Theos, but she was so, so beautiful! Her hair streaming across the pillows. Her face alight with an unearthly beauty. Her slender body aroused and yearning for his. It was a yearning that he matched, met … surpassed in every aching part of him.
Now, now he needed fulfilment—needed to be fused with her, melded to her core, to become one with her.
He heard her murmur his name, sounding urgent, so urgent in her need for him. Felt her hands press at his back to close him to her, to fuse herself against him.
With a surge he was there, filling her deeply, fully, feeling her close around him, hearing her cry out, hearing his own voice soothing her even as every synapse in his brain started an insistent, driving firing that swept across his consciousness.
His body started to move in an age-old, primeval rhythm, possessing him even as he now possessed her. She was threshing against him and it drove him wild, crazy for her, for what she was doing to him, for the way her incredible body was lifting to his, fusing to his, with a hunger, an insistence that he was answering. He was taking her with him on his urgent, storming journey to more and ever more peaks of sensation that heated every portion of his flesh to a white heat.
Her eyes were fluttering, their pupils so distended they seemed to flood her eyes even as sensation flooded her body—sensation such as she had never felt before. A storm of quickening that was sweeping her higher, always higher, higher—
Time stopped—it had no meaning. There was only this moment, this endless, incredible now of sensation, rippling through her body, melting her, fusing her. Her hands clung to him, her throat arched back, her hips pressed against his to take him within her, catching at him again and yet again. And with each stroke he was taking her further and higher and deeper. And the pleasure, the bliss, was so intense, so incredible, so absolute that when the storm broke within her she seemed to be consumed by it, as the storm drove through her, buckling and convulsing her.
She cried out. She could hear it. And it was a cry that went on and on, just as the storm within her went on and on, and it was another world, another existence, another her … one she had never known, never dreamt existed.
Then another voice joined hers—deep-throated, hoarse, as urgent as hers, as insistent. She felt his body fill her, felt the culmination of that endless driving rhythm, felt him soaring with her into that other world that was consuming her, so that her whole body had become a living, burning flame.
For long moments she was bathed in the fire, as if its flickering heat enveloped them both, making them one, making them unified, melded together. Then, when their sated, exhausted bodies could take no more, she felt the burning begin to ebb, the throbbing of her core lessen, die slowly to stillness. Ease. Leaving in its wake not ashes, but a sweetness—a sense of wellbeing so absolute that it bathed her in a profound wonder.
She could only let her fingers drift across his back, feeling the exhaustion of every limb as they lay wound about each other and the last lingering flickers of the consuming flames died gently away.
How long she lay there, entwined with him, she did not know. Knew only that she had found a place to be that she never wanted to leave. Here in Athan’s arms, in his enveloping embrace, was world enough for her. Drifting in and out of sleep, she lay holding him close against her breast.
Close against her heart …
Marisa swam lazily towards the pool’s swim-up bar. As she neared it the pool shallowed, and she waded the rest of the way before perching herself on one of the little half submerged stone stools. The barman sauntered along to her from his side, and asked in the lilting island accent what she would like. Opting for a virgin strawberry margarita, Marisa sat sipping through the crushed scarlet-coloured ice and gazed peacefully out over the turquoise water of the pool and the azure sea beyond.
Even after nearly two weeks here she still could not get enough of the vista before her. She gave a little sigh of happiness. Just as she could not get enough of Athan.
Not that she had to do without him. She was with him just about twenty-four-seven. There was only a brief daily interval when, as he was doing now, he checked into the resort business centre and communicated, as briefly as he could get away with, his direct reports, and received any unavoidable updates. But he was seldom gone for more than half an hour. Other than that they were together all the time.
A ripple of wonder went through her. She had known from the moment she’d yielded to his invitation to come here with him that this time with him would be unforgettable, but never had she realised just how much so.
And it wasn’t just the sex—although even saying ‘just the sex’ was a universe away from describing the incredible, transforming experience it was every time. No, it wasn’t ‘just sex’ at all. How could it be when it seemed to her that her very being caught fire, was consumed like a phoenix, to be reborn in that moment of ecstasy, enveloped in his arms? Surely it wasn’t ‘just sex’ to be so consumed by passion for him—to want him and crave him not only in the fires of consummation but in the peaceful, languorous aftermath that wrapped them in its sweet, honeyed balm, when they simply lay together, softly caressing each other, all passion spent, their eyes entwining with each other, drowsy with satiation. To sleep in his arms, cradled by him, holding him close to her, only to wake later, in the long reaches of the tropical night, when he would start to make love to her again, as if he could not get enough of her.
Yet even as her eyes softened with the memory of his ardent, transforming lovemaking a haunted look fleeted therein. This idyll here on St Cecile was nearly over. Soon, in a day or two, they would be headed for home—back
to London. Back to their normal lives.
What would happen then?
Disquiet plucked at her, disturbing her contentment. What would happen when they were back in England, away from here?
Could the idyll continue?
That was the question that coiled and uncoiled inside her head. She had shut it out, not let herself think about it, but over the last few days, as their second week had started to ebb away, day by precious day, she had felt it plucking at her consciousness, wanting to be answered.
But she didn’t want to answer it. Didn’t want to think what the answer might be—what she feared it would be.
This was an idyll—a blissful, unforgettable intermezzo—in a tropical paradise where reality seemed as distant as the British winter. But what would happen when the intermezzo was over?
Oh, Athan was as passionate, as ardent as any woman could want—could dream of—but that was here. What would happen back in London?
Doubts fed her disquiet. Yes, Athan was hers here, but even here, these last days, she had felt him withdraw from her sometimes—only briefly, but distinctly. It was not a physical withdrawal but much more disquieting than that. It was a kind of mental withdrawal, as though their casual intimacy was draining away. Sometimes there was a look in his eye, she was sure of it, when he seemed to be looking at her with a stranger’s gaze. Then, a moment later, it would be gone and he would be his normal self again—and she would wonder if she had merely imagined it.
She could reason so well, she knew. He was a man of affairs who had a business empire to run—how could he possibly be confined only to focussing on her? She had to accept that his mind would go from time to time to matters of greater import.
Greater import than herself.