on my own and—”
He kissed her, hard and fierce, the thrust of his tongue forceful, but so welcome, so good. She sucked on him, wanting to eat him alive. They’d been kissing and fondling and teasing for weeks. Her dreams had been full of how he felt thrusting inside her. She couldn’t wait any longer. Modesty didn’t enter into it. Instinct took over.
With a grunt of hunger he backed toward the bed and sat, pulling her to straddle his legs, gathering her sari and underskirt as he pulled her into his lap. She knelt with her knees parted to hug his hips. The position put her eye to eye with him, mouth to mouth. They never stopped kissing and she couldn’t stop soaking in the feel of his skin with her splayed hands. Tiny noises escaped her, like an abandoned kitten then more of a purr when his hot hands slid up to cup the globes of her buttocks. She wriggled in his hold, loving the intimacy of it, wanting him to know how much pleasure his touch gave her.
Her whole body was filling with heat and excitement, blossoming like a flower coated in dew and sunlight.
With a ragged moan, he snapped her underpants, surprising her into gasping and lifting in surprise. He tugged them away and threw them to the floor then freed himself. She reached for the thrusting flesh he revealed, circling him with tentative fingers, reacquainting with the warm satin over hot steel.
The world contracted to this small circle of light where one man and one woman consummated their marriage, harsh breaths mingling as she helped him roll on a condom.
Wordlessly he guided her to lift and be open for him. She let her eyes drift closed as he guided his straining head to rub and tease. Soft gasps of anticipation escaped her and she dug her nails into his shoulders.
When she started to take him in, he gathered her swollen, aching breasts in two hard hands and bit through her sari at her nipples, making her cry out and arch, desperate for penetration. As she let her weight sink down, as her wet, ready sheath swallowed him, he dropped his head back and snarled at the ceiling.
Smiling, she scraped her nails across his chest and worked herself to find the tightest fit against him, heart expanding with joy at each pulse of his hard muscle inside her. He dug his hands through silk to snug her tighter and tighter still, causing delicate explosions as the right place was touched again and again.
They kissed, deep, sumptuous kisses, rocking themselves into ownership of each other’s body. Soon their movements exaggerated, pulling away and coming together with more force. She had never ridden a horse, but she rode her husband, using her thigh muscles to rise and fall on exquisite impalement, feeling the strain in him as he balanced on the edge of the mattress, sweaty and strong beneath her, holding himself steady to let her set their pace. His breaths rang with strain and his chest and shoulder muscles bunched with tension. When her stamina began to fail, his hands grasped her hips and kept her rhythm steady so they approached the crisis together.
“Theo! I’m—” Her world was coming apart at the seams.
“Me, too. Now, Jaya. Let me feel you—ah, yes. Like that. Ah, yes, yes!”
She imploded then expanded like a supernova, his pulsing completion within her shooting her into a realm where they were one experience, one person. One.
* * *
Draped naked on her stomach across the bed, she lay acquiescent as her husband kissed and stroked his way around the henna on her feet and lower legs. Every few minutes he ran a playful fingertip down the sole of her foot or nuzzled too softly at her ankle—he almost got a reflexive kick in the eye for that one—but he was enjoying himself so she tried to withstand the tickling.
“Here,” he finally said, kissing hotly inside her calf.
“Are you sure?” She sat up, scooping the edge of the sheet for a shred of modesty, then studied the scrolled T.M. “Should I have it tattooed there permanently?”
“Would you?” he asked. He was so sexy with his rakish stubble and relaxed grin, propped on an elbow and completely at ease in his nudity. He took her breath.
“If you’d like. Unless you have a different favorite spot?” The flirting came naturally after hours of physical contact that bordered on debauchery. They couldn’t seem to get enough of each other, whether they were in the bed, against the shower wall, or on the sideboard. Morning was firmly coming alive outside. Birds sang and the air had gone from crisp to soft. The helicopter would be returning them to Athens by late afternoon, but they were very much still on their one-night honeymoon.
Lazy brown eyes perused her from hairline to toenails. “It’s all my favorite.”
“I never thought I’d be like this,” she admitted. “Naked and comfortable with a man. I thought I’d have hang-ups forever. Thank you for making this so good for me.” She tilted forward to touch her mouth to his.
“I’m not being too demanding? You would tell me if you’re tender, wouldn’t you? I look back on our night in Bali and it was incredible, but damn, I was stiff the next day. You should have told me to back off.”
“Why didn’t you put on the brakes?”
“Because I didn’t want that night to end.”
She smiled, feeling secretive and womanly and desired. “Neither did I.”
“I’ve never had second chances before.” He smoothed her hair behind her ear. The somber gratitude reflected in his eyes warmed her heart. “Don’t let me screw this up. Tell me what I need to do to make this work, okay?”
Love me, she thought, feeling a pinch in her heart, but it wasn’t something either of them could control. It would happen or not. Still, when he took his time caressing and kissing her, when their bodies writhed together in sensual perfection, she felt loved.
Seeking that, she eased onto her back, pulling him with her. “I’m the inexperienced one,” she reminded. “You’re supposed to be the one who knows how to make this work.”
He flashed a grin, brief and endearingly playful. “If this is all I have to do, our marriage will be a cake walk.”
FOR A MAN who had never wanted a wife and children, Theo was surprised how quickly he settled into marital bliss. Not that any of it was easy, but it wasn’t hard in the way he knew life could be hard. It was little blips of leasing his New York apartment—it was too good an investment to sell outright—being away from Jaya and Zephyr because of a crisis in Sydney and managing child-care until the au pair arrived since Jaya was already getting her feet wet in her new job.
The flip side of these minor wrinkles was a smart, warm, stunning woman on his arm and in his life.
He wasn’t a man who’d ever needed to bring the prettiest woman to the dance. Nevertheless, he’d had a roster of style conscious women who hadn’t minded an evening out on short notice. He’d given them a shopping spree and they’d relieved him of the burden of conversation for a few hours.
Jaya elevated what he used to think of as endurance events to a new, very bearable level, bringing personality without getting too personal. Her people management skills made her the perfect hostess when they were forced to entertain. As a result, he found himself in the remarkable position of enjoying this evening’s dinner.
Now that they were settled, she’d taken a job with the family business, choosing an upgrade project that would allow her to work closely with him. While some considered that a recipe for disaster, he had more faith. They tended to work like two halves of a whole and today had been no different, despite being a grueling one over all. However, they’d put their team in place and were kicking off the project with a dinner for spouses. It was also a soft opening for the revamped dining room in their centerpiece New York hotel.
“There will be times when we’re asking your husband or wife to work late, so we wanted to let you know up front that we appreciate the sacrifice,”