It was as if everything that had happened in the past ten days had been blown away, and with it all the reasons why being alone with him in his apartment and in his arms was all wrong. This was everything she wanted, everything she needed. How could something so wrong feel so right?
And now she didn’t even want to think about right and wrong. All she wanted was to be in his arms. For ever.
She was the one to part her lips, to dart her tongue into the darkness of his mouth, to wind her arms around his neck and press into him. She was the one to break the kiss and drag her lips over his stubble-roughened cheeks and jaw and down the strong length of his neck, to run her tongue over the smooth skin, tasting his musky, masculine scent. And she was the one to draw her tongue back up his throat, dig her nails into his scalp and capture his lips with her own.
A tiny sob escaped her mouth when Helios growled and drew his arms around her. He crushed her to him. His lips parted and he kissed her so deeply and so thoroughly that in the breath of an instant she was lost in him.
A large hand dived into her hair whilst his other hand roamed down her back to clutch her bottom, which he squeezed before spreading his palm over her thigh and lifting it. He ground into her and she gasped to feel him huge against her, her underwear the only barrier to stop him entering her there and then.
In a mesh of lips and tongues he pushed her back against the wall, kissing her as if she were a banquet to be feasted on, before pulling away, tugging at her bottom lip painlessly with his teeth as he did so. His chest rising and falling in rapid motion, the palm of one hand held against her chest to still her, Helios lowered himself, pinched the hem of her dress and slowly raised it up. He kissed her stomach as he lifted the dress to her abdomen, his tongue making a trail upwards, through the valley of her breasts, into her neck, until he’d pulled it over her head and thrown it onto the floor.
Amy dug her toes into the hard flooring, her head spinning. Everything inside her blazed as fiercely as the whirling fires she’d seen on the beach. Her skin was alive to his touch. She was alive to his touch. Her senses had sprung to life from the very first moment she’d looked at him all those months ago and since then she’d been helpless to switch them off.
He straightened to his full height and stared down at her, his throat moving as his liquid eyes took in her semi-nakedness. He clasped her cheeks in his hands and brought his nose to hers. ‘Not being able to touch you or make love to you has driven me crazy,’ he said hoarsely. ‘You’ve driven me crazy.’
She pulled at his hair, wanting to hurt him, wanting him to experience the pain she’d gone through at the separation she’d had no choice but to force upon them. ‘It’s hurt me every bit as much as you,’ she whispered, bringing her mouth back to his.
Holding her tightly, Helios lifted Amy into his arms, staring at her as he carried her through to his bedroom, delighting in the heightened colour of her cheeks and the dilation of her pupils.
All his dreams and fantasies had come true.
She’d come to him.
He hadn’t realised how badly he’d prayed for it until he’d opened the door to her.
But he could still see the last vestiges of doubt and fear ringing in her eyes and he was determined to drive them away.
How could she not know that this, here, being together, was exactly how it was supposed to be?
Laying her down on his bed, he kissed her rosebud mouth and inhaled the sweet scent he had come close to believing he would never delight in again. All that separated them was her pretty black underwear. He remembered how once he’d peeled it off with his teeth, in those early hedonistic days when the desire between them had been so great he’d been certain it would have to abate. But it had only developed into something deeper, something needier.
Whatever it took, he would keep her in his bed.
As he gazed down, seeing the pulse beating in the arch of her neck, the way she stretched out her legs before raising her pelvis, the urgency grew. Theos, but he needed to be inside her.
She raised a lazy hand and pressed it to his chest, then spread her fingers over him, touching him in the way that always filled him with such gratification, as if he were one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
The knowledge that she would explore him in the same manner with which he delighted in exploring her had always been indescribable. There was not a fraction of her he had not tasted and not a fraction of him she had not touched. He would never tire of tasting her and making her his.
He slipped a hand behind her back and unclasped her bra, then carefully pulled the straps down her arms, kissing the trail they made and throwing it onto the floor with a flick. With her delectable breasts now bare, the dusky nipples puckered in open invitation, he dipped his head to take one tip in his mouth, groaning as she immediately arched her back to allow him to take more of her in.
Her fingers tugged through his hair as she twisted and writhed beneath him, the urgency in her movements matching the urgency flowing through his veins. She skimmed a hand down over his back before slipping it across his stomach, reaching for him. His attentions now on her other breast, he raised himself a little to make it easier for her to take his erection into her hand, groaning again as she held it in the way she knew he adored, rubbing her thumb over the head and guiding him to the apex of her thighs.
Gritting his teeth and breathing heavily, he kissed her neck and moved her hand away, squeezing her fingers between his own. Immediately she raised her thighs and rubbed against his length, moaning, begging him with soft murmurs.
But there was still the final barrier of her underwear between them.
He kissed her hard on the mouth, then pulled back, drifting his lips down the creaminess of her neck and breasts until he reached her abdomen. There, he pinched the elastic of her underwear between the fingers of both hands and tugged it down, past her thighs and calves and delicate ankles, until she was fully naked before him.
‘Please...’ she beseeched him, raising her thighs higher and reaching out a hand to touch him. ‘Please.’
Swallowing hard at the sight of her, so full of desire and need for him it made him heady, he guided his erection into her welcoming heat.
He pushed himself in with one long drive and buried his face in her neck, biting gently into the soft skin. And as she gripped him tightly within her he knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was where he belonged.
Skin against skin, heartbeat to heartbeat, arms and legs entwined, he made love to her.
And she made love to him.
He could sense the tension within her building, could hear it in the shortening of her breaths, the shallowness of her moans, feel it in the way she gripped his buttocks, deepening his thrusts. And then he felt her pulses pulling at him, pulling him even deeper inside her, her slender frame stilling, her teeth biting into his shoulder.
He didn’t want it to end. He wanted it to last for ever, to be locked in her tight sweetness with her legs wrapped around him and her nails digging into his back for eternity...
And then there was no more consciousness. His own climax surged through him, tipping him over a precipice he hadn’t known he was on the edge of and exploding in a wash of bright colours that took him to a place he’d never been before.
* * *
Amy awoke in the comfort of Helios’s embrace, her face pressed against his chest, his arm hooked across her waist, his thigh draped heavily over hers.
Remorse flooded her in an instant.
What had she done?
Everything she’d sworn she wouldn’t do had been ripped away in one moment of madness.
She should go. She had to go. She couldn’t stay here.
How many times had she awoken in the night in his arms and felt the stirring to make love to him all over again? How many times had she lifted her head a touch and met his kiss? Had him fully hard and inside her in an instant? Too many to count. Sometimes she would wake in the morning and wonder if she’d dreamt their lovemaking in the early hours.
But at this moment Helios’s breathing was deep and even. If she was careful she might be able to sneak out without him waking. Then she could flee to her apartment, pack a suitcase and check into a hotel. That was it. That was what she had to do.
Because she couldn’t stay here—not now when she knew how hopeless she was at resisting him.
She’d tried so hard to stay away.
Oh, God, what had she done?
She could dress it up any way she liked but she’d given in to temptation, and now the ecstasy of being back in his arms had gone, replaced with an acrid taste in her mouth and a gutful of guilt.
She had to leave. Right now.
Carefully, after stealthily slipping out of his arms, she edged her way out of the bed, holding her breath until her feet touched the floor.
Scrambling, half-blind in the dark, she found her dress thrown across an armchair. She had no idea where her underwear had got to and was in too much of a panic to escape to hunt for it for long. She shrugged her dress on and, fearful of choking on the swell rising in her chest, tiptoed to the door.
‘You wouldn’t be running away, would you?’
Helios watched as Amy’s silhouette froze at the bedroom door. Switching on the bedside light, he propped himself up on an elbow as she slowly turned around to face him with wide, pain-filled taupe eyes. To see her mussed-up hair and her beautiful face contorted in such misery... Something sharp pierced him.