Page 26 of A Diamond for My Forbidden Bride

It was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard. Just as she was the sweetest thing I’d ever tasted.

I gripped her hips, fitting her more closely against me. My heart was racing and the ache in my groin was insistent. I was harder than I’d ever been in my entire life.

But I didn’t want her here in the water. I wanted her somewhere I could lay her out and tear those clothes away completely, have her naked under the stars. Somewhere more comfortable, where I could feast on her at my leisure.

Of course, the perfect place wasn’t that far away.

I tore my mouth from her breast and lifted her, urging her to wrap her legs around my waist, because I didn’t want to lose contact with her. She didn’t hesitate, her arms looping around my neck, those delectable breasts soft and hot pressed to my chest.

She found my mouth, kissing me desperately as I turned towards the beach and began wading through the water. I let her explore, since I knew what she was doing.

She didn’t want me to stop, because if I stopped this now she’d start to think. It would come back to her where she was and who I was and what we were doing. And that diamond-hard veneer of hers would come back down. The white-star heat of her would get locked away.

Well. Luckily for us both, I wasn’t going to let that happen.

I waded out of the water and onto the little beach, the jetty stretching out beside us. The sand was still warm from the day, glowing white under the stars.

I let Olivia go and then I pushed her down onto the sand on her back, spreading her thighs with my hands so I could kneel between them.

Then I ripped the silk dress from her body.

She trembled but didn’t stop me, her eyes wide as they stared up into mine. I could see starlight reflected in them and the white heat blazing at the heart of her.

I leaned down, kissing her hard and deep, because I didn’t want that sharp brain of hers thinking; I didn’t want her having second thoughts.

This was where we needed to be for our first time together—on a beach, on the sand, at night.

So I kept on kissing her as I pulled away her bikini and she was finally where she always should have been.

Naked, beneath me.

CHAPTER NINE

Olivia

ICOULDN’TBREATHE. I couldn’t think. My heart felt as if it was going to beat its way out of my chest.

My skin was hot and far too tight, and I wanted to cast it off and crawl out of it like a butterfly from a cocoon. So I felt nothing but relief when Valentin tore off my dress and then the bikini beneath it.

The sand beneath me was soft and warm, but that was nothing compared to the heat of the man who knelt between my thighs. He gripped his soaking-wet T-shirt and tore it up and over his head in one smooth, powerful movement. And all I could do was stare at him as he flung it away.

From his wide shoulders, the water glistened along every hard, carved muscle of his torso. I’d seen it already, of course, but this was different. Now I could touch him, now I could run my hands over all the expanse of tanned skin and see if it felt as velvety and as smooth as it looked.

Dimly, something in the back of my head shouted a warning—that I was forgetting myself. That I shouldn’t let this happen. That this was a step I couldn’t come back from—but I ignored it.

As soon as he’d pulled me after him into the sea, I knew my fate had been sealed. Because his strong hands gripped me, and the warm water of the ocean closed around me, and I was back on that hidden beach again. Laughing at him as I pushed him into the water. Squealing as he splashed me, then shrieking as he pulled me in too.

My heart would burst as I surfaced to find him bobbing in the water next to me, his black hair hanging over his forehead, his dark eyes full of wickedness and the sheer joy of being alive.

‘Stand on my shoulders,’ he’d say, holding out his arms. ‘I’ll throw you.’

So I had, feeling the power in those strong shoulders even then, even back when he was seventeen. Then he’d gripped my ankles and crouched down in the water before surging back up, releasing me to leap high into the sky, as high as I could get before splashing back down.

I’d felt as if I were flying.

I felt as if I were flying now.

There was no need for armour, no need for the icy control I cultivated. There was only him and the desire I could no longer fight.

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