With a sigh of exhausted pleasure, she gave up and leaned back, closing her eyes.
Firmly Stavros kept his mind on the task at hand. Bathing Tessa. Soothing her hurts. Not focusing on her nude body laid out like an invitation to bliss before him, just visible through the thinning film of bubbles. Not on the way her breasts swayed as he slid the cloth across them, seductively brushing his hand as he stroked down her side.
Her eyes were shut but there was a frown on her face. From pain?
He’d slammed into her untried body with all the finesse of an over-sexed stallion. He’d shown the care, the sensitivity of a bulldozer.
He washed her hip. Her long, shapely thigh. Trying to ignore the more curvaceous shape of her still-slim body that a week of decent eating had produced.
Things had changed irrevocably. Inexperienced or not, Tessa had shown him a taste of sensual pleasure so extraordinary, so intense, he couldn’t ignore it. No man could.
The die was cast.
He might have to call on every seductive skill he possessed but he intended to have her again. And again…and again.
Tessa opened her eyes when he finally pulled her out of the bath. While he concentrated on rubbing her dry with a plush towel she tried to read his mood.
The concentration on his face, the hint of a frown between his dark brows and the way his hair flopped down over his forehead as he bent to rub her legs dry made something in her want to reach out and hold him close. Whisper that she’d never felt like this about any other man.
Anticipation fizzed in her blood as he carried her to the big bed in his room. He put her down on the sheets and climbed in behind her, pulling the coverlet over them both. Her mouth dried and her heartbeat sped up.
Tessa knew she should leave. She should assert her independence and show some backbone, instead of holding her breath, waiting for his touch.
Sex with Stavros had been a mistake. Some tiny, still-functioning part of her mind knew it.
But what a glorious disaster!
And now, despite the urgings of her saner self, she stayed where she was. Ultimately she’d pay the price for succumbing to this man. Why not enjoy this moment of madness before it ended and reality flooded in?
His arms closed around her, pulling her tight against him. At her back Tessa felt the pulse of his heartbeat, his hot flesh, his arousal. Her breathing notched up as she remembered the sensations of their bodies together, moving, straining, climaxing.
Could it possibly be that wonderful a second time?
He lowered his lips to her ear and every nerve strained to attention. She held her breath.
‘Shut your eyes, Tessa, and relax. Just go to sleep.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EARLY-MORNING light rimmed the curtains. She woke to lethargy, heat and a sense of restlessness. It was as if Stavros encompassed her. The rhythmic thud of his heart beat against her back. One solid thigh rested between hers, one large hand cupped her breast and his erection pressed tight against her buttocks. A zing of expectation caught her breath and she couldn’t prevent the tiny involuntary wiggle of her body against his.
‘You’re awake.’ The words feathered her ear and she closed her eyes in delight at the sensation of his breath caressing her bare skin.
‘Yes.’ She waited for him to tell her to leave. To fling some accusation at her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured.
Sorry? Stavros was apologising? Her brain baulked at the unfamiliar concept even as a flicker of recollection told her he’d said something similar last night.
‘I behaved without restraint. Like an animal.’ There was no doubting his sincerity. Yet still he held her. His hardened body told its own tale.
Tessa tried to turn to see his face, but he was jammed so close she couldn’t find the purchase to move. Besides, the feel of his hand at her breast sent heady thrills of delight through her and she didn’t want to push him away.
‘I rather enjoyed it,’ she whispered.
Silence.
She sighed, not wanting to rehash it all. It was done now. For good or ill. She didn’t have the stomach to fight him any more, or to dredge up accusations about how he’d never trusted her. As they lay, spooned together, it was almost as if all that had happened to two different people. People who’d existed in some distant past, long ago.
Before last night.
For now it was enough that he held her close in his arms.
Was she a fool for believing that the man she’d seen last night, bathing her hurts and denying the physical gratification he so obviously wanted again, was the real Stavros? The man with genuine tenderness in his touch, despite his grim visage?
Perhaps this was self-delusion to believe she’d broken through his implacably hard shell to discover the man she’d suspected was there all along. The man she’d glimpsed in South America: bold and decisive and selfless. Who worried about his sick father and treated the older man with just the right mix of respect and humour. Who’d been so protective of Angela.