Page 32 of The Billionaire's Demand

She felt the pleasure mount, intensify—it was unbearable, it was exquisite, it was all the world, it was her whole being. Little cries broke from her, pleading and imploring. Her fingers indented into his strong, sinewed shoulders and a tide was building in her...a tide she could not stop, would not stop, creaming through her, mounting and mounting, intensifying yet more, until she thought she must surely die of it unless...unless...

And then suddenly, brutally, he was lifting his mouth away from her. She gave a cry of loss, of anguish. But he was moving over her, his powerful thighs parting hers yet more widely, his forearms lifting him now. He was readying himself, poised, and she realised that all that had come before had merely been preparation—to quicken her, arouse her, take her to the point he himself was now at.

She felt his urgency and knew it to be her own as well. His hunger for her was her hunger for him. Wanting...craving...needing more and yet more... And now her hands were fastened around his flexing spine, seeking only to draw him down to her, to let him fill her, make her one with him...

She was blind, lost in a hunger that was a tornado of flame and urgency. Reaching for him, pulling him down to her, she wanted this, only this...his possession...now... Oh, now...now...now...

His hands were cupping her flanks, lifting her to him. Her spine was arching like a bow, offering her yearning, pleading body to him, and then he was there, poised at the moment of their ultimate fusion. For one last moment of unbearable hunger he kept her waiting, and as her bliss-blinded gaze clung to his, his eyes burned with a desire that was darkness visible.

She heard him speak—a low, impassioned rasp.

‘Now I make you mine...mine—’

He drove into her. Full and thrusting and complete.

She screamed. Pain spearing through her like a knife.

Leandros froze. His blurred vision cleared and he was staring down at Eliana’s contorted face, realising, dimly, that her hands were pushing desperately against his chest, pushing him away...pushing him out of her.

In some kind of disbelieving slow motion he withdrew from her, knowing his heart was pounding, his breathing was ragged, his consciousness in freefall.

As he came free of her she buckled over, jack-knifing onto her side, curling into a foetal position—protective and rejecting. He put his weight on his knees, staring down at her. In the low light from the bedside lamps he saw her hair was totally swamping her face.

‘Eliana—Christos!—what is it? What’s wrong?’

Consternation was in his voice, bewilderment, incomprehension... The contrast from a moment ago, when he had been blind with desire, craving only one consummation, with what was now pounding through his blood was total.

His answer was only that she hunched her body even more, hugging her drawn-up knees, and from her throat broke a noise that could only be a sob.

With a shaking hand, he smoothed away those tresses from her face. It was still contorted.

He said her name again, his voice shaking now, as did his hand as it lifted away from her. Instinctively, he let his hand close over her shoulder, but she only wrenched herself away the more, and another noise tore from her.

‘Dear God—I didn’t mean to hurt you!’ His own voice was broken, with shock—more than shock—racking through it.

What had happened? What the hell had happened? She had been aflame for him—and he for her.

It had been an instant conflagration as his eyes had gone to her, walking into his room when he had thought her in bed next door. He had felt a shaft of searing gratification at the sight of her, at the clear purpose in her as she came towards him, her body shaped sensuously, gloriously, by her clinging gown, her hips swaying, breasts all but bared by the revealing drape of her low décolletage, and her hair loosened and, oh, so wanton, cascading over her shoulders...

She had come up to him...kissed him. Her lips lush and velvet, claiming his, her hands winding around his neck to draw him to her. And that instant had released from him all that had been waiting for release.

His response had been instant, unstoppable—and all-consuming. Urgent and overpowering—overwhelming. He had been unable to resist—and why should he have? She had not come to him as she had the night before, as some kind of unwilling sacrifice, the difference had been absolute.

Lush and sensuous, desirous and desiring...

It’s what I wanted—all that I wanted.

And he had taken what she’d offered, what she had so clearly wanted as well. Every touch, every kiss, every yielding, every low, sensual moan in her throat, every caress and every arching of her body had been an invitation to him to take more, and yet more...

To take all he craved and hungered for.

Until—

His mind reeled, incomprehension possessing it totally. Not knowing what to do, he moved away. He must do something—but what? And how? And then, as he drew away from her, his eyes went to the bedsheet, where they had been lying.

And he froze all over again.

The pain was ebbing, and abject gratitude that it was doing so shuddered through Eliana. Slowly, slowly, she was surfacing from it, and feeling not just the pain, that sudden agony like a knife-thrust, convulsing her, but all the other sensations that had been flooding her overheated, over-stimulated flesh.

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