‘Sunset is at eight o’clock,’ their escort informed them before departing.
Almost three hours before then, Tina thought, dumping her backpack on a chair and gravitating straight to the balcony, suddenly too nervous to face Ari in the bedroom. A spiral staircase ran down the side of the hotel, linked by landings to each balcony, giving guests easy access to the small swimming pool which took up half the courtyard that extended from the hotel’s lowest level. A few people were lounging on deck chairs beside it. She stared down at them, wondering where they had come from and what had brought them here. Probably nothing as complicated as her own situation.
Behind her she heard the pop of a champagne cork. A few moments later Ari was at her side carrying two glasses fizzing with the bubbly wine.
‘You used to drink this with me. Will you try it again, Christina? It might relax you,’ he said kindly.
She heaved a sigh to ease the tightness in her chest and took the glass he offered. ‘Thank you. It’s been six years since I was in an intimate situation with a man,’ she said with a rueful smile. ‘This might take the edge off.’
‘I guess having Theo made it difficult for you to form relationships,’ he remarked sympathetically.
Not Theo. You.
But telling him so would let him know she was stuck on him and it was better that he didn’t know. She didn’t want him taking anything for granted where she was concerned.
‘Don’t worry that I’ll make you pregnant tonight. I’ll be very careful,’ he assured her.
She shook her head. ‘You won’t anyway. This is a safe week for me.’
‘Ah!’ He grinned, the amber eyes twinkling with pleasure. ‘Then we may be totally carefree which will be much better.’ He clinked her glass with his. ‘To a night of re-discovery, Christina.’
She took a quick sip of the champagne, hoping to settle the flock of butterflies in her stomach. Ari’s arm slid around her waist, his hand resting warmly on the curve of her hip, bringing his body closer to hers, stirring memories of how well they had fitted together in the past and triggering the desire to re-discover every sweet nuance of her sexuality.
‘I don’t want to wait until tonight,’ she said decisively, setting her glass down on the top of the balcony wall and turning to face him, a wave of reckless belligerence seizing her and pouring into urgent words. ‘Let’s just do it, Ari. I don’t want to be romanced or seduced or … or treated to any other lover routine you’ve got. This is a need to know thing, isn’t it?’
He set his glass down next to hers and scooped her hard against him, his freed hand lifting to her chin, tilting it up, his eyes blazing a heart-kicking challenge right at her. ‘A great many needs to be answered on both sides and I don’t want to wait, either.’
His mouth came down on hers so hard she jerked her head back, afraid of what she had just invited. He’d been a tender lover to her, never rough. Panic kicked into her heart. What did she know of him now? If he had no real feeling for her.
‘Damn!’ he muttered, his chest heaving as he sucked in breath, a glint of anguish in the eyes that bored into hers. ‘I
will
control myself. Let me start again, Christina.’
He didn’t wait for a reply. His lips brushed lightly over hers, back and forth, back and forth, making them tingle to the point where she welcomed the running of his tongue-tip over them.
Yes,
she thought dizzily, the stiffness melting from her body, panic washed away by a soothing flood of warmth. She lifted her arms and wound them around his neck as she gave herself up to a kiss that was more familiar to her, a loving kind of kiss.
She didn’t mind opening her mouth to the gentle probe of his tongue, liking the intimate sensation of tangling her own with it, the slow gathering of excitement. It was easy to close her eyes and forget the years of nothing, remembering only the girl she had been in this man’s arms, experiencing sexual pleasure for the first time.
His hand slid down over her bottom, pressing her closer to him, and the hardness of his erection filled her mind with giddy elation. He couldn’t fake that. He really did want her. She was still desirable to him so it was okay to desire him, too. And she did, quite fiercely, given the confidence that this wasn’t just a cynical seduction to weaken her stance against him.
A wild ripple of exultation shot through her when his kissing took on a more passionate intensity, his tongue driving deep, challenging her to meet its thrust, revel in the explosion of need behind it. Her hands slid into his hair, fingers digging in hard to hold his head to hers, the desire to take possession of him and keep him forever running rampant through her mind.
