But, heaven help her, she couldn’t fight any more. All she felt was need. Pure, driving need. Nothing else mattered. Not the memory of his brutal words when they’d kissed, nor the pain she’d felt afterwards. She’d lived with loss and hurt so long now that she didn’t care about tomorrow. Didn’t care about anything but the extraordinary completeness she felt only with him.
He stalked up the beach, silent and sure-footed. Sophie swallowed hard, trembling at his aura of potent energy. He looked bigger than ever. Impossibly masculine and exciting. Some atavistic part of her wanted to flee before him—the embodiment of the primitive, dangerous male hunter.
She could smell the heady scent of musk on his wet skin and wondered how it would taste to her tongue.
Just that wayward thought sent her temperature soaring.
‘Don’t you hear me?’ he growled. ‘Go back to the house.’
He was so close she could feel his hot breath against her face and tilted her chin up towards it, closing her eyes. Even straight from the icy Aegean, his skin burned like a furnace. She could feel the heat of his bare flesh.
His breathing sawed heavy and stertorous, louder even than her galloping pulse.
‘Sto Diavolo.’ His voice was a hoarse rasp of despair. ‘You would try the patience of a saint! Don’t you have any sense at all?’ He sounded desperate.
He couldn’t be any more desperate than she.
She swayed towards the sound of his voice and his hands clamped on her shoulders, sure and possessive. She sighed at the thrill of anticipation that shot down through her arms, her torso, at his touch. Her nipples peaked in immediate, agonising sensitivity.
‘No, Sophie.’ Costas’ voice rumbled from above her. ‘No, we can’t.’
But his fingers spread over her shoulders, surreptitiously massaging an erotic message into her flesh. His body communicated directly to hers, and there was no mistaking his intent, despite his verbal denial.
She lifted her hand, reaching out till she felt his chilled, wet, burning flesh beneath the pads of her fingers.
His breath hissed violently as his hands spasmed tight then splayed wide over her shoulders.
Slowly, deliberately, she planted her whole hand against him, skin to skin, and a world of sensation exploded across her palm. She traced the solid ridge of his collar bone, paused at the clavicle and rose to the pulse point beneath his jaw. The life blood throbbed violently there. It raced in a frenzied tattoo that echoed her own heartbeat thudding so hard against her ribcage.
‘You mustn’t touch—ahh!’ His words died as she let her hand slide down over the firm strength of his broad chest, finding the crisp, enticing silk of hair, the thud of his heart hammering deep inside.
His hands slipped then, from her shoulders to her arms, round her back, returning to her neck, her face, pushing into her hair and holding her still.
His kiss was ruthless—his mouth urgent and hard. His tongue aggressively proprietorial as it explored, dominated, demanded her unstinting response.
If she’d had any shred of will-power left to resist him it would have melted at the first erotic, knowing lap of his tongue against hers. At the sensation of his searing breath filling her mouth.
She wrapped her arms tight round his wet torso, pulling herself flush against his blazing heat, his slick flesh. Feeling his solid, unyielding muscles against her skin. His erection pressed long and hard against her. His thighs braced wide enough to encompass her.
It was so exactly right. Instinctively Sophie knew this was what she’d wanted from the very first. She and Costas together. That was what she’d craved. What she’d pushed into a dark corner of her consciousness, as if she could hide it away!
The surge of possessiveness that filled her numbed brain was so strong it rocked her. It was even more powerful than the pulsing, urgent need, the wild yearning for more. More sensation. More feeling. More.
‘Sophie.’ She felt rather than heard him speak her name between their frantic kisses. The sensation of his deep voice thrumming through her, hoarse with passion as he groaned out her name, erased the last tiny vestige of fear that it might be Fotini he was thinking of.
Costas was with her, truly wanted her.
And there was no doubt in her mind they belonged together.
‘Tell me to stop, Sophie.’
How could she send him away when his kisses set her on fire? When his body beckoned hers with such irresistible promise and shivered in response at the very touch of her hands? How could she send him away when he was hers?
Whatever logic said, or the law, or cold common sense, Sophie recognised it now with absolute certainly. Costas was hers. This was right.
She sighed into his mouth. This was perfect.
Costas heard her sigh. Felt it in her warm, fresh breath mingling with his own. Tasted it, sweet and conquering, deep in his mouth. And he knew he was lost.