She was putty in his hands, his to play with and mold, pliable and unguarded in a way she hadn’t been since long before the days they’d chased each other through the flowers as children.
He didn’t waste the opportunity.
His tongue traced lines of fire around her breasts, driving her mad in a tempest of temperature and taste and tightening. His beard and teeth gave an edge to every sensation, the combination of sandpaper and silk keeping her spinning.
And then he said her name.
It was more of a breath than even a whisper, but it shot through her, lacy and lithesome as it was, rolling off his tongue with hushed reverence.
“Helene.”
No one called her that. Hel. D’Tierrza. Duke. Captain. Not even her mother, who preferred the termdaughtermost of the time.
Hel had always hatedHelene, fussy and formal, perfect and composed—everything she stood in opposition of.
Until now. The moment he said it, his tone worshipful, his lips soft against her skin as he spoke, she was transformed.
Helenehad the power to bring this god of the sea to his knees. It was the knowledge, from wherever it arose, that he could weather her most powerful storms, and be strong, steady and, most of all, kind.
Rock-hard and warm beneath her hands, he was living, throbbing, ready proof that maybe she was wrong, that maybe, just maybe, incredible strength could come without cruelty.
And whether it was due to that seismic realization or the onslaught of his sensual attack, her body began to tremble. What had begun as faint tremors grew into stronger, more insistent rolling waves, threatening to carry her out to sea, relentless in their increasing strength as her power to resist waned.
“Show me,” he demanded, his voice guttural, all the more commanding for playing her like a maestro at his instrument. “Show me how you fall apart.”
She wanted to fight. She wasn’t the kind of woman who complied easily—she was famous for it—and yet her body strained toward his, the gnawing hunger coalescing where she shamelessly pressed against him.
Yet still she resisted.
She might retreat, but she didn’t surrender.
“Do it now,” he said, and he took one nipple in his mouth at the same instant as he pinched the other and she exploded into a brand-new galaxy—herself, her energy, her very life bursting into a vast collection of stars, planets and memories, spread out before her for an endless second.
His palm scraped lightly down the long plane of her belly, branding her as his as surely as a cattleman’s mark. Then the tips of his long fingers slipping beneath the top edge of her swimsuit and stopped.
He pulled back, commanding her gaze. He was beautiful—his brown eyes burning in low light, his incredible physique harnessed and focused entirely on her, his glorious erection obvious—and he was absolutely not going any further without her signal.
And even though none of it was for her, not marriage, and certainly not children, just for tonight, in this magical place so far from her regular life, she wanted to pretend it was. Disheveled and thoroughly taken, her lips swollen and sensitive, her deepest core throbbing and hungry, aching, craving and insistent that there was more despite his thorough gorging, she nodded.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SLIDINGHERBLUEbikini down revealed the trim triangle of white-blond curls, a treasure he was desperate to cup, hold, slide his finger along the seam of and slip inside... Muscles straining, he refrained. Instead, he brought his fingertip back up to the center point between her eyebrows and trailed down, skin lightly touching skin, all the way down, over her chin, down her neck, between her breasts, past her belly button, only to stop at the beginning of that triangle. She sucked in her breath on a soft hiss, her skin tightening, back arching. Her skin was soft and sensitive for a woman who made a living of being hard.
Moonbeams streaming in through the sky-view wall lit and outlined her perfection—her nipples, dusky rose and proud, her breasts, soft and pliant, each one his perfect handful, her waist, slender and long, the rounded swell of her hips and muscular curvature of her backside, each line an artist’s, emphasizing her form with shadow and highlight.
Rock-hard and throbbing, the tip of his manhood was damp in anticipation of her, as if it knew this was her first time, knew that even though he would take care of her, that he would ensure she was as wet the ocean floor before he entered her, that she would need all of that and more to ease his entry.
He was a lot to take for the first time, but he had no doubt she could handle him—all of him—like a custom-made sheath. A captain learned to trust his instincts, and his instincts were screaming that he had found his Penelope. But unlike famous Odysseus, he would not ask her to put her life on hold. He would set her free.
But not until he’d heard her beg. If she was going to make his dreams come true, he was going to blow her mind.
While she still shook, he took her further under his command, gripping her hips on either side, strong fingers digging into the taut flesh. Adjusting her position, he sat her on the edge of the pool and spread her legs, an open buffet for his feast.
Languorous and love-drunk, she was unprepared for the onslaught. He attacked directly, no longer content to resist the siren song of her scent.
She tasted like citrus, snapping him back to the bright bergamot that infused the private courtyard air outside his childhood bedroom in Andros, a sensory pleasure long-lost—she tasted like home. Even when he’d tasted her for the first time, the knowledge hadn’t surprised him, as if some part of him had known the moment he’d laid eyes on her, watching her argue with the ghost of her father.
He could have told her there was no use arguing with that man.