Hannah, was that…were you?’
‘Don’t stop,’ she said, shaking her head, but Leonidas was already pulling away from her, his body rock hard, his eyes pinning her with intensity. ‘Please don’t stop.’ Her heart crumbled. She hadn’t realised until that moment how desperately she wanted to know herself to be desirable. To know that someone wanted her enough to be unable to control their desire.
He swore under his breath and moved to the night stand, sliding open the drawer and pulling out a foil square. ‘Not once have I forgotten protection,’ he said thickly, the words coated in his own desires, which began to put Hannah’s heart back together again.
She watched as he unfurled a condom over his length then came back to the bed, his body weight returning to hers, bliss fogging into her mind.
‘You should have told me.’ The words lacked recrimination. They were simple. Soft. Gentle. Enquiring. As if he was asking her to assure him she was okay.
‘I didn’t know how.’
‘I’m a virgin?’
She laughed, despite the desire that was pulling at her gut. ‘I was a virgin.’
‘You are sure this is what you want?’
She nodded, lifting her hands up to cup his face. ‘Please.’
But he didn’t respond. Something tightened in his expression, his jaw moving as though he were grinding his teeth. ‘I meant what I said, Hannah. One night. Nothing more.’
‘I know that.’ She nodded, thinking of the situation she’d left behind, the mess her private life was in. The last thing she wanted was the complication of more than one night.
And it was the freedom he needed, the reassurance he obviously craved, because he pushed back into her. Gently this time, slowly, giving her time to adjust and adapt, allowing her inexperienced body a chance to get used to this invasion, to feel his presence and relish in it before taking more of her, more of her, until finally she was crying his name over and over, the foreign syllables tripping off her tongue as rushed breaths filled her lungs.
His mouth moved from hers to her cheek then lower to the sensitive flesh at the base of her neck, his tongue flicking her pulse point while his hands roamed her body, feeling every inch of her, pausing where she responded loudest to his inquisition, teasing the sensitive flesh of her breasts, tormenting her nipples with the skill of his hands.
It was heaven.
Pleasure built inside Hannah like a coil winding tighter and tighter and she dug her nails into his back, moaning softly as the spring prepared to burst. She arched her back and rolled her head to the side, the fireworks gaining momentum as her own pleasure began to detonate. She lifted her hips in a silent, knowing invitation and he held her, his hands keeping her close to him, reassuring her as she lost herself utterly to the compelling, indescribable pleasure of a sexual orgasm.
It was intense and it was fast and it robbed her of breath and control. Her eyelids filled with light, her mouth tasted like steel. She pushed up on her elbows, staring into Leonidas’s eyes, feeling quite mad and delirious with what she’d just experienced.
But it was nowhere near over.
He braced himself above her on his palms, watching the play of sensation on her features, and then he began to move again, his body stirring hers to new heights, his dominance something that made her want to weep.
She knew though, instinctively, that giving into the salty tang of tears would be a bad idea. Even while she was part mad with pleasure, she didn’t want to show how completely he’d shifted something inside her, nor how much this meant to her.
Because Hannah felt a surge of feminine power and it was instantaneous and went beyond words. She didn’t need to tell him how much this meant to her; she felt it and that was enough.
Angus had made her feel precious and valued, he’d made her feel like an objet d’art and that had been nice. It had been better than knowing herself to be an unwanted nuisance, which was how she’d spent a huge portion of her childhood since the loss of her parents. But he’d never looked at her as though he would die if he didn’t kiss her.
He’d never looked at her as though the push and pull of their chemistry was robbing him of sense.
Leonidas was, though.
He moved his body and he stared into her eyes and she felt a cascade of emotions from him to her and none of them would be worth analysing, because this was just one night. A temporary, fleeting, brief night—a slice out of time.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Leonidas cradled his head in his hands, staring at the floor between his feet. Early dawn light was peeking through the window. Hannah’s rhythmic breathing filled the room, soft and somehow sweet. Sweet? How could breath be sweet? He turned to face her on autopilot, his expression grim.
He didn’t know how, but it was.
She was sweet.
She’d been innocent.
He cursed silently, standing and pulling his pants on, watching her through a veil of disbelief. What the hell had come over him? Four years of celibacy and then he’d spontaneously combusted the second the beautiful redhead had literally bumped into him?
And it wasn’t the red hair, nor the passing resemblance to Amy. If anything, that would have been a reason to keep his distance. No, this was something else. A kind of sexual starvation that he supposed was only natural, given he’d denied himself this pleasure and release for such a long time. But, Theos, a virgin?
He hadn’t wanted that! He had wanted meaningless, empty sex. A quick roll in the hay to satisfy this part of him, to obliterate his grief, to remind him that he was a man, a breathing, living man with blood in his veins.
And instead, he’d taken a young woman’s innocence. He’d been her first.
A sense of disbelief filled him as he watched her sleeping, her gentle inhalations, her lips that were tilted into a smile even in her sleep.
He’d always be her first. No matter what happened, no matter who she slept with, he was that to her.
It wasn’t meaningless; it never could be. Thank God he’d remembered protection. He’d have put money on the fact she wasn’t on birth control—why would she be? He could think of nothing worse than that kind of consequence from a night of unplanned pleasure.
And it had been a night of pleasure, he thought with a strong lurch of desire in his gut. Despite her inexperience, she had matched him perfectly, her body answering every call of his, her inquisitiveness driving him wild, the way she’d kissed and licked her way over his frame, tasting all of him, experimenting with what pleased him, asking him to tell her what he needed.
He groaned, a quiet noise but she stirred, shifting a little, so the sheet fell down and revealed her pert, rounded breasts to his gaze.
His erection throbbed against his pants. He took a step back from the bed.
One night, and dawn was breathing its way through the room, reminding him that this was not his life.
Hannah was an aberration. A mistake.
He had to leave. He had to forget this ever happened. He just hoped she would, too.
Hannah woke slowly, her body delightfully sore, muscles she hadn’t felt before stretching inside her as she shifted, rolling onto her side.
A Cavalcanti masterpiece was on the wall opposite, the morning light bathing its modernist palette in gold, a gold she knew would be matched by the sheer cliffs of this spectacular island.
But