‘Don’t feel you have to sugar-coat your disgust to try to spare my feelings!’
He leaned across and caught hold of her, and as the duvet fell away to reveal the lush spill of her breasts he sucked in a deep breath. ‘I’m not sugar-coating anything,’ he said unevenly. ‘And I can assure you that disgust is the very last thing on my mind right now.’
Hating herself for her compliance but unable to resist him when he looked at her like that, she allowed him to pull her into his arms. ‘Really?’
‘Really. I’m just a little dazed by my discovery and hoping that …’ His words faded as he turned his lips and began to kiss the soft skin of her upper arm.
Fighting to prevent her eyelids from fluttering to a close, Emma stared at the tangled black gleam of his hair. ‘Hoping that wh-what?’
He heard the waver of uncertainty in her voice and suddenly he felt anger for all she had endured. A mother who had been an appalling role model and who, it seemed, had pushed her into an unsuitable marriage when she was still heartbreakingly young. And then some thoughtless junkie of a husband who’d made her believe she was frigid. His voice softened. He didn’t have to add to that list by being such a brute, did he? ‘That you enjoyed what just happened, after what has been a very long wait.’
Now Emma was wide awake. Was that sympathy she heard in his voice—or was it the dreaded pity, which she’d always gone out of her way to avoid? Maybe he looked on her as some kind of freak because she happened to have reached the age of twenty-nine before losing her virginity. She looked at him suspiciously. ‘Are you asking me to mark you out of ten?’
‘No.’ He laughed as he pulled her right back against him. ‘I’ve never felt it necessary to request a scorecard.’
Probably because he’d get a gold star after every performance, she thought. She tried to hold on to what she felt was righteous indignation, but it wasn’t easy. Not when he had drifted his lips to the curve of her jaw, an area she wouldn’t have ever dreamt could be erogenous. But how wrong could she be? Because when Zak gave that tiny, barely there flick of his tongue, she was unable to stop the helpless tremble of her body. And suddenly she couldn’t stop herself from wrapping her arms tightly around his neck and putting her face very close to his.
‘Zak.’
‘Shh.’ He lifted his head so that his lips were soft against hers and he teased them open with his tongue. Shouldn’t he delight her again—to reinforce that she was a deliciously healthy and normal young woman? Couldn’t he give her the gift of physical enlightenment, even if he wasn’t emotionally equipped to offer
her any more than that? ‘The second time can be even better.’
‘B-better?’
‘Mmm. Slower. More …’
‘Zak!’
‘Mmm?’
‘What … what are you doing?’
He raised his head from its current location just south of her belly, his eyes gleaming in a way which made Emma’s heart give a powerful kick. ‘I’m about to lick you where every woman likes best to be licked and which might make conversation a little difficult. So you’ll forgive me if I don’t answer any more of your questions for a while.’
She wanted to protest that mentioning what other women liked wasn’t the most diplomatic thing to say in the circumstances. She opened her mouth to tell him so but by then his dark head was buried between her thighs and his tongue was darting into her … Oh, God! He was actually kissing her … there—and the only sound she made was a gasp of disbelief that something could feel this good.
Softly, she moaned as his mouth worked some kind of sensual magic—her inhibitions melting away as she squirmed beneath the precision of his questing tongue. For a moment, she couldn’t believe that this was really her—uptight Emma Geary writhing as her boss kissed her in the most intimate place imaginable and made her feel as if he was feasting on her.
Her second climax surprised her almost as much as the first—but then, she hadn’t been expecting either. And she suddenly realised that sexual fulfilment didn’t have to be something which hovered frustratingly just out of range. That if you were with the right man, it could happen as easily as breathing.
‘Zak,’ she whispered, wondering if it would be the wrong thing to do to fling her arms around his neck and to thank him. But he still didn’t seem in the mood for any kind of conversation because he didn’t even wait for the sweet spasms to subside before moving over her and thrusting deep inside her again.
Acutely aware of her own inexperience, she wondered if he was enjoying this as much as she was. But then the rhythm of his body changed and she felt him shudder. Heard the muffled exclamation he made in Greek and revelled in the way he kissed the top of her head afterwards, his hand snaking possessively around her waist, and he gave a deep sigh of contentment.
Silently, she clung to him—not wanting to break the warm spell which made it ridiculously easy for her to start wondering what this might be like on a full-time basis. Would it always be this amazing? Zak had been tender and considerate as a lover, even though she’d known he was angry at her deception. Just imagine what it might be like if he was in a good mood!
‘Zak?’ she questioned softly, when she realised from the sound of his steady breathing that he was fast asleep.
Slowly, she turned her head to look at his soft, parted lips and the starkness of his ebony hair against the snowy pillow. How completely relaxed he looked. His big body was sprawled out, all gleaming olive skin and honed muscle as he took up most of the bed. She thought he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen and she could have lain there looking at him for hours. But even as she was revelling in the visual feast, dark thoughts began to eat away at her precarious self-esteem.
What had he said? I’m about to lick you where every woman likes best to be licked. Emma bit her lip and turned her gaze up to the ceiling. He had made her sound as if she was just the latest in a long line of lovers—and maybe that had been his intention.
Because that was exactly what she was. In fact, she probably only qualified for one-night-stand status.
She forced herself to confront the facts, no matter how painful they might be. His proud, Greek nature was appalled by her background, he’d told her that himself—and that much hadn’t changed. Why, he’d even gone to the trouble of shipping her across the Atlantic so that he could separate her from his brother.
So what did she think was going to happen now that she’d had sex with him? That he’d take her to that very expensive jewellery shop situated on the eighth floor of his hotel and purchase one of those whopping great diamond rings which glittered so enticingly in the window? She winced. Not all men made ridiculously over-the-top gestures, the way Louis had done. And hadn’t she learned the hard way that those gestures were empty ones? Zak had been fired up by lust and anger and they were no basis for anything solid, or lasting.