Pulling back, unwilling to lean too hard, to get too used to the support, she was struck by his beauty.
His gaze dropped to her parted lips and her breath caught. The look in his eyes took on an intense focus that hadn’t been there a moment before.
He was going to kiss her again, and as her body strained closer to him ever so slightly, she realized she was going to let him again. She was going to let him, because shewasstrong enough to set it down—her vow, her father, all of it.
She could set it down for Drake.
Their lips met with the shocking electric intensity that was fast becoming an old friend. He was a warm front meeting her cold, the force of their coming together creating a private hurricane of bodies pressed together, his plundering tongue the eye of the storm.
Her long fingers danced across his back and down his arms, freed, uninhibited and empowered to be surprisingly gentle. Everywhere he pulsed warmth and strength—the thrum of blood in his veins beneath his skin, his hands, exploring her body, the growing length of him, separated from her by just the thin fabric of his shorts and her bikini.
Water lapped at their legs, its quiet splashes licking up only to drip down her inner thighs as the mingled sound of their heavy breathing echoed and swirled throughout the pool room like steam in a sauna.
His roughened sailor’s palms came to rest at her lower rib cage before caressing her in an upward motion, his thumbs brushing under and along the outer edges of her breasts, exposed on either side of her bikini top. Her skin tightened at the contact, shivers trailing their way outward from her spine to the tips of her extremities, chasing the breath out of her lungs as if at the end of breath lurked bliss. Her sigh was pressure released in pleasure, escaping her swollen lips to weave them together before she even recognized the sound as her own.
He growled in response, the sound a rumble originating somewhere near where their hips ground against each other before it vibrated up through his torso to become pure possession in his kiss.
She moaned into him, giving him more of her weight, more of her need, more of her.
He answered by running his hand down her side to catch her thigh, lifting it in a smooth motion, bringing them even closer, core to nuclear core. And still, it wasn’t enough. She still wanted more.
Greed was a new experience.
When resources were infinite, there was no want or lack to breed greed. But here, between them, she met limits for the first time—a limit in how close she could press, a limit in how she could assuage the growing chasm inside that cried out for more even after being given more than it had ever been given before, a limit in her ability to join with him, as if the brand-new concept the primitive voice inside whispered to her was not only possible, but also imperative. They could become one, it promised. If she was brave enough, their essence could unify, creating a new entity, greater than the sum of their perfectly suited parts.
It was a fascinating lure. Truly tempting, in a way none of the tepid stolen kisses of her past had been. It wasn’t possible to be a beautiful, rich, female royal without having had her fair share of unwanted advances. Before she’d become strong enough to fend them off in other ways, she’d learned that the best response was simply to reveal to the absolute chill of disinterest their efforts inspired in her. But the truth was, until Drake, she had never been tempted.
His kisses made her forget herself, lose her sense of time and place. There was no upper hand under the command of his lips.
And she couldn’t get enough.
Neither, it seemed, could he. With another growl, this one dogged by frustrated need, he scooped up her other thigh, unbalancing her as he took her weight easily, holding her body—hot, slick and wet—tight against his...all without breaking his kiss.
He was strong. Stronger than she was, she noted, though she usually didn’t think in terms like that. Strength was nothing against determination—unless that strength was a volcano rising from the sea, threatening to engulf her in its molten waves. He was overwhelming, and she realized she wanted to be overwhelmed, but only by him.
Without breaking the kiss, he carried her to the edge of the warm pool, placing her there gently, as if she was something delicate and fragile, rather than the same woman he’d sparred with only yesterday morning.
Standing between her parted thighs, he brought his hands up to cup her jaw, his touch reverent as he tilted her face up toward his to plunder the depths of her mouth further. And then his fingers were in her hair, massaging her scalp as his lips made mush of her mind.
Everything in her strained toward him, reaching for that elusive union her body insisted was their ultimate destination. Her breasts ached, longing for what she didn’t know, while everywhere her skin flushed and burned.
His lips followed his hands, tracing her jawline to find her earlobe, where he bit her softly before whispering something long and lovely in Sidran. And then all the air, and her wits, rushed out of her at the same time, every ounce of her focus zeroed in on the point where his thumbs pressed against her aching nipples.
Blue triangles of swimsuit separated them, but she felt the contact as acutely as if she had been nude, each rosy peak exposed beneath the dark sky.
And then he was rolling the hard pearls between his thumb and forefinger, his palms joining in the sensual explosion, cupping and lifting her breasts, and she was arching her back, pressing herself farther into his hands.
Snaking an arm around her waist to hold her, he kissed down her neck, pillaging the ivory column all the way, his free arm working its way behind her back and pulling the string that held her top in place.
He made quick work of the string around her neck, tossing the top to the side as he pulled back to feast on the sight of her bare breasts. The look in his eyes said he was ravenous for a sustenance only she could provide. In that instant, she felt what it was to be a font—a source of life, beauty and wonder—rather than an embattled soldier with grim purpose.
It felt like earning wings.
His hot mouth locked around the needy peak of her nipple and she soared, the sensation breaking free in the form of his name on her lips, the syllable a drawn-out cry of pleasure. Her legs squeezed around his waist of their own volition, the movement a subconscious flirtation, drawing him nearer to the untapped power source at her core.
Her movement set off a tremor of reaction through his body that she felt deep within her own. She marveled that she had the ability to make this incredible man shake. The thought went straight to her head, light and bubbly even as it was tremendous, like standing on the edge of a skyscraper.
Her breath came in shallow pants as he devoured her, switching to the other breast only when he’d completely ravished the first, his free hand quickly coming to replace the spot where his mouth had been.