He couldn’t walk away from this.
Not ever again.
She wouldn’t let him.
He wrenched his head from her tight grasp, lifting it back from her mouth enough to gasp, ‘Must move from here. Come.’
He scooped her off the balcony and into the bedroom, striding for the bed with her firmly tucked to his side. Tina’s heart was pounding with both fear and excitement. This was the moment to undress. She would see him again fully naked. But he would see her, too. How did she measure up against the other women who’d been in his life … the blonde in Dubai whose breasts had been more voluptuous?
But he
was
aroused, so maybe the
idea
of her made physical factors irrelevant. And although she was carrying more flesh than when he had been with her before, her body was still okay—no looseness from having the baby. It was silly to fret over it. He wanted sex with her. He was up and ready for it and it was going to happen.
He stopped close to the bed and swung her to face him, his hands curling around her shoulders, his eyes sweeping hers for any hint of last-minute rejection. She stared back steadily, determined not to baulk at this point.
‘You move me as no other woman ever has, Christina,’ he murmured, and planted a soft warm kiss on her forehead.
Her heart contracted at those words. Whether they were true or not, the wish to believe them was too strong to fight. She closed her eyes wanting to privately hug the strong impression of sincerity in his, and he gently kissed her eyelids, sealing the positive flow of feeling he had evoked.
She felt his thumbs hook under the straps of the green sundress she’d worn and slowly slide them down her upper arms. He kissed her bared shoulders as he unzipped the back of her bodice. Tina kept her eyes shut, fiercely focussing on her other senses, loving the soft brush of his lips against her skin and the gentle caress of his fingers along her spine as it, too, was bared. She breathed in the slightly spicy scent of his cologne. It was the same as when they were together before. He hadn’t changed it. And the thrill of his touch was the same, too.
Her dress slithered down to the floor. The style of it hadn’t required a bra so now her breasts were naked. Her only remaining garment was her green bikini pants, but he didn’t set about removing this last piece of clothing. His hands cupped her breasts, stroking them with a kind of reverence that she found emotionally confusing until he asked, ‘Did you breast-feed Theo, Christina?’
He was thinking of his son. He was not looking at her as a woman but as the mother of his child.
‘Yes,’ she answered huskily, telling herself it was okay for him to see her in this light. It made her different to the other women who’d been in his life. More special. Her body had carried his child, had nurtured his child.
‘He must have been a very happy baby,’ he murmured, and his mouth enclosed one of her nipples, his tongue swirling around it before he sucked on it.
Tina gasped at the arc of piercing pleasure that hit her stomach and shot past it to the apex of her thighs. Her hands flew up and grasped his shoulders, fingers digging into his muscles, needing something strong to hold onto as quivers ran through her entire body. He moved his mouth to her other breast, increasing the sweet turbulence inside her. For her it had been a physical pleasure breast-feeding Theo but it hadn’t generated this acute level of sexual excitement. Tina was so wound up in it, she didn’t know if it was a relief or a disappointment when he lifted his head away.
Almost immediately he was whipping down her bikini pants and her feet automatically stepped out of them. Any concern about how she looked to him had completely disappeared. He scooped her into such a crushing embrace she could feel his heart thumping against his chest-wall and then he was kissing her again; hard, hungry kisses that sparked an overwhelming hunger for him. She wanted this man. She’d never stopped wanting him.
He lifted her off her feet and laid her on the bed. The sudden loss of contact with him instantly opened her eyes. He was discarding his clothes with such haste Tina was in no doubt of his eagerness to join her, and it was thrilling to watch his nakedness emerge. He was a truly beautiful man with a perfect male body. His olive skin gleamed over well-defined muscles. His smooth hairless chest was sculpted for touching, for gliding hands over it. He had the lean hips and powerful thighs of a top athlete. And there was certainly no doubt about his desire for her, his magnificent manhood flagrantly erect.
