She felt Odir take in a ragged breath without breaking the seal of their kiss, knowing that the air they shared came together in a way more intimate than they had ever been with each other.
She opened her eyes and saw him lost to the kiss, just as she had been. His dark skin betrayed him with a faint flush, his closed eyes, framed by impossibly dark eyelashes, were hiding the secrets hidden there.
It was all too much. She wanted to see him—wanted to know that he was driven by this unconstrained passion as much as she was.
She pushed Odir back, breaking their contact and forcing him to look at her. Their breathing, ragged and uncontrolled, the only sound in the darkened room. And she got what she asked for. In his gaze she could see anger, accusation and fury, all rimmed with need and a fire that finally she knew would not be so easily put out.
Their masks were off. All the hurt, the pain, all the passion held at bay for so long—too long—was laid bare between them. Suddenly the anger swelled to life within her and she lifted her palms to his chest and pushed. Pushed and punched, again and again, and he just stood there, taking each blow, each strike.
‘Are you done?’ he demanded into the darkened room.
‘No. I’ve not even begun,’ she promised him.
‘Good.’
He gathered her wrists in his strong hands and drew her back to him. Crushed her mouth with his and began his reckless, sensual onslaught once again. His hands came around her slim waist and he pulled her from her feet up against his body, blocking all thought of what might have been had it not been for their fathers, had not been for all the lies.
It was just them in the suite—no audience, no press, no witnesses—and Eloise finally demanded the pleasure that she’d waited for, longed for all this time.
Even as his fingers roamed over the black silk fabric of her dress, separating his skin from hers by the smallest distance possible, her mind raced. This was her husband—a man who thought the very worst of her, of whom she had thought the very worst... Perhaps they could take this one moment, this chance to indulge in the deepest fantasies which had kept her awake night after night in the palace as she had lain alone.
Perhaps tonight she could forget that she was a virgin, that she was innocent—forget that the whole of her body was trembling in a heady mixture of anticipation and fear. She knew he did not think her innocent. And for the most shocking moment she wanted to have had that experience—wanted to be a woman who knew what she was doing.
Eloise was so tired of being scared, of being helpless. Perhaps if she faked knowledge, faked the sophistication he believed her to have, then she could just let go...
* * *
Odir felt as if he were letting go of something that he couldn’t—wouldn’t—put a name to. He felt as if all his desire, all his need, was pouring out of him and being eaten, consumed whole, by the woman in his hands. And still it wasn’t enough—this kiss wasn’t enough.
He had been able to take the soft punches her hands had thrown at his chest. He had been able to take her anger because it matched his own. But he hadn’t been able to take that look in her eyes when she’d watched him. So he had stopped her with another kiss.
He stepped back, without breaking the hold his lips had on hers, and ran his hands down the front of her chest, over her beautiful breasts—just enough of a handful to rest in his palms, as if they were made for him and him alone. Her nipples pebbled beneath his touch and he cursed, because touching was no longer enough.
He followed the path his hands had taken with open-mouthed kisses, his tongue meeting silk and skin where the two pieces of material covered her breasts. He pushed one of the sections aside with his thumb and lapped at her soft skin—purer than silk, purer than any silk he had ever touched—and revelled in the power he had as he heard her soft gasp echo in the room.
He had never been so hard in his life. He should have known that this woman of all women could do that to him. But all thoughts flew from his head when she arched her back, whether consciously or not, pressing her breast closer and deeper against him.
He couldn’t hold back any more.
He yanked the material aside and took her hard nipple into his mouth, drawing on it as if he were a drowning man. Again she groaned, louder this time and more urgent, as if her body was calling to his...as if she did not know what she was calling for.
In the shadows of the room her pale skin gleamed like the purest white marble and he wanted to see more of it. He could see a soft shaft of light from the bedroom through the darkness, but he knew right then that he wouldn’t be able to make it that far.
Taking her mouth once again with his, he pushed her back, making her legs step in time with his until he felt her stop, pressed against the dark mahogany table framed by the floor-to-ceiling glass vista behind it. He lifted her up and sat her on the table, pushing apart her legs with his strong thighs. Not that he needed to. Her legs were already willingly spread, granting him access to her.
In the dark room he watched her hands come up to his white shirt, and with satisfaction he saw that her fingers were trembling—just as he had wanted them to be earlier that evening, not from cold but from the same insane desire that gripped him.
Impatient to feel her skin against his own, he reached up
