choked trying to get air into her lungs and he pulled her closer, soothing her back, his expression too heated to be labeled concern.
She started to breathe again, but still couldn’t speak. His silver gaze was doing things to her insides she’d long since convinced herself was the stuff of fantasy. Shivery sensations traveled along nerve endings she didn’t even know she had and a heavy, aching sensation in her womb radiated downward to make her thighs clench.
Firm, masculine lips tilted in a knowing smile and she was sure he knew just what was happening to her.
He never broke eye contact as he drew her near until their bodies barely touched and she could not help the involuntary shudder that went through her at contact.
His eyes filled with primal male triumph. “Yes. I knew you felt it too.”
“Felt what?” she asked, knowing her attempt at prevarication was hopeless.
He ignored it completely.
“I need to know.” His head lowered until his lips were a breath from hers. “Don’t you wonder too?”
She would have asked, “Wonder what?”, but his mouth closed over hers.
And she stopped thinking.
All she could do was feel.
It was entirely alien, this merging of their mouths, the mingling of their breath, the gentle seduction of knowing lips. She had not known men like him, with so much power and masculine strength, could be gentle.
Her hands went to his chest of their own accord, drawn by a lure as inexplicable as it was inescapable. She tentatively explored the ridges of muscle that had fascinated her earlier and her fingertips encountered hard points. Mesmerized by this unexpected indicator of his excitement, she investigated the phenomena completely.
He groaned and yanked her into his body, his hold growing fierce, the kiss turning incendiary. Fiery passion sizzled between their lips and she did not pull away. That fact registered with what was left of her conscious mind along with the realization she felt not one iota of fear.
There was no room inside her for anything but an all-consuming erotic craving and physical delight, both sparked by him. He tasted good, so different from her and yet infinitely right and desirable.
Without really knowing how it had happened, his tongue was in her mouth and he was teaching her how to find pleasure in an intimate kiss she had always considered much too invasive. She wanted to give it back and copied his movements with instinctive feminine sensuality she had been sure she no longer possessed.
Growling, he lifted her off the sand, grinding his pelvis against hers and causing shock waves to ripple throughout her body.
But still, she felt no trepidation…nothing that would dilute the molten lava of need flowing through her veins.
When he pressed against her bottom, causing her thighs to drift apart, it was the most natural thing in the world to lift her legs and lock her ankles tight behind his back. Her skirt rucked up, leaving her skin bare against him in an unbearably exciting connection and sexual hunger exploded inside her as her sweet spot rubbed against his hardened male flesh.
She needed something and she pressed herself against him as intimately as possible, gyrating her hips to increase the sensations exploding in her most intimate flesh.
His hand trespassed the silk of her panties to touch a place that had not been touched in seven years. The feel of his fingertip at the entrance to her body brought forth a rush of dew drenched pleasure. Then his finger moved to possess her and old fear rushed through her in an unstoppable torrent, dousing her pleasure and filling her with a desperate need to be free.
She tore her mouth from his. “No. Stop. What are we doing?”
“You do not know?” he asked incredulously, his voice thick with desire.
She didn’t answer. Could not answer. The feel of that finger almost inside her had brought forth memories that would drown her if she let them.
Unlocking her ankles, she frantically tried to scramble from his arms.
After a second of unequal struggling, he let her go, spewing words in Greek she had no desire to know the translation for.
“I’m sorry,” she jerked out, yanking her skirt down to cover her wobbly legs.
Her heart was beating her to death, her palms were damp and her mouth was cottony and dry.
His hands clenched and she stepped back, unable to prevent a reaction born of the past but called forth in the present.
His face a mask of frustrated desire, he threw his head back and inhaled deeply before looking at her again.
When he did, the feral intensity had been muted, but his mouth was set in a grim line. “No. It is I who should apologize. A man should not take advantage of a woman’s weak emotional state. It was wrong to kiss you when you were already upset from the week’s events.”
She couldn’t believe he was taking it on himself, but then hadn’t she always known he was no common man? He stood above all others in her mind and had been elevated to almost saint status with his understanding of her rejection.
He didn’t know why she had pulled back and had not asked, creating a well of gratitude that ran soul deep inside her.
“I didn’t mean to let it go that far,” she said, remembering accusations from the past of being a tease, tormenting words that haunted her nightmares.
“I did not mean for it to happen at all,” he admitted ruefully, making her smile when it should have been impossible. “I saw you from my room and came out to check on you and to apologize for my inappropriate remark earlier. Instead, I took advantage of an attraction neither of us would benefit from acting on.”
While his words completely exonerated her from blame and set her mind at ease, they left gaping wounds in her heart. He was saying that they did not belong together in any sense.
She’d known that.
Had always understood he was way out of her league, but it still hurt. He’d given her her first taste of real passion and the possibility she could know the entire gamut of sexual experience with him tantalized her. She’d gotten frightened, but only when he touched her like she’d been touched that one fateful night.
If she could tell him about it…ask him to avoid doing that, would she be able to make love completely without fear?
Why was she even asking herself these questions? He had made no secret of the fact that he was appalled by the fact he’d kissed her. Sexual intimacy with Sebastian Kouros was not on the cards for her.
She forced her lips into a semblance of a smile. “You’re right. A relationship between the two of us would be out of the question.” She was trying to sound sophisticated and casually accepting of his reading of the situation, but she was afraid the façade would crack any second. “I—I think, I’ll go to bed now.”
He insisted on walking her to her room, not relieving her of his now grim presence until she shut the door on his formal goodnight.
Sebastian
