Desire in the Sun (25 page)

The movement seemed to inflame him. His arms wrapped around her back, crushing her to him. His mouth closed over hers, and he kissed her with a fierceness that drew a small impassioned cry from her. The wiry mat of hair on his chest was abrasive against her breasts. They burned, and she trembled violently. He must have felt her response because all his muscles hardened. For just a moment he went rigid, then reached down for her skirt with both hands, jerking it up until it was wadded around her waist. She was left naked from the waist down while he moved atop her, still clad in the coarse black breeches. Lilah barely had time to register
the feel of him against her before he was wedging a thigh between her legs, fumbling with the buttons on his breeches at the same time. Before she knew what was happening he was shoving himself against her, inside her. She murmured a small protest, moving her head from side to side, writhing as she sought to escape this sudden unexpected discomfort. But with her arms pinioned by her bodice and her legs spread wide by his thighs, escape was impossible. He thrust against her, hurting her. Even as she cried out he was thrusting again, breaking through the barrier, burying himself deep inside.

The pain was startling, knifelike in its intensity. Lilah screamed, the sound swallowed up by his mouth. Then he moved again, convulsively, stretching her, tilling her. Through the pain she felt him, huge and hot and moving inside her, and all at once she forgot the pain, forgot everything but the exquisite pleasure that swept away all before it.

He thrust again, so deep this time that she feared being split in two. She gasped, her hips grinding against his in his urgent, instinctive response. The wonderful quickening inside her exploded, splintering into a shimmering whirlwind of shapes and textures and colors. Lilah cried out, quivering. Joss cried out too, thrusting one final time before wrapping his arms tight around her and holding himself deep inside her.

For a few moments afterwards they lay unmoving, entwined together, collecting their thoughts along with their breath. Then without warning Joss stiffened, lifting himself partially off her. His face was deep in shadows, the moon a silvery glow high overhead. Lilah could not decipher his expression, did not even try to. She did not speak either, but looked up at him in a sort of dreamy wonder that was beyond words. Her eyes were shining softly as they moved over his face. One slender hand came up to touch, slide down over his tensed forearm.

At that small touch Joss swore, the words harsh and shockingly profane. He rolled off her and got to his feet. Lilah struggled up on her elbows, calling out to him as he strode off into the darkness of the forest, barely taking time to yank his breeches up around his waist as he disappeared into the night.

XXX

J
oss was swimming, as Lilah had assumed he would be. She felt a small measure of relief as she found his breeches discarded on the beach, then spotted that seal-black head slicing through the glimmering green phosphorescence that sparkled in the moonlight over the bay. He was angry, that much she knew from the abrupt way he’d left her, but whether with her or himself she could not guess. What had happened between them had been violent and primitive, the product of desire ignited by rage. If he had not been blazingly furious with her, he would not have lost that iron control and taken her as he had sworn not to do. How he must despise himself now! He had no way of knowing that she had gloried in his fierce possession.

Well, she would tell him.

A small smile played around her lips as Lilah found the same rock on which she had waited for him before and curled up on it to wait again.

The sliver of moon washed the beach and the bay in iridescent shades of silver and midnight blue. A warm wind faintly scented with salt blew in off the sea. The muted rush of the waves and the rustling of the wind through the trees some yards behind her were the only sounds beside her own breathing. Nothing stirred along the beach. Even the gulls had settled down to sleep, and
the crabs had disappeared into their holes for the night. Lilah hugged her knees to her chin and waited, her hair blowing in shimmering billows around her face.

When at last she saw him walking out of the sea her heartbeat speeded up. As the dark water fell away from his waist, his thighs, his calves, until he was wading ankle deep, she stared at him wide-eyed. He was beautiful, broad-shouldered and lean-flanked, the muscles of his arms and thighs rippled as he moved. His black hair was slicked back from his head to fall in a tangle of wet, curls around his neck. His skin was pale in the moonlight, with only the shadows of his black body hair to darken his chest and the soft nest between his thighs. In the darkness, she could barely make out the thing that had invaded her body, first hurting her and then giving her so much pleasure that she felt a quickening just remembering it.

At that distance his features were indistinct, but there was no mistaking the sudden tensing of his body as he saw her. He braced himself as if for blow or battle. He moved stiffly toward her. Finally, when he was perhaps six feet away, he stopped and folded his arms over his chest. Unlike the first time she had surprised him when he was swimming, he appeared oblivious now to his nakedness. He stood bold as a pagan before her, making no attempt to protect either her modesty or his own. Unbidden, Lilah’s eyes swept once more over the magnificence of his body. When they returned to meet his eyes, it was to find them narrowed to forbidding slits of emerald green.

Though she felt a wash of color stain her cheeks, Lilah managed to meet his eyes without faltering. After a moment a corner of his mouth quirked downward, and his eyes shifted away from hers to flit restlessly over the beach beyond where she sat.

“Lilah.” His voice as it at last broke the silence was gruff. His eyes came back to meet hers, and she saw a
feint trace of something in them that made her heartbeat quicken. “I hurt you, and I never meant to. For that, if nothing else, I’m more sorry than I can say.”

Lilah gazed at him without speaking, weighing the words and the tone in which they were uttered. The oddly formal apology was at odds with the harshness of his voice. He spoke as if it hurt him to do so. …

Still without speaking, Lilah got to her feet. The fine, dry sand was warm and comforting. She curled her toes in it. The wind caught her hair and blew it around her face. Lifting a hand to catch the wayward strands, she fixed her eyes on him. He looked away from her again.

