A voice inside Vidal’s head urged him to stop, telling him that it was his duty to deny himself the pleasure that was feeding his desire for her, but that desire was too savagely primitive for him to resist. He had felt it the very first minute he had set eyes on her and seen her in the flesh—hitting him, possessing him, compelling him in a way that every fibre of his logical brain wanted to resist and deny. But now—dangerously—it had overwhelmed that logic, and he was answering to something within him that he had previously not realised existed: a male urge to conquer, to possess, to own for himself the woman he was holding and caressing. A thousand years of history and male pride, of conquest and victory, was surging through him with all the power of a burst dam, destroying every obstacle in its way.
It was that age-old instinct and drive that belonged to man’s most potent needs that was compelling him now to smooth his hand over the quivering of Fliss’s taut stomach and then to cup her hip as he pulled her into his own body so that her flesh could feel and know the desire it had aroused in his. On the wall, their conjoined shadows revealed the intimacy of their embrace, detailing the arch of Fliss’s back as he bent her back over his arm, the aroused thrust of her nipple exposed to the lamplight, the meeting and joining of their lower bodies making them one.
Fliss was completely lost. The hard pulse of Vidal’s erection felt against her bare flesh through his clothes filled her with a wanton, compulsive desire to feel his naked flesh against her own—to be able to reach out and touch him, to know him and to feel his life force.
She made no attempt to resist when Vidal picked her up and carried her over to the bed, placing her down on it. His gaze absorbed every detail of her naked body, lingering on her flesh as though he could not tear it away. A sensuality Fliss had not known she possessed caused her to move her body languidly beneath that gaze, a thrill of sweetly savage female pleasure speeding through her when she heard the stifled sound Vidal made before he joined her on the bed, holding her, shaping her, taking her mouth in an erotic kiss and keeping possession of it and her whilst he caressed her body.
The touch of his fingertips against her stomach sent jolting waves of dangerously intense delight surging through her—a delight fused with a female need to feel his touch against her even more intimately. Her body tensed, her breath locking in her lungs when Vidal’s hand moved lower, covering her sex, infusing it with a heat that had her out-of-control desire for him flowering moistly in the sensitive flesh protected by the folded lips that she could feel swelling and opening beneath his hand.
Another minute—less than that, a mere handful of seconds—and he would discover her wet eagerness for his possession. And she was eager for it. She yearned for it, ached for it, hungered for it. In her imagination she could already feel his thrust within her, and her body was pulsing frantically under the stimulation of what she was thinking. She wanted him so much, so completely, so overwhelmingly, her desire for him was storming through her.
Vidal’s own breathing was harsh and unsteady, his mouth against her skin passionately demanding. The brief grate of his teeth against her swollen nipple as he drew on it caused her body to convulse on the raw pleasure of that fierce caress. She wanted him so completely and totally that nothing else mattered.
Vidal slowly released Fliss’s nipple, and then raised his head to look at her. In her eyes was all that Vidal needed to see to know that she wanted him. The look there matched the aroused anticipation of her naked body.
‘Take off your clothes,’ she told him huskily. ‘I want to see all of you. I want to feel your skin against mine, your body against mine with nothing between us. I want you inside me, possessing me as a man should possess a woman. I want you, Vidal.’
Fliss listened to her own words, her own demands, with a vague sense of shock—as though they had somehow come from someone else. But Vidal didn’t seem to be shocked or even surprised by them. Instead he was doing what she had asked, his gaze never leaving her face, almost pinning her to the bed as he stripped off his clothes whilst his movements allowed the light to play greedily over the stunning reality of his male flesh.
Almost wonderingly Fliss reached up to trace the line of dark body hair that bisected his torso, only stopping when he trapped her hand flat against his belly as she reached his belly button. Without a word Fliss sat up, and proceeded to retrace the path taken by her fingertips with a line of soft kisses which gradually became more intense as her own desire gripped her.
Now both her hand and her head were held immobile in Vidal’s grip, their quest short-circuited, their goal denied.