‘I like having it here.’ He reached down, picking up a piece of pale blue sea glass and handing it to her. She studied it as though it might have secret properties.
‘So you don’t charge them anything?’
‘Why would I? I don’t need the money.’
‘I thought you lived and breathed business. Such generosity isn’t routed in commercial principles.’
‘Perhaps not,’ he agreed. ‘But it’s born of decency. Besides, I have no doubt my grandfather would come back and haunt me for ever if I made the slightest attempt to alter the arrangement.’
She was still looking at the sea glass. After a moment, she lifted it towards his face. ‘This is the exact shade of blue as your eyes.’
The observation was simple, and perhaps it came from a scientific perspective, but that did nothing to stop the sharp blade that seemed to be drawing along his sides. And if he’d been wondering if she was reading something into that, or being sentimental in her own way, she lifted her hand and tossed the sea glass out to sea, smiling at him in a way that showed how wrong he was. What had he been afraid of—that she’d treasure the gift of sand-softened glass for ever?
She had done nothing to worry him on that score. Everything was going just as he would have wanted—simple, easy, no emotional demands. It was perfect. As if to cement that, he caught her around her waist and lifted her to his chest, so she tipped her head back on a laugh as he carried her out to sea.
‘I’m fully dressed!’ she warned and he arched a single brow in response.
‘Is that an invitation?’
‘Cameron could see.’
‘He’s fast asleep.’
She searched for something else to say but he didn’t give her much opportunity. Striding deeper into the water, once it was halfway up his chest he dropped her into it and she squawked, spinning round and instinctively splashing him. He laughed, dropping into the sea himself, reaching for her, bringing her thrashing body closer and kissing her through the saltiness of the ocean.
She stopped moving and stood still, pressed to him, her body wet, their clothes clinging to them. When they kissed, nothing else seemed to have light or meaning; the world ceased to have a purpose beyond them. He deepened the kiss, his tongue duelling with hers, and she retaliated, using his body to move higher, her mouth pressing to his, her hands driving through his hair, her breasts flat to his chest. He groaned, moving deeper in the water until she was floating and he was keeping them standing, and only here in the safety of that depth did he push her shorts down, so he could cup her naked buttocks and hold her against his hardness.
The sun baked down on them, hot and unrelenting on the back of his head as he kissed her, his erection jerking between them, his body alive with a desperate hunger that only she could meet.
How could it still be like this between them? For weeks he’d been waiting for desire to wane, yet it hadn’t. Every night together brought them closer to the end, making him aware of the temporary nature of this. And that served to increase his urgency, to make him yearn for her even at times like this—when they’d been together only the night before.
‘You are so perfect.’ He spoke the words in Greek, safe in the knowledge she wasn’t fluent in the language and wouldn’t understand them. ‘This is perfect.’
Her response was a soft moan into his mouth and a roll of her hips, a silent invitation that came from her own overwhelming need for him.
‘Please...’ The word was one she said often when they were making love, begging for him to quench her needs, and he never needed to be asked twice. He had no protection—a foolish oversight, but they had only been coming for a beach walk—he hadn’t expected this. Why? Why hadn’t he, when their needs were always paramount? And what had he wanted, then—simply to walk hand in hand and talk? Who the hell was he turning into?
In rejection of that, he moved his hand between her legs, his eyes on hers as he found her most sensitive cluster of nerves and strummed it, his fingers knowing exactly what she liked, how to pleasure her, how to drive her wild and then hold back, to extend her fevered need.
‘I want you,’ she insisted, tilting her head back, her eyes scrunched closed.
‘I don’t have a condom.’
‘I do.’ Her cheeks were already pink from the heat of passion but he suspected there was a blush in there too. ‘It seemed like a wise precaution to start carrying something,’ she explained with a shrug, reaching behind her and pulling a foil square from her back pocket.
‘You have no idea how good that looks to me right now.’
‘To both of us,’ she assured him, using her teeth to open the square. Her hands found the tip of his cock and expertly rolled the protection over his length, if somewhat teasingly, so a hiss burst from between his teeth.
‘Christos.’
Her response was to lift up and wrap her legs around his waist, taking him deep inside her, an inaudible curse escaping her lips as she lay back in the ocean. His hands gripped her hips and he moved her, pulling her back and forth at first before his hand shifted to her femininity, strumming it as he moved so she whimpered and pulled to sitting, pressing herself against him and moving up and down his length, using her feet wrapped around his back for purchase.
Her first orgasm almost brought his own from him. He ground his teeth together, refusing to succumb to that temptation, needing more of this before he brought an end to it. Her breathing was frantic and he kissed her, sucking her panic and pleasure into his mouth, holding her against his body as her feminine core spasmed around his length.
Before she could find her equilibrium, he began to move again, pushing into her and pulling out, his hands roaming her body, his mouth devouring hers; or was it the other way around? A fever had gripped them both, making it impossible to tell who was pushing and who was taking; they were a jumble of hands and limbs and frenzied movements.
‘God, Santos!’ His name was tormented. She cried it out but the ancient ocean swallowed it away, the elements surrounding them making this all the more powerful. When her body was at its breaking point once more, he went with her, releasing himself with a guttural oath, burying his head in her shoulder, breathing her in, feeling every breath of hers in his lungs, his own lungs barely able to inflate his chest sufficiently.