Redeemed By Her Innocence (HQR Presents) Read online

  ‘I bet you’ve got dark little thoughts and wicked fantasies in that head of yours.’

  Her face flamed but she didn’t try to deny it.

  ‘I think you want me to forget why you’re really here and lift you up and turn you in my arms and let you feel what you are only imagining.

  ‘You want to taste it—it’s so close now, Jacquelyn. It’s right here. But you’re still too afraid to let go.’

  Her head was tilted up, her hair caught in a bunch in his hand, her lips were open and his face glowered down at hers, dark and deadly.

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ was all she said, her voice hoarse and throaty.

  Slowly he raised her to standing, tugging her hair with just the most exquisite mix of pleasure and pain. And she was so close to him now she felt as if she was breathing in the very essence of maleness, the root and power of masculinity, and she was getting drunk on it.

  ‘You want to know what it’s like to make love to me.’

  She would die rather than admit it, but silence was her confessor.

  ‘And for a reason I still can’t quite put my finger on, I am just as curious to know what it’s like to make love to you.’

  ‘I’m trying to take that as a compliment,’ she said, rolling her head sensuously as his grip loosened to a caress.

  ‘You should. It’s been a very long time since I felt anything like this. A very long time. Maybe never...’

  He trailed a finger down her cheek. Her eyes fluttered closed, her lips parted. She felt the finger land on the cushion of her lower lip. She would not give in so easily. She would not grab him the way she wanted to.

  Seconds ticked by. His finger followed the lines of her lips, lightly dusted the edges of her cheekbones, the arcs of her eyebrows and with every passing moment she yearned for his lips.

  ‘You know if we do this, Jacquelyn...you know what that means.’

  Her head had fallen back and his arms scooped against her back, holding her steady as her neck lengthened in a gentle stretch. His fingers slid up to rest on her collarbone. And then she was closer still and she knew she was past the point of no return, that she had to feel his lips now...

  ‘What does it mean?’ she breathed.

  Instead of answering, he now followed where his fingers had trailed from the base of her neck, with tiny feverish little kisses, brands. Up her neck to the apex where her jaw began, the most tender spot, so weakening her that her knees buckled.

  ‘It means nothing. Just an amazing night, one amazing night. And tomorrow we go back to where we were.’

  She heard his words and she felt his kisses, at her cheekbones, and she knew if she only waited, if she had the patience, if the seconds could only stop stretching for hours, days, weeks, that his lips would finally land on hers, that she would feel his kiss and taste him and know him.

  And it was as if every moment of her life had been building to this. As if every single moment she’d ever spent as a girl, learning about her femininity, the way she walked and talked and held herself, the way she put on lipstick and painted her toenails, every moment was building into this, the essence of who she was as a woman.

  Kiss me, she gasped, maybe aloud this time...

  Her eyes were still closed but she knew he was hovering over her face. She knew he was staring at her, at her opened lips. She felt her body throb with longing, she felt her nipples harden and ache for his hands. She arched her back and pressed closer to him, sinking into his maleness.

  ‘I will kiss you. I’ll kiss every part of you. But first...open your eyes, Jacquelyn.’

  The rough rasping burr of his voice demanded and received. Her eyes flew open and she stared into his face. His eyes sparkled, points of light in the darkness, the black night sky behind.

  ‘You understand what I am saying? This means nothing beyond pleasure. I don’t owe you anything and you don’t owe me. Your company and my company are nothing to do with this.’

  ‘I understand,’ she breathed, impatient for the sensations to return. If he had given her a contract to sign in blood she would have done it.

  She stared at him, and when he didn’t move she twisted out of his grasp and put her hands on his face, framing his mouth. She registered the surprise in his eyes, and heard the burst of black laughter that spilled from his throat.

  ‘You are impatient, aren’t you?’

  But as she opened her mouth to speak he grabbed her wrists and tugged them down to her sides. Her back arched and her breasts protruded and he growled and then finally, finally he placed his hot harsh kiss on her mouth. And his lips were hard and soft and wet and warm and she began to drown in each moment as the tug to have more and more began to tear at her. Then his tongue teased her lips apart, and now they duelled, and she gasped as another sharp tug built at her core. One of his hands now held her wrists, the other he trailed to her jaw, holding her steady.

  ‘So we’re clear—you’ll not set this pace. That’s not how things roll.’

  She had never done anything more than kiss or caress a man. And she knew that none of the kisses or caresses had ever felt like this. Being close to him, the anticipation, each single moment was like a lifetime love affair in itself. The pleasure and pain of waiting, the exquisite heat that was building and building. She was emboldened. She was sexually confident in a way she’d never been before, she’d never known this language, these words and phrases, and she was desperate to start to converse.

  ‘You don’t really believe that,’ she said, finding her voice. ‘We both know who’s really in control here.’

  ‘You’re deluded, Jacquelyn. You’re mine. And I will do anything I want with you.’

  ‘Anything?’ she laughed.

  She could barely keep the shivering desire from her voice. In the fleeting seconds she saw that she was in a new world. She’d never given away control of her body before, never fully relaxed.

