Christakis's Rebellious Wife(46)
He drew her back into the hard heat of his taut, muscular body, covering her mouth with his. His tongue delved and explored and desire burned higher in Betsy than a firework shooting into the sky. Her hands clutched at his shoulders before lacing into his luxuriant black hair to hold him fast. He was a very sexy kisser. While he engaged her lips his hands roved until, freeing her mouth, he pulled her back against him and gently, softly, touched her between her trembling thighs.
Between one heartbeat and the next, her whole body became a mass of screaming nerve endings and she quivered and shook in response against him, her breath releasing in muffled sobs and gasps. Against her hip she could feel him hard and ready even through the barrier of his trousers. ‘Make love to me,’ she urged helplessly.
‘Later,’ Nik husked, burying his mouth against her exposed throat and licking and nipping at the sensitive cords of muscle pulling taut there to send another wave of painfully erotic stimulation through her already tormented body. ‘Come for me...’
His stubbled jawline rasped against her cheek as he touched her with aching expertise and suddenly there was nothing she could do about it, her body was racing for the finish line all on its own. A liquid flame ran through her as unstoppable as a tide and the tightness in her pelvis suddenly clenched and convulsed in an explosion of almost intolerable pleasure as spasm after spasm of ecstatic release gripped her.
Nik settled her limp length back against the pillows. ‘Now you sleep,’ he rasped.
Betsy’s face felt hot enough to fry eggs on and she didn’t open her eyes as he tugged the cool linen sheet over her hot, damp body. She was limp with shame at having succumbed to temptation and taken the pleasure he offered. Once again she had stomped all over her own most deeply held principles. But then hadn’t she always done that to keep Nik in her life? She had married a man who did not love her and from that moment on everything had become a compromise. In the same way, if they reconciled to raise their unborn children, she would never have the security of knowing herself loved and would have to live with the truth that only her fertility had brought him back to her.
And that was a toxic truth, she acknowledged painfully, one that would twist and grow inside her like Jack’s beanstalk and eventually smother her self-esteem. But if the only alternative was to stay separated and continue the divorce, would that be any easier? After all, with her being pregnant they could not have a clean break now. Could she live with Nik always on the periphery of her life as the father of her children? Look on with detachment when he eventually chose another woman to share his life?
Pain slammed through her in answer to that question. Her lashes lifted as she stole an anguished glance at his bold bronzed profile, insecurity clawing at her. For a split second she wanted his arms round her so badly it hurt. Later, she recalled, a little bubble of heat warming her chilled limbs at the promise of that word. And in the back of her mind, she cringed at what loving Nik had done to her pride. Would she only feel secure now when he demonstrated desire for her body?
CHAPTER EIGHT
OVER BREAKFAST ON the sunlit terrace the following morning, Betsy studied Nik’s lean bronzed face with its sleek yet hard-edged charisma, feminine appreciation sending prickles of awareness slivering through her pelvis. At the same time she was wondering why he hadn’t joined her in bed the previous night. She assumed it was because her long and very sound sleep had convinced him that her need for rest was more important.
‘So, what would you like to do today?’ Nik enquired lazily.
‘Obviously I want to see where you grew up...in fact every place on this island that’s associated with your childhood!’ Betsy confessed with helpless enthusiasm.