Every muscle in his back straining, he began to move.
He watched her expression change. Her eyes still did not open, and he knew their focus would be inward, extracting every last gram of sensation from his possession of her. Just as he was doing. His movements were minute, under his absolute control. He could feel sweat beading along his spine with the effort it took to control his own reaction, his own overwhelming urge to plunge deep within her to reap his own satiation.
But she must find hers first. Her body was still in that state of absolute arousal he had engendered, and now he must take it that final step. He moved again, feeling her tightness flex around him, hearing once again that high, unearthly sound in her throat. He was on the edge, on the blade of a knife, as he moved to intensify the pressure not of her tightening around him, but of him against that most sensitive place within her, where the mesh of nerve endings created the physical locus of consummation. The high, helpless gasp came again, and he could feel, as if in slow motion, each nail indenting into his flesh. Feel simultaneously the slight but fatal tilting of her pelvis, sending him hurtling over the edge of the knife blade.
He surged within her, and in the sheeting sensation that engulfed him he realised that it had happened to her as well. That cry was coming from her again, with unbearable intensity, and he surged again, peaking within her in hot, unstoppable satiation, feeling as he did so the threshing convulsion of her muscles enclosing him, drawing him into her more tightly yet as he swept her body against his, feeling her convulsing and trembling within his clasp.
It went on and on, the incredible, unstoppable release, with an intensity of sensation that drenched through him. Had he ever, ever felt this way before at such a moment? Ever felt this extremity of satiation?
Then, after an eternity of sensation, it was ebbing from him, draining him of all his strength. He folded down, still with her body in his arms, taking her with him. She was ebbing, too—he could feel it. Her body was still giving little tremors in his arms, and the soft little cries in her throat made him clasp her more tightly yet.
His hand was stroking her hair, soothing her. He was murmuring to her—words he hardly understood himself, hardly heard beneath the tumult of his heartbeat. She lay in his arms, so still, her satin skin dewed with moisture. He could feel the pulsing beat of her heart, so close to his …
His voice, when he spoke, was low and resonant.
‘I have the final truth about you now—no more denial. You said you could not bear me to touch you! But this … this…’ his mouth lowered to hers one last, lingering time ‘… this tells me the truth. At last …’
His kiss was slow, and sealing, and then, his eyelids heavy with the aftermath of desire fulfilled, he felt his vision dim, his heart-rate slow, and with her warm and folded in his arms he gave himself to sleep.
CHAPTER NINE
ANGELOS stirred drowsily. Something was wrong.
He was alone.
Instantly his eyes sprang open.
She had gone.
In one lithe, fluid movement he had jack-knifed up out of the bed, eyes casting around in the dawn light that was reaching the edges of the curtained windows, then was striding into the en suite bathroom.
Not there.
He frowned. Had she gone back to her room? Ripping a towel from the rail, he wrapped it cursorily around his hips, went out on to the landing, opened her bedroom door. The bed was unused, unslept in. Her en suite bathroom empty.
Where the hell was she?
Emotion spiked in him. He didn’t know what it was, and he wasn’t in any kind of mood to be introspective. He was only in the mood to find her.
Without thinking, he slid back the glass doors to the balcony, but there was no sign of her there, either, in the chill early morning. Frustration bit in him—and incomprehension. He thrust back from the balustrade to head indoors, his gaze unconsciously sweeping out across the precipitous slope beyond. But even as it did so his muscles froze. His whole body froze.
There, on the descending slope far to the left of the chalet, where the curve of the road indented, he saw a lone figure, heading down the side of the mountain. Walking rapidly, haltingly, hurriedly.
For an endless moment time stopped. Then, disbelievingly, he realised who it was.
He wheeled around, heading back into his own room, yanking open the doors further along the balcony, knowing he had to get dressed with the least possible delay. But even as he threw open the doors of his closet his eyes went to his empty bed, the quilt thrown back.
And time stopped again. His gaze froze as he stared at the exposed sheet.
Disbelief knifed through him.
And much, much more.
Within minutes he was dressed, booted, kitted up—and in pursuit.
Thea was walking. Walking as fast, as urgently as she could. Her head was throbbing, her heart was pounding, skin clammy. She felt sick and cold—so cold—despite the windproof jacket. She had to make the road—make it as fast, as speedily as she could down the unfamiliar track that was a much more direct route to the road below than the hairpin track up to the chalet. But it was a treacherous path, she discovered. Hardly there in places, narrow and precipitous. Her leg muscles were cold, resistant after the previous day’s long trek, and her legs were not all that ached.
Between her thighs aching pain made each step a torment.