She was naked—completely naked. For an endless moment he gazed down at her. Incapable of more. Incapable of anything except letting his eyes feast on the incredible beauty of her naked body. She was everything he’d known she would be—everything and more. Oh, so much more!
Her slender frame, the narrow waist, the perfect contours, the sweet lushness of her breasts, bared now for him alone. The swell of her hips, the deep vee below, her long legs, her loosening thighs...
Then with a sudden movement he sat up, seizing the priceless gown. She did not even remark when he dropped it to the floor—her eyes were only for him. Urgently he hauled his own clothing from him—so much more swiftly than he’d just freed her from the gown that had done its job so well—had made her aware of her own beauty, of how precious it was to her, to him, and was now no longer necessary.
Nothing was needed now. Now they had everything they wanted. They had the silken couch, the night sky, the warmth of the desert, the silence and the darkness, the stars their only witness.
They had each other.
It was all that he wanted now. All he had wanted from the first moment he had set eyes on her. This exquisitely beautiful woman, so different from any he had known, offering him so much...
Offering him now the greatest gift of all—the gift that he had waited so many months to claim.
Herself.
She was his at last. The ice maiden was gone for ever. His self-control, his self-denial was finally needed no longer and she was melting in his arms. Melting and then catching fire at his touch, his kiss, his absolute caress.
With a sense of absolute liberty he lowered himself down beside her. Smoothed her golden hair from her forehead. Gazed down at her with a look that told her everything she needed to know, that sent the blood flushing through her, hot and urgent.
‘And now,’ said Nikos as he started to lower his mouth, his voice rich with anticipation, satisfaction, ‘we can begin our wedding night.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE SUN WAS RISING, swelling over the rim of the easternmost dune, bleaching the sky, quenching the stars one by one by one. Rose-gold lit up the horizon, a long, rich line of colour as the sky above turned to azure blue.
In Nikos’s arms, Diana slept—as he slept in hers. Her head and torso rested on his chest, that strong, muscle-sculpted wall that could take her weight as if she were feathers drifting from a passing eagle. And around her waist his arm was clamped, heavy upon her, but it was a weight she’d gloried in, holding her to him even as sleep had swept over them in the long, late reaches of the night.
A wedding night that had burned hot as the distant stars whose light had illuminated their bodies—bodies moving in passion, in desire, in endless, boundless need and satiation. Her voice had cried out time after time, each note higher with an ecstasy that had ripped her mind from her body then melded them back, fusing them with the same heat that had fused her body to his. Fusing them as if they were one body, one flesh. They had clasped each other, their tangled limbs impossible to separate.
The sun crept higher now, spilling into the day. It shafted the world with brilliant radiance. Washing up over their naked bodies, covered only by the silken cloths with which the divan was strewn.
Diana stirred. There was warmth moving along her legs now, and she wondered why, her eyes flickering feebly open, blinking at the day. The sun had gained its final clearance of the dunes and now blazed out over the rooftop, instantly heating them. She felt Nikos stir too, his limbs tensing as he moved upwards out of deep sleep.
The arm around her tightened automatically. But he did not wake.
Breathless, Diana eased herself from him. Her body was stiff, unyielding, but move she must. Carefully, very carefully, she stood up. Every muscle in her body ached. She cast her gaze about. She could not stand here naked, exposed on the rooftop. She dipped down, seizing up her cashmere shawl and hurriedly swathing it around herself as consciousness increasingly came back to her.
With a smothered cry she pressed the tips of her fingers against her mouth.
What have I done? Oh, what have I done?
But she knew what she had done. The evidence was there, spread out beneath her gaze—a gaze that could not help but instantly go to the powerful male glory of Nikos’s naked his body. An amazed delight leapt in her. Flaring through every cell in her body. Firing every synapse in her dazed brain.
I never knew... I just never knew how it could be!
But she knew now. Knew that Nikos had taken her to a place she had never understood, never realised existed. She felt dazed with the knowledge. Stunned by it.
But it was not knowledge that she could possess freely. She felt her stomach plummet. Dear God, what she had done she should never have allowed herself to do. How could she?
This was not what she had married Nikos for.
It was not what he’d married her for.
That was the blunt truth of it. The truth that crushed her as she hurried barefoot back down to the interior rooms, rushing into the bathroom. Maybe water would sluice away the madness of what she’d done.
But when she finally emerged from her shower, wrapped in a huge towel,
it was to find Nikos waiting for her. He didn’t speak—not a word. He was wearing a cotton dressing gown now, and he simply strode up to her. Wrapped her to him.