“You didn’t hurt me. At least, not very much, and not for very long,” she finally said, her voice soft. That brought his eyes back to narrow on her face Lilah saw that he was taut with tension. He was frowning, and his lips were clamped together.

“I was angry.” The explanation, if explanation it was, was abrupt. The guilt was well hidden, but she who knew him well heard it for what it was. He regretted what he had done, regretted it bitterly, while she …

Lilah looked at him consideringly. He had closed himself off from her. Words of forgiveness or even love would not reach him. In his mind he had violated his own code of honor, violated her innocence however much she might have wanted it.

Searching for words that would both ease his guilt and let him know just how very un-sorry she was over the loss of her virginity, she could come up with nothing.

Instinct saved her. Suddenly, from somewhere deep inside her, came the intuitive knowledge of the one answer that would get through to him. Instead of speaking with words, Lilah reached behind her back to the buttons she had managed to fasten again only after much effort.

“What the devil are you doing?” His voice was hoarse, his stare disbelieving. Lilah pushed the dress
down over her hips and stepped out of it, her eyes never leaving him.

“What does it look like?”

He watched her warily as she stood before him clad only in her chemise. As his eyes moved almost unwillingly over the slender curves of her body, down the length of her bare legs silvered by the moonlight, Lilah looked back at him gravely. When he again met her eyes, she managed a small, nervous smile.

“Lilah—” His voice broke off as she caught her chemise by the hem and pulled it over her head in a single fluid motion. For just an instant she held the garment before her, shielding her nakedness from his view. Then her fingers unclenched and it too dropped to the sand. She was as naked as he, fine-boned and exquisitely lovely against the background of pale sand and dark star-strewn sky. The shimmery ashen strands of her hair reached to her thighs, providing the lightest of teasing veils. Through it her nipples peeked, dark and proud against the creamy whiteness of her breasts. The shifting veil revealed tantalizing glimpses of the supple curves of waist and hips, and the tawny triangle of hair at the apex of her thighs.

Joss stared as if mesmerized. His eyes darkened, glittered. His mouth tightened. He neither spoke nor moved, just stared while Lilah stood motionless before him, waiting, her heart pounding like a kettledrum in her ears.

At last it became obvious that he was not going to do or say anything to make this easy for her. Whatever happened next was up to her.

Lifting her chin, she moved slowly and steadily across the few feet of sand that separated them. She felt no shame. Instinct more powerful than reason whispered that what she was doing was right. He had made her truly a woman, his woman, and no matter what might come to them in the future, that could never be taken
from her. She would have the memory of this moon-washed night safe inside her, to pull out and relive if real life became too gray and dull. Though they might part physically she would carry the brand of his touch imprinted on her mind and heart and body forever. He had made her senses come alive, had awakened a well-spring of physical hunger deep inside her that she had never even guessed existed. He had made her want him before she ever really knew what wanting was. Well, now she knew. And she still wanted him. Her body burned with the wanting.

When she was less than an arm’s length away from him, she stopped. Still he made no move to touch her, said no word to encourage her. His face was set and hard, his mouth an unyielding line. Lilah looked into those green eyes, and felt a shiver run clear down through her soul. She felt as if she were being bewitched, by the man and the moonlight and her own hungry body.

“Joss,” she said softly, breaking off as her voice deteriorated into a husky rasp. His eyes flickered, and the muscles around his mouth tightened. Lilah put out her tongue to wet her lips, then tried again.

“I want you to—be my lover. Please.” Her voice was so low by the time she got out the last word that it was scarcely audible above the murmur of the surf. He stared at her a moment longer, his eyes taking on a glint that was bitter and hungry at the same time. Then he reached for her, his movement violent. His hands caught her by the upper arms, and he pulled her the few steps necessary to bring her close. Still he did not pull her right against him, but held her a little away, so that she could sense more than feel the heat of his body. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and smoky, her lips softly sensual. His eyes blazed down at her. Lilah was suddenly aware that she could see the pulse in his throat pounding through his sun-bronzed skin.

“You are a witch and I’m a damned fool,” he muttered,
but even as he said the words he was jerking her hard against him, his mouth coming down on hers as if he could deny himself no longer.

His mouth was hard and hot and hungry as she opened hers to it with matching desire. Her hands slid up the hard muscles of his arms, stroked his shoulders, closed behind his neck. She kissed him as if she’d die if she didn’t, pressing close against him, glorying in the feel of his hard male body against hers.

When he pulled her up on tiptoe, she twined her arms tighter around his neck, her fingers curving into his hair, her thighs throbbing against his. His hand found her bare breast and her knees gave. This time he sank with her, following her down to the sand, covering her body with his as she melted onto her back. This time there was no violence, only mutual, urgent need. She spread her legs and her back arched as she waited in trembling anticipation for the flaming torch of his entry. But he held himself back, poised just on the brink, and lifted his head so that he could look down at her. Those green eyes blazed clear through to her soul.

“Now tell me,” he muttered between gritted teeth.

“What?”

“That you love me.”

She smiled at him, a tiny smile made tremulous by passion. His arms tightened around her, but still he held himself back, waiting for the words he wanted.

“I love you.”

“Joss,” he prompted, the word a growl.

“I love you, Joss,” she whispered obediently, and his eyes glittered with a fierce kind of satisfaction. Then he entered her and it was wonderful, glorious, a mating born more of heaven than of earth. Lilah took and took and gave and gave, gasping and panting and finally sobbing with ecstasy as he showed her how the act of love was meant to be between a man and a woman. When it was over, when he rested quietly atop her, she was smiling
dreamily as she stroked the silken back of his head, the sweat-damp skin of his shoulders.