in her that she was about to suggest what she was about to suggest even though she didn’t feel she could ask him about his past.
‘An encounter, then.’ Picking up where they left off that night at Hadrian’s Wall.
She’d never, ever propositioned someone so directly in her life. Even with Dan, their first time was an awkward kind of inevitable. But this didn’t feel wrong. Or loose. It felt exactly as she’d felt dancing in front of that mirror.
Strong. And fated.
‘Right here in Göreme. We have two nights.’ Her own daring made her breathless. Was there a faster way to screw things up between them than to...well...?
‘George—’
‘If you’re not interested, that’s OK.’ Knowing without a doubt that he was interested made it OK. ‘But we’re in a fantasy world for the next two days. We might as well get the most out of it.’
She kept her eyes on his, but it was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
‘Is this a Year of Georgia thing?’ he grated.
‘No. This is just a Georgia thing.’ She filled her lungs. ‘I think we should go back downstairs.’
‘What about dessert?’ he asked, and it smacked of desperation.
‘Do you want dessert?’ she breathed, still locked onto his cautious eyes.
As she watched the caution cleared, the relief filled them, then desire. And that— finally—was what made her pulse hammer. After all the newfound confidence of the last few surreal minutes, the old doubts crept back in. Dancing in front of a mirror was one thing. Getting down and dirty—and naked—with a man like Zander was almost completely overwhelming in principle. Let alone practice.
She imagined the light cotton of her dress was the caress of sheer silk. And that helped. She imagined the respectful scarf she still wore from their explorations of the city was a face veil covering all but her eyes. She imagined the expression in Zander’s gaze was the same as the one she’d caught in the mirror.
Only she didn’t have to imagine that because it was. Identical. Only this one was far less repressed and infinitely more terrifying.
And exciting.
They stumbled to their feet.
‘Which room?’ he asked as he stood back to let her out.
Was he kidding? ‘Yours. That spa is wasted on you.’
His hand burned where it pressed into her back, shepherding but also keeping a gentle contact as he urged her down the carved corridor towards the stairs. A teasing kind of torture. A perfect kind of bliss.
He bent to murmur into her ear, ‘It’s wasted on just me, maybe.’
And suddenly her mind was filled with images of the two of them tangled together in the hot opulence of the old stone bath, and her breath just about gave out. It was all she could do to keep her feet moving, but she knew if she stumbled Zander would just sweep her into his arms and carry her down the three levels to his enormous suite with its enormous bathroom and that enormous, luxurious bed.
Just like the conqueror he’d once spoken of.
He stopped at his door, turned her until the timber was at her back, and pressed into her. Peered down on her. ‘Are you sure?’ he murmured.
She didn’t waste breath on words. Instead she pressed up onto her toes and kissed him. Showed him how sure she was. Even though this was totally out of character for her, even though she had to block thoughts of anything more future than Sunday night from her mind.
She was sure about the next two days.
This was her reinvention, and Zander Rush was an integral part of the new Georgia Stone. She’d never felt more certain about anything.
He hemmed her against the door with his body, his heat, and brought his hands to her face so that he could seal her acquiescence in. His tongue and his lips worked a magic just like this entire city as the cool of the earth soaked into her back.
She shivered. From delight.
‘Hot bath,’ he murmured, misunderstanding, and she wondered how long a big tub like the one he had inside would take to fill.
‘Or hot blankets,’ she whispered, but thought of the blanket of his scorching body on hers would do just fine.
He reached out with one hand, turned the doorhandle, and they fell through into the fantasy interior.
They never made it to the bed, as it turned out. And the hot bath came quite a bit later. They got about as far as the sumptuous pillow-filled conversation niche off to the side of the room before passion got the better of them and, there, Zander made the kind of love to her that she’d never experienced before. And would never forget.
Worship.
There was no other word for it. He took the sort of care of her body—with it—that she’d only ever dreamed might happen. Measured and thorough and poignantly careful. Not tentative—she had enough aches and stretched muscles to know that he’d challenged and pushed her to be the Georgia she’d never let herself be, never needed to be, before. To roam far, far out of her comfort zone. Safe in his embrace.
She lay on her back on the daybed in the balcony niche, her head hanging back over the edge, and stared at the dark sky. Only it wasn’t quite the deep black it had been when they’d first come out here, wrapped in traditionally woven blankets, wrapped in each other. It was a deep blue now, with hints of regular blue at the edges.
‘Remind me to get more sleep before having sex with a marathon runner,’ she murmured. Stamina? Oh, my God... ‘It’s nearly dawn.’
Across her legs, the heavy heat of him stirred. ‘Don’t we have somewhere to be at dawn?’
The balloon.
They’d come all this way to do the Cappadocian balloon experience. Could she really justify skipping it to stay here in heaven with Zander?
She sighed. Almost.
‘Come on... You don’t want to miss it.’ He slapped her thigh gently and pushed himself into a sitting position. Dark or not, there was nothing but sky to look in on them high up on the mountain face, but within the hour the sun would be up and hot-air balloons would be rising over Göreme filled with curious, binocular-holding tourists.
And they were supposed to be in one of them.
That was the only thing that got her moving. They. The fact that Zander would be with her. If he wasn’t booked she’d have blown the whole thing off—dream or no dream.
She padded in silence into the room with him.
What exactly did one say after a night of no-holds-barred sensual exploration?
‘Let’s
