Part 13 (1/2)

Beautiful-so incredibly beautiful ...

Emotion surged in him again, and his arms tightened around her. He took her to his room, pulling back the feather duvet and lowering her down. Then, with ruthless control of his own impulses, he stripped the clothes from his body, impatient, urgent.

Then he was there with her again. More words came from him-he knew not what-knew only that as she lay there, the dark swathe of her skirt twisted around her limbs, her pale, high b.r.e.a.s.t.s still peaked, aroused, the extraordinary beauty of her face still transfigured, that his arousal was so intense he must exert every strenuous effort to control his own desire for her.

But it was hard, excruciatingly hard, to do so! With punis.h.i.+ng slowness he eased her skirt from her, and as his eyes went to her his breath caught. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s alone had inflamed him, but to see her slender, naked body, all for him, was beyond pleasure. Beyond anything he had ever known.

Slowly, sensually, his hands smoothed down her silken body.

She was mindless, hazed with arousal, her body a mesh of sensation-sensation such as she had never known before. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s strained, their peaks aching with desire. But his hands had left them, gliding down her flanks sensuously, sinuously, flaring over the line of her hips. At the vee of her thighs, his thumbs met. Slowly, watching her all the time as she gazed blindly up at him, as the world swirled slowly around her in sinuous whorls of pleasure, she felt the pressure of his thumbs indent, bear down.

Instinctively, she parted for him. A need as old as time. An ache as deep as her core. She was melting, she could feel it, liquefying as the soft, glistening folds of her flesh parted for his exploring, sensual caress. It was like being taken into another world! How could there be such sensation? How could anything feel so blissful, so beautiful, so exquisitely pleasurable? And the pleasure was increasing-building remorselessly, like fire licking through her veins, inflaming her, possessing her.

She moved against him. She could not stop herself. Again it was instinctive, insistent. Her hips lifted to him, her head moving restlessly on the pillow of her hair, her hands lifting to close over the cusps of his bare shoulders, to tighten. He was murmuring to her, but she could not hear, could only feel-her whole body was nothing but sensation, a pool of living fire, consuming itself as the exquisite caresses aroused her so that the heat fanned her skin, dissolved through her flesh, became one with it. Each touch was bliss-bliss upon bliss. Deeper, more arousing, reaching into her core, so that the muscles of her thighs strained, hips lifting, wanting more ... more ...

Then there was yet more sensation-and she rippled with the pleasure of it, gasped at her sensitivity to it. Her breathing was shallow, urgent-her lips parted, neck arching back. The fire licking in her veins was melting her, dissolving her, flus.h.i.+ng through her like an unstoppable tide-a wave that was building, building. And she wanted more, more-it was unbearable, unbearable ...

And then it broke-broke in a wave of sensation so intense, so absolute, that she cried out. She could not stop herself-could only ride out on the wave to the uttermost ends of the universe as her body buckled and convulsed, with wave after wave, scorching and searing. She was blind, deaf-insensible to anything, everything, that was not this incredible, unstoppable tide that was going on, and on, and on ...

Angelos stilled, his whole focus on the visible expression of the o.r.g.a.s.m flas.h.i.+ng through her body. Her head was thres.h.i.+ng, hips straining, her eyes blind, and across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and belly the flush of desire consuming itself flared hotly. His stillness lasted a few seconds only. Then, with an urgency that was unstoppable, he reached for a silvered packet. Moments later he was ready for her. Ready to take the same pleasure he had given her-would give her now again. Arching over her, he gazed down once more. Her beauty inflamed him. The intensity of her response to him was like a light within her glowing body. She was possessed by desire.

And now to be possessed by him.

Slowly, exquisitely, he eased into her.

She was tight-tight like a sheath made for a sword-and for a moment he had to still, for his arousal was so intensified by the pressure that he had to pause. She, too, he realised dimly, had stilled as well, her hands folded over the cusps of his shoulders, fingers suddenly indenting into his skin. A noise had come from her-inarticulate, like a gasp, a cry. It seemed to trigger him, and he moved deeper within her.

Oh, but she was tight! A thought flashed in his mind-absurd, impossible. He thrust it from him as sensation overpowered him. She was sheathing him so tightly that it was an exquisite torment to be so full within her. And yet he must ensure her pleasure, too. He gazed down at her. Her eyes were shut, the intensity of the expression on her face as if the world had stopped for her. At his shoulders he could feel the pads of her fingers, her nails pressing deep into him. As if she, too, were under the same exquisite control that he was exerting on himself.

Well, he would release that control-release it in her-and then finally, finally, in him.

Every muscle in his back straining, he began to move.

