I followed him across the north forest, straining to keep up with him. Considering his injury, he was surprisingly quick on foot.
When we reached the lake, I hid behind an old oak tree and stared with eyes wide in wonder as he ripped his t-shirt off and pushed down his pants, exposing the muscular globes of his delicious backside…mentally tracing the dents on the side of the muscle. The good Lord spared no expense making this man. I gripped the bark tightly, not even feeling it dig into my flesh.
He dove into the water with uncommon grace. I expected him to be a skilled swimmer but I wasn’t prepared for the power and beauty of him cutting across the width of the lake. Poetry in motion, every stroke efficient and dynamic––like everything else he did. After four laps, he swam back to shore.
In the water, he was all grace and elegance but when he stepped on dry land, he faltered a bit as he reached for the cane propped up against a large rock. Less Greek God, more human being. He made no attempt to cover himself, stood naked and dripping wet, daring me to take a good look. And what I saw took my breath away. He was hard, thrusting up proudly. Holy shhh…
“I think you know how much I want you.” His deep, raspy voice ripped through the silence of the night. How could I possibly miss it?
I stepped out from behind the ancient oak––it seemed silly to pretend I wasn’t there––and stood fidgeting with my nightgown, nervous and ridiculously turned on. My eyes swept over him. Moonlight bounced off his broad shoulders and spilled down the slopes of his smooth chest. My gaze followed the ragged, angry scar that snaked down from his hipbone, around his thigh and knee, and ended abruptly at his ankle. But his erection…it was perfect…long and thick and thrusting towards his flat stomach. In an instant, every once of blood in my body converged below my waist. When my gaze returned to his face, I found his lids at half-mast, eyes blazing with hunger.
“How did you know?” I asked. Tipping his head to the side, his lips quirked. I was a foregone conclusion basically. I rolled my eyes, more at myself than at him.
“Come here,” he purred, his American accent making him sound casual and unassuming even though he was issuing a command. My body knew what it wanted far before my mind was ready to concede defeat. My feet obeyed without hesitation, carrying me to him. He reached out slowly, clasped my forearm, and pulled me flush against his naked body: heat, lust, and water soaking the front of my linen nightshirt. My nipples puckered at the abrasive feeling of the wet fabric, while the rest of me buzzed with anticipation as his sex pressed against my stomach. All heat and hardness. I gasped at the feel of it.
He held my face as his soft lips descended onto mine, brushing back and forth until I let him in, teasing me to join him in equal measure. I’d never been kissed like this. Like time meant nothing, and there was no reason for kisses but the kisses themselves. Lazy, rich kisses. To Aleksander every sensual act was a means to something else, something more; skill was a tool to get what he wanted. With Sebastian every sensual moment was suspended, with no beginning or end, making me all the more impatient to have him.
“I’ve wanted this…” he whispered, his lips hovering close enough to mine that I could feel the sound on my skin. “For so long.”
When I gazed into his amber eyes, illuminated by the crescent moon, they revealed much more than lust. There was plenty of that, but there was also a recognizable wariness, as if he was one step removed from really being there.
The pads of his fingers traced the contours of my face: the bridge of my nose, my cheekbones, my eyebrow. “Beautiful,” he murmured. His thumb stroked the fullness of my bottom lip, seeking entrance. My lips parted for him in welcome. I watched his nostrils flare when I sucked on it. Then I bit down hard.
“Jeeeezus.” In an outburst of unbridled passion his lips came crashing down on mine, insisting I surrender to him.
The hard truth was that he had been undeniably in control since the start. I was his to do with as he wished, a mindless slave to his erotic charms. And I was tired…so tired, tired of being good, tired of being strong, tired of being defensive. I wanted him to take me. I wanted to relinquish everything to him. I reached for his smooth chest and he trapped my hand over his heart. Covering it with his own, he slowly coaxed it lower, over the landscape of his hard muscles, the ridges of his abdomen, and onto the smooth heat of his erection.