Part 30 (1/2)

Even that seemed to throw him off-balance a bit, she mused, smiling a little. It was as if he couldn't quite accept that someone could see him as he was, know the way he had lived and stil give him trust. Morgan wondered if he would have been more comfortable if she had pul ed back from him a little after the things he had told her. He would have understood her condemnations more readily than her acceptance. Wel , he'l just have to get used to it, she decided. He'l just have to get used to it because I'm not going to make it easy for him to back away.

Restless, she walked to the window. Here was a different view, Morgan thought, from one she so often looked out on from her bedroom window. Higher, more dangerous. More compel ing, she thought with a quick thril . The rocks seemed more jagged, the sea less tame. How it suited the man she'd given her heart to.

There was no terrace there, and suddenly wanting the air and sun, Morgan went through to his bedroom and opened his balcony doors. She could hear the sea hissing before she reached the rail. With a laugh, she leaned farther out.

Oh, she could live with the chal enge of such a view every day, she thought, and never tire of it. She could watch the sea change colors with the sky, watch the gul s swoop over the water and back to the nests they'd built in the cliff wal s. She could look down on the Theoharis vil a and appreciate its refined elegance, but she would choose the rough gray stone and dizzying height.

Morgan tossed back her head and wished for a storm. Thunder, lightning, wild wind. Was there a better spot on earth to enjoy it? Laughing, she dared the sky to boil and spew out its worst.

”My G.o.d, how beautiful you are.”

The light of chal enge stil in her eyes, Morgan turned. Leaning against the open balcony door, Nick stared at her. His face was very stil , his gaze like a lance. The pa.s.sion was on him, simmering, bubbling, just beneath the surface. It suited him, Morgan thought, suited those long, sharp bones in his face, those black eyes and the mouth that could be beautiful or cruel.

As she leaned back on the railing, the breeze caught at the ends of her hair. Her eyes took on the color of the sky. Power swept over her, and a touch of madness.

”You want me, I can see it. Come and show me.”

It hurt, Nick discovered. He'd never known, until Morgan, that desire could hurt.

Perhaps it was only when you loved that your needs ached in you. How many times had he loved her last night? he wondered. And each time, it had been like a tempest in him. Now, he promised himself, this time, he would show her a different way.

Slowly, he went to her. Taking both of her hands, he lifted them, then pressed his lips to the palms. When he brought his gaze to hers, Nick saw that her eyes were wide and moved, her lips parted in surprise. Something stirred in him-love, guilt, a need to give.

”Have I shown you so little tenderness, Morgan?” he murmured.

”Nicholas ...” She could only whisper his name as her pulses raged and her heart melted.

”Have I given you no soft words, no sweetness?” He kissed her hands again, one finger at a time. She didn't move, only stared at him. ”And you stil come to me.

I'm in your debt,” he said quietly in Greek. ”What price would you ask me?” ”No, Nicholas, I ...” Morgan shook her head, unable to speak, nearly swaying with the weakness this gentle, quiet man brought her.

”You asked me to show you how I wanted you.” He put his hands to her face as if she were indeed made of Dresden porcelain, then touched his lips almost reverently to hers. A sound came from her, shaky and smal . ”Come and I wil .”

He lifted her, not with a flourish as he had on the porch, but as a man lifts something he cherishes. ”Now ...” He laid her down with care. ”In the daylight, in my bed.”

Again, he took her hand, tracing kisses over the back and palm, then to the wrist where her pulse hammered. Al the while he watched her as she lay back, staring at him with something like astonished wonder.

How young she looks, Nick thought as he gently drew her finger into his mouth.

And how fragile. Not a witch now, or a G.o.ddess, but only a woman. His woman.

And her eyes were already clouding, her breath already trembling. He'd shown her the fire and the storm, he thought, but not once-not once had he given her spring.

Bending, he nibbled lightly at her lips, al owing his hands to touch no more than her hair.

It might have been a dream, so weak and weightless did she feel. Nick kissed her eyes closed so that Morgan saw no more than a pale red glow. Then his lips continued, over her forehead, her temples, down the line of her cheekbones- always soft, always warm. The words he whispered against her skin flowed like scented oil over her. She would have moved to bring him closer if her arms had not been too heavy to lift. Instead, she lay in the flood of his tenderness.

His mouth was at her ear, gently torturing with a trace of tongue, a murmured promise. Even as she moaned in surrender, he moved lower to taste and tease the curve of her neck. With kisses like whispers, and whispers like wine, he took her deeper. Gentleness was a drug for both of them.

Hardly touching her, he loosened the b.u.t.tons of her blouse and slipped it from her.

Though he felt the firm pressure of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against him, he took his mouth to the slope of her shoulder instead. He could feel the strength there, the grace, and he tarried.

Morgan's eyes were closed, weighed down with gold-tipped lashes. Her breath rushed out between her lips. He knew he could watch those flickers of pleasure move over her face forever. With his hands once more buried in her hair, Nick kissed her. He felt the yielding and the hunger before he moved on.

Slowly, savoring, he took his lips down to the soft swel -circling, nibbling until he came to the tender underside of her breast. On a moan, Morgan fretted under him as if she were struggling to wake from a dream. But he kept the pace slow and soothed her with words and soft, soft kisses.

With aching gentleness he stroked his tongue over the peak, fighting a surge of desperation when he found it hot and ready. Her movements beneath him took on a rhythmic sinuousness that had the blood pounding in his brain. Her scent was there, always there on the verge of his senses even when she wasn't with him.

Now he wal owed in it. As he suckled, he al owed his hands to touch her for the first time.