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Calista pressed herself against him, desperate, kissing him back hungrily, and he made a low, male sound of satisfaction. Then his powerful arms were around her and he was picking her up, carrying her over to one of the sun loungers near by and depositing her on one of the white cushions.
He knelt between her thighs and there was a tug and the sound of tearing fabric as he ripped the silky underwear from her body. Then he pushed her legs wide, settling himself between them, stretching himself out on top of her. She gasped at the delicious coolness of his skin against the blinding heat of hers, her hands on his powerful shoulders then sliding down his back, holding on. His mouth claimed hers again as desperation tightened on both of them.
He shifted his hips and she felt the long, hard length of him sliding against her, sliding inside her, ripping another moan from her throat. He stretched her, pushing in deep, his hands beneath her bottom, tilting her hips and opening her up to him.
The pleasure was so sharp and raw she had to close her eyes against the sudden burn of tears.
Oh, yes, this was it. This was what she wanted. Him inside her, setting her free from her control and her own expectations. From the limitations and boundaries she’d placed on herself. Him, setting her free of the soldier.
He didn’t wait, drawing his hips back and thrusting, setting up the same intense, driving rhythm she remembered from their night weeks ago. But there was something different in it this time, an edge of ferocity, of desperation.
Her nails sank into his back and she nipped at his bottom lip, giving herself up to the passion inside her, wanting more of his taste, more of that delicious coolness to ease the blinding heat. But he wasn’t cold any more, his body as hot as hers, maybe hotter, and there was nothing but flames everywhere.
‘Xerxes.’ His name escaped the kiss and she was hardly aware of even saying it. ‘Xerxes, please...’
He shifted again, laying one hand against her throat in a gentle grip, kissing her harder, changing the angle of his thrusts, making lightning flash behind her eyes.
She couldn’t bear it. The feel of his body on hers, of him moving inside her, the pressure of his fingers at her throat, the edges of his teeth against her sensitised lip, were all too much. And when he gave one deep, hard thrust, the pleasure exploded around her, and she screamed against his mouth, blinded, shattered. Overwhelmed by the waves of ecstasy rolling through her.
She was hardly aware as the brutal rhythm of his hips intensified, as his whole body suddenly stiffened. But she heard her name whispered like a prayer, low and deep and rough, as he followed her into the maelstrom.
Xerxes lay on Calista’s warm body, half stunned by the orgasm that had descended on him with the finality of a building falling, crushing him completely.
He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, was conscious only of her hands moving lightly up and down his back, stroking him, and the warmth of her skin beneath him, the sweetly musky scent of sex and woman surrounding him.
He wasn’t quite sure what the hell had just happened to him.
All afternoon he’d been unable to settle, the conversation he’d had with her on the terrace kicking up the dust of old memories, making him restless and unable to concentrate. His thoughts kept going around and around in circles, how she’d told him about her experience in the army, how she didn’t want to be seen as a woman. Then there were his own confessions and how, despite the years and his determination not to let it matter, it had been surprisingly difficult to tell her.
And then, when the restlessness had become unbearable, he’d taken himself down to the pool to cool off. She’d appeared at the side, a golden vision of strength and beauty in the robe he’d brought for her. And instantly the restlessness had poured itself into a single, aching thought: he wanted her.
A simple seduction, that was all he’d meant it to be. Slow and lazy lovemaking, where he’d call all the shots, he’d be the one making her scream.
He hadn’t expected her to touch that scar on his stomach, the first knife cut in that room underneath the palace, where everything had been so horrifically real.
He hadn’t expected, either, the rush of anguish that had come with the touch, or for his hand to reach out and grab her wrist to stop her. She’d looked at him in shock and he’d had to force himself to let her go, to find his usual detachment.
But he couldn’t find it. And when she touched him again, he could think of only one way to distract her.
He hadn’t meant that kiss to consume them, but it had, burning all his plans of long and lazy sex to ashes on the ground.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He wasn’t supposed to feel anything but physical pleasure. But his chest felt tight, his nerve-endings raw, the detachment he usually cultivated hanging by a thread.
She’ll break you if you let her.
Well, that was one problem that was easy to solve. He simply wouldn’t let her.
She could touch his body, but nothing else, nothing that would threaten the careful walls he’d constructed around his emotions, those deep flaws within himself.
He’d tried hard to get rid of them after that day in the cell beneath the palace, when he’d discovered that the torture had only been a test of his endurance. But after his capture in the desert, after the decisions he’d made there, he realised that it was impossible. Those flaws would always be with him, and the only thing he could do was to wall them off. Pretend they didn’t exist.
And that had worked until she’d appeared, waking him up, making him aware of how he’d been lying to himself, of how all the pretending he’d been doing hadn’t made those flaws go away. Of how deep they went, those cracks he’d never be rid of.
He couldn’t allow her to do that. She’d got to him, but he couldn’t allow her to get any further.
He shifted so the majority of his weight wasn’t lying directly on her, then pushed himself up so he could look down at her.
Her golden skin had flushed deep pink, her riot of beautiful hair spread all over the white linen of the cushions beneath her head. Her amber eyes had deepened into that gorgeous dark copper, and her mouth was red and swollen from his kisses.
