The tug of the water and the promise of the ocean’s soothing caress became too much, and she picked up her hem and scooped her bulky abaya over her head, shaking her long hair free as she dropped the garment to the sand.
She strode into the welcoming water, felt the refreshing rush as a wave came to greet her, then the suck as it receded, coaxing her deeper. She waded in until she was waist-deep and then dived under an incoming wave, setting her nerve-endings alight with the sensual slip of water against skin.
He hadn’t really believed she’d been running away. He didn’t really believe she’d try anything like that again. But that didn’t mean he didn’t think she was an accident waiting to happen. Just a short walk, she’d said after their meal, to clear her head—and yet already she’d walked the length of the beach and then some before she’d finally stopped. He’d wondered if he should turn, or just wait for her there in the dark. She was bound to be unimpressed if she learned he’d followed her.
And then she’d done the unexpected and pulled her dress up and over her head, and the air had been punched from his lungs.
In the light of the moon her skin glowed gold, her hair shining black, tumbling down to her slim waist as she shook it free from her dress. Long-limbed, and with curves where they should be, she stood under the moonlight like a golden goddess, before she moved to meet the water, her hips swaying, her long hair rippling down her back, as graceful and elegant as a water bird.
Sera.
His Sera.
CHAPTER SIX
NEED punched into him like a curled fist. It had hit him hard the first time, when he had kissed her in the desert after pulling her to her escape. Hit him unexpectedly, with its force and sheer ferocity. Because he’d realised finally that his kiss hadn’t just been about vengeance. It had been need that had driven him to taste her lips. Need that had made him crush her to him as if he’d never let her go again.
A need that had rocked him to the core when he had put her away from him, determined to keep her at arm’s length, where the siren could no more mess with his head.
But now, seeing her like this, golden-skinned and lithe, and with the water slipping its cool magic up her silken thighs, it was as if his need had taken root and become a living thing.
How could one be jealous of the water in the sea? But right now he was. He wanted to be there in place of it, caressing the secret places he never had, sliding past that silken skin, holding her flesh in his thrall.
Why shouldn’t he have her?
She was nothing to him now but a dark memory. Nothing but an itch that had never been scratched. Once upon a time he’d respected her innocence, had been prepared to wait until the right moment, until the ceremony that would see them tied together for ever. But why should he wait now? There was nothing left to wait for. There would be no ceremony, no forever, and she was a widow, no longer the innocent.
Why shouldn’t he have her?
She hadn’t fought against his kiss. Even if she had not wanted it, as he himself had not, she had not protested or struggled to be free. Instead her body had swayed into his, melted against his, her mouth opening at his invitation just as surely as he knew her body would open for him. After all, she was a woman now practised in such moves.
What was one more man to her now?
He wandered closer to where she’d left her abaya, crumpled on the sand, and dropped the sandals he’d been carrying in his hands. Out in the sea she was diving through the waves like a dolphin, her body sleek, her back curved, the moonlight turning her body to a swish of silk through the water. He envied the black hair that hugged her skin and curved around her breasts just as he envied the sea that embraced her.
She was beautiful. A goddess. And he wanted her.
She should have been his a long time ago.
She could be his now.
And he would have her.
Sera wanted to stay there for ever, but she knew that she had already been away too long, that her presence would be missed and that Rafiq had probably sent out a search party.
Besides, the water had not numbed her heated skin as she needed. Instead the waves had been a sensual massage against her skin, its motion past her skin feeding the tension that had beset her body ever since Rafiq had appeared outside his mother’s apartment, the remorseless tension that had cranked up one-hundredfold when he’d folded her so tightly in his arms and kissed her senseless.
She shivered in the water, suddenly feeling cold, and turned for shore, catching a wave and riding it into the shore, where she stood in the shallows, put her arms behind her head to squeeze the water from her hair, and looked up the beach for the place where she had left her gown.