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The light was almost gone when she reached the beach, but the sand was still warm and inviting. She dropped to her knees as the emotions she’d tried so hard to suppress bubbled up.
How she missed her mum! How much she needed her love and guidance. She’d give anything to wake up and find her mother’s death had been a nightmare. If only the doctors had diagnosed the illness sooner. If only her mother had listened to her when Sophie had told her to rest. If only the drugs had worked. If only …
Her head and shoulders bowed. She pressed her hands to her eyes, feeling the wetness there as tears streamed down her cheeks. Her mouth slackened, lips
quivering till the sobs welled up from deep inside her and she gave in to the force of her grief.
It was dark when she finally raised her head, bereft now of tears. Evening had fallen, like the sudden drop of a curtain. But early stars already bloomed.
The storm of weeping had left her boneless, curiously empty as she huddled there. Eventually she braced her hands on the ground to lever herself up. But her right hand didn’t touch sand. It fastened on something soft.
In the gloom she could make out the large, pale shape beside her. A towel.
Clutching the cotton towelling with both hands, she stumbled to her feet, then swayed as the circulation returning to her legs prickled her.
This was a private estate with high-tech security. No tourists allowed here. She turned and stared out into the cove. She’d have seen anyone swimming when she arrived. Wouldn’t she? Or had she been too caught up in her own miserable thoughts to notice the quiet stroke of a swimmer? There’d been no one in the shallows. But further out.?
The steady shush of waves on the shore was loud in her ears, she couldn’t hear anything else. But then she became aware of movement. A black shape in the sea. It headed straight in to the beach. And now she could make out the faint echo of sound, the splash of a body forging its way through the velvet dark water.
Her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness and she saw the precise moment he reached the shallows and found his footing. His wide, rangy shoulders emerged and he shook his head. Water sluiced, streaming over his massive chest, broad and heavy, down his narrowing torso to a lean waist.
And yet Sophie couldn’t look away. Her breath snared somewhere in her chest as she watched Costas—it could be no one else—rise from the lapping waves.
She should call out, warn him that he wasn’t alone.
She should turn her back, give him the privacy she’d demand herself.
For even in the deep gloom of early evening she could see that he was nude. No shadow of a swimsuit marred the perfect, athletic lines of his body.
Her breathing faltered, even her pulse stuttered as she stared, transfixed.
He was perfect. Every taut, ultra-masculine inch of him. He’d seen her. He stopped in mid-stride, still knee-deep in water. Go. Now!
Drop the towel and disappear as fast as you can.
Her mind screamed at her to run. To take herself off before it was too late. They’d been through this before—the searing physical attraction, the driving need.
It was all he wanted, all he needed from her. He’d never offer her anything more.
Sophie swallowed hard, trying to summon the strength to ignore the potency of her response to him, her own needs. The longer she stood, transfixed by his presence, the weaker grew the voice of self-preservation. Till it became only a blur of white noise buzzing in her ears.
Out of the morass of painful emotion, out of the guilt and grief and doubt, only one thing was absolutely clear to her. How much she wanted this man. Wanted him body and soul. Needed him with a desperation that was beyond understanding. Beyond right and wrong or fear for the future.
She remembered the bliss of his mouth on hers, his hands on her body, his heat against her own. And she wanted that again.
This craving for comfort, for Costas, was self-destructive. Foolish. But right now it was beyond her to do anything but stand and wait for him.
She’d been strong for so long. She just couldn’t do it any more.
‘Sophie.’ His voice was as hypnotic as the susurrating waves.
He strode forward till he stood on dry land. Starlight limned the well-defined ridges and curves of his muscled body. The stark angle of his jaw. The bunch of his fists. The heavy fullness of his muscled thighs. His complete maleness.
Sophie gripped the towel tighter in her clenched fingers, feeling the now familiar burst of heat ignite within her. She was trembling hard as she stared back at him unable, unwilling, to look away.
‘Sophie.’ Her name on his lips was a groan this time, long and low and pained. ‘Go away.’
She knew he was right. That in the bright light of day she’d run a mile from the dangerous undercurrents swirling around them.
