Their footsteps were muffled by the snow and Stella shivered and wrapped her coat more tightly around her.
‘Cold?’ His arm came around her and he drew her against him, the warmth of his body pressing through the fabric of her coat.
They continued to walk and she didn’t bother asking where they were going. Their destination had no relevance. The only thing that mattered was that she was with him. And she savoured the moment.
As they reached the water’s edge she heard the soft lap of the water. Behind them, in the distance, they could hear muted laughter and music but here, by the pebbled shore, they had privacy.
The intimacy of the setting stole her breath. It was just her, Daniel and the darkness.
She turned to him, intending to speak, but the words never left her lips because he scooped her face into his hands and lowered his mouth to hers. His kiss was fierce and demanding, the contrast between the cold of his fingers and the warmth of his mouth somehow increasing her excitement.
Afterwards, looking back on this moment, she decided that she’d never stood a chance.
From the moment he kissed her, the end had been inevitable because their passion had never been a half-hearted beast. What they shared had never burned itself out, diluted itself or run out of steam. His touch melted her, as it always had, and when he urged her back against the solid trunk of a tree, she didn’t resist.
Excitement engulfed her and she wrapped her arms around his neck, unresisting as he closed his hands over her bottom and brought her into contact with the hard thrust of his arousal.
‘Daniel…’ The heavy ache in her pelvis was almost too much to bear and even while he teased her with his mouth, she wanted more. ‘I want you.’ Her broken admission came out as a sob. ‘I know it’s crazy and I know I’ll regret it but I want you.’ Her hand reached down and covered him and she heard the sudden change in his breathing.
It had been so long…
‘I want you, too.’ His hands were under her jumper and she gasped as his skilled fingers grazed the sensitive peaks of her breasts. Thick, treacly pleasure poured through her and when he threw his coat onto the ground and lowered her onto it, she didn’t resist.
The ground was hard and cold through the wool of his coat, but all she was aware of was heat. The heat of his mouth. The heat of his hands. The heat of her body as the fire built. The flick of his tongue over her nipple drew a gasp from her and when he drew the hard peak into his mouth she moaned and arched against him. Sensation shot from her breast to her belly, the ache in her pelvis building and building until she could no longer stay still.
When his hand moved lower she arched her hips to help him, and when his fingers touched her intimately she dug her nails in his shoulder, feeling the hard swell of muscle through the thickness of his jumper.
The cold air licked at her exposed flesh but she didn’t notice, her body devoured by the sensation created by his skilled, clever fingers.
When he shifted over her she murmured his name, the feel of him against her so intolerably exciting that she couldn’t breath the air into her lungs. He was silk, velvet and steel and his initial thrust drew a shocked gasp from her that quickly turned to a moan of ecstasy.
He surged into her and erotic sensation engulfed her body. His hand slid under her bottom, lifting her, and he drove himself deep, his breathing uneven as he established a slow, sensual rhythm.
Stella stroked her hands down his back, found male flesh under the wool jumper, felt the play of muscle as he moved. Her body was a mass of screaming desire, her need for him so great that it eclipsed anything she’d ever experienced before.
‘I love you.’ She mouthed the words against his neck, a part of her still sufficiently aware to prevent herself making that admission aloud. But perhaps he felt it because he paused for a moment and looked down at her, his handsome features blurred by the darkness.
She thought he was going to say something but he didn’t.
Instead, he lowered his mouth to hers and thrust deeper, shifting the angle so that the pleasure intensified to a level that bordered on painful. Without warning she smashed into a climax so intense that she couldn’t breathe or make a sound.
Daniel muttered something under his breath and she was dimly aware that he was struggling to hold himself back, but he lost the fight and, as her body splintered apart, she felt Daniel’s hands tighten and his mouth came down on hers.
Pleasure tore through her, thick sublime and beyond anything she’d experienced before, intensified by every movement Daniel made. Shower after shower of excitement held her trapped, but it had to end and eventually her body calmed, the madness slowly fading and leaving in its place a delicious warmth and a bitter sense of loss.
Stella gradually became aware of her surroundings—the rough ground digging through the silk lining of his coat, the cold bite of the night air and the strength of Daniel’s body. She closed her eyes for a moment, knowing that she’d never forget this moment.
Regret? Later, perhaps, she’d feel regret.
Now her emotions were so confused that she couldn’t untangle them. Neither did she want to. She just wanted to live for the moment.
All she knew for sure was that her belief that she could live and work alongside Daniel and still move on in her life was a delusion. She’d never move on while this man was part of her life because no other man would ever match up to him.
‘I didn’t use protection,’ Daniel murmured, and Stella gave a painful smile because of all the issues he could have tackled that, of course, was the one that was worrying him.
He didn’t want a child, did he?
He didn’t want to be a father.