Page 32 of Reclaimed By His Billion-Dollar Ring

Had he been a fool, eight years ago, to part with her as he had? Whatever the reason he had done so? He didn’t know—could not answer...could not care. His senses were reeling, the exertion of holding his body in check bringing agony to his muscles.

He heard through the drumming of his pulse her breathing his name again. But nothing else. No protest. No denial.

Only yielding... To my desire. To her own desire.

His kiss deepened on her tremulous lips, opening her mouth, oh, so softly to his.

He felt his body surge. His hand tightened on hers as he drew his mouth away. He lifted his fingers to her still-parted lips, tracing their outline. Slowly, lingeringly. She gazed up at him, making no move away from him.

He smiled. A smile for her and her alone in this moment which had come at last.

‘Come,’ he said.

He led her on down the sloping path to the beach below. Dimly she was aware of the soft sound of wavelets breaking gently on the pebbled shore, of the starlight high above them, the cradling darkness of the night. She could not speak, could not think...could do nothing but let him lead her.

Why she was doing this she did not know. It made no sense. It was everything she had said she must not yield to. And yet she was yielding.

Fragments of thought fleeted through her mind as he led her onwards.

This time he cannot hurt me—because this time I know him for what he is...know the hurt he did me. So if I yield to him—yield to all that I can deny no longer, all that I crave for myself—then surely it will be for me alone, with no illusions. Only desire.

Desire she could no longer deny, or resist, or in any way do anything but yield to now, in this moment, in this night...

Her hand in his, they reached the little stone beach house and he pushed open the door. Drew her inside. Into his arms.

They lit no lamps. Needed no light. Only the dim reflection from the phosphorescence off the sea through the single window beside the wide bed. Her ivory gown was skimmed from her trembling body, his own impeding clothes ruthlessly, impatiently discarded, and he drew her down, laying her softly on the white sheet, lowering his lean, hard body beside her.

Covering her body with his.

As he had done before, so long ago.

And now he did it again.

She was silk and satin, her body slender still, but softer in the fullness of her womanhood. She was everything he remembered and so much more.

With slow sensuality he explored every part of her, drowning in his own pleasure as he did so, drawing from her a pleasure that showed in her eyes fluttering shut, in the low, helpless moans from her throat.

He moved over her, cupping her breasts, feeling them engorge at his touch, her nipples cresting between his gently scissoring fingers. Her eyes flew open, then fluttered shut again, and he saw pleasure flush her face, arch her neck. He lowered his mouth to her breast, suckling at her with slow swirls of his tongue, lingering and leisurely, then administered the same to her other breast.

He reared back to gaze at her. A smile curved his lips as he looked down at her lying there, splayed on his bed, head back, breasts ripened by his touch, hands outstretched, fingers curved into the sheet. A low, husky laugh of triumph and desire, arousal and possession came from him, and then he was lowering himself to her again, easing his body so that his hands could cup her hips, letting his lips glide over the soft curve of her waistline and further still.

He slipped one hand from her hip, parting her thighs, cupping the secret V between with the heel of his hand. He heard her moan again, felt her hands folding over his shoulders, her nails indenting into his muscled flesh. He moulded her with the heel of his hand, feeling her body’s response.

Then he lifted his hand away.

Lowered his mouth instead.

His conscious mind was in white-out. There was nothing in the universe except this and now. Heat was burning up his own body as his tongue and lips feasted where, when he had readied her, he would possess her fully. Her moans were coming faster now, more helpless. He heard her head thrashing on the pillow, felt her thighs widen and slacken, her hips lifting in automatic, instinctive and overpowering pleading. He heard her say his name. Low and incoherent. Arousal was coursing through him, so powerful it was impossible to restrain himself any longer, not for a moment, not an instant...

He lifted his head away and reared over her, his hands sliding over her hips, lifting her to him, his thighs thrust between hers, widening them further still. His heart was pounding, deafening him, drumming every sense into meltdown. Her hands snaked around his waist, pulling him down towards her as she arched her spine up to him, saying his name, her voice husky and helpless.

‘Nikos—now... Oh, God! Now...just now—’

He gave her what she was pleading for. With a surge of triumph he thrust into her, deep and deeper yet. She cried out, high-pitched, and just for a second past and present seemed to blur and merge.

She had cried out like that the very first time...when he had known he must be as gentle as it was possible for a man to be, taking a woman from virgin to lover.

Then it was gone, and the roaring fire of sexual passion was consuming him in its furnace, and he was thrusting and thrusting again, and then, with another surge of triumph, he felt her convulse and liquefy around him. He heard her cry out again...a gasp, a sob...as his heat flooded her, fusing her to him. Her body was enclosing him, drawing him further in with wave after wave of breaking pleasure. It was drowning through him, obliterating everything in existence except this moment of absolute release, absolute consummation, absolute satiation.

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