unwanted to a nearby chair. Now it was just her, with her hair rippling down her back, and the underwear she stood in.
But not for long.
Her own hands reached behind her back and she unhooked her bra deliberately, displaying herself, her eyes holding his all the time, her chin lifted, lips parted, knowing exactly what she was doing. Her breasts were freed, the bra discarded to the floor, and she stood there, showing her body to him as he was showing his to her.
His expression changed. ‘My beautiful lioness...’ he said, and his voice was low, deep, husky. His hand reached forward and the tips of his fingers simply grazed across her peaked nipples, so that they flowered even more, and a whisper of delight, of pleasure so exquisite, rippled through her so that she gasped and her head fell back, her long tousled hair brushing across the lower reaches of her arching spine.
He cupped her full, engorged breasts, heavy in his hands, and then his mouth found hers again, slowly, sensuously, with an intensity of arousal that she knew, with a kind of glory inside her, was the beginning of ultimate consummation.
She let him press her down upon the bed, let his body come over her, felt the crushing, arousing weight of him. He was kissing her still, one hand still enclosing a breast, the other now despatching the last remaining obstacle to his imminent possession. She lifted her hips as he discarded her panties and then she let his hand slide between her thighs, parting them for him. Whirls of pleasure rose within her, each one more intense than the last. A mist descended over her consciousness. She was no longer a thinking being—only a feeling one. Giving herself to the ultimate sensation.
He nestled himself within the apex of her body, and she felt with a mix of shock and exultation just how ready he was for this. How ready she was...
He took her hands, lifted them above her head so that the peaks of her breasts lifted too, and she gazed up at him. He smiled. Slow, intimate—possessive.
With an instinct older than time she felt her hips lift a little, straining towards him, yearning for his possession. His name was on her lips. An invitation—a plea. His smile deepened. And then, in a sudden fluid movement, he pulled away from her—only a fraction, but it was enough to cause alarm to flare in her eyes. Until she realised what he was doing—reaching into the drawer beside his bed...finding protection. Her protection.
She shut her eyes—there were things that even as a lioness she could not cope with! She heard him laugh, as if he realised that. A kiss nuzzled at the tip of her nose.
‘Safe to peek now,’ he said.
Amusement was in his voice, but it was only on the surface. Below was something deeper, and far more primal. She opened her eyes, looked deep into his, and even in the semi-darkness the naked desire there, the raw arousal, shocked her like electricity jolting through her body— her inflamed, aroused body.
For one long moment he gazed down at her. ‘My lioness,’ he murmured. ‘My strong, beautiful lioness!’
And then, with a slow, deliberate tensing, he lowered himself to her as her thighs parted for him, as her hips lifted to his, as her body opened to his. Taking possession of her.
As she did of him.
There was tightness, but no resistance. She drew him into her, her body welcoming his, glorying in it, her delicate silken tissues gliding him in, sending a million nerve endings firing, shooting volley after volley of pleasure through her.
How could it be so good—so good to feel like this? How could this fullness be so incredible? This fusion, this melding of their flesh?
She dimly realised that for a moment he did not move, with supreme self-control, letting her body accommodate itself around him, letting her revel in the fullness of their fusion, letting her body reach the same level as his, poised at the brink.
Her hands were on his shoulders, braced against him, and his hands were bearing his weight, for he did not want to crush her. He wanted to see her face—a face that was raised to him in wonder, in beauty—in the moment before the ecstasy took her...took him...
And then, with the slightest shift in muscle, he moved, letting himself release.
He saw it happen in her face, saw her eyes distend, and then he was beyond everything but his own conflagration which swept up through him like a firestorm, burning him to ashes. Burning her with him.
She cried out in wonder, in amazement, in pleasure, and the sound of her cry shook him to his core. Her spine arched, her hips straining at him, nails clutching at his shoulders, head thrown back so that he could see the ecstasy that was in her face, the wonder and the joy. He felt her body thrash around him, pulsing with consummation, felt her thighs straining taut against his, and then his arms were around her, holding her, cradling her, keeping her safe within his embrace as her body burned.
And then slowly, oh-so-slowly, she slackened in his arms—slowly, oh-so-slowly, she stilled, her eyelids fluttering, her breath ragged, her skin dampened with a silken sheen. He held her tight against him, still half possessing her, then slackened away from her. He smoothed her hair, so fine and soft, and spoke to her in his native tongue. He knew not what he said. And she was like one who had gone beyond—gone far beyond, to a place she had never been before.
He held her while her taut muscles relaxed, released their tension, became soft and lax. She was letting him rock her gently, oh-so-gently, and he held her, still murmuring to her, as he brought her back slowly, carefully...oh-so-carefully.
He kissed her forehead, with scarcely any energy left in him to do so, and then a great lassitude swept through him. An exhaustion of the senses, of the passions. He turned her in his arms, her body still damp, her eyes still glazed, and kissed her bare shoulder, nestling her into him, holding her close and safe and warm against him.
‘Sleep,’ he said, his voice a murmur. ‘Sleep now...’
He saw the ghost of a smile cross her mouth. It was all that she could manage and he asked for no more—not now. She had given all and taken all, and now they would rest, exhausted and complete, embraced by each other.
Sleep took them both.
ELLEN STIRRED. SHE was cradled against hard, warm muscle, and an arm lay heavily around her. She could feel Max’s breathing, low and steady, feel his breath on the nape of her neck. As she came to wakefulness her own limbs felt heavy, tired, and there was an ache between her legs. Yet it was not pain. Oh, no, not pain...
A sense of wonder suffused her. Was it real to be lying here in the dim morning light, with Max’s arms around her, holding her so closely? Could it possibly be real? But it was—oh, it was. That was the wonder of it—the miracle. That after all those long, miserable years of thinking herself repulsive, repellent, all the misery, the dreary self-torment, was over.
Gratitude flooded her. She knew why Max had done this, knew what his reasons were—to wean her away from clinging to the home she loved so much, that he could only see as her hiding place—but she didn’t care. How could she care when his strong arms were warm around her? When her body had discovered the bliss he could arouse in her? No, whatever his motives, she could only be grateful for this wondrous, incredible gift that he had given her—the gift of knowing herself to be desirable.
