CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHE WAS OUT of the water but Marisa still felt as if she were floating as she lay there on the daybed, her heart pounding in heavy anticipation as she watched him begin to fight his way out of his saturated clothes.
His shirt fell first, and his damp skin gleamed gold in the sunlight. He was beautiful and she was mesmerised but, even so, there was still a tiny shred of sanity filtering into her overheated brain.
‘Someone might see us...’ she murmured, and felt a surge of relief when he ignored her and unzipped his trousers and tore himself loose. A moment later he was standing there naked, and the ache of longing inside was almost too much to bear. Every individual nerve ending was screaming, and a keening moan of need vibrated in her throat as she raised herself up on one elbow.
Eyes blazing, utterly wild, he fell down to his knees beside the daybed, pushing aside more of the cushions to frame her face with his big hands. Marisa’s hands were on his body as the force of his kiss bent her backwards onto the bed. Her fingers glided over the hard ridges of muscle in his powerful shoulders and back and then moved lower, down his flat belly, then even lower, causing him to suck in a sharp breath when she cupped his hard, hot length in her hand.
‘So hot, so smooth—’
Roman swore, knowing he was perilously close to losing control. He pulled back, sitting on his heels as he took her hands from his body and raised them above her head.
The wet sundress came away easily and landed with a soggy thud on the floor feet away. His burning glance was almost hot enough to evaporate the water on her skin as it roamed over the slim, supple curves of her body.
‘I think you’ll be more comfortable without this,’ he rasped, pulling down one of the thin straps that supported the tiny lacy bra she wore over one smooth shoulder.
She blinked and sighed. ‘I will be more comfortable with you inside me.’
His polished ebony eyes flamed at the throaty provocation and his hands were trembling as he applied himself to removing the last physical impediments to satisfying her wish.
It took him what felt like a century to peel off the bra. Wet, it had adhered slickly like a second skin to her body, the now transparent fabric outlining the puckering skin of her areolae and the thrusting prominence of her erect nipples.
When he had finally exposed her body to his hungry gaze his frustration gave way to ruthless desire.
‘You are so beautiful!’ he groaned, lowering his length onto the narrow bed beside her and watching her face as the first skin-to-skin contact drew a low feral cry from deep inside her chest.
He rolled her under him and, resting on his elbows, kissed her almost savagely while he nudged her legs apart with his knees.
Marisa could feel the heat engulfing her body, moist and waiting, when he slid into her in one slow, measured thrust.
A deep growl vibrated in his chest as she tightened around him, and he gritted his teeth, his blazing eyes devouring her flushed, aroused face as he began to move, increasing his speed and drawing a series of fractured cries of encouragement from her lips as the delicious pressure between them built.
When their climax came, for Marisa the release was so intense that she almost blacked out, the pleasure almost too sharp, too sweet, but she held on and slowly drifted back to earth, her head tucked into the angle of his jaw, her legs wrapped tightly around his waist.
As her sense of self slowly filtered back into her brain, the first strands of self-consciousness began to take control.
Suddenly feeling intensely vulnerable, she unwrapped her legs and rolled away to lie stiff and still by his side.
He had a forearm across his eyes and she had no idea what he was thinking. Then again, she told herself bitterly, why should he be thinking anything? It was only sex for him.
Roman felt her slide away from him with a sense of regret. Her warmth gone, he felt the coldness seep back into him even though it was thirty degrees in the shade. He fought the irrational urge to drag her back against him and feel her burrow into him, as he lay there trying to insulate himself from the emotional fallout of what had just happened between them.
There didn’t have to be any fallout; he had to accept it was just sex, great sex but just sex. He could deal with that; it was the unwanted emotions that complicated things.
He felt the cushions beneath him shift as she quietly got up. He opened his eyes ignoring the feeling of rightness that had stubbornly lingered, despite his best efforts to ignore it.
He propped himself up on one elbow in time to catch a glimpse of her narrow back and the tight peachy curve of her bottom, the gentle swell emphasising the length of her long coltish legs. He felt his sated body stir with desire that pooled heavy in his groin as he watched her drag the wet sundress over her head and a moment later her slim curves were enveloped in the loose folds of material.
She picked up the bra, which now had a little tear in it, and her panties, and squeezed out the excess moisture. Shoving them into one of the big pockets in the skirt of her dress, she looked around for her sandals.
‘What are you doing?’
Her gaze lifted but her eyes skittered away from his, the veneer of calm thin enough to reveal the delicate quivering muscles along her jaw, the blue-veined pulse throbbing against the transparent skin of her temple.
‘Exactly what it looks like. I need to get back to
