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Natalie had the feeling that Damien did not know what to do with himself, but any activity, no matter how intrinsically useless, was preferable to doing nothing.
The bathroom was as splendid as everything else. Walls of gleaming white tiles were topped by a blue and green ceramic frieze, making a highlighting feature of the blue and green and yellow towels. The floor inside the shower stall repeated the colours in foliage tiles to match the frieze. A spacious spa bath added the ultimate touch of luxury.
Natalie made appropriate comments to their hostess who nodded her satisfaction and waved Natalie back to the sitting-room. A porter brought up their bags. A maid carried in a tray holding a crystal bowl of sultana grapes and strawberries, a bottle of champagne in a silver ice-bucket, and two fine flute glasses. She placed it on the table near the armchairs. Their hostess informed them lunch began at one o’clock should they wish to use the dining-room. The business of getting settled was finally completed, and Natalie and Damien were left alone in their suite.
Damien stood with his back to the fire, as though he needed warmth. There was a strained look about his face, a watchful reserve in his eyes. He made an effort to smile. ‘A fine room,’ he said.
He seemed to be waiting for her to take the first step. It was her choice of setting, her insistence that had brought them to here and now. Natalie wondered if she had made a mistake in taking the initiative away from Damien. Did he feel she had her priorities wrong? Was he keeping himself aloof in expectation of another rejection?
She recalled him saying as he acceded to her wish to stay at Merlinmist that the decision was up to her. This was decision time, too. He had told her what he wanted with her. He could not have spelled it out more clearly. Only she was important. The surroundings meant nothing.
‘Thank you for indulging me, Damien,’ she said softly, dismissing the attractions of this unique guest house as she walked across the room to him, her eyes locking with his in compassionate understanding of the dilemma he faced...whether or not to take what he most wanted while she was willing to give herself to him. The temptation must be tearing him apart, aware as he was she might hate him for taking advantage of the present situation.
‘I want you to be happy with me,’ he said with heart-tugging simplicity.
‘How could I not be when you give me so much?’
There was anguish in his eyes.
Natalie lifted her hands to his chest. She could feel his heart thumping madly under her palm. She tried to impart reassurance, confidence. ‘I trust what I am now, Damien, not what you tell me I might become. If I’m going to change, I want you to feel fulfilled with me now. Let this be my gift of love to you. Forget all that’s gone on in the past. Feel only this.’
She slid her hands up to draw his head to hers and she pressed her lips fervently to his, wanting to give flesh-and-blood reality to her words. His arms came around her, crushing her to him as his mouth began to move over hers in a yearning kiss that ignited a flood of desire.
She felt the tense urgency in his body, the need that strained against the soft pliancy of her stomach, stirring an ache deep in her womb. She opened her mouth, inviting the passionate force she had tasted yesterday, exulting in the wild mutuality of their hunger for each other.
Kissing wasn’t enough. Holding wasn’t enough. She rubbed her breasts against the hard muscles of his chest, wishing it were flesh to flesh. Damien’s hands slid to her buttocks, squeezing them possessively as he thrust her closer to the pulsing surge of his need.
His mouth left hers. His chest heaved for breath. She opened her eyes, hot liquid amber, burning with the fiery mission to complete what had been started. Somewhere in the back of her mind was a sense that it had started a long time ago, started but been kept rigidly hidden behind doors she had locked. Whatever had simmered so long between them was loosed now, free to find the satisfaction it craved, and she fiercely wanted what Damien promised her, the ultimate height and depth and breadth of intimacy that was possible for a man and a woman...this special man and herself...together.
She saw the leap of recognition in his eyes, a wild glitter of elation at her uninhibited desire for him. He released his physical hold on her. It wasn’t needed. There was another stronger bond pulsing between them, an elemental certainty. There would be no turning away from this final revelation of all they were to each other.
Damien tugged her shirt free of her jeans and began unbuttoning it.
‘Take yours off first so I can touch you,’ she said huskily.
He did so with a happy chuckle. It was the first sound of happiness she had heard from Damien. It swelled her heart and made it pump faster. She grazed her fingertips down the cords of his throat, across his broad shoulders and down his strongly muscled arms. He was beautifully made. Her man, her mate, she thought with such primitive satisfaction that it made her acutely aware of the basic drive that brought men and women together.
Damien peeled off her shirt, removed her bra. His hands cupped her breasts and he gazed down at them as though enthralled by their womanliness. Was he thinking they were made to give succour and comfort, to pleasure him in the ways men found pleasure
in their shape and softness? She felt her nipples harden. Damien inhaled deeply and lifted his eyes. Natalie’s breath caught at the look of tenderness in them.
‘You touch my needs more deeply than anyone I’ve ever known,’ he said softly, then bent to take her breasts in his mouth, sucking them in turn, sending deep shafts of pleasure through her body, tapping a well of love so strong she found herself cradling his head, stroking his hair, wanting to hold him to her forever.
But he slipped away from her, kissing her stomach as he knelt to remove the rest of her clothes. That gave her a different pleasure, both shivery and molten, the soft, warm brush of his tongue stroking her naked flesh, the sensual caress of his hands on her thighs, behind her knees, her feet.
She reached for him as he rose upright, her hands feverishly ready to strip his manhood bare, to make him feel valued and cared for and cherished. His skin quivered under her touch as she freed him from constriction. His fingers twisted convulsively through her hair as she trailed her lips over the swollen life force of his flesh, cupped and gently squeezed the potent pouch that held his seed...for fathering a child.
He moaned her name in an ecstasy of longing and she rejoiced in his need for her, his pleasure in what she was doing. She drew rippling patterns over the powerful muscles of his thighs, feeling them tighten to rock-hardness as she cleared them of the clinging fabric.
Then he was helping her, freeing himself so he could scoop her up and hug her body to his, his mouth invading hers with urgent passion as he carried her with him to the bed. He hurled the quilt aside and laid her on the cool sheets. He loomed over her, then pulled himself back, arching in anguish as he realised what had been forgotten.
‘Natalie...’
‘Throw caution to the wind, Damien,’ she urged, wanting him to embrace their union in all its totality, flesh to flesh, pulsing life to pulsing life.
‘Yes...’ He expelled the word with a violence of feeling that expressed a turbulent inner world of pent-up emotion. She saw his control disintegrate, torn asunder by a raw blaze of male possessiveness.
He drove himself deep inside her and she wrapped her legs around his hips, rocking with him in a rhythm that beat into her mind and heart and soul, a pounding crescendo of ecstatic fulfilment as they claimed each other in a mating ritual as old as time. She loved the solid strength of him plunging to her womb, tried to hold him clasped there, to restrain the passage of his withdrawal, exulted as he thrust forward to fill the waiting void again. Her whole being centred on the sensation, and the excitement of it multiplied, peaked, and burst into a molten mass of exquisite pleasure.