Yet when he came to her he ignored any urgency for instant sexual satisfaction. He lay beside her, one arm sliding under her shoulders to draw her into full body contact with him, his free hand stroking long, lovely caresses as his mouth claimed hers again, more in a slow seductive tasting than greedy passion. It gave her the freedom to touch him, to revel in feeling his strong masculinity against her softer femininity, the whole wonderfully sensual intimacy of flesh against flesh.
His hand dipped into the crevice between her thighs, his fingers moving gently, back and forth, intent on building excitement until she felt the exquisite urgency he had always made her feel in the past. Tina lifted her leg over his, giving him easier access to her, refusing to let any inhibitions deny her the pleasure she remembered. He changed the nature of his kissing, his tongue thrusting and withdrawing, mimicking the rhythm of what was to come, accelerating the need to have him there.
But still he didn’t hurry. He moved down the bed, trailing kisses to the hollow of her throat, then sucking briefly on her breasts, heightening their sensitivity before sliding his mouth to her stomach, running his tongue around her navel.
‘Was it a difficult labour with Theo, Christina?’ he asked in a deeply caring tone.
She’d been so focussed on feeling, it took a concentrated effort to find her voice. ‘Some … some hard hours,’ she answered, savagely wishing he wasn’t thinking of their son. Yet that was why he was here, with her, doing what he was doing, and she wouldn’t be having this if she hadn’t had his child.
‘I should have been there,’ he murmured, pressing his mouth to her stomach as though yearning for that lost time. ‘I would have been there. And I will be for the rest of our children,’ he said more fiercely before lifting himself further down to kiss her where his son had emerged from her womb.
I’m not going to think of why,
Tina decided with wild determination.
I want this. I want him inside me again.
The tension building in her body obliterated any further thought. Need was screaming through every nerve. It reached the point where she jack-knifed up to pluck at his shoulders, crying out, ‘Enough! Enough!’ She couldn’t bear another second of waiting for him.
To her intense relief he responded instantly, surging up to fit himself between her legs which were already lifting to curl around his hips in a compulsive urging for the action she frantically craved. Her inner muscles were convulsing as he finally entered her and just one deep plunge drove her to an explosive climax, the exquisite torture peaking then melting into wave after wave of ecstatic pleasure as Ari continued the wonderfully intimate stroking.
It was incredibly satisfying, feeling him filling her again and again. Her body writhed exultantly around him. Her hands dragged up and down his back, urging on the rhythm of mutual possession. The sheer elation of it was so marvellously sweet nothing else existed for Tina, not the why or the where or the how.
When Ari cried out at his own climax, it sounded like a triumphant trumpet of joy to her ears.
She
had brought him to this. He shared the same heights of sensation he had led her to. And she revelled in that sense of intense togetherness as all his mighty strength collapsed on her and she hugged him with all her strength. He rolled onto his side, clutching her tightly against him, holding onto the deep connection, clearly wanting it to last as long as possible.
He didn’t speak for quite a long time and Tina didn’t want to break the silence. She lay with her head tucked under his chin, listening to his pulse-rate slowing to a normal beat. It was the first time today she actually felt totally relaxed. The sex-test was over. He had certainly satisfied her as a lover and if he was satisfied that she wouldn’t turn her back on him, maybe they could move towards a commitment to each other.
It might even have a chance of sticking.
If
she kept on having his children.
Was that the key to having him come to love her?
If only she could be sure he would in the end … truly love her for herself … and never want any other woman.
Marrying Ari was a terrible gamble.
But having had him again, she didn’t want to let him go.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A
RI
felt happy. Usually after sex he felt satisfied, content, relaxed. Happiness was something more and it made him wonder if it was a temporary thing or whether having Christina would always give him this exultant sense of joy. Maybe it was simply a case of having risen to the challenge and won the response he wanted from her.
It had been damnably difficult to rein himself in to begin with. Having been forced to exercise control on the physical front for the past few days and suddenly being presented with the green light to go ahead, all the bottled-up desire he’d felt had blown his mind. And almost blown his chance with her.