She pulled back to stare at him, recognising the same puzzlement in his own stare as she knew must be in hers.
But then their lips came together again, his strong arms enveloped her and he was kissing her properly, his tongue sweeping into her mouth, filling her senses with his exotic taste.
As if they had free will, her arms wrapped around his broad shoulders and she pressed her hands to his skin. It was smoother to the touch than she could ever have imagined and she traced her fingers over it in circles.
The deeper his kisses, the more she wanted, soaking in as much of his taste and touch as she could consume.
Time slipped away, the world shrinking just to them, a mesh of hungry lips and tongues devouring each other.
His hand swept down her back to clasp her thigh over the restriction of the blanket she was nestled in.
Her blanket.
For the first time, she considered how cold he must be in the whipping wind.
While she was all snuggled up in the fleece blanket, Pascha was sat in nothing but a pair of shorts.
It wasn’t just the wind lashing around them either; the rain had started again, not as fierce as earlier but picking up quickly, big, fat droplets of it.
‘We should go back inside before we get pneumonia,’ she said, disentangling her arms from around him, swallowing hard.
Pascha hadn’t noticed the rain. He’d stopped feeling the cold.
One kiss and he’d forgotten himself.
He’d forgotten his health.
For the first time since the age of five, he didn’t care.
How the hell had that happened?
Emily slipped off his lap—when had she climbed onto it?—and got back to her feet in such an unsteady fashion he grabbed her arm to stop her falling.
‘Thanks,’ she muttered, stepping back with wide, pained eyes before disappearing back into the shelter.
Pausing only to collect the seat covers on the bench, he followed her in, locking the door behind him.
She’d disappeared into the bathroom. He took the moment of solitude to inhale deeply and calm his racing thoughts.
Never had he felt desire so strong.
Or so wrong.
To allow anything more than a kiss to develop between them was to take the first steps on the road to madness.
Emily was nothing like the women he usually entertained for his gratification. She was all too real. All too human. And she was vulnerable.
But his good intentions died when she reappeared from the bathroom, a white towel wrapped around her, accentuating her feminine curves.
All the moisture left his mouth. All the words he’d planned to say left with it.
She passed him a hand-towel with which to dry himself. Wordlessly he accepted it, rubbing it over his hair and face.
She closed the gap between them and placed a hand on his chest. The heat from her skin warmed him more than any fire ever could have.
Slowly Emily traced her fingers over him. It was every bit as beautiful as the tantalising glimpse she’d caught on the veranda had promised, his chest hard and golden, the dark hairs covering it soft.
His chest rose, as if he were struggling for breath. He caught her wrist. ‘Emily, I do not want to take advantage of the situation.’
She could see the pain on his face as he spoke the words. As she closed the final gap between them, pressing herself so her mouth was against his collarbone, she could feel the strength of his erection through his shorts, a movement that sent a bloom of heat straight between her thighs. ‘You might not want to take advantage of the situation, but I do,’ she whispered.
How could she not? The whole day felt like a dream. So many emotions had been churned up, so much desire. And right then it was the desire that burned the strongest, enough to drive out all the other emotions living within her, all her fears.
Stepping back, she tugged at her towel and let it fall to the floor, watching as his eyes widened, the grey darkening.
It was her turn for eyes to widen when a strong hand clasped her waist and wrenched her to him. Before she had time to breathe, Pascha’s hot mouth had found hers, his hold on her the only thing keeping her boneless legs upright.
She wound her arms around his neck and clung to him, kissing him back with everything she had, her tongue winding around his, dancing a tune she never wanted to end.
When Emily had been a child she had always adored watching couples kissing on the television and had eagerly anticipated her own first kiss. In her head, she’d envisaged it would be just like the movies and would send her into a frenzy on the spot. Needless to say, her first kiss had been a disappointment. It was nothing she could put her finger on but kissing had never sent the shockwaves through her that she had always secretly hoped for.
She could kiss Pascha for a lifetime. His kisses were everything she had yearned for and more, sending ripples of pleasure careering through her veins and tingles of electricity zipping through her skin. His kisses were perfect.