physical Theo Savas would call him “the world’s sexiest sailor.” He would only have had to bare his body and the contest was won. Was that what he had done? Had they seen him nude? Her heart caught in her throat.
She crouched down and ran the towel down hair-roughened legs, then up again along the backs of his thighs.
