Chapter Eleven #2
She barely registered that the sound that emerged, part gloating greed, part awe, part longing, came from her own lips.
Hands resting on his bare shoulders, she kissed her way down his bronzed torso, pulling up only when she reached the waistband of his shorts.
Holding his gaze, she slid her hands lower, biting her lip, her eyes fierce with satisfaction when he groaned again.
He jerked her back, his big hands framing her flushed face. ‘This isn’t going to be just sex, cara, it’s going to be mind-blowing, head-banging sex,’ he growled out.
After the just sex part, she felt unshed tears press at the back of her eyes.
She wanted more than that, but if she told him what she wanted, what she felt about him, it would be a deal-breaker.
It was kind of ironic, really. That she had once turned away the man who would now run for the hills at the mention of love or commitment.
She lifted her chin and bit the lobe of his ear and whispered, ‘Prove it!’
With bewildering speed, she was flat on her back, the improvised bed of cushions protecting her from the hard surface of the ground.
She felt his body on top of her, but more she felt the staggering power that poured off him, the hunger, the sheer maleness that excited her more than she would have thought possible.
He left her alone for a brief moment and peeled off his shorts. The scent of jasmine that spilled from the nearby containers would always, in Amy’s head, be associated in future with the sight of him standing there naked and fully aroused, a perfect image of primal male virility.
He was her fantasy in the flesh, made real just for her.
Kneeling, he pulled off her skirt and top and peeled the bikini away from her skin. A moment later she was naked and then he joined her and she was no longer an observer; she was fully involved in this primal mating.
He abruptly interrupted their mutual touching and kissing. ‘Protection?’ he slurred.
She bit his neck and thought, Kill me now.
‘You’re right, you never were a Boy Scout.’
‘I can still make it good for you.’
‘I want you inside me!’ She nipped his lower lip, drawing a pinprick of blood in her frustration.
‘Hang on, let me check…’ He rolled over and reached for his shirt and pulled out the wallet he had shoved into his pocket along with his phone.
He emerged triumphant with a silver foil packet.
She smiled and snatched it off him. ‘Let me.’
She took her time moving down his body, using his knee as a useful aid to her rising frustration.
His body was slick with salt by the time she took him into her hand. The sinews in his neck distended with the strain he was under as he lifted his head. ‘Just do it! I…’
Tipped onto her back, she looked at him, challenge glowing in her eyes as, feet flat on the ground, her knees open in carnal challenge, she waited to be claimed.
It was not a long wait.
A second later, sheathed in her tight slickness, every muscle in his body pumped and primed, he began to move.
Each thrust drove her deeper into herself, and she was aware of him at a cellular level. Each thrust was more pleasure and more torture, the pressure building and building before exploding in a stunning shower of stars.
She floated back to her body slowly, the image of their entwined bodies imprinted behind her closed eyes.
He rolled off her with a grin. ‘Witchy woman,’ he said, touching the white-blonde streak in the dark of her hair.
‘That was…’
‘Sex does not have to be complicated.’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ she agreed sadly. Love was complicated.
‘Shall we take this to a bed? Or do you fancy a swim in the pool?’
‘Another time, maybe.’
They ended up in her bed, the transfer taking a little longer because she made him go back and gather their clothes from the poolside, even though they were both more than adequately swathed in towels.
The second time in a bed was gentler, less rushed, more tender, but not any less intense.
Sex for Leo did not usually involve any kind of aftermath; he was an expert at silent dressing in the dark.
So as he lay there in the dark, making sleepy conversation with Amy about modern vinery techniques, which somehow led on to discussing his relationship with his grandfather, he didn’t immediately register what was happening.
He was breaking all the rules that he had established over the years for a very good reason—to keep sex a million miles away from an emotional connection.
She sensed his withdrawal and immediately misunderstood the reason for it.
‘It’s fine, I understand. It’s hard; family is so complicated… I wish I had more of a relationship with my mum before she became so ill.’
About to roll away, there was something in her voice that made him lie still. He threw an arm over his head and listened to her soft voice talking in the dark.
‘The doctors said I wasn’t responsible for the first heart attack. That it was a genetic defect she had been born with.’
He turned on his side to look at her face. ‘Why would you feel responsible for her heart attack?’
‘I’m not… I wasn’t…’
‘Amy?’
His tone of voice was uncompromising, and she sighed. It was probably past time to tell him.
‘She had her first heart attack when I told them I was leaving to be with you. Dad told me I’d nearly killed her.’
‘So this was when you sent me away?’ he asked, rigid with tension.
‘We had just got back from the hospital. Mum made me promise I would stay. I loved you so much, Leo, but she’d nearly died.’
Hand over his eyes, Leo fell back onto the bed.
He had based everything he’d done over the last nine years on the belief that she had rejected him, that she hadn’t truly loved him… But the truth was so much more nuanced than that. Ultimately, his revenge had been to punish her for something that had always been out of her control.
He lay there, stunned, feeling as if a hand had just thrust into his chest and it was squeezing what used to be his heart.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he rasped, seeing her standing there in the doorway that day, the tears gathering in her eyes.
‘I… There was no point. It wouldn’t have changed anything. And look, it didn’t turn out so badly. If I had gone with you, then most likely by now we’d hate one another. Instead, we are having sex, beautiful, fantastic sex.’
‘Sex,’ he repeated in an odd voice.
‘Don’t worry, I know you don’t want anything else. I know it’s just sex and it won’t last, but even you have to admit it is totally beautiful.’
She was saying exactly what he wanted to hear, so why did he feel…aggrieved to hear her describing what his perfect relationship would be?
The long pause before he responded made her fear that she had said something wrong, that he had realised the truth—that she still loved him.
She had never stopped loving him, but voicing that love would be the end of this and even though they might have no future together, she was going to extract every last scrap of pleasure from the present.
‘Yes, totally beautiful.’ His voice was husky.
She gave a sigh of relief. It felt as though a barrier between them had fallen, and she felt physically lighter now that she had told him, though of course she hadn’t told him all of her secrets.
Her final one was still too painful to share.