His hands cupped her face. When he took her mouth with his, she could taste the dark, smoky passion he held in such tight control. He was being gentle for her but that wasn’t what she wanted. Not from him. She wanted everything he was, everything he could make her feel, and she wound her arms around his neck as she opened her mouth to his and moved against him. He groaned, caught her wrists and brought her hands against his chest. She could feel the tremor of his muscles beneath her fingertips.
“Sam. I don’t want to hurt you, gataki. Your ankle—”
She answered by tugging a hand free, skimming it down his jeans and closing her fingers over his erection, reveling in the life and heat that pulsed at her touch.
“I want this,” she whispered. “I want you, deep inside me.”
He could feel his composure slipping away; he was closer to losing himself than he had been since he was a boy. Quickly, he shucked off his jeans. Sam had a fleeting glimpse of all that magnificent male power, and then she was in his arms again, with his mouth on her breast, suckling her, nipping her, tonguing her until suddenly she gave a high, keening cry and she came, came just from this.
Demetrios held her to him as she arched against him, her cries almost feral in their intensity, and even though he was shaking he told himself not to let go. Not yet. He wanted more, to know that she was lost to the world, to rational thought, to everything but him. Only him, and he swept his hand down her body, cupped the strip of silk between her thighs.
“No more,” she moaned, “I can’t…”
But she could. He took her higher and higher, pressing one finger into the silk, into the soft cleft of her womanhood, seeking and finding the sweet, engorged bud that awaited him. He tore the silk away, touched her, stroked her, bent to her and took her mouth so that her cries became part of him.
The pulse of her climax rocketed through him. He was damp with sweat; his muscles trembling. Still he held back, watching her, exulting in what he had done to her, for her, and then he entered her, moved, moved again. This time, when she sobbed his name, Demetrios let go and followed Sam into a spiraling explosion of light.
* * *
Sam didn’t move. She never wanted to move again.
She’d never experienced anything like what had just happened. All that passion. All that heat. And now, this. Lying beneath Demetrios, his mouth at her throat, his arms hard around her, his body pressing against hers…
Her blood still hummed with pleasure. She sighed, ran her hands down his back, luxuriating in the firmness of his muscles, the dampness of his skin. Long moments slipped past. Then he lifted his head, kissed her temple and began to move away.
She tightened her arms around him. “No. Don’t go.”
“I’m too heavy for you,” he said softly.
“I like the feel of you against me.” She kissed his throat. “Stay here. Please.”
She had said almost the same thing to him last night and he would no more have left her then than he would now. Holding her, he rolled to his side, cradling her against him so they still touched, breast to breast, belly to belly. Gently, he slid his hand under her knee, lifted her leg and brought it across his hip.
“Does your ankle hurt?”
“What ankle?” Sam laughed softly. “You’re much better for aches and pains than codeine.”
Demetrios smiled, threaded his fingers into her hair and kissed the tip of her nose. “I’m sure the medical journals would be pleased to learn that, gataki. Seriously, are you all right? I promised the doctor I’d take good care of you.”
“And you have.” She smiled as she stroked his dark hair from his forehead. “You’ve kept me off my foot, haven’t you?”
“Mmm.” He bent his head to her breast, licked the nipple until it pebbled. “I told him it would take great effort, that you would need to be kept occupied.”
Sam gave a soft moan as he slipped his hand between her thighs. “Great effort,” she whispered.
Demetrios lifted his head and looked at her face. Her skin was flushed, her lips parted with desire as he caressed her. He felt his hardened flesh stir, his arousal heighten with the need to make love to her again.
“Shall I think of a way to keep you busy?” he said softly.
“I think…” Her lips parted for his kiss. “I think that’s a fine—”
He kissed her slowly, deeply, and moved over her again. She saw the intensity in his eyes, the way the bones in his face stood out in stark relief, and something hot and dangerous skittered in her blood, something that was more than desire, more than she was ready for.
He kissed her again, kissed her breasts, her belly. She wanted to tell him to stop. She wanted to tell him never to stop, to go on making love to her until neither of them could move.
“Demetrios,” she whispered, her voice breaking, and what he heard in the way she sighed his name shook him to the depths of his soul.
“Samantha. O kalóz mou,” he said, as he put his hands under her, lifted her to his mouth, tasted the honeyed sweetness that was for him. Only for him. She came, hard and fast, and he moved up her body as she did, slid deep inside her and took her up and up again until she was weeping with the beauty of what she felt, with the knowledge that this was all she’d ever wanted, this man, this one man, forever…
Sam stopped thinking and gave herself up to Demetrios’s possession.
* * *
She awoke alone in his bed.
Hours had passed; late afternoon sunlight streamed into the room, filling it with a hot golden glow.
Sam stretched, yawned, caught her breath as she inadvertently flexed her ankle. The rest of her felt wonderful. She smiled and flung her arms over her head. She’d imagined how it would be, to make love with Demetrios, but nothing she’d imagined came anywhere near the truth. He was an incredible lover. Wild. Tender. Demanding. Generous. Just remembering made her body grow warm and soft with need.
Sam rolled onto her belly.
But she’d complicated things. She knew that. Yesterday, he’d been her employer. Now, he was her lover. The delicate balance between man and woman had changed. What would happen now? What would he expect?
She’d always been careful to keep the personal part of her life separate from the professional. Men had a way of thinking that sexual intimacy gave them the right to take over your existence. It was only logical that sleeping with the man you worked with would make things even more difficult.
Of course, some women seemed to enjoy having a protective male hovering over them. If that was their thing, fine. Sam couldn’t understand it, but who was she to sit in judgment? But to fall in love with a man like that…
Fall in love? Where had that come from?
Frowning, she sat up and pushed her hair back from her face. What had happened in this bed had nothing to do with love. Love was an illusion. A pleasant one, for as long as it lasted, but as far as she could see it was just a way of pretending you hadn’t offered your independence up like a gift.
There wasn’t much difference between a man’s involvement in a woman’s life and his eventual domination of it. She’d come close to telling that to Carin once. Her sister had been cheerfully explaining that she’d like to come to New York for a visit but first she’d have to check with Rafe.
“You need his permission?” Sam had said and even though she’d tried to mask her distaste, she knew she hadn’t succeeded because Carin ha
d laughed and said no, of course she didn’t.
“But I wouldn’t just take off without discussing it with him, Sam. Surely, you can understand that.”
“What I understand,” Sam had replied, “is that there was a time you thought for yourself.”
“I’m going to let that pass because I love you,” Carin had said, still laughing but with an edge to her tone. “Rafe would do the same thing for me. We have a responsibility to each other. We don’t live separate lives. Nobody does, once they’re married. Not if the marriage is going to work.”
Not if you didn’t mind signing your life over to a man, was what she’d meant, but Sam had decided to keep quiet. What her sisters called responsibility, she called dependency but, hey, if Carin and Amanda wanted to delude themselves into calling it love, who was she to spoil things for them?
And what on earth was she doing, plunging into such deep philosophical water this morning? She’d made love with Demetrios. She hadn’t fallen in love with him. It was just that she’d never gone to bed with a man like him before. There was something about the way he’d taken charge that was different. There was no harm in admitting that to herself. They’d been equals in this bed but a little part of her had always been aware of the differences, of his strength and her softness, his masculinity and her femininity. He’d been gentle one moment, fierce the next. And he’d made her feel something—something she’d never sensed in herself before, something that lurked just at the edge of logic and made her heartbeat quicken, even now.
Whoa. First philosophy, then introspection. Enough, she thought, and tossed back the covers. Demetrios’s robe lay at the foot of the bed. She grabbed it and put it on.
What she’d just experienced was the best sex of her life. Why try and put a gloss to something so basic? She wasn’t a woman who’d ever shied away from the truth; she’d never been silly enough to think sex was only a matter of connecting Body Part A and Body Part B. Emotion was everything. You had to like a man, respect him, to sleep with him, but you certainly didn’t have to dream of forever after.
“Sam?”