CHAPTER TEN
HESTAREDDOWN at her, drinking in each individual feature before gorging himself on the perfect whole. Then slowly, he lifted a hand and framed her face. Kat shivered at the contact and pushed her cheek against his hand, turning her face so that her lips brushed his palm.
His hand dropped.
‘How will you help me?’
Her heart gave a painful jolt; her body was humming, her nerve endings raw as though all the insulation, the protection, had been stripped from them. ‘I’d do anything you need,’ she whispered.
A sound like a groan was torn from deep inside his chest. ‘Don’t say that, Katina.’
She lifted her chin. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I need everything.’
The heat between them scorched the air as he bent his head and kissed her. Kat kissed him back with equal abandon, locking her hands around his neck, arching her back to crush her breast into his chest, the little gasps of shocked pleasure as she felt the hardness of his desire against her belly lost in the warmth of his mouth.
They broke apart as the sound of a helicopter overhead cut through the sigh of the water.
Zach swore and took her hand. He studied it for a moment, an expression almost like pain contorting his features before his fingers tightened and he led her onto the moonlit sand.
Kat tripped.
‘You’re going to break your neck on those damned things. They are lethal.’
‘But sexy.’
His eyes glowed hot and hungry. ‘Hell, yes!’
The moonlight lent everything a silvered glow and the night-time silence made the hush of the waves breaking into a white foam hiss seem louder. There was no wind at all, just a warm stillness as, hopping on one foot and then the other, she whipped off the heels to walk beside him, her heart pounding in anticipation as they reached the point where the waves were breaking.
He turned, allowing himself to look at her. The fall had shaken free her hair from its elegant knot and it now spilled down her back and blew across her face in silky tangled strands that she pushed impatiently away with her free hand.
‘I want to touch you.’ He closed his eyes, trying to get some sort of grip on the raw primal instincts that had him in a stranglehold. The muscles in his brown throat worked as he stared at her, but it was the heat in his passion-glazed eyes that made her insides dissolve and made her feet move of their own accord to close the distance between them.
Kat, her heart thudding, forgot what she was about to say, forgot how to speak, how to think; the raw need stamped into his strong, beautiful features thrilled through her and into a secret place nothing had ever penetrated before.
‘This is a bad idea, Kat,’ he slurred, struggling to think past the roar, the tidal wave of emotion rising inside him as he dragged a not quite steady hand through his hair.
‘It’s too late to go back,’ she said, thinking, In more ways than one, as a surge of sheer hopeless longing made her tremble. He really was the epitome of male beauty as he stood there in the moonlight, his shirt open to the waist, his dark hair standing in sexy tufts, the shadow on his jaw and chin highlighting the angles and planes of his face.
‘You’re perfect,’ she whispered, utterly dazzled by his perfection.
‘Agape mou!’Zach looked into her eyes, saw the heat and hunger and felt his control burn away. It was impossible to tell who moved first but suddenly they were colliding, the impetus of the contact driving the air out of her lungs; not that it mattered—Kat couldn’t breathe anyway.
They sank to the sand together, lay side by side, thigh to thigh, for a moment breathing hard, staring into each other’s eyes.
Zach moved first, reaching out to lay a big hand against her cheek, then, holding her gaze, he moved in with nerve-shreddingly slow deliberation to claim her trembling lips.
Kat’s eyes squeezed closed as she focused on the taste of him, the feel of him, greedily absorbing the musky smell of his hard, male body mingled with the salty tang in the air.
The touch of his hand on one breast drew a soft feral whimper from her aching throat. She felt the air cool on her hot skin as he pushed the fabric away, revealing the turgid pink peak. The air around them crackled with the passion that burned away oxygen, leaving them in a bubble when, as if responding to some silent signal, they both began frantically tearing at each other’s clothing, their mouths connected as they kissed with a wild lack of restraint, a desperate drowning feeling that Kat had never dreamt existed, let alone would ever feel.
Her entire body felt sensitised. She was aware of every touch, every abrasive point of friction between them and most of all the hot ache of arousal between her thighs.
Zach raised himself onto his knees, pulling Kat with him, his lips not releasing hers for a second as his hands moved to the zip at the back of her dress. The need to see her was part of the madness consuming them both.
The dress slithered down to waist level.