He watched her expression change. Her eyes still did not open, and he knew their focus would be inward, extracting every last gram of sensation from his possession of her. Just as he was doing. His movements were minute, under his absolute control. He could feel sweat beading along his spine with the effort it took to control his own reaction, his own overwhelming urge to plunge deep within her to reap his own satiation.

But she must find hers first. Her body was still in that state of absolute arousal he had engendered, and now he must take it that final step. He moved again, feeling her tightness flex around him, hearing once again that high, unearthly sound in her throat. He was on the edge, on the blade of a knife, as he moved to intensify the pressure not of her tightening around him, but of him against that most sensitive place within her, where the mesh of nerve endings created the physical locus of consummation. The high, helpless gasp came again, and he could feel, as if in slow motion, each nail indenting into his flesh. Feel simultaneously the slight but fatal tilting of her pelvis, sending him hurtling over the edge of the knife blade.

He surged within her, and in the sheeting sensation that engulfed him he realised that it had happened to her as well. That cry was coming from her again, with unbearable intensity, and he surged again, peaking within her in hot, unstoppable satiation, feeling as he did so the thres.h.i.+ng convulsion of her muscles enclosing him, drawing him into her more tightly yet as he swept her body against his, feeling her convulsing and trembling within his clasp.

It went on and on, the incredible, unstoppable release, with an intensity of sensation that drenched through him. Had he ever, ever felt this way before at such a moment? Ever felt this extremity of satiation?

Then, after an eternity of sensation, it was ebbing from him, draining him of all his strength. He folded down, still with her body in his arms, taking her with him. She was ebbing, too-he could feel it. Her body was still giving little tremors in his arms, and the soft little cries in her throat made him clasp her more tightly yet.

His hand was stroking her hair, soothing her. He was murmuring to her-words he hardly understood himself, hardly heard beneath the tumult of his heartbeat. She lay in his arms, so still, her satin skin dewed with moisture. He could feel the pulsing beat of her heart, so close to his ...

His voice, when he spoke, was low and resonant.

'I have the final truth about you now-no more denial. You said you could not bear me to touch you! But this ... this...' his mouth lowered to hers one last, lingering time '... this tells me the truth. At last ...'

His kiss was slow, and sealing, and then, his eyelids heavy with the aftermath of desire fulfilled, he felt his vision dim, his heart-rate slow, and with her warm and folded in his arms he gave himself to sleep.

CHAPTER NINE.

ANGELOS stirred drowsily. Something was wrong.

He was alone.

Instantly his eyes sprang open.

She had gone.

In one lithe, fluid movement he had jack-knifed up out of the bed, eyes casting around in the dawn light that was reaching the edges of the curtained windows, then was striding into the en suite bathroom.

Not there.

He frowned. Had she gone back to her room? Ripping a towel from the rail, he wrapped it cursorily around his hips, went out on to the landing, opened her bedroom door. The bed was unused, unslept in. Her en suite bathroom empty.

Where the h.e.l.l was she?

Emotion spiked in him. He didn't know what it was, and he wasn't in any kind of mood to be introspective. He was only in the mood to find her.

Without thinking, he slid back the gla.s.s doors to the balcony, but there was no sign of her there, either, in the chill early morning. Frustration bit in him-and incomprehension. He thrust back from the bal.u.s.trade to head indoors, his gaze unconsciously sweeping out across the precipitous slope beyond. But even as it did so his muscles froze. His whole body froze.

There, on the descending slope far to the left of the chalet, where the curve of the road indented, he saw a lone figure, heading down the side of the mountain. Walking rapidly, haltingly, hurriedly.

For an endless moment time stopped. Then, disbelievingly, he realised who it was.

He wheeled around, heading back into his own room, yanking open the doors further along the balcony, knowing he had to get dressed with the least possible delay. But even as he threw open the doors of his closet his eyes went to his empty bed, the quilt thrown back.

And time stopped again. His gaze froze as he stared at the exposed sheet.

Disbelief knifed through him.

And much, much more.

Within minutes he was dressed, booted, kitted up-and in pursuit.

Thea was walking. Walking as fast, as urgently as she could. Her head was throbbing, her heart was pounding, skin clammy. She felt sick and cold-so cold-despite the windproof jacket. She had to make the road-make it as fast, as speedily as she could down the unfamiliar track that was a much more direct route to the road below than the hairpin track up to the chalet. But it was a treacherous path, she discovered. Hardly there in places, narrow and precipitous. Her leg muscles were cold, resistant after the previous day's long trek, and her legs were not all that ached.

Between her thighs aching pain made each step a torment.

But it was a pain she welcomed. Punishment. Punishment for what she had done.

No! She must not think of that. Time enough to think of that-dear G.o.d, time enough! Now, all her strength must be on what she was doing now.

Escaping.