No, not calm. There was nothing calm about the way she felt. She was hungry, needy, yearning both physically and mentally. There was nothing she could do about the mental ache, the one that centred in her heart and spread outwards into every part of her. But she could appease the physical hunger, she could give herself to Santos and know his physical possession, if nothing more. And if that was the only form of love that he would ever believe in, it would have to be enough. She could do that for him, and by doing so she could be almost happy.
And so she reached for him. Closed her hands around his muscled arms and drew him close. Pressed her lips against his and kissed him with all the intensity of the feeling she knew. She opened her mouth to him and let her tongue tangle with his and when he moved over her, parting her legs with one powerful, hair-roughened thigh, she opened herself to him too with a new kind of joy that made her whole body sing in more than the sexual passion that glowed in her veins.
But when at last he entered her, easing into her waiting body in one long, slow, controlled thrust, she felt the need and hunger ignite all over again. Her nerves burned with it, her head spun, her senses were on overload with the feel and scent of him all around her, inside her. Her mouth was on his skin, her fingers clenching over the tight, bunching muscles of his back as she met each strong movement, arching against him to take him more fully into her.
‘I needed this,’ Santos muttered against her mouth. ‘Needed you …’
There was no doubting the truth of his words, it was there in the rush of colour along the carved cheekbones, the febrile glitter that turned his eyes to molten silver. It was in his voice too, in the rough, husky tones that deepened his accent, made it raw and thick in a way that was far removed from his usual clear speech.
‘And now you have me,’ Alexa returned, kissing the words onto his lips. Knowing that this was as close as she dared come to the declaration of the way she truly felt. ‘All of me—every last little bit …’
The words broke on a gasp of delight as a wickedly knowing move of his strong body broke all trace of her control, taking her to the brink of ecstasy and holding her there. Oblivious to anything and everything beyond him, she could only cling on to his strength, lost, blind, abandoned, her whole being concentrated on the wild sensations she was experiencing, the forceful build-up, the yearning for release …
And then he thrust again and again, taking her right over the edge this time, throwing her into the sensual free-fall of total oblivion while all her senses spun and the world whirled and shattered all around her. A moment later she was crushed tight in his arms, his powerful muscles clenching, his heart pounding underneath her cheek, and she heard his own raw cry as he followed her into the shimmering void, losing himself completely in her body’s welcoming embrace.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE LIGHT OF the dawn breaking beyond the uncurtained window was what slowly dragged Alexa back to wakefulness from the depths of the deep, exhausted sleep she had fallen into at some late point in the night. Her eyes opened slowly, blinked dreamily, staring up at the white-painted ceiling above her as she struggled to recognise where she was.
In her home, in her bedroom—of course that was where she was. Every instinct told her she was in the all too familiar surroundings, every part of her recognised the wallpaper, the feel of the bed, the plain white bed linen … but at the same time everything seemed and felt so very different that it was as if she had awakened somewhere totally new and strange. Somewhere that she didn’t recognise at all.
But then she blinked again, stretching slightly, and her right arm and leg came into contact with the hard warmth of a strong body lying relaxed and totally at ease just beside her. A long, muscled, relaxed male body, she acknowledged and with the realisation came the rush of remembrance that told her it was not the room that was new, not her surroundings that were different, but that she herself had changed. The events of the night, and her realisation of the way that she felt about Santos, meant that she would never, ever be the same again.
‘Santos …’
She tested his name on her tongue, almost as if trying it on for size, tasting it where she could still sense the essence of him in her mouth. For the moment she didn’t need to turn to see the man she loved where he lay relaxed in sleep beside her; her mind was still so full of the images of the night that she needed time to absorb them before she could take the reality of his presence without total overload.
And so she lay there for a time, staring up at the ceiling, reviewing the hours she had spent locked in burning passion. She had lost count of how many times Santos had reached for her, or she for him. Lost track of how often they had come together, experienced the mindless bliss of total orgasm, and then collapsed, exhausted, into sleep. She only knew that the night had passed in a blur of sensual and emotional delights, and that now she faced the prospect of the day ahead with a smile and a glow of anticipation.