It was hard not to move or speak, when all he wanted to do was wrap his arms around her. She kissed his rough, bristly chin, then down his neck, flicking her tongue over his Adam’s apple, caressing down his collarbone to his muscular chest. He felt the delicious warmth of her breath on each nipple. He held his breath as she lowered her head, swirling her tongue around him, drawing him further in
to her warm, sensual mouth as she suckled him.
And all the while, she was careful not to touch any other part of his body. His shaft was hard, bucking and swaying toward her desperately. Glancing down at him, she smiled: a very smug feminine smile. As if she not only accepted her total power over him in this moment, but she also relished it.
“Holly,” he breathed, reaching for her.
“No,” she said sharply, pressing down his wrists against the pillow. “If you move again...”
“If I do?”
A strange look came over her face, and she looked him straight in the eye. “You won’t feel what you’re about to feel.”
With an intake of breath, he blinked, then gave her a slow nod, keeping his wrists against the pillow, where she’d pressed them. Her intent gaze burned through him as she slowly lowered her head, sucking on his earlobes, then down the edge of his throat, nibbling on the sensitive corner between his neck and shoulder. She watched how his body reacted, and he saw her triumph. As she kissed her way down his body, he vowed that soon, very soon—
Then all rational thought disappeared as, never taking her eyes from his, she slowly lowered her head between his legs.
He couldn’t look away from the sight of her beautiful, angelic face as her full, swollen, ruby-red lips lowered to take in his hard, throbbing shaft. Her pink tongue snaked out to lick the drop of opalescent liquid at the tip. Then she licked her lips, and murmured, “Mmm...”
He sucked in his breath, staring at her in shock. What had happened to the shy virgin of last Christmas Eve? This woman seemed sure of herself, and ready and able to torture him with his own desire for her.
He held his breath as he watched her take the tip of him into her wet, soft mouth, swirling him with her tongue. Then she took him in deeper, and deeper still. He felt her small hand run exploratively beneath the shaft, juggling him as she sucked him more deeply into the sweet heaven of her mouth. She peeked up at him, and he felt, rather than saw, her satisfied smile.
He could take no more. With a strangled groan, he reached for her, ignoring her weak protest, “I told you not to move!”
He picked her up by the hips as if she weighed nothing, lifted her over his shaft, then slowly lowered her, impaling her inch by delicious inch. With a gasp, she swayed against him, and the sensuality of even that simple movement pounded through his veins. He released her hips, to give her freedom of movement, praying she wouldn’t move, praying that she would.
She answered both his prayers when she leaned forward, gripping his shoulders. She closed her eyes, holding still. But just as he started to exhale, she began to move, sliding over him, riding him slowly at first, but then with increasing rhythm. Watching her generous breasts sway over him as she moved, with their tight, deep pink nipples, was too much for him. He closed his eyes, tilting back his head, fighting to keep control. But the image remained. He was lost in the incredible sensation, in pleasure such as he’d never felt before, pleasure he’d never imagined.
She rode him harder and faster, pounding him, until he filled not just her hot wet core, but the universe itself, which began to spin all around him. Finally, gripping his shoulders, she gasped his name.
That pushed him off the edge, and catapulted him into the sky. He thrust one last time, then exploded inside her. He heard a low voice, rising to a ragged shout, crying out her name...and realized to his shock that it was his own.
She collapsed over him, their naked, sweaty, slick bodies intertwined and tangled on the bed. He held her, kissing her temple, and cradled her close. He was lost, he thought. He was found.
His eyes flew open in the darkness. As he held his wife, who’d fallen asleep cradled in his arms, all he could think was that he’d tasted the sweetest drug of his life. But if he consumed too much of it, it would destroy him. There was another name for something like that.
Poison.
CHAPTER TEN
MARRIAGE TO STAVROS was wonderful. Incredible. Better than Holly had ever dreamed.
At first.
After their wedding, they spent a few honeymoon days touring the city with their baby. They’d visited the big Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, drunk hot cocoa, seen all the festive lights. Stavros had insisted on taking them shopping. When she’d told him they wouldn’t need any winter clothes, since her former employer in London had promised to arrange for her possessions to be boxed and sent from Switzerland, Stavros had shrugged. “It’s my duty to provide for my wife and child. Not just my duty—my pleasure.”
He’d looked so serious and determined, it would have been churlish to refuse.
But instead of just buying her and the baby a few things, as Holly had expected, Stavros had gone as crazy as a contestant in a game show trying to throw as many items in his shopping cart as possible before the timer sounded. Only in this case, he wasn’t shopping in a discount mart, but the most expensive boutiques and department stores in the city, and there were endless supplies of carts with no buzzer to stop them.
Finally, after they had more clothes than they’d need in a lifetime of New York winters, he’d taken them back to the chauffeured Rolls-Royce. Even then, instead of returning to the penthouse, her husband had told the driver to take them to the biggest toy store in Manhattan, where, like some darkly sexy Santa, he bought cartloads of toys for Freddie—baseball gear, books, games, an expensive train set, a teddy bear bigger than Stavros himself.
“Freddie’s just a baby,” Holly had protested, laughing. “He can’t play with any of that stuff!”
“Not yet. But soon,” he’d replied, kissing her. As his driver arranged for the toys to be delivered to the penthouse, Stavros looked at Holly, his black eyes suddenly hungry. Leaning forward, he stroked through Holly’s long red hair beneath her pink knit cap and whispered in her ear, “Let’s also get some things we can play with now.”
Their exhausted baby had fallen asleep in his car seat by the time they’d arrived at a ridiculously expensive lingerie boutique. Holly had stared at the mannequins in the windows in shocked fascination, before ducking her head, blushing at the image of all the demi bras, garter belts, and crotchless panties that she might have called cheap, except they obviously were not. Aside from her wedding lingerie, which had been procured by the wedding planner, Holly had always purchased simple, sensible cotton bras and panties from places like Wal-Mart or Target.