Heat flooded into her. The very best kind of heat that had nothing to do with Greek sunshine and everything to do with this man’s chemistry interacting with hers. He didn’t move, letting her control the pressure and deepening of their kiss, but he responded with a muted groan of approval and drew on her tongue with gentle suction.
Runnels of sexual hunger poured through her system, spreading out in delicate fingers that excited her senses and made her want to tip into his lap.
Shakily she pulled back and licked the taste of him off her lips before she gripped the railing in slippery fingers and forced her weak knees to take her weight as she stood.
“Will you, um, give me a minute to shower before you come up?” The question was so uncouched and blatant she felt as though she’d stripped herself naked here in public.
“I’ll use the shower in the cabana and be up in ten,” he replied gruffly, eyes like lasers that peeled her bathing suit from her body.
Adara wrapped a towel around herself and went to their room.
CHAPTER SIX
THE PARALLEL TO their first time kept ringing in Gideon’s skull. He was just as keyed up as he’d been then, his masculine need to possess twitching in him like an electric wire, while his ego inched out onto that wire, precarious as a tightrope walker.
No room for false moves. The message pulsed as a current, back and forth within him.
He climbed the stairs as though pulled by an invisible force. No matter how many times he told himself it was ridiculous to place so much importance on this—he’d done this before. They had. It didn’t matter. This meant something. The last time he’d felt this sense of magnitude, Adara’s initiation to sexual maturity had been on the line. He’d felt a massive responsibility to make it good for her, especially as he’d been selfishly determined he would be her only lover for the rest of their lives. The pressure to ensure they were both satisfied with that exclusivity had been enormous.
Without being too egotistical, he believed they had been. He certainly had. Her subtle beauty had flourished into his own private land of enchantment.
This ought to be a visit to the familiar, he told himself as he turned the handle on the door and pressed into their room. It wasn’t. This was uncharted territory and the initiation this time was happening to both of them, moving them into some kind of emotional maturity he would have rather avoided. The tightrope he was walking didn’t even feel as if it was there anymore. He was walking across thin air, reminding himself not to look down or he’d be tumbling into a bottomless crevasse.
As he leaned on the door until it clicked, she opened the bathroom door and emerged wearing one of his T-shirts. The soft white cotton clung to her damp curves and naked breasts before falling to the tops of her thighs. He couldn’t tell if she wore underpants and couldn’t wait to find out.
“I didn’t bring anything sexy,” she murmured apologetically, her eyes bigger than the black plums in the basket. Her apprehension was unmistakable.
“You look edible,” he said, voice originating somewhere deep in his chest. He moved across to her. “I didn’t shave.” He took her hand and rubbed the heel across his jaw where a hint of stubble was coming in.
“It’s okay,” she murmured and pulled her hand back then wrung it with her other one. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m so terrified. This is silly.”
A swell of tenderness rose in him. He took her hands and kissed each palm. “It’s okay. I’ll take it slow. As slow as the first time. I want to savor every second.”
Her smile trembled. “I know it will be good, but my body seems to think we’re strangers. I keep reminding myself I know everything about you. The important things, anyway.”
His blood stopped in his arteries as he thought about what she didn’t know about him. Important things, but so was this. He needed to cement their connection before he could even contemplate stressing it with a full exposure of who he was. And wasn’t.
Adara cupped the sides of his head, trembling with nerves and anticipation, wanting the kiss that would erase all her angst and drown her in the sea of erotic sensations he always delivered.
Gideon wasn’t moving, seeming to have slipped behind a veil of some kind.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as doubts began to intrude.
“Nothing,” he said gruffly and set his mouth on hers.
The first contact was just that, contact. Like finding the edge of the pool when your eyes were closed and head submerged and your lungs ready to give up. Relief poured through her as the familiar shape and give of his full lips compressed her own.