Eve’s eyes roamed over his handsome face.
Was any woman ever luckier in love?
Except, a voice inside her whispered, he still hasn’t told you he loves you.
She didn’t need to hear the words, she told the voice firmly. His actions showed he cared. Words were cheap. She could do without them.
Couldn’t she?
“I still can’t feel anything,” he said, sticking his bottom lip out with a boyish scowl.
“You will,” she said, hiding a laugh. “Although it might be a while. The book I was reading says it might be another month or two before you can feel it from the outside. But I love that you care about our child so much. I love…” I love you, she wanted to say, but she choked back the words. She couldn’t say them again. Not when he hadn’t said the words back to her. “I…I’d love some lunch.”
“I exist to satisfy your every desire,” he replied with a growl.
She ate all her sandwich and half of his, laughing with him, loving him. She felt hungry. Happy.
They spent the day kicking in the surf and walking on the sandy bay beneath the villa. Above them, the hills of the small island were rocky and sharp. The sand was hot on their feet, which were then cooled by the swift blue waves.
And every moment, she could feel his dark eyes on her. As the blue waves crashed over their ankles, he kissed her.
His lips were so tender, his kiss so passionate and forceful as he held her.
Holding her breath, she looked up at him through her lashes. The tanned skin of his naked chest gleamed as sea spray trickled down the valleys and hills of his muscular body. The hot Greek sunlight burned down on them as they stood on the edge of the blue waves.
“Don’t ever stop kissing me,” she begged.
Without warning, he picked her up in his arms, lifting her against his naked chest, skin to skin.
“I intend to spend my whole life kissing you.”
He carried her up from the beach as if she weighed nothing at all, walking back to the villa. He took the stairs two at a time as he whisked her upstairs to the master bedroom overlooking the ocean. Behind her husband’s handsome face, she barely noticed the high ceilings, the open balcony doors and the white translucent curtains waving in the hot breeze off the Aegean Sea.
She was shaking with longing, limp with desire. They never even made it to the bed. As they passed the balcony doors with its view of the wide blue sea, he kissed her. She twisted in his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist as the kiss intensified.
Pushing her against the sliding glass door, he slipped off her yellow bikini as her trembling hands pulled off his swim trunks. They kissed each other frantically, their hands touching everywhere, straining desperately to be close. As she kissed his naked skin, caressing his muscular body, she tasted salt and sun and sea.
With a growl, he lowered her to the soft rug. The breeze cooled their skin as the sheer white curtains waved and twisted over their naked bodies. He kissed down the valley between her breasts to her belly, pushing aside her thighs to lick and suck her slick core. She gasped as he spread her wide, swirling his tongue over her taut nub until she thought she’d go mad. She clenched his shoulders, digging her nails into his skin.
With every flicker of his tongue, she grew tighter and hotter, until she was being swallowed up by dark heat. She felt him thrust his tongue inside her and writhed, bucking her hips, knowing she was about to explode, desperate to hold on just one minute longer.
“No,” she gasped softly, tugging him upward. “Inside me.”
He needed no further invitation. Rolling onto his back, he lifted her above him then lowered her against his shaft. For a moment she couldn’t move. He filled her so deeply.
Then he lifted her again with his strong arms. His dark eyes were intense as he forced her to hold his gaze.
“Ride me,” he commanded her, and she could do nothing but obey. She gasped with sweet ecstasy as she rocked back and forth against him.
She heard his harsh intake of breath, saw the stark need on his face as he allowed her—encouraged her—to control the pace. She held him tight, very tight, their bodies locked as one, both of them breathless and sweaty and panting. And with one last thrust, she exploded.
“I love you,” she cried out. “I love you!”
“I love you.”
Looking up at Eve sharply as she spoke the words, his body wrapped around and inside her, Talos felt embedded so deeply in her soul that he could not deny it any longer. Not even to himself.
I love you.