Shackled by Diamonds

Did he want to change for a swim? she wondered, stepping inside. She could do with one—maybe it would help to drain off this relentless feeling of edgy, restless tension netting her body. She turned to tell him that her swimsuit was in the car.

And froze.

Leo was looking at her.

Looking at her through heavy-lidded eyes focused totally and absolutely upon her. With an expression in them that told her that swimming was the very last thing on his mind.

And instantly, like an electric arc between them, she felt her body flaring. Her heart-rate surged and her breath came raggedly as the hunger she had been fighting all morning suddenly, urgently, took her over. Completely, absolutely.

She couldn’t move. Could only stand there, frozen, as he pressed the door shut with the palm of his hand and moved slowly, purposefully, towards her.

He didn’t speak, nor she. He only stood for a timeless moment in front of her, and then his hands were spearing into her hair, either side of her head, and his mouth was slanting down over hers.

She opened to him, blood igniting, hunger and desire leaping in her as she twined her mouth with his.

Oh, God, it was bliss! She wanted more, more of him. Now—right now. Her body pressed against his, her breasts swelling and tautening, and she could feel his body respond. The excitement of it ripped through her.

‘Christos—Anna—’

Leo’s voice was harsh, jagged, and then it was cut off as his mouth returned to devour hers. She gave a low moan, wrapping her arms around him, feeling the glory of his hard muscled back beneath her cleaving fingers. She wanted him. Wanted him so much, so intensely, that she felt faint with it. Her body was starving, ravenous for him—deprived of him, of what he could do to her, for a whole agonising long day and night.

Her nipples were hard against his torso, and the sensation aroused yet more and more wanting in her. She pressed her hips against him, feeling his surging masculine response, and she moaned again low in her throat as her mouth mated with his in avid, ravening hunger. Desire and excitement were ripping through her, tearing like a knife, demanding to be sated and slaked on him—him—Leo Makarios, whose body she craved, needed, now…right now…

Leo’s hands had left her hair, had slid down her flanks, curving around the soft mounds of her bottom, lifting her into him so that he could intensify the sensation at the vee of her legs, pressed against his strong, erect manhood. Instinctively she lifted her knee, using her thigh to caress his, winding her foot around his calf, rubbing his leg with hers, her skirts hoisting high.

He was moving her, twisting her around, backing her towards the wide, inviting expanse of the bed, where he could take her, free their bodies of their useless restricting clothes and slake their devouring need for physical satiation.

For a few blinded seconds she surfaced for air, taking a deep, gulping breath to fill her ragged lungs, blood coursing hotly through her veins, her body on fire with desire for him, desperate for him, starving for him…

A shadow of movement stilled her. In the dim light of the shaded interior she suddenly saw a pair of figures outlined in the silvered mirror on the wall.

Writhing, abandoned…out of all control except for the urges of their raw sexuality.

It was like a douche of cold water over her heated body.

She wrenched away, staring, appalled, at the reflection.

Cold, sick horror drenched through her.

What am I doing?

The words seared in her head, and she did not need a translation.

She took a stumbling step backwards.

‘Anna—’ Leo was reaching for her again, his voice hoarse.

Her eyes flared.

‘Don’t touch me!’

His expression darkened. ‘What the hell—?’

She took another step back.

‘I said, don’t touch me.’

Mortification was flooding through her, and hot, humid shame. Oh, God, had it come to this? Being bundled into a hotel room for a quick, urgent session of sexual satiation? A room hired by the hour. And afterwards, when he’d slaked himself on her, he’d tell her to get dressed again, and he would do likewise, body sated, and then he’d walk out beside her, his hand under her elbow—the woman he’d just had sex with in a hotel room after lunch—and put down his credit card at the desk to pay for his pleasure, rented by the hour…

She couldn’t bear it.

Anguish sheared through her. And shame and anger.

He stepped towards her, his hands reaching out for her.

She stepped further away.

‘I don’t want this.’

Her voice was high, staccato. Strung on a wire, pulled taut. Unbearably taut.

Something moved in his face.

‘Liar—’

His voice was low, eyes intent. Slowly, deliberately, he reached for her.