was just thinking that it’s very beautiful here,’ she said, inhaling deeply as a cover for the fact that her thoughts, having travelled back to that night and that morning, and all the mixed emotions that had filled her eleven years ago, were refusing to settle down again.
‘It is very beautiful,’ he agreed, coming to sit at her side. ‘Lucky for you Iannis could put you up,’ he commented. ‘What made you think of coming to this island in the first place?’
Lizzie’s eyes flashed open. She was instantly on high alert. ‘Stavros suggested it,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m very lucky to have such good friends.’
‘You are,’ he agreed. ‘And it appears that fate is determined to throw us together.’
She huffed out a short laugh as Damon glanced at her. She couldn’t read his expression, but she knew enough to be wary. ‘Bad luck for both of us, I guess.’
‘If you say so,’ he murmured. Knocking the top off a bottle of beer, he brought it to his lips. ‘Whatever made you come here, you should take the chance to relax while you can. What have you got to lose?’
Everything, Lizzie thought as Damon drank deep.
Putting the beer down, he rested his chin on his knee and studied her face. ‘I’m glad you got rid of the lip ring.’
She touched her lip, feeling faintly affronted. ‘That was a long time ago.’
‘You’ve changed a lot,’ he agreed.
‘Eleven years.’ She shrugged. ‘What did you expect?’
Damon’s lips pressed down, but he didn’t answer.
‘Why didn’t you like my lip ring?’ she asked, frowning.
‘Because it got in the way when I kissed you.’
‘That isn’t…’ Heat ripped through her when Damon leaned in.
‘Isn’t what?’ he said. ‘Fair?’
‘Sensible,’ she said as he curved her a smile.
‘Sensible?’ he mocked, sitting back. ‘Is that what you are now?’
‘No one stays eighteen for ever, Damon.’
‘No,’ he agreed. ‘But whatever age you are you can still live and feel and dare.’
‘Oh, I dare,’ Lizzie assured him, angling her chin to stare him in the eyes. ‘I just don’t want to be hurt again.’
‘Hurt?’ He frowned. ‘Do you expect me to hurt you?’
‘I just know I won’t give you the chance.’
‘It was you who stormed off,’ he pointed out.
She couldn’t deny it. She had, Lizzie remembered.
‘Are you going storm off now?’ he asked.
‘As I said, I’m not eighteen.’
‘No. You’re much improved.’
The smile behind his eyes had just become dangerous. Being this close to him was dangerous enough, without that hard mouth teasing her with a faint smile. Her sensible mind said, Leave now, move away, make him take you back to the restaurant. But it was hard to be sensible when she wanted him so much.
She’d only have to move by the smallest degree for their lips to touch, and for Damon’s arms to close around her.
And then she did, and they did, and she was lost.
She was back.
The rush of triumph inside him was like nothing he’d ever known—not for eleven years, at least. She was everything he remembered and more, and she came to him as if their years apart had disappeared. She pressed against him, responding fiercely as he kissed her. She was strong and sure, and every bit his match.
Their tongues tangled as she clung to him, and when he eased her legs apart with his thigh she arced her body against his in the hunt for more contact. Cupping her buttocks with one hand, he unlaced the strings of her bikini with the other as they traded kisses hungrily.
Glancing down nearly wrecked his control. He was painfully and hugely erect, while Lizzie was as sensitive as he remembered. He only had to stroke her lightly to hear her purr. He parted her lips and found the tiny bud. He teased and then pulled away, then teased some more as she clung to him, gasping out her pleasure.
‘Beneath me now,’ he instructed softly.
There was no need to ask. Lizzie was way ahead of him.
‘Slowly,’ he advised as she bucked towards him.
‘Why?’ Her eyes challenged him.
‘Because it’s been a long time.’
She raised an amused brow. ‘Like I don’t remember?’
Neither of them could forget, it seemed. The memory of taking her, of sinking deep into Lizzie’s tight, moist heat, was seared on his brain for all time. Maximum control was essential as he prepared to rediscover the woman he had enjoyed like no other.
He stroked and kissed and took his time. Lizzie was all hunger and need, and he had to slow her down. Teasing her, he cupped her between the legs, denying her the contact she wanted.
He smiled as he watched her eyes darken. ‘I’ve got you now,’ he whispered.
‘You think?’ she whispered back.
‘Shall we put it to the test?’ he suggested, still teasing her with kisses.
‘This is your island, and this is your beach, so I guess you can do anything you like,’ she said, seeming pleased at this idea.
‘Do you want me to?’
‘What do you think I want you to do?’
He smiled as she moved restlessly beneath him.
Hearing foil rip, she lifted her hips, and she was so aroused that at his first intimate touch she was reaching greedily for release.
This was the Lizzie he remembered from eleven years ago. This was the woman with whom he’d made love on every surface in his apartment—including pressed up against the floor-to-ceiling windows, where anyone who’d wanted to could have seen.
‘You’re right,’ he agreed. ‘We—you,’ he amended as he pinned her wrists above her head ‘—can do anything you want to do while you’re here.’
‘Including to you?’ she said. ‘Can I use you for my pleasure?’
‘I don’t see why not.’ He grinned. ‘But that would be for my pleasure too.’ Pressing her knees back, he moved between them. ‘Hold them for me.’
‘Like this? So I’m exposed…?’
She sounded so excited.
He told her yes.
She did as he asked, and now her brown eyes were almost black, with just a rim of sepia around her pupils. She was right on the edge.
‘Don’t tease me,’ she warned.
‘Pleasure delayed is pleasure intensified,’ he taunted softly.
‘None of that rubbish now,’ she warned him.
Taking hold of his arms, she arranged herself to her liking and shuddered out a soft cry when he gave her just the tip.
‘What?’ he murmured, sinking deeper.
‘You…this…’
He rocked his hips forward and gave her a little more. He pulled out completely before sinking even deeper into her tight,