It was hard to be enthusiastic. Impossible, in fact. ’I don’t mind.’
‘It’s your last night,’ he said, and there was a strange, almost savage note to his voice.
‘Yes.’ She stared up, found herself mesmerised by the ebony glitter of his eyes. She saw that a pulse worked frantically in the side of his cheek. Her own pulse hammered; her mouth dried like dust and she found herself moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue, then blushed scarlet when his eyes nar- rowed as they watched the movement, afraid that he would interpret it as one of deliberate provo- cation. Embarrassed, she made to turn away, but he stopped her with one strong olive hand on the bare flesh of her upper arm.
‘Where do you want to go tonight?’ he repeated.
There was a pause. ‘Nowhere,’ she said quietly and honestly.
‘We can’t stay here,’ he said, almost savagely.
‘Why not?’
‘You know why not.’
‘OK, then, Constantine—you tell me where you’d like to go tonight?’
There was a long pause. ‘Nowhere,’ he said softly. His voice was unsteady as he spoke. ‘I think that our days of being circumspect are numbered, don’t you, agape mou?’
She was aware of the enormity of the question. Head bent, she nodded silently.
‘Look at me,’ he whispered. ‘Jade. Please.’
Slowly, slowly, she raised her head. His eyes were dark.
‘I’m almost afraid to kiss you,’ he said huskily.
‘I can’t imagine you being afraid of anything, Constantine.’
‘Not even of losing my sanity, my reason?’
‘Then you’d better not kiss me,’ she said firmly. ’I don’t want to be responsible for—oh,’ the gasp became an exultant little sigh as he locked her in his arms, his heart thundering against her breast. Breathlessly, she waited with longing for his lips.
‘Not kiss you?’ It was a soft, mocking taunt. ‘I must. If only to tell myself that this is all some foolish fantasy…’
His head came down and his mouth imprisoned her in a sensual trap from which she never wanted to escape. He tasted of wine, and of honey. He tasted of man, primitive man; hot, hungry, and very, very aroused.
&nbs
p; His kiss was soft and sweet, cajoling her re- sponse, so that her lips opened for him, and she heard him make a murmured appraisal as he licked his way into her mouth. She opened her mouth wider, felt their tongues link together as the kiss deepened with an intensity which was shattering.
Jade could feel her breasts tingling as she lifted her arms up with a helpless sigh to lock them around his neck, her fingers drifting upwards to entwine themselves in the black richness of his hair.
He lifted his mouth away from hers and stared down into her upturned face, the feverish glitter in his eyes as bright as moonlight. Very slowly and deliberately, he pulled her closer, so that she could feel the shocking potency of his arousal.
Except that it did not shock her; it thrilled her immeasurably. She wanted that; him. Deep within her. She wanted their bodies locked in the most basic physical communion of all. She stared back at him, rocked at the strength of her feelings, her eyes dark, her lips trembling.
‘Jade,’ he said softly, and now the accent was more pronounced than she’d ever heard it. ‘Do you know how much I want to make love to you?’
‘Yes’ she answered quietly. There was the evi- dence of that powerfully hard shaft which pushed against her lower belly through the filmy white voile of her dress—but she could have read his desire just as easily in the incandescent depths of his night- dark eyes. And his mouth, too, was trembling, as though what was happening to them had startled him, too.
‘I want to touch your breasts,’ he whispered against her mouth. ‘To touch them until I know them better than you do,’ and before she could say or do a thing he had pulled the silk T-shirt from beneath her belt, and was peeling it off and over her head, so that she stood before him, naked to the waist, her skin gilded golden and crimson by the dying light of the sun, her hair as bright and as glimmering as the stars which would later appear.
He just gazed down at her breasts, as if com- mitting them to memory, nodding his head as he did so. ‘I knew that you wore nothing beneath,’ he murmured. ‘Your breasts are small, yes, but all day long they have been aching, haven’t they, Jade?’
She swallowed. This was madness. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘Waiting for my touch,’ he murmured, and he cupped one small mound in the palm of his hand, his thumb reaching out to stroke with tantalising skill at the stiffened nub of her nipple.