  Sex had once seemed part of a wonderful world that she would one day be given a map to arrive at. Then, it became this giant immovable structure that dominated everything, everywhere she looked, everyone was part of it and she was locked out.

  She was tired of being the one on the outside. She wanted to know. She wanted to know so badly and she wanted to know now, tonight, with Nikos.

  She didn’t want to think about tomorrow, there was only now.

  ‘I think you’d succumb to pretty much anything I asked.’

  But still he did nothing other than glaze her with his eyes. Her spine felt bent as a bow, strung out, and his body was going to be the instrument that she played. She was almost reverberating with the tension of holding back. She longed to sing and throb and climb the heights with him. But she wasn’t going to break and beg.

  ‘You think very highly of yourself, don’t you?’ she asked, her voice tremulous and she knew he heard it too, because he smiled even more devilishly.

  ‘When it comes to lovemaking? I think we both know the answer to that. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t think the same.’

  ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ she said.

  ‘Good question.’

  Then he bent his head low, to the exposed column of her neck. And she could see the crown of his head, the thick, dark crop of his hair. He released her wrist and she sank her fingers into his hair, holding him to her neck, her décolletage, her breasts. He growled as he nuzzled first one nipple, then the other. She heard a song in her own throat, a call from her heart.

  Hungry, thirsty, greedy for every last bit of this man, she ran her hands over his head and down to his shoulders. She filled her palms with his muscle and drank deeply of the very air around him, the hot, humid night, the sky now bands of orange and mauve and the sun a tiny ball of gold sinking out of sight.

  And like an addict craving more and more, she could not seem to get enough of his tongue, his lips, the pl
easure he brought. She marvelled at the solid mass of muscle across his shoulders, ached to touch the skin beneath and slid her fingers to the buttons to begin her greedy exploration.

  ‘Let’s get comfortable,’ he said, standing and scooping her up in his arms in one smooth movement.

  Her laptop slid from the seat, from the corner of her eye she saw it land and fold, and as it hit the ground her heart sank with a moment of dread, as she remembered why she was really here and thought of what was still to come—the unfinished presentation, the half-baked plan...

  But it was only a moment, a fleeting grey cloud of worry in this dazzling sky, and was gone, because she was up in his arms, her vision now his solid chest and the retreating terrace with all the ornaments of their brewing passion, the whisky bottle, the dining table, the half-drunk glasses of wine, the coffee pot, untouched, the candles flickering in the late evening breeze, to the billowing curtains of the daybed...

  And then down she was placed. Soft mattress, cream curtains all around, tiny lights within the canopy like some fairy-tale chamber and there, proud and male and staring down at her like the warrior returned, Nikos.

  She sat up on her elbows as he leaned over her and their lips found each other in a new familiarity. His tongue claimed hers, hot breath and wet mouths, his scent, his skin, his utterly irresistible Nikos-ness had her scrabbling up, holding him while he pulled off his shirt.

  And then she saw what she had needed to see, and he was magnificent and marvellous and she felt as if she was reeling at the sight. His shoulders, broad and golden, and biceps, inked and hard, and his chest, wide and dark, and his nipples, small and flat and beaded, and it was there her tongue went, as her hands touched and stroked and grabbed and she filled all of her senses with this man.

  What on earth had she been imagining? Not this! This was so much more, so wonderful. The more male he was, the more she felt her own femininity, the more emboldened she was. So this was making love. She was awake and alive for the first time in her life.

  She felt his arms slide under her shoulders; her legs wrapped around his waist as if they had a hundred times before.

  ‘Take your dress off,’ he said in a growl.

  His words splashed water on her fever, and she slid back from the discovery of his body to look up into his face. For a moment he looked distant, his eyes dark and impassioned, as if the fire that burned was darker now, and the light behind his eyes was almost out.

  For one horrible second a laser point of fear burned in her heart. She was on fire with lust, dishevelled, her dress around her waist, her breasts soaked with his mouth, her nipples taut, but the sweetness had gone, the sense that something uniquely special was building between them. Now she could be anyone lying here in this chamber.

  She could still stop this now. She could roll over, fix her clothes, run back to the terrace, collect her laptop and turn back into the person she really was. She had her life, her business, her family name, her little courtyard and her shop. She was never going to be this woman again. She had opened the door but she didn’t need to run through it.

  But then he moved. Back. He stepped back as if he sensed what she was thinking. He pulled out of the fiery circle that had been burning around them and she felt the chill of that. Was he having second thoughts? His eyes were trained on her but it was concern she saw there; she saw it and she scorned it. She didn’t want his concern, or anybody else’s.

  She was sick of being Jacquelyn Jones. She was sick of being the devoted daughter whose only goal in life was to replicate the goals of all the people who came before her. She was sick of waiting for a fantasy that hadn’t come true. This was her fantasy now—here in Greece, in the villa of one of Europe’s best lovers, and she would never be here again...

  In a moment she was up on her knees. She threw her arms around his neck and she found his mouth and she kissed him with everything she had.

  He paused, he stilled, and then the fire erupted in seconds, the roar of his voice and the cry from her throat as he, one-handed, laid her down, and unfastened his belt and flies and she scrambled out of her dress.

  Her eyes and hands started to grab for him, the huge silken-tipped beautiful manly thrust of him, but he grabbed her wrists and shook his head.

  ‘Ladies always come first,’ he said, and then he dropped to his knees, and eased hers apart and placed his head where she longed to see it, and instead of rejecting, because she knew in her heart that there would never be another touch like his, she lay back and let him call the song from her heart with every lap of his tongue.

  The bloom of her orgasm built from every pore of her body to her core, one huge wave of pleasure, and she screamed his name as pulse after pulse rocked her.

  And as she sank back he was there, naked, sheathing himself masterfully, his eyes boring into her face, his own desire as boldly painted as the inked designs on his chest. His arm was now under her back, her chest lifted, her neck stretched and her head falling back, and then she was down again and he was sliding his shaft inside her body, and as it closed around him, inch by inch, the flash of pain was buried by the last moments of her beautiful, heart-melting orgasm.

  But her eyes opened into his face, watching, and she killed his questioning look with a smile and a kiss and a silent prayer of thanks for making her first time better than her wildest dreams.

  She squeezed her thighs and urged him on, and he pushed himself inside her, his body sliding over hers, the weight and warmth, the strength and power rubbing against her soft tender flesh and nothing in the world had ever felt as good as this. She relished it like the best food and wine, the best sunset, the softest silk. Nothing was as good now, nothing would ever be as good again.

  Her lips kissed and tasted, her hands roamed everywhere—his hair, his muscled back; she grabbed for the sheets of the daybed, then back to him again, as he thrust and built it up all over again.

  Then a cry came from his throat, the start of a noise that built—he pushed himself back from her and, bereft of his body, she reached forward and licked at his nipple, flat and hard—and he opened his eyes and smiled, sweetly—he smiled and she licked again and then he started to thrust hard and fast and he was going to orgasm, she could feel the moment swirl and swell between them.

  It was all she needed to join him. Like two animals writhing, loving under the light of the stars, lost in passion.

  And then it was over. He rolled onto his back, threw his arm above his head. She rolled with him, as if tugged by a magnet, and watched as he blew out a long sigh. He shook his head, first with a kind of incredulity and then as if to settle everything back down to normal.

  She lay back beside him, gazing up at the tented roof of the daybed, the tiny lights twinkling down, witnessing their heartbeats slowing, and the cool realisation of each second ticking by, knowing that what was once hidden was now known.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, but without moving.

  She waited a moment before replying as the images flashed through her mind.

  ‘Perfectly well, thanks,’ she said.

  He leaned up on one elbow, stared at her.

  ‘For a moment I thought you were a virgin.’

  ‘No. I’m not a virgin,’ she said. Not any more.

  Because technically it was true, and he didn’t need to know her truth—not right now. She’d tell him later, because all she wanted to feel now was the relief, the joy of being part of a world that she’d never been able to visit before. She wasn’t a little girl any more, she was a woman. A healthy, happy, normal and free woman.

  What a truly beautiful experience. What an amazing man...

  ‘My mistake,’ he said.

  His eyes were soft, his mouth in a smile, his face mere inches away; that special moment bloomed again, that calling to her that this was all OK, that she hadn’t been crazy to do this, that she was safe.

 
Yes, that she was safe...

  ‘Shall we see if we can feel any better than “perfectly well”? Based on first impressions, I think we might just manage it.’

  He was leaning even closer and now mingled in with the man was the scent of them and, like a switch, on it went—her lust and longing. Her body turned towards him, complicit and willing, and she was welcomed back into his arms with a smile that turned into a kiss, that turned into an embrace and, with a laugh in her throat that startled her, she was swept up in his arms, and on through the night, to the house.

  And with every step she felt a tremor of anxiety, and with every breath she batted it away. This was one night. One night. And all her tomorrows were ahead of her. Nothing was going to change how they passed. Nothing she could do now was going to change a single thing, other than her memories.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  GHOSTS. HE HAD never believed in them. It didn’t make sense that the dead were still among the living. When your time was up, that was it. Life was bearable if he thought of it that way. But being back here in Greece, he had suddenly started to see them.

  Not spectres as such, but the ghosts of his past—images and feelings that had been hanging around, just out of sight. In the corner of a room, the curl of a smile, the heat of day.

  Memories—that was all they were, but there was nothing sweet about them. Nothing sweet about that feeling of fear that a hand, or worse, was about to come down on the back of your head, or that the path towards the light had suddenly turned rocky and unsafe, that the love you had once had turned sick—a shiny red apple, bored through and turned rotten by the ravenous worm of addiction and greed.

  That was the way it had become with Maria. Now that he knew that love was simply lust, a rush of hormones, temporary blindness, like staring into the sun for too long. His crazy reaction to Maria had been no more than two lost souls finding one another, the bigger the holes inside them, the bigger the fall. Thinking she could fill the hole in him had been the biggest mistake